No, that spontaneous outburst of patriotism wasn't inpsired by the start of the Beijing Olympics - the opening ceremonies have already taken place but we won't see them until tonight, bleh - but by the conviction of one of the key members of Osama bin Laden's outfit... his... wait, is this right?... his driver?
Nice score, ya' big hunky military tribunal.
I hope "driver" is like supersecret military code for "special vice president in charge of planning evildoing" because otherwise I'm sort of nonplussed by this news. According to the New York Times article, this is their first conviction in a post-9/11 war crimes trial, and it sounds like military prosecutors are breaking out the Freixenet, but, really? His driver?
My other main question here is - and you'll need to click to the story to see what I mean - when did this guy have time to go to Jostens for that snazzy studio portrait, complete with the gauzy salmon-colored backdrop? Do you think Osama hired his drivers based on their 8-by-10s? ("Nah, this one's too... I don't know, too ethnic." "Nah, crappy mustache.")
Lesson learned, though: If I'm ever a chauffeur, it's time to quit when the boss asks me to drop him off just outside his cave.
New topic: Yesterday, I promised you a review of Elegy, which we caught in a sneak preview - actually, it wasn't so sneaky: our names were on the list - a preview, one full day before it opens to you, the general public. I don't mean that condescendingly, I'm just saying.
The movie stars Ben Kingsley as a celeb-among-the-literati college professor who falls for a student - thirty-odd years his junior, as he repeatedly points out - played by Penelope Cruz. (If you're more literate than I am, you might be interested to know that it's based on a short novel by Philip Roth called The Dying Animal.)
It didn't leave me with a lot to say - or at least a lot to say that wouldn't sound pretentious, and lord, I hate prententious movie reviews by amateurs. But I found it somewhat interesting, and although it was definitely a downer, it was pretty good. It's very talk-y, but it also moves right along, and you get quality acting all around, including a great supporting part by Dennis Hopper. A 3 out of 5.
I might have to stop doing movie reviews now.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Damn, I'm old
Just got off the phone with the friendly woman at my insurance company. She thanked me for "having been a loyal customer for the past 18 years."
Which was nice of her, but: Good christ, I'm getting up there.
Now I feel bad - well, sort of - for teasing my mom a few years ago because, as I pointed out, she had a son who had fillings that were 25 years old.
Unrelated: If the email-RSVP-that-nobody-ever-responded-to worked properly, I'll be catching a screening of Elegy tonight. If I have anything to say about it, you'll get your mini-review tomorrow.
In the meantime, I did watch The Hammer last night and I highly recommend it. (Just put it on your Netflix list - here's the link, lazy.)
I was predisposed to like it because I'm an Adam Carolla fan, but it was even better than I expected. It's nominally about a aging boxer with a chance to make the U.S. Olympic team, but I'm pretty certain that you don't have to care a whit about boxing to enjoy the hell out of it. The story of his budding relationship with a new girlfriend was sweet, and the story was simple but interesting. I laughed out loud at least eight times, which is pretty good for an old guy.
Which was nice of her, but: Good christ, I'm getting up there.
Now I feel bad - well, sort of - for teasing my mom a few years ago because, as I pointed out, she had a son who had fillings that were 25 years old.
Unrelated: If the email-RSVP-that-nobody-ever-responded-to worked properly, I'll be catching a screening of Elegy tonight. If I have anything to say about it, you'll get your mini-review tomorrow.
In the meantime, I did watch The Hammer last night and I highly recommend it. (Just put it on your Netflix list - here's the link, lazy.)
I was predisposed to like it because I'm an Adam Carolla fan, but it was even better than I expected. It's nominally about a aging boxer with a chance to make the U.S. Olympic team, but I'm pretty certain that you don't have to care a whit about boxing to enjoy the hell out of it. The story of his budding relationship with a new girlfriend was sweet, and the story was simple but interesting. I laughed out loud at least eight times, which is pretty good for an old guy.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Inefficient bureaucracy can really pay off
It's more than a month past California's deadline for a 2008-09 budget and if there's one thing California does not have, it's a 2008-09 budget.
For some reason, the governator doesn't think that's a good idea, so he's pushing the state to lay off all temporary and part-time employees and - and this is where it starts to piss me off - reduce the salaries of all full-time employees to the federal minimum wage, which is now set at a totally-reasonable-for-living-in-California $6.55 per hour. (The state would issue checks for back pay once the budget is resolved, but, uh...)
Anyway, the fly in the gubernatorial (almost as good an adjective as "avuncular," right?) ointment is that California's state government is so ass-backwards that the computer system is still running on COBOL, which I think is what computer science students studied in the 80s. The 1880s.
So making the adjustments to all of those paychecks - I think they'd have to do it by having mice run on treadmills - would take months, by which time, surely those geniuses will agree on a budget. Or not. Why bother, really? Not like having a budget helped save the state from facing a $15 billion deficit.
I especially liked the state controller's quote, which so beautifully illuminated the oustanding efficiency and decision-making abilities of our elected officials: “In 2003, my office tried to see if we could reconfigure our system to do such a task. And after 12 months, we stopped without a feasible solution.”
For some reason, the governator doesn't think that's a good idea, so he's pushing the state to lay off all temporary and part-time employees and - and this is where it starts to piss me off - reduce the salaries of all full-time employees to the federal minimum wage, which is now set at a totally-reasonable-for-living-in-California $6.55 per hour. (The state would issue checks for back pay once the budget is resolved, but, uh...)
Anyway, the fly in the gubernatorial (almost as good an adjective as "avuncular," right?) ointment is that California's state government is so ass-backwards that the computer system is still running on COBOL, which I think is what computer science students studied in the 80s. The 1880s.
So making the adjustments to all of those paychecks - I think they'd have to do it by having mice run on treadmills - would take months, by which time, surely those geniuses will agree on a budget. Or not. Why bother, really? Not like having a budget helped save the state from facing a $15 billion deficit.
I especially liked the state controller's quote, which so beautifully illuminated the oustanding efficiency and decision-making abilities of our elected officials: “In 2003, my office tried to see if we could reconfigure our system to do such a task. And after 12 months, we stopped without a feasible solution.”
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