2 Weeks and Counting

The end (of the wait) is nigh! My honeymoon preparation is kicking into high gear now as we come to within 2 weeks of departure. There's still a lot to do, of course, but I'm getting stoked. I haven't had 3 weeks off from work since I was 12 years old, when I got my first job, and for the last 4 years I have been doing 2 jobs. So I expect this will be a little Twilight Zone-esque but that's just fine. In 16 days I'll be scuba diving and snorkeling in one of the best places in the world according to Jacques Costeau. 19 days from now I'll be taking a whitewater trip underground, and wihin 3 I'll be walking through Mordor. And that's just the North Island.

It's gonna be amazing.

The Prestige
It's the first movie I've seen in the theater for about 4 months, a film-noirish steampunk thriller about the competition of 2 magicians and bitter rivals in turn of the century London. The cast is stellar - Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, and of course Michael Caine (and Scarlett Johannsen's boobies) turn in great performances - and director Christopher Nolan once again proves he is a master of complexly threaded tales. The analogy between rivalry of Burton/Algeir and Nikola Tesla/Thomas Edison - both rivalries, at their core, a clash of sound method and natural talent vs. radicalism and obsession - was a very nice touch.

Quote of the film, from Nikola Tesla:

Do you know the saying, 'man's reach exceeds his grasp?' This is not true - rather, it is that man's grasp exceeds his nerve.

Brilliant summary of the theme of obsession and 'getting your hands dirty' that permeate the film.

The only faults I think the movie had was it was slightly self-indulgenent drawing out the conclusion, and it shows its hand earlier than I would like, but it's nowhere near as self-serving as any of M. Night Shalyman's twist-dependant 'shockers.' Overall, 4 of 5 stars.

A Non-Venomous Political Post (Really!)
Lately, I'm sure you're all aware that I've been more than a little fired up about the state of a lot of things - the current administration, for one, but also the sorry state of the opposition. Well, I believe there's hope out there beyond the Al Gores and John Kerry's and other Boomer 'everything-to-everyone' Democratic stuffed shirts. What I feel - and have rightly felt since the 2004 election - was that the Dems forgot a) how to fight, b) what's at stake, and c) that it's better to stand up for something than in opposition to everything. It's OK to be centrist, guys...that's where most of the nation sits. That's why it's called the center.

The new generation of Democratic candidates like Barak Obama have moved me, made me believe that unlike the neo-cons following Bush and the rest of Congress's lead that they may not be willing/liable to make the same mistakes as their forebears. Harold Ford Jr. in particular has captured my attention. Check out his statement on economic reform. The fascinating thing is, regardless of whether this is feasible with the way things stand today, that this policy is fiscally conservative without callous disregard of needy populations (1% cut of ALL government spending save for education and veterans is damn brave); forward-thinking without magical assumptions; and still manages to ask tough questions that our nation needs to address now (such as getting GenX to wait until 70 to collect social security; spending more to develop multiple new fuel sources; and build savings accounts for every child to be used only on school, retirement, or home purchase). Fiscal responsibility plus social liberalism is something both my Republican and moderate leftie friends could get behind...and THAT is real poltical power today.

Color me impressed. I will watch his political career with great interest - I can only hope that Washington does not alter his course too fast or seriously...

He Should Have Followed Ken Lay's Example

Some justice is done in the Enron scandal...Jeff Skilling gets 24 years for ripping off billions of dollars from honest Americans.

Well, it's not really justice if people don't get their money back. And it's not like energy prices have ever really returned to pre-Enron levels. And it's not like he'd ever be in a position to rip people off again anyway. And he won't be doing really hard time. But as long as he's in prison, there's always the hope that he'll get shanked and locked in a closet to bleed to death over the course of hours like a stuck pig. Just like he did to people's bank accounts across this country.

Totally. Fucking. Insane. -- A Rant in 3 Parts

It's really amazing to me that the world can be as crazy as it is today. People have totally gone off their collective rockers. Cases in point:

Kim Jong-Il goes from amusing puppet to nuclear threat, and empowers Iran to continue its course. Hey, China! I appreciate all you've done for talking Pyongyang down with your softball diplomacy, while feeding them oil and food to undermine Japanese and American sanctions. That totally worked! Now it's out there that the emperor has no clothes - America certainly can't do anything, even if it wanted to (thanks to Iraq and Afghanistan) and further sanctions could risk an attack on Japan or even more likely, Soeul. So what's likely to happen then? The baby gets his bottle, and to move back to the big kid's table. Of course, the REAL solution would be to not change a damn thing, not give into the Jong-Il tantrums, wait for him to die, then reunify North and South. The end. But that would mean the U.S. loses another war, and by no means do we want that.

Republican'ts switch from revolutionaries to oppressors in just a decade. Foley's not the only problem in the party, but it's pretty evident at this time that the buzzards are circling. Will the GOP purge all gays from their party, since as illuminary Pat Robertson pointed out "[Foley] was just doing what all gay people do"? Oh, well all the gay people I know must have missed the contract stipulation (cause, you know, being gay is a choice) that they have to try and play grabass with minors. I can't wait for a Democratic congress - at least Dem leaders will be playing grabass with interns and office assistants instead.

Fundamentalist Christians make amazing leaps of logic to interpret a 2000-year-old hallucination as saying Pope John Paul II is an agent of Satan and will lead us into Hell. Seriously, the worst thing to have ever have happened to Christianity is the fucking Book of Revelations - a guy gets food poisoning and suddenly he's the foremost expert on the end of the world. It's the only thing left for the Christian fundamentalist movement to claim as its own, since every snaggletoothed backwoods preacher can liberally interpret this nonsense however the hell he wants and people will eat it up - who cares if the world didn't end in 2000? The lunatic who wrote this page has some interesting "facts" but when you're interpreting the word "days" as years, and the word "kings" as popes, ands seem to presuppose that there have been no popes before Pious XI, you're stretching just a hair. Hey, guys? Jesus ain't coming back, and if he was, you think he'd tell us? You think you can know the mind of God? Who's pumping up their divinity now?