Well that was weird. I was just typing something when the screen went blank and an message saying my computer had been locked popped up. I didn’t actually do anything to cause the lock-down, and I have my own password to log back in, but I’m going to take this as a sign that I should not be here after five on a Friday evening. Now if my boss would just get off the phone…
Month: April 2004
As any casual reader of my short film reviews can probably tell, I like Roger Ebert. I don’t always agree with his reviews, but they’re usually intelligent, and I can usually understand why I disagree with him. Which is really apropos of nothing except that I read his reviews every week (well, some of them). And sometimes I find something in them that I like. Like for instance:
From his review of “The Ladykillers”:
“The little old lady is named Marva Munson, and she is played by Irma P. Hall in the one completely successful comic performance in the movie. Yes, she’s a caricature, too…[b]ut her character is exaggerated from a recognizable human base, while the others are comic strip oddities.”
From his review of “Walking Tall”:
“The role is played by Johnny Knoxville, famous for ‘Jackass,’ who is, in fact, completely convincing and probably has a legitimate movie career ahead of him and doesn’t have to stuff his underpants with dead chickens and hang upside down over alligator ponds any more.”
Of course, this last bit fails to take into account something that even I, who have seen maybe only half a minute of “Jackass”, could tell you: Johnny Knoxville probalby likes stuffing his underpants with dead chickens and hanging upside down over alligator ponds. As A. O. Scott wrote in his review of “Jackass: the Movie”, Knoxville’s exploits “suggest that this small tribe of young white men is motivated by extreme boredom and a playful, quasi-erotic sadomasochistic camaraderie.” But that, I suppose, is neither here nor there.
Can you tell yet that I’m bored?
You know, it seems pretty simple to me: either Condoleeza Rice is lying about all the briefings she says she didn’t receive or the terrorism information she says she didn’t have — or she really didn’t have this information, in which case she’s not a very good National Security Advisor. Because plenty of other people apparently had this information, including the Clinton administration, Richard Clarke, and some of Rice’s own deputies. It seems like it’s just a question of deception or incompetence, although it’s possible it’s a mixture of both.
Okay then, so it’s April. Which, of course, means that it’s much, much too early to start thinking about my next mix CD exchange. Or maybe not. I know it might appear as if I only just had an exchange, and that it was only just a few weeks ago that I was pestering some of you for your CDs, but the thing about a quarterly event is that it happens every three months.
Which brings me to my point. I’m going to set the mail-by date for the next exchange as May 17. That’s a good month and a half from now, which I hope is ample time to put together a mix. (I will, of course, make allowances if genuine problems arise or consider changing the date should it present too much of a problem. I suspect I’m the only one who’s actually finished burning his mix.)
Anyway, the exchange will work the same as it has in the past: You send me x number of CDs, and I send you x number in return. For each copy you send me of your own mix, you’ll get a different mix from another person, including me, mailed back to you. Pretty simple. If you’re interested, please let me know here in the comments or by e-mail as soon as possible, like within a week. (I’ll also be sending out this message to the people who have participated before.) I’m going to try to keep the number of participants at a reasonable level, around ten or fewer again, but a lot depends of it depends on how many people are interested.
Let me know. I can’t speak for anyone else, but the exchanges have proved to be a whole lot of fun for me. I’ve discovered (and hopefully shared) some really great music.
So Air America launched yesterday. I caught just a little bit of the Randi Rhodes Show (although apparently after her screaming match with Ralph Nader) and heard most of the Majority Report, because I like co-host Janeane Garofalo and I like their guests, Bill Maher, Atrios, and Dave Chappelle. So far, I like the entire thing, although I don’t have much by which to compare it, since I tend to avoid talk radio like the plague (except, perhaps, for Car Talk). It’s actually too bad I won’t get an opportunity to listen to most of their lineup, including Al Franken, since I’m, well, at work most of the day.
Still, if you’re not, or if you have time to spare after work, it’s worth checking out. (Although I am starting to share a sentiment I’ve seen expressed elsewhere, namely that RealPlayer sucks.)