Fri, June 27

The Hulk

Despite an award-winning director and a compelling cast, the buzz on The Hulk hasn't been too hot. I still plan to find out for myself, but I admit that my enthusiasm is losing steam. (Read more.)

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Thu, June 26

Trading Spaces: Whoa

Trading Spaces is a great show to watch at the end of the evening when you want to be entertained but you don't want to pay attention very much. (Read more.)

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Wed, June 25

Crossing A Line

Corporate America has no respect for the boundaries of civil behavior. Will this inability to stay within the lines ultimately be paid for in lost marketshare? Doubtful, but - hey, what? - I've got a rant. (Read more.)

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Ho ho! No sooner did I—7:41 PM

Ho ho!

No sooner did I mention the tardiness of Joe & Karen's invitation than it arrived at my door. They took a sort of reverse-"regrets only" approach to the RSVP which I hadn't ever thought of before, but I respect it a lot. I think I know the approach I'll take now. (Who am I kidding? My RSVP will be online.)

And, speaking of online (which I was, parenthetically; go back and review), Joe & Karen, the couple I unofficially dubbed most likely to mention the awesome wedding website I created for them, have actually been the only couple so far not to mention that glorious creation. It's cool, though. They made up for it by including a really snazzy hand-drawn map of Santa Monica by Joe. Tres impressive. So far, Joe & Lauren still hold the title of most attractive wedding invitation (stepping as they did outside the formal box), but they've all been very nice and I've felt honored just to be included.

I'll see if I can't get a copy of Joe's map up on their wedding site, just to bring the whole thing full circle.

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Tue, June 24

A weekend spent out of—10:53 AM

A weekend spent out of town and - blissfully - largely away from the Internet. Not that I don't love the many-headed beast, but at times a little loss of content can be just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, it means another trip down Bullet Lane:

• Owning Mahowny - This was a fine film, solidly crafted and endowed with three rock-solid performances by actors who could not have been cast more perfectly. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars, in the role he was born to play (and thus plays in about three movies a year), a meek, struggling lifetime loser who has just enough self respect not to fall asleep with his head in an oven. This time, it's Dan Mahowny, a banking executive with a gambling problem who we meet just at the point where he starts mixing business with pleasure. His girlfriend Belinda, loyal to a fault and so sweet you actually find yourself feeling sick just watching her predicament, is played by Minnie Driver. (She's as subtle as a child's eyelash and beautiful in her 1980s poofy hair and colossal tinted eyeglasses.) And John Hurt is riveting as the calculating Atlantic City casino manager who reads Mahowny like a book and helps him believe he's the high roller he'll never be. It was a fun movie to watch, and the churning anxiety it fosters is more like Fargo than Rounders, but as tantalizing as either.

• Roger Dodger - Just finished this one on DVD and loved it. (You're going to have to throw a pretty bad Campbell Scott movie at me for me not to love it.) There will be a review on pH7media.com as soon as I've enjoyed the special features, so I'll keep it short here except to say that - intentionally or not - it delivers precision insight into the world of dating and sex while simultaneously making a mockery of both the male and the female approach to it.

• Atlanta - Hot, hot, hot! Plenty attractive, which I knew, and fun enough in terms of available opportunities and people. But, hoo boy, I never thought I'd need reminding just how much I prefer L.A.'s climate to just about anyplace in the South, but there it was! This is the kind of place you really want to have a butler who goes and starts the car to get the A/C running even if you only ran in to buy a pack of gum.

• The Braves - 10-2! Go, Bravos! If you have to only attend one baseball game in your life, you could do a lot worse than Turner Field. Sure, you could do better - it lacks the sense of history that some parks have - but at least in Southern California, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

• My sister - Spectacular. What a champ. She really holds her own, but not to the exclusion of being a part of the team and needing to reach out to others once in a while. Someday, she should have her own article on pH7media.com, but then again, like so many things, I often want to keep my feelings about her just between her and me. Suffice it to say that she's amazing.

• Reducing a person to a bullet point - kinda feels wrong. Well, anyway. I know she'd understand.

• The Athletic Reporter - This was my first weekend completely out of touch as it went live. By and large, this was not a problem due to some preparation beforehand (as opposed to preparation after the fact?), but co-creator Joe did have to do some Photoshopping which is a shame. Hopefully, we'll learn from this experience and be ready for it the next time I'm unavailable.

• The Hulk - We saw Owning Mahowny instead. I'm told I should avoid The Hulk, but it's actually doing okay on RottenTomatoes.com and all the articles I read about it before its release made it seem really interesting. I'll probably see it soon, anyway, just so I know. (I'm not going to try heroin "just to see what it's like," but I'm okay with that approach to a movie.) I'm planning to write more about this on the main site, so I'll shut up now.

• Joe's wedding - I had almost forgotten, but I have about another week to go and sign up for my tux. Fortunately I already have my measurements from the last go-around, so it should be a breeze.

• Poppy's wedding - Received my invitation over the weekend, which is odd since Joe's wedding is two weeks earlier. Hm. The reply card has two boxes to check:

  _ accept(s) with pleasure
  _ decline(s) with regret

  I was giggling about the fact that they presume to know with which emotion I accept or decline, so I was tempted to draw little arrows, to indicate that I "accept with regret," but then I figured she'd probably take it as half-serious, since we all know I think she should be marrying me instead. Which isn't the kind of thing you want someone thinking when they're planning their wedding. So, I decided against getting all cute.

• Apple WWDC - Steve Jobs gave another of his wildly enthusiastic keynote addresses to the Mac faithful on Monday and I was too busy hurtling westward through the sky to experience it firsthand. Sometimes the recap is less exhausting anyway. The good news is that we have some excitingly powerful new computers to look forward to, and the upcoming Mac OS X release ("Panther" - they're going through the jungle cats so fast we'll be seeing promos for "OS X: Abyssinian" in no time) looks pleasing, if still somewhat unworthy of another $129. I liked it so much I kind of forgot I'm still running Jaguar for at least the next four months.

Thanks again to the Beallsvonian for showing the bullet-recap path. It's good in a pinch.

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Mon, June 23

Bug Juice

(Read more.)

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Sun, June 22

What We'll Watch

NBC is unleashing a new drama this fall called Las Vegas. (A transparent attempt to cash in on CSI? Perhaps.) It looks glitzy, which I like, and it co-stars Molly Sims– SOLD! (Read more.)

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Sat, June 21

State Quarters

I'm really not into the state quarters, although I'm pleased with the concept and I'm sure it strengthens the numismatist recruiting effort. But if I don't hurry, I'll be the last person alive to review the designs. (Read more.)

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Fri, June 20

Capturing the Friedmans

Capturing the Friedmans upset me, but not for the reasons I'd feared. It's not a sicko film, it's a rebuke of media culture, moral hysteria and the blind spots in our justice system. (Read more.)

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Thu, June 19

As The Apple Turns

You may not be into news and rumors of Apple Computer. Even I don't care that much. But regardless of your interest in the content of As The Apple Turns, there's no denying its style. (Read more.)

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Wed, June 18

I'm With Busey

There's no excuse for the exploitation of the mentally enfeebled for our amusement. It's not funny on The Anna Nicole Smith Show and it's not funny in the White House. It's a little funny on I'm With Busey. (Read more.)

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I finished watching the—2:13 PM

I finished watching the French Connection special features last night. The documentaries, while they overlapped significantly in content, were fairly interesting. One was produced by the BBC and another by Fox Movie Channel to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the film. Roy Scheider was absent from the FMC production except in old interviews. That always bothers me. What went on there? Is Scheider feuding with Fox?

Also watched an episode of "The Office" from BBC TV. It's pretty funny, in that deadpan British sitcom style. It's especially engaging if you've ever had a boss like the one in the show: ineffectual, too chummy to get anything done, oblivious. I read about the show and the BBC America reruns that will be airing all this week, and it's definitely worth checking out.

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Tue, June 17

Country Music People: Why?

Country Music Television (as if the network needed to further evidence its own pointlessness) recently drafted a list of the Top 100 country songs. The list was awful. (Read more.)

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Needless to say the—1:31 PM

Needless to say the password thing has not panned out as a possibility. (Leading to the consideration that perhaps I need to recreate Blogger functionality on my own site and add in the item-based passwording. Just what I need, more giant projects heaped onto my workload by yours truly!)

Also needless to say (or needless also to say?) the bubbling over of communication that I experienced last Thursday has subsided. What a shame. My problem is that I'm a little over-committed right now, so those lazy hours of sitting in front of TiVo and coming up with witty things to type are all but gone. I'll adopt the Beallsvonian style bullet points, so maligned in Powerpoint but so lovely in the blog:

• The French Connection - watched this on DVD and was underwhelmed. Interesting, with a fantastic performance by Hackman, but ultimately somewhat unsatisfying. Returned it to Netflix, only to learn that the Bonus Features Disc was next on my list. Great, now I'm learning even more about a film I didn't particularly like! (Actually, I popped it in and the first documentary I watched was quite informative and made me wonder if maybe I shouldn't have given the film more of a chance.)

• Capturing the Friedmans - saw this film over the weekend, along with an unexpected director Q&A after the screening. Compelling, infuriating documentary. I've been working on a review for posting on pH7media.com since Saturday, but the more research I do the more infuriated I am. Needless to say, read some fascinating material on the case in the film (and related cases) if you're interested. The whole thing is just amazing.

• Spellbound - saw this on Friday as part of a marathon guys'-night-out with Joe. Fantastic film, utterly gripping. Makes me regret even more than I recently missed the telecast of this years Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee on ESPN. Maybe if the film gets enough buzz, ESPN will re-run it. I hope, I hope? Because I had to pick up my car from its scheduled maintenance at the dealership in Pasadena before making it to an early screening in Santa Monica, I had to pull off some power-commuting that I have to say I'm quite impressed with. And I barely even exceeded the speed limit. In rush hour, you almost never get the chance anyway. Expert planning, that's all it was.

• Attended my cousin Molly's birthday party on Saturday after attending Borders comedy with Cathy Ladman and Andy Kindler (two all-time stand-up superstars) with Joe & Karen and Nick and the requisite trip to Olive Garden afterwards. You never stop fighting with those waiters for the free breadsticks. There must be some sort of policy. Kindler delivered, as always.

• Also, another A/C worthy day on Sunday, and a trip through the Farmer's Market with Elizabeth, a friend of my sister's who's living out here now. I grew accustomed to such jam-packed weekends when Jody was here, but I never expected to maintain such a fervor after her departure.

That doesn't exactly bring me up to date, but it skates the surface of the highlights.

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Sun, June 15

Indy on DVD

The imminent release of the Indiana Jones films on DVD makes me proud to be a Harrison Ford fan, even if in the near-term there's not much reward in it. (Read more.)

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Sat, June 14

Can't Someone Else Do It?

The Bushies want the poor and disenfranchised to have a better life. But they'd rather focus their efforts on improving the welfare of the wealthy. Would you mind tending to the rest? (Read more.)

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Fri, June 13

The Italian Job

The Italian Job was a surprisingly fun summer actioner, although considering that Edward Norton never makes a wrong move I shouldn't be so surprised. (Read more.)

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Thu, June 12

Freesia's Back!

A little over a year ago, Bath and Body Works cruelly removed their Freesia-scented line from the market. Well despite the fact that my letter-writing campaign never got off the ground, this has been rectified! (Read more.)

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I spent some time—11:13 PM

I spent some time tonight reading about Blogger and Blogspot, although I guess I should type that BlogSpot. I wish I could find out when I signed up for my Blogger account because it was a long long time ago. But today I first used it to create a blog on BlogSpot, so this evening I got a little more curious about the whole situation and did some reading on the site. They were just recently purchased by Google, so good for them. Also, the upgraded (priced) versions of Blogger include a password-protect option. If that's available at the $15/year price level and allows protection on a per-entry basis, then damn! I need to look into that. That would really increase my ability to make the blog more of an online journal and just give the password to those whom I trust not to use the information against me.

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Wandering the Blogsphere—2:36 PM

Through a convoluted but traceable series of links, I landed on Tim Young's blog and he was discussing music and, tangentially, band names.

Joe Mulder once said he was going to maintain some sort of ongoing repository of good suggestions for band names based on "The Simpsons." It would be a running thing for friends to contribute their ideas for the list. To my knowledge, this never happened, despite Joe's excellent start to the list: "Regular Daddy." In a nod to the most likely reason Joe discontinued the idea, I'd like my first suggestion to be "The Singing Jockeys." Of course, "Muddie Mae Suggins" and "Texas Cheesecake Depository" would also look damn fine printed on that annoying little sticker across the top of your new CD.

It didn't make it into the Onion's online archive (honestly, what good is the Internet?) but I recall a recent article along the lines of "90% of All Human Communication Via Online Product Reviews." As is the style, funny concept and fairly dumb article. After just a dip of the toe into the blogging ocean (with the madcap propensity for linking, there's truly a Six Degrees of Blogging thing going on), I have to say that I'm amazed how closely the blog world reflects the Onion article. I'm not trying to make any broad social-decay statement here. (It's been done anyway, and done to death.) I'm for it. Yeah, actual human contact is down, but what the hey! Actual human contact is overrated and requires pants. I'll take swapping blog entries over "hanging out" any day. Life's wittier when you have a backspace key.

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Here's the thing. I do—11:52 AM

Here's the thing.

I do a lot of online writing in a format that could conceivably be likened to blogging but lacks the "blog-as-diary" element that truly embodies the blogging concept. I'm looking for something that can have a shorter-form "random thought" type of quality, and I like the idea that the posts are all on one scrollable page and have time stamps as well as date stamps.

But Jameson, you're a web genius. Clearly you could add these features to your existing site?
Damn straight! But something about the prefab tool appeals to me. Maybe it's the fact that I don't have to do the work. Maybe it's the concept of housing it separately. Maybe it's just the thought that I'm "slummin' it" with the HTML-novice hoi polloi. Blogger/Blogspot seems to have a nice open source feel about the way they handle all this stuff, so not only do I retain rights to my content, I retain really easy access to it. Maybe someday I'll move it all over to pH7media.com and integrate it with the other goodies. Who knows?

In the meantime, I'm going to see what I can make out of this. Call it a blog for blog's sake.

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Wed, June 11

Beware the Rip Tide!

A slow day for CNN means a dose of 24-hour-news basics: Creating panic out of nothing. You have to hand it to them, they're the best of their kind. (Read more.)

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Tue, June 10

Trouble in Blogland

The writing on this site has purposely walked a fine line between blogging and something a little more organized. As such, it seems to have spawned a frustrating standard. (Read more.)

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Mon, June 9

Here's To Love

Today my parents celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Let's lift our glass to the happy couple, and here's to the next thirty! (Read more.)

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Sun, June 8

Come-From-Ahead Win!

If Funny Cide had won the Belmont Stakes, NBC would've had an orgasm. It begs the question, what happens if the top competitor is someone whose life has been nothing but opportunity? (Read more.)

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Wed, June 4

Battlebots? Just The Beginning

Alleged "sports fans" see no problem with the idea of robots taking over the responsibilities of major league umpires. What's next, robot peanut vendors? (Read more.)

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Tue, June 3

Out of Order

Showtime's new show follows a couple tackling the realities of a 16-year marriage, a shared screenwriting career and increasingly divergent desires. A powerhouse cast makes it worth a peek, but then the problems start. (Read more.)

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Mon, June 2

Drink Pepsi; Your Mother's A Whore

I admit that "Dude, you're getting a Dell" seems like the kind of advertising campaign that's so terrible that any change would be an improvement. However, there's a difference between "seems" and "is." (Read more.)

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