Dancing About Architecture

This movie is about the last day of a drug dealer before he starts serving his 7-year sentence, and it does a good job of conveying the hopeless inevitability felt by the main character and his friends: he has run out of options. Edward Norton continues to be one of my favorite actors, and he gives another very strong performance in this Spike Lee Joint. Another standout performance is Brian Cox as the father. Spike Lee really lets the emotional component to the story take center stage in a way that quickens your breath sometimes -- complete with a Spike Lee Monologue (tm) that effectively captures the post-9/11 frustration and hate in the heart of this drug dealer that got greedy.

25th Hour (***1/2)

Posted by Eric at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a great idea for an IM bot: a portal into the old Infocom text adventures like Zork and THHGTTG. These games were formative for me when I was growing up and playing them on an Atari 800, and it's great to be reminded of them again. AOL is tossing the bots off the network because they're exceeding message limits (nice to see some things haven't changed since we created the Spyonit.com IM bots), but hopefully that will get resolved.

I had never really thought about an IM client being a "universal dumb terminal with a third-party distributed directory service" before. I mean, we've done some cool stuff with two-way IM bots before, but the "save" and "restore" functions tied into the IM identity are really innovative. Also makes playing these games from an AOL IM-equipped mobile phone a reality ... you can even pick up where you left off from your desktop. Good job, Andy Baio.

Source: Waxy.org: Daily Log: InfocomBot for AOL Instant Messenger

Posted by Eric at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is a difficult movie to talk about. I suppose that's appropriate, since it was a difficult movie to watch. There are several scenes that have apparently been burned into my brain and keep popping into my consciousness at random points during the day. You're going to reflect on this movie whether you want to or not.

It's hard to separate the "movie" from the "experience". The movie was very well done, and it's really great that they kept the Aramaic and Latin, which created a much more immersive experience. Yes, the movie is extremely violent, and at first I thought it was gratuitously excessive. But after some reflection I've come to the conclusion that it was appropriate and needed, to break down the barriers many of us have built up to violence portrayed in movies. It's a very different kind of violence; Jay Leno (of all people) supposedly said (I haven't found the exact quote) that when Jesus was hit it felt like we were being hit as opposed to other violent movies were you feel like you are the one doing the hitting. That's a good description. Like I said, this was a hard movie to watch, but in the end I feel enriched having seen it.

The Passion of the Christ (***1/2)

Posted by Eric at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm kind of liking these modern musical movies. I liked Moulin Rogue more than this one, but this movie is still a great time. This adaptation oozes with sensuality -- you expect that from a Fosse Fosse Fosse production, and Rob Marshall's translation to the big screen doesn't disappoint. I wish the movie had a little less Renée Zellweger and little more Catherine Zeta-Jones, whom I thought was quite a bit more talented in the dancing and singing department.

Chicago (***)

Posted by Eric at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We all laugh at Feedster's business model, right? "Feedster is the Google of RSS". Well, they might have some issues when Google decides to become the Google of RSS, but until then I've found a few things that Feedster is really good at that Google is not: product reviews and travel destinations.

Have you ever tried to use the web to do some research on a product before you buy it? Try typing it into Google and you usually get hundreds of places you can buy the product or some big media reviews of the product. Epinions.com might have some information, but it's usually a ghost town there. Often, though, you can type your query into Feedster and get a number of individual perspectives and mini-reviews on the product.

Same thing for travel destinations. Searching on Google results in hundreds of travel agents that are trying to sell you a trip, so they won't say anything bad about the place. Searching through Feedster will often result in interesting stories and anecdotes about the specific town and hotel or restaurant that you're thinking about visiting. Cool.

Feedster gives me much better results than either Daypop or Technorati, but a Yahoo! Search that you restrict to the RSS file format does a pretty good job too (if you can figure out how to do it!)

Thought for the future: figure out how to incorporate a standard "review" namespace like RVW into the feed and watch a distributed review marketplace spring into existence.

Posted by Eric at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a long time since I've gone on a music-buying bender ... a long time. And when I have been struck by that "I need new music now" feeling, I usually find myself at Best Buy which has, frankly, crap.

Well, Steve let me know that Rock Records was having a 25% off everything sale, so I couldn't pass that up. I left satisfied -- here's what I ended up with:

• Ryan Adams, Rock N Roll


• The Aluminum Group, More Happyness


• And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Source Tags & Codes


• Broadcast, Haha Sound


• Her Space Holiday, Young Machines


• Norah Jones, Feels Like Home (Key point to remember for any binge music buying: always come home with something for your Significant Other)


• The New Pornographers, Electric Version


• Pretty Girls Make Graves, New Romance

Posted by Eric at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
By Gregory Maguire

First off, this book is not some light satire ... oh no. This is a dark, supernatural examination of the origins of wickedness and our collective perspective on good and evil. It certainly is clever: taking a well-known and somewhat innocuous story like The Wizard of Oz and turning it on its head to really look at the motivations behind the various characters. The thing that surprised me the most is how incredibly deep and fantastic the author Gregory Maguire realizes the world of Oz. Oz is a dark place, and although most of the analogies to the plagues of this world (Earth) were transparent, they were appropriate and fitted into such a foreign context that the end result was effective.

I thought the first half of the book was better than the second, but the entire effort is strong enough that I recommend this to anyone that doesn't mind reading something that I would classify as "dark fantasy" (hmmm ... "dark fantasy" ... I wonder what kind of Google searches will find this page now!) It looks like the author has written a couple of other books that use the same "twist the well-known story around" device, but I'm not really tempted to read them even though I liked this book: the idea kind of seems like a one-trick pony. If anyone has a different opinion, please let me know!

Original entry from 3/19:

My lovely wife Christine just read this for a book club and she thought I would like it. Sounds interesting to me!

Posted by Eric at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker
By James McManus

This was a great book: James McManus, on an assignment for Harper's, decides to enter the World Series of Poker. This results in a most unexpected, wonderful story with a level of insight into the poker world that we haven't really seen before. Mix in some real-life intrigue surrounding the bizarre Ted Binion murder, add the fact that McManus is a very literate writer and you've got yourself a winner.

Over the past year or so I've been watching the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel ... a practice that my wife compares to watching paint dry, but I find the game fascinating. This book has also given me some invaluable insight into the personalities that keep showing up in the professional poker circuit.

Thanks for the recommedation, Christian!

Original Entry 2004-03-05:

Well, I really enjoyed the blackjack in Bringing Down the House, so how about some poker? I'm reading this on a recommendation from my brother Christian.

Posted by Eric at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving With Grace
By Gordon MacKenzie

Yep, my initial impressions were correct. In the immortal words of Eric Cartman, "It's all a bunch of tree huggin' hippie crap". I have a number of good friends that are "creative types" like this guy, but this is really just too much. I'd hate to be in a meeting with this guy. Or is that my insecurity talking? Hmmmm ... nope, I don't think so.

Original entry from 02/26:

What's a guy that started his own small company with other incredibly talented individuals doing reading a book about maintaining creativity in an oppresive corporate environment? Good question -- I'm not sure. But it's been on my list for a while and I'm just getting around to reading it now, okay? At first glance, this book looks so "un-me" it's comical, but I'll give it a try and report back when I'm done.

Posted by Eric at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whew, what a busy couple of weeks! Most of my waking hours have been spent with FeedBurner-related activities and travelling. The feedback from users has been really encouraging, which of course makes you want to work on it even harder. A virtuous cycle, some might call it.

Anyway, I'm going to be down at SXSW Interactive for a few days to soak in some "personal publishing" vibes and talk to some cool people in the community. If you're going to be attending too, let me know ... and see you there!

Posted by Eric at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How much Jack Black is too much Jack Black? We still don't know. This movie's all about Jack, and it's a good thing. He's got that John Belushi-like charm that, apparently, can carry a movie. Director Richard Linklater avoids getting mired in too much sentimentalism or back-story for the kids and keeps the performances skimming on the surface. This is not a deep movie, but one guaranteed to produce smiles from the audience.

The School of Rock (***)

Posted by Eric at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, this is a pretty good movie! I thought this movie would only appeal to aging boomers, but this GenX-er found it very entertaining -- almost entirely due to strength of Nicholson's performance. The role certainly isn't a stretch for him, but the truth is that Jack "coasting" is still way better than almost anyone. He's able to let his charm come all the way out in this movie, and it's formidable. Diane Keaton was really good, too, but her face distracts me: too much botox? It seems almost plastic.

Something's Gotta Give (***)

Posted by Eric at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have to say that this movie didn't live up to my expectations. Sure, it's an intense 81 minutes (it seems even shorter than that). Yes, it's pleasant to listen to Kiefer's velvety voice for most of that time. But this just didn't work for me. I wanted more, and the abrupt ending was unsatisfying.

Phone Booth (**1/2)

Posted by Eric at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Bug: A Novel
By Ellen Ullman

This book turned out to be quite a disappointment. Really, just your typical "descent into madness" story that every lit major has written at one point or another. Diary of a madman. I thought the fact that it was set in a software development company would be interesting, and it was to a point, but the personalities are way too clichéd. That's not to say I haven't known a few programmers like the ones portrayed here, but the characters in the book are one-dimensional (and don't say that's the point!).

Ah well, you can't win them all.

Original Entry (2/29):

Looks to be an interesting book set in the strange and perverse world of software development.

Posted by Eric at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)