And the Winner Is... Wii Sports!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Usually, I care very little about the Academy Awards, unless there are Lord of the Rings movies nominated or something like that. For one thing, I don't see a lot of the movies that are nominated (especially true this year, although it sounds like a lot of other people didn't see them either), and more significantly, the self-importance of some of the people I see up there drives me crazy. I don't think that everyone in Hollywood is out of touch with reality, but I do think that when you get enough people in one room that are, it's a little too much. On a more practical level, I also get a little bored listening to long lists of thank-yous to people of whom I've never heard and will never meet.

That said, I do watch the Oscars sometimes for entertainment value (there are a few intentionally funny moments, and many more unintentionally funny moments). Here are a few highlights from tonight I picked out as we went along:

• Jon Stewart is making fun of Hollywood in his opening monologue, and all of the stars in the first three rows are trying to figure out if he is making fun of them and whether they should laugh (this is how you find out who thinks they are a big deal).
• Someone is winning an Oscar for an Elizabeth movie. This is like my son doing the same trick over-and-over because he knows you'll laugh every time, or like Mariah Carey making the same album over and over and continuing to win awards.
• They just played something sounding very dramatic and important before introducing George Clooney. He introduced (and they are now showing) something called "80 Years at the Oscars," which scares me enough on its own given how long a single show can be, and now that Celine Dion song is on. I now know how the enemy can get me to break if I'm ever captured in war.
• Some French guy and English woman won for costume design. The French guy spoke for about 10 seconds in broken English, and the woman made the mistake of saying that she had "a lot of people to thank," and she got the music about 20 seconds in. I didn't used to love French movies, but now I do.
• Amy Adams is singing now. She grew up in the LDS church until some point in her childhood, apparently, but is no longer practicing. Oh well - I guess we'll have to wait for Jon Heder to make the first official active Mormon appearance at the Academy Awards. They might have to create a new category before that happens.
• The Golden Compass just won the visual effects award over Transformers. I guess they did make a great talking polar bear, but didn't Coke already do that a long time ago?
  
• I love the awards you don't even understand, let a long who the people involved are, like "art direction." One of the winners looks like someone did art direction on her.
  
• Some "Bee Movie"-related thing just came on. Sort of funny, but when are they going to stop promoting this movie? This is like the Ron Paul presidential campaign.
• Kate Blanchett seriously played Bob Dylan? I thought that was a joke.
• Whoever just beat Kate Blanchett for Best Supporting Actress said she was giving her Oscar to someone. I wonder if she really meant it. I doubt it. I'm getting a little bored at this point, but they keep throwing out the teaser that Mylie Cyrus is going to come on... with that sort of hook, how can I turn away?
• Apparently, Kodak won some sort of film award. Why are they still using film to make movies?
• People keep making jokes about Jack Nicholson and showing him in the front row. When he dies, I wonder if they will preserve him and put him in a display case down front like they did with all the Communist Hall-of-Famers like Lenin, Mao, Kim, and Ho? When the Oscars aren't going on, they could wheel him over to the Staples Center.
• There are dancing construction workers on stage. I'm going to go do the dishes.
• Bourne Ultimatum just won for Sound Editing. Nice of them to throw a little bone to one of the best movies I've seen in quite a while.
  
• Sound Mixing is up. Ummm... didn't we just do this award? The Bourne Ultimatum won. Didn't see that coming.
• They just showed Halle Berry crying when she won in 2002. If people are good enough to win, how do you know if they are really crying?
• Some French girl just won Best Actress. Short speech? Yep. I'm telling you, the French are growing on me. I knew I liked Paris for more than just the bread.
• Just had some Wii product placement, following onto some Apple product placement earlier. I guess this is the place for the latest tech products. They didn't use to do this, did they? I don't remember the Clapper ever being on here.
• Now Jack Nicholson is presenting. I'm starting to think that even in life he's a bit like an aging, wacky Communist dictator.
• Enchanted has three songs in for best song, and none of them won. It's like the NBA lottery last year, when the Celtics and Grizzlies tanked at the end of the year on purpose and didn't win anyway. The two people who did went for best song just talked, and they cut the girl off right when she was about to speak. You could read her lips, and then they tried to stop the music, but she was already walking off in embarrassment, so they just started the music back up again. Rude, and bad sound editing. Or is it sound mixing?
• Wow - after they break, they brought the girl back on and let her say her piece. Now she gets more attention than she would have otherwise, so it worked out for her, and there was no way they were going to hit her with the music a third time. I guess they weren't rude, just a little trigger-happy. I wonder how long they would have let her go the second time if she had wanted to push it?
• The one part of the show I do appreciate is up - the people who have passed away in the last year. I realize that could be taken the wrong way, but I mean that sincerely.
• They have military people in Iraq presenting an award - I have to admit this is a great idea. The first one was named Joseph Smith, by the way. I do worry, though, that this will lead someone to say something political. Ah... here it is. Gay rights. At least it wasn't a "Shame on you, Mr. Bush."
  
• OK, here we go - I think Michael Moore is up for an award. We have a shot at a "Shame on you, Mr. Bush." Nope - he didn't win - but we something about Iraq won, so here we go. Yep... told us to turn away from the dark side. Honestly, though, I'd rather hear something political from a guy who makes documentaries than someone who makes action movies or something like that.
• Best Actor Award... Tommy Lee Jones made a movie this year? Johnny Depp flew back to America?
• We were thinking earlier that this was going by quickly and would end by 9:00. It's almost 10:00.

Speaking of movies and war (and on a more serious note), last night we watched Rescue Dawn, inspired by the true story of an American prisoner in Vietnam (well, Laos actually). It turns out that it isn't entirely historically accurate, since they portrayed one guy who was apparently a good guy as a bit of a loose cannon. Still, accepting it as quasi-non-fiction, I found it to be pretty moving. I get wrapped up in my life a bit sometimes and forget that there are people out there right now still going through the same sort of thing. It's hard not to be in awe of those people and incredibly grateful. I thought the same thing the other day as I watched footage of a dad heading off to Iraq and saying goodbye to his little girl - something I can't begin to imagine. I'm not sure if it's what they intended, but I'm glad the Academy Awards people did throw in the military thing to put a little bit of perspective on who really deserves our honor and praise.

Umm... Sir... We're Going To Need a LOT of Boats

Friday, February 15, 2008

Apparently, all the Chairman wanted in return was Gerald Ford's expiring contract and a nuclear scientist to-be-named-later.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid a discussion of trade in 1973, Chinese leader Mao Zedong made what U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called a novel proposition: sending tens of thousands, even 10 million, Chinese women to the United States.

Chinese leader Mao Zedong, here depicted in an Andy Warhol painting, offered women to the U.S.

"You know, China is a very poor country," Mao said, according to a document released by the State Department's historian office.

"We don't have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands."

A few minutes later, Mao circled back to the offer. "Do you want our Chinese women?" he asked. "We can give you 10 million."

After Kissinger noted Mao was "improving his offer," the chairman said, "We have too many women. ... They give birth to children and our children are too many."

"It is such a novel proposition," Kissinger replied in his discussion with Mao in Beijing. "We will have to study it."

Fallen Sports Heroes and Rising Guitar Heroes

Monday, February 11, 2008

On my commute and in moments when I'm not on the phone at work (which sometimes are few and far between), I listen to a lot of national and local sports radio. I suppose I should be listening to something political, but I struggle a bit with some of the cheesy stories on NPR, and I'm not sure I'm quite passionate enough a conservative to get into Hannity or something like that (as some of my close friends are).

Unfortunately, the politics are seeping into my sports radio these days. Today on Mike & Mike, for example, it looks like every segment was on Roger Clemens. I don't know about anyone else, but I am pretty tired of this whole thing. I understand that Congress ostensibly wants to take action to stop young people from using steroids, but I'm really not clear on how digging into what happened in the past is going to help that, especially ignoring basically everyone else and going after one guy. Personally, I think Clemens probably was taking something, but I also don't think we should be burning valuable government time trying to figure that out. I suppose they would say they are trying to validate the accuracy of the Mitchell report, but is there anyone who disagrees with the claim that a lot of players - including high-profile ones - used steroids, thereby encouraging young people to do so, and that baseball could have done more then and should do more now?

The other part that bugs me a little bit is that the media have assumed until now that anyone accused of using steroids who didn't stand up on the rooftops and proclaim their innocence was essentially admitting their guilt. Now, when a guy goes all out in trying to declare his innocence, they assume he's guilty because he's going too far. I feel bad for anyone who actually is innocent that has suspicion cast upon him, because it's difficult to prove you didn't do something, especially when you are presumed to have offended no matter how you respond.

Fortunately, this morning one station was spending their time talking about the NBA instead - specifically the big trade. For a place where the sun shines nearly every day, Phoenix is somewhat of a grumpy sports town, so I wasn't surprised that almost everyone I heard on the radio was against the Shaq trade at first, but it sounds like some people are on-board the Diesel train now. For those that aren't into sports, the Phoenix Suns traded the Matrix (Shawn Marion, who is a good enough athlete to have that nickname despite having the shooting form of a 5th grader with disproportionately short arms) to the Miami Heat for the man behind both (yes, both) Kazaam and Steel. If you are into the NBA at all, you probably have an opinion on which team came out ahead (or, like my sister-in-law, you are just glad he's not on your team). If you aren't into the NBA at all, you really don't care, but read on - I will talk about something other than sports at some point later on.

Before I give you my opinion on the trade, I should tell you that I'm in no position to be giving you my opinion. Last year I would have thought myself at least marginally capable of putting myself in the place of an NBA general manager, but let me share with you the current standing in the fantasy basketball league in which I participate:



You'll notice two things. One, I'm in last place, and it isn't even close. Two, I've made a lot of moves, which means that I have actually tried. I would venture to guess that I couldn't have really done much worse at this point if my 20-month old son was running things. I'm not sure what is going on, but suffice it to say that I should probably be fired as the general manager of a fake basketball team.

That said, here who I see as the winners and losers in the Marion-Shaq flip-flop:

Winners

• Shaq's real-estate agent
• The Maricopa County Sherrif's Office

Losers

• The Roomstore (not to be confused with the Roomstore back east, from which we bought our currently aging couches) - The Matrix promoted furniture sales sort of the way he shoots a basketball (awkwardly but somewhat effectively)
• Short people with seats right behind the Suns bench, because Shaq will probably be spending a lot of time there over the next few years between foul trouble and injuries to-be-named-later.
• My long-term hearing, because you have to turn up the volume about twice as loud on the radio to understand what Shaq is saying

While we're on the subject of damage to my long-term hearing, last night we went to a concert (a bit rare for us these days). An English group called Editors, who have cracked my top five (about which they are very excited, I'm told), paid their first visit to Arizona. It was a bit loud, yes, but they were very good. I'll post a few fairly raw YouTube clips from a show less than a week a go, but one of the things you won't see too well is how good the drummer is - that guy could probably eat a bucket of shortening after every show and not gain weight. There were also a few other things you won't catch on YouTube, like the guy in front of us who danced around like he had a bug crawling around inside his clothes, but you'll get the general idea.







[For good measure, here are a few actual Editors videos and acoustic performances - not quite so lo-fi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTvriysdCG4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuitgaO1D5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMPTS5_qIVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RNOSKpExKo]

We might have missed the show had H.I. not been vigilant in checking the band's website for live shows, and we almost didn't get to go anyway because mid-day my wife was attacked by a jar of Indian food (she'll have to fill in the details on our family blog) and our babysitter fell through at the last minute with either pneumonia or Valley Fever. I know Valley Fever sounds like an 80s teen movie, but it turns out that it's a real illness (http://phoenix.about.com/cs/health/a/valleyfever01.htm). My favorite part of that little Q&A on this desease is the part where it says that less than 1% of the people who get valley fever die from it, after saying earlier that about 1/3 of people in the desert areas of Arizona will get it at some point. I think they should clarify how much "less than 1%" we're talking about, since 1% of 1/3 of the 4 million people in the Phoenix area is still a lot of people. I'm guessing that our babysitter will pull through (although I shouldn't joke - I think our friend's sister had a pretty serious case of this at some point).

Fortunately for us, we have good friends who came through as fill-in babysitters, and we were there to bring up the average age of the Editors crowd a little bit. Maybe I'll have to start going to more concerts, because I find that I appreciate live music even more now that I realize how far I am from ever having that kind of musical skill. I already knew I couldn't sing, but now that I'm probably the worst Guitar Hero player in my wife's extended family (at least among those older than six who have spent at least a few days playing), I realize that I'm really far away from being able to even play fake guitar. My fake life is not going well in general, I guess.

Not Quite Human

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Yesterday I stopped by H.I.'s desk and noticed that his 2007 motivational calendar had been replaced by a 2008 S.F. Giants calendar. Then I noticed that his motivational calendar was actually quite the opposite, and now I think I need to find one for myself. I'd be much more effective at my job if I had something like this gem upon which to draw every day:



That particular de-motivational message actually did make me feel a little better, because after thinking about what I do all day, I'm pretty certain my job won't be done by robots before I retire. Some might question how essential my job is in the first place, given that I just took a whole week off and the company didn't seem to lose any money, but let's assume that I add some sort of value. Until they come up with a robot that can pretend to predict the future, create power point slides depicting that imaginary future, and defend those slides over the phone to people who question your work just for the sake of doing so, I think I'll be OK.

Actually, I think they're already working pretty hard on the phone part. I think I mentioned before that they have a computer read announcements at Sky Harbor Airport here in Phoenix (which probably cost them more than just hiring someone to read them), and while it's quite obviously a computer, you can at least understand it. I say "it" because while the voice is quite clearly supposed to be male, I'm not sure how you tell the gender of a computer - it could be a female bodybuilder or something like that.

Fortunately, when I called today to order tickets for a Spring Training game, the computer trying to take my money gave me her name. She was quite clearly a computer, too, but I guess the people in charge over there are either trying to make us think otherwise or maybe hit some kind of government diversity quota. The latter may be the case, because she (I can't remember her name) was evidently not a native of this country, since she didn't understand about half of what I said and almost sold me 30 tickets instead of 3 (I think she may actually work a second job at Wendy's, because the other day I almost ended up with 4 chicken nugget kids' meals rather than a 4-chicken nugget kid's meal). Either way, I've watched enough Battlestar Galactica to know that it's a slippery slope between naming your robots and ending up as one of the few survivors of the human race stuck on a spaceship with Edward James Olmos.

Because I couldn't find the right magical combination of words to get her to give me tickets in a section other than 25, I had to give up and push "0," which most of the time is the secret code to get rid of this fake person and talk to the actual Wizard of Oz. Before I could get to that guy, I had to listen to a pre-recorded message (spoken by an actual person - what's the point of hiring a computer if you don't make her work all the time?) telling me that, no joke, they charge a bunch of service fees to cover their costs and that they "make a profit" on all of their service fees.

With my head spinning a bit from that apparent contradiction, I was connected to the ticket guy, who I don't think gave me his name and proceeded to try to sell me the same tickets that Ms. CPU did. After a bit of negotiation to find other seats and a lengthy application process (which included him reading my name back to me by saying, "That's Jordan, as in Michael Jordan"), I finally hung up with exactly three tickets in a section near the Giants dugout (because H.I. will be there, as you might have guessed).

In places where robots aren't ready to take over, people seem to find illegal aliens an acceptable alternative. Apparently this goes on all over the world, because we were touring a coffee plantation in Costa Rica (the reason for my one-week absence) as part of a guided tour, and the tour guide said that most of the workers there were illegals from a neighboring country. This, of course, prompted the loud Californian woman (who had earlier compared her pale self to Rosa Parks when she had to go all the way to the back of the tour bus) to grill the poor tour guide on immigration policy and on how much these people are paid. It's a good thing the tour guide wasn't a robot, because he might have turned into the Terminator at that point.

There are some jobs I'd prefer that neither robots nor illegal aliens take over, like flying airplanes. As suggested above, I have to trust Bill Gates with my professional life to some degree, but I don't think I'd trust him with my actual life. Perhaps to reassure us that he was alive and breathing, one of our pilots on the flight back from Costa Rica popped on the microphone about every 10 minutes to tell us about a scenic volcano or lake to be seen from the right side of the plane. Of course, we were sitting on the left side of the plane, so it came across more like this: