New Life for Zombies!

Just as I suspected, we're in a new golden age of zombie movies! Zombie moviews score high with reviewers: From the SF Chronic: "When the zombies you love are trying to eat you, it just can't get any better: "-- Last four major zombie films: Combined score 278
-- Last four Tom Hanks films: 248
-- Last four James Bond films: 236
-- Last four Merchant/Ivory films: 234
-- Last four Woody Allen films: 215
The lesson here is simple: Directors need to find ways to put more zombies in their movies. Somebody might have actually attended 'Le Divorce' if the walking dead were added to the equation. Wouldn't Allen's 'Melinda and Melinda' have worked infinitely better if it was a love story and a dark horror comedy featuring lumbering ghouls who want to consume Will Ferrell's flesh?"

Had to Check the Calendar

On the radio this morning, thought I was listening to a Neil Young satire ("...come knocking at your door, you don't love me no more."). Was it April 1? No! A documentary on the world's most self absorbed indie musician, Daniel Johnston, 42 and living with his parents: "NPR : 'Devil and Daniel Johnston' Indulges Singer's Fans: "A new documentary follows Indie singer-song writer Daniel Johnston's decline into mental illness. It combines standard documentary fare with Johnston's own recordings, taped over the course of 20 years. Los Angeles Times and Morning Edition critic Kenneth Turan reviews The Devil and Daniel Johnston."

There's a Name for Why I Don't Know Who You Are

From a web site (name disguised): "Prof. XXX suffers from a mild case of prosopagnosia or 'face blindness'. So, although he has met you before, and sometimes more than once, it is quite probable than he will not recognize you when you meet again. Please, re-introduce yourself telling him when and where you met the previous time(s). "

When in Vancouver...

Visit where Hollywood makes movies and TV shows, Not to mention all those episodes of the X-Files: http://x-tour.com/. Be sure to go by cancer man's acting studio, and note all those places where the Highlander did his swordfights.

Boyd does a great tour, and he will show you Agent Scully's apartment (Pendrell Suites), also used in a recent episode, "Chocolate"," in Masters of Horror. The back of the place was used in "Romeo Must Die" to depict an Oakland location. Now if I can only talk Boyd into doing an Outer Limits tour.

When Pop Stars Go Cannibal

Old Roman adage of "Remember you too are mortal," whispered to heoroes during their triumphal procession, should be updated to, "Remember your shelf life!" : Simpson Mocks Spears - Jokaroo.com

Rescued RV Family Was on the Run

I was wondering earlier this week about exactly how does a family in a RV become snowbound in southern Oregon for two weeks? They were rescued before starvation or the other worse alternative set in.
Turns out they are survivalists. Figures, being trapped in a RV should have been the tip off. Also, in true survivalist fashion, they are wanted on drug and gun charges:The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Couple rescued in snowbound RV face drug charges: "ASHLAND, Ore. � Arizona authorities have issued a warrant on drug-related and weapons charges for a couple who were among a family of six rescued from a snowbound motor home this week, according to court documents.
Warrants were issued for Elbert Higginbotham � a self-described survivalist � and his wife on Wednesday, a day after the six were rescued in a mountainous region in Southern Oregon, according to records in Snowflake Justice Court in Snowflake, Ariz.
Elbert Higginbotham is wanted on charges of possession of dangerous drugs for sale, misconduct involving weapons and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the court records. All are felonies. His wife, Becky, is wanted on charges of possession of dangerous drugs for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the records."

Warmer Weather = More Potent Wine

At least there's some good news is in all this global warming: Acta Horticulturae Wine and climate change

Climate Change and Marine Life

To better understand the science of climate change, it would have helped had I studied marine biology and oceanography (or math or physics; however, I did get to critique a lot of films).

My question is if it warms up here in the Pcific northwest, do we get invaded by toxic, stinging, and biting sea creatures, and be more like Australia? Doesn't answer my question: http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_48/issue_4/1498.pdf

Puget Sound Climate Change

The global climate change course I am taking has a very Boston and easterm Massachusetts flavor. Something to with it being offered by Harvard and Tufts. So, now I am curious: what's in store for us aroundSeattle? Drier with more snow caps. Good news is that Seattle won't sink (we're being pushed upwards by the tectonic plates): See ASLO paper.

It Works in the Movies

From the Victor Valley Daily Press in California: Burglary attempt backfires: "A would-be burglar of the Cell Comm/ Nextel store in the 15000 block of Seventh Street tried to shoot out the lock on the door just before 1 a.m. Tuesday. Instead, the bullet ricocheted off the metal lock and struck the man in the chest, according to co-owner of the store Cary 'Buba' Walker."

Tap or Bottled?

Not surprising that San Franciscans can't tell bottled water from tap water. Penn and Teller claim that there is a difference: American municipal water is not only cheaper, but safer.

SAN FRANCISCO / Spigot water advocates take it to the bottle / Marketed brands no better than city stuff in taste test: "In another of those blind tastings designed to demonstrate what suckers water drinkers have become, ordinary tap water faced off against its high-priced bottled brethren in head-to-head combat.
The idea, according to the earnest young organizers of the first-ever Tap Water Challenge, was to see if people could tell tap water from the $1-a-bottle stuff.
The answer was, they couldn't. "

Texas Arrests 30 Drunks in Bar for Being Drunk

In Texasis it is illegal to be intoxicated in a bar.

Did I wake up in some alternate universe? In a universe where it is against the law to engage the time honored Texan tradition of drinking in a bar unitl one must simply puke on one's cowboy boots.

If this is true, then did John Wayne and Jim Bowie choose to die at the Alamo in this bizzaro Texas? If they had known it would've come to this, they might have decided that being Mexican wasn't so bad after all and would've headed over to a cantina for a couple cold ones before heading home.

Read for yourself how communism has triumphed in the Lone Star State: nbc5i.com - News - Bar Sweep Sparks Controversy: "At one location, for example, agents and police arrested patrons of a hotel bar. Some of the suspects said they were registered at the hotel and had no intention of driving. Arresting authorities said the patrons were a danger to themselves and others."

"Going to a bar is not an opportunity to go get drunk," TABC Capt. David Alexander said. "It's to have a good time but not to get drunk.""

NT Times Raves about "Shadow: Dead Riot"

New zombie movie set in womens' prison. Glad to see NY Times is finally getting with it (another good sign was the science fiction section in their Sunday Book Review): Shadow: Dead Riot - Review - Movies - New York Times: "Shadow' comes on like the low-budget love child of 'Evil Dead' and 'Reform School Girls,' a crazy camp blitzkrieg of lockdown melodrama, kung fu catfights, black-magic corniness, exploding torsos, perverted doctors, impromptu zombie childbirth and bountiful lesbian shower scenes. "

NPR Goes Mainstream

NPR payola scandal. However, there is a difference: NPR programmer and DJs don't go for cash or coke. From the Detroit Free Press:

Scandal shakes public radio: "The sedate, urbane world of public broadcasting was rattled Thursday as prosecutors charged three former employees of Michigan Public Media with illegally accepting golf club memberships, Persian rugs, airline tickets and massages in exchange for on-air considerations at the state's top public radio station."

American Bohos Explained to Non-Americans

Life in the USA: The Complete Guide for Immigrants and Americans: "Artists and Intellectuals
Artists and intellectuals have always been out of the American mainstream. Some artists, intellectuals or university academics may seem to lead typically middle class lives, but they are always at least a little different in the eyes of most other Americans of all classes. It is very difficult to make a living in the visual or performing arts in the United States. Under some highly controversial programs, federal, state and local government do help some artists, but, for the most part, artists have to depend on the free market, which is often unkind to them. Many artists and performers are forced to take unrelated jobs to pay their bills. Arts-oriented cities such as New York and Los Angeles are filled with young people in the theater, dance, music or the visual arts who work as waiters or waitresses. "

Long Rant about Fencing Suppliers

I realize and appreciate that the major fencing suppliers are providing a valuable service, and that they have supported fencing for many years (giving discounts, buying ads in national and local publications, providing valuable and free technical support, and more). I am thankful that one fencing suppler even kept very late hours and was always helpful giving advice on how to fix gear, and I'm sure some fencing customers can be very demanding and neurotic about cost, but...

Observations and suggestions to fencing suppliers based from personal experience:

• Take a minute to get all the information right: name, address, phone number, payment type, and equipment ordered. (One supplier can get at least one of this wrong on every order. Consistently. They even screwed up an over the counter transaction and called me the following week because they didn't get the credit card info correct. I called them back, twice, to try and correct their error. I eventually gave up trying to teach them how to spell my name.)
• If you haven't put your customer information on your computer, then you're ten years overdue. Having a database can prevent errors (see above).
• Until the order starts being taken correctly, our club isn't going to be your re-seller.
• We're stilling waiting for a $30 item left out of a two thousand dollar order. We've called and asked about it several times. We've been waiting for over three years. Take a second and try to remember the last time we ordered anything from you, was that three years ago?
• If you're not taking orders over the phone today or this evening, then why are you answering your business phone? If it's not a business phone, then get one, along with an answering machine. (It's time to join the 80s decade.)
• Telling me to call back later when you're open tells me that you don't want my money. Very well, you're not getting it.
• If you back-ordered an item, how about sharing that information on the shipping invoice, along with an ETA? It saves you from answering the phone later and trying to look up the order in under ten minutes.
• Is there a way to use pre-shrunk material for cotton jackets and knickers? Until then, could you mention somewhere in your flashy web site or amusing catalog that the shrinkage rate is close to 40%. By the way, hand wash and air dry should be on labels from items sold by Victoria's Secret.
• When your knickers don't shrink, they go transparent after several washings. Very embarrassing when one is wearing something from Victoria's Secret.
• Have you actually tried on some of the jackets and knickers that you sell? If they fit you perfectly, then I know what you look like: your nipples are 4 inches above your waistline, and your knees extend 3 feet below your crotch.
• Some of us travel light, and if we take the time during a trip to find your store, pick out gear, and ask you to ship it, then please try to show a little dignity--don't snibble or pout, and ask that the order be phoned in later.
• After you tell us to phone in an order rather than ship it from an over the counter sale, then could you please not screw it up? (I wanted the two blades that I spent nearly an hour picking out, you sent me only one blade that you grabbed by random.)
• When you take an e-mail order, provide confirmation and an ETA. Otherwise someone is going to make a phone call, and we all know how much you love answering the phone.
• Email messages aren't secure. When ordering gear on the Internet, most if us prefer a secure web based form.
• If the URL doesn't say "https," then it's not a web-secure order, no matter what your web order form says.
• When we send you back your box saying one of the functions doesn't work, before you send it back, could you test it after you supposedly have fixed it?
• Would it kill you to send an email message or leave a phone message telling us that you are sending back the allegedly repaired box?
• When we call you to ask how the repair on the box is going, could you take the time to call us back?
• Tracing a lost package is easier on our end when you call us back with shipping information. (I had to trace the allegedly fixed scoring box from my end, because no one could be bothered to tell us the UPS shipping number on the package. )
• After we send back the still malfunctioning device for the second time, are we being too needy and demanding because we want you to call us or send an email message with some idea of when the box might be fixed?
• We've done many thousands of dollars of business with you for over nearly 25 years. The only time you contact us is when you send us your terribly amusing catalog. Last year you sent it to us four days before Christmas. And your web site did not match the catalog you sent us. Ho-ho-ho. Perhaps you are wondering why your Christmas sales were off?
• If you prefer that your customers use your web site, rather than telling us this when we call, don't put a phone number on your web site.
• If you prefer that we call in the order, rather than sending an email message telling us to call, you should give up on the web form that never seems to work right.
• Have you ever bothered trying to find out more about us and the clubs in our region? If so, did you ask about the major clubs, and what the market might be for your scoring boxes? In case you are interested, you lost 40 or more lost sales for your scoring boxes. (Remember all the problems about trying to get our box fixed and how you did not get back to us? You don't remember? We sure do! And news travels very fast in small circles.)
• If your website doesn't have current products and prices, and instead has many "under construction" messages, then we can't take you very seriously, now can we?
• If it's been "under construction" for six months, then it's not being constructed.
• Less flashing banners and colors on your web site, and more information about your products.
• By concentrating on the highest level national tournaments, you are reaching 200 hundred fencers (who feel they should get their equipment at no charge), and you are ignoring the other 19,800 fencers.
• By concentrating on the 20,000 USFA fencers, you are ignoring the other 190,800 fencers.
• When you finally do go out of business, could you let us know on your web site and answering machine? Being upfront and honest shows that you respect your long suffering customers; however, boarding up your shop, disconnecting the phone, and not updating your web site exposes your shoddy business practices for one last time.

When Life Imitates the Onion

2005 Oscar Awards features self-referential and self-absorbed ad showing M. Night Shyamalan being self-rereferential and self absorbed: American Express My Life, My Card . Are we seeing people with dead careers, but they don't know it?

El Morro Trailer Park No More

LA Times notes that the state is evicting trailer park residents after their leases came up.



Some of the great charms of of the Pacific Coast Highway in Orange County 30 years were its undeveloped beauty and unpretentious residents. As a reward for completing exams I would drive up the coast and stop at a date shake shack on bluff overlooking the beach, and if the shack was empty, I would get the attention of the surfers below, and after catching his wave, a surfer would clamber up and make one of the tastiest and sweetest milk shakes that ever existed. Sometimes I would head down to Crystal Cove Park and envy the residents by the beach. There was a tidy and small trailer park between the cliff and shore, with happy people in lawn chairs, drinking beer and chatting. The flag flew stiffly in the ocean winds, as if to herald that here lived a proud and free people. The El Morro Village trailer park was sold off decades ago, and the community knew it was a matter of time before they would be booted out to make room for more park land. A new and different era arrived, one that turned the Pacific Coast Highway into a crowded road going by condos and development communities with entrances straight out of Las Vegas. The newer, richer citizens of Newport Beach, Corona Del Mar, and Laguna Beach resented the trailer park, the people within it, and all they seemed to stand for; the ecology would be more in harmony, the privileged reasoned, if the shiny aluminum trailers and their denizens were to go away. Finally the end was near and the people of El Morro met to together to say good bye the only they knew how: they threw a party.

El Morro Residents Let It Go - Los Angeles Times: "A lot of the media has been sympathetic to the residents,' said Fern Pirkle, a spokeswoman for Friends of Newport Coast, a group that supported the conversion.

'But I'm sorry; it seems it's very selfish of them to have held on to those leases while we, the taxpayers, have waited so long.'"

The Day After Fat Tuesday

This morning I paused to hear birds sing and to see them dive through fir branches. Today seemed to have some special significance, but I didn't remember why until I heard the news on the radio. If the Marde Gras parades had been yesterday then today was Ash Wednesday.

In a Texas border town parish dominated by foreign born Irish (FBI) priests and nuns, Ash Wednesday was an especially solemn and joyless affair, and we small children were commanded to be extra penitent, ungrateful wretches that we were. At mass, we received thumbsized smudges of ash upon our forehead to remind us to be repentant all day .

Across the border though, the mood was festive in the plaza, and the Mexican children were dressed in costumes and allowed by their indulgent and loving parents to eat un-Lenten candy treats, washed down with non-sacred Coca Colas. The foreheads of the Mexicans displayed a stylish cross.

`Ash-Wednesday', by T S Eliot:
"Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice "