Truth

Yes, Another Blog

2007-10-15T07:03:00.000-05:00

I've done this twice before, this starting of a new blog. Once to start American Stranger, and the other to bring my old blog into the 21st century.

Now I think I need to do it again. Why?

- This blog is too vague. What is it about? It's called Truth, for christ's sake. What does that even mean? I review books, movies, talk about baseball, finances, writing, reading, stuff that happens, etc. I need to focus on something more specific.

- It's not organized enough. Whenever I get the itch to post something I do. If not, the blog goes untouched. I want to be more serious about it.

- Not that many people are reading it. This really doesn't bother me that much but when I see other blogs that are getting 2,000–3,000 views a month consistently, it makes me really envious. Why don't I have that kind of readership? No promotion. No part of an online community or network. Why? What am I going to tell other bloggers about my site, "It's about everything!" Not gonna work.

So what's the new blog going to be about? Well, I was thinking of calling it The Writer's Wallet, so I could talk about writing, everything that comes with being a writer, the career choices that need to be made, but also the financial side of it. Saving money and preparing for retirement. That pretty much covers everything I'm really excited about right now. But that blog already exists, here. The weird thing is, the blogger is in her 20s, has an MA in Writing, and lives in Chicago.

Weird.

Anyway, I'm looking to really take this seriously and do it on my own url name and everything. It's going to be a lot of work but I think it's the right direction to go on.

I'll probably still post stuff on here until I get the new one going. Any ideas for a name?

Classical Rhetoric in Advertising

2007-10-12T06:57:00.001-05:00

My Grad School professor would be so proud . . .

By the way though, seriously, if you ever read some of the classic Greek texts you will hear an eerie echo to all the lawyer shows on TV, it's really creepy. Those guys were doing it throughout their lives, not just in the courtroom. Speaking and communicating effectively was the equivalent of being famous today: everyone wants to be it.

Taking your Bankers for a Ride

2007-10-12T06:51:00.000-05:00

This article is short, sweet, and not all that deep—perfect for it to appeal to a mass of readers.

I like it because I'm sick of reading all the articles of how credit-card companies are robbing us and how banks are robbing us with their fees and how "poor us."

Enough.

Here is what a responsible person can do.

- Pay with your credit card all you want, but pay it all off and enjoy the various rewards programs available (HINT: Cash is always your best option).

- Keep your money in a high-yield savings account that earns between 4-5 percent.

Just those two things. It's a start, so if you don't do this already, master it before you move on to investing that money.

Neuromarketing

2007-10-10T06:35:00.000-05:00

Here is an interesting article on a new way to gauge if/how people like ads.

It seems like a great way to overcome that whole dishonesty that people can have when asked a direct question about a product or experience.

This way what they say can be matched up with what's going on in the brain to find out what kind of reaction the ad/product really caused, thus allowing marketers to fine tune their message/product.

Google Maps brings creepy to Chicago

2007-10-10T06:29:00.000-05:00

So Google Maps has finally brought their nifty little Streetview feature to Chicago. It's pretty crazy and I'm sure the stories of people finding themselves on there aren't far behind (no luck yet finding myself though).

Big Brother comes to Chicago!

Becoming an Expert

2007-10-08T20:46:00.000-05:00

So here's a really interesting article about becoming an expert at something (anything, but mostly focused on sports, music, and writing) by practicing it. Not just doing it passively but by something called "deliberate practice:"

Deliberate practice is just this:

performing your skill (or, more typically, a piece of it)
monitoring your performance
evaluating your success
figuring out how to do it better

This is something I've always been interested going back to my baseball days but more recently when I was trying to learn to play the guitar and learning to play golf.

The key part of practicing seems to be making it constructive. That is, monitoring and evaluating to see how it can be done better. But it's difficult when you're doing something "fun" with other people because you want to a) win and b) have fun. So it's tough to get better when you're trying to do those two things.

The article quotes a huge (44 pages) academic study that I printed out and will try to get through because it's just a very interesting topic for me. The guy talks about becoming an expert writer and how writing for that website he gets to practice and by reading reader's comments he can gauge how he's doing in terms of getting better or not.

Which, honestly, is the whole reason why I started a website and then this blog. But it sucks because I haven't gotten enough people to visit the site and I guess haven't compelled them enough to leave comments on the issue or the writing.

I've been thinking of posting some of the stories that I've run through the submission process (for publication) and don't think are going to be pushed anymore. Maybe stories are more likely to stir up some comments rather than inane talk about random subjects.

But we'll just have to wait and see.

Spreading the Love

2007-10-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I lent DFW's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, the book that got me started on his writing.

And today he told me he's done with it and laughed out loud at the title essay of the book, and that overall he enjoyed the book a lot.

It was genuine and he wasn't trying to mollify me or anything.

There's no better feeling than spreading writing that you think is fantastic and having that person enjoy it.

Reading—Books

2007-10-08T20:29:00.000-05:00

So I was reading Fiasco, which is about the US invasion and occupation in Iraq. I don't like all the rhetoric that is associated with Iraq, no matter which political side it's coming from, but I was hoping the book was something like Imperial Life in the Emerald City, which I really enjoyed.

And I was, for a minute. It's a very thorough book. He goes back and looks at what the experts said in the papers and in the news, so it's very interesting to see how sure they were of their opinions and how that unfolded.

But it was too much for me, I ended up skimming the last parts of it.

I get it: They fucked up big time. They should've paid more attention to the occupation part of the plan, and once they took down the regime they should've been less aggressive towards the Iraqi people.

I get it, and this book hammers the points home with way too much data and information. I just got tired of it after a while. The individual experiences of some of the soldiers are pretty compelling, but for each one of those there is a long, drawn out tiff between two high-level officials: one that was right and the other that was wrong.

So I didn't really read it all the way through. Then I moved on to Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which I had wanted to read for a while because I thought it would help me get into the mood to write this story I've been thinking about.

But it was disappointing. I never got into it and I dropped it.

And, of course, I felt guilty. I don't like leaving books unread like that.

But you know what, it's OK. I realized that when I'm leaving work and not really looking forward to getting home and reading, it's not a good sign. Forcing myself to get through a tedious book or one that isn't meeting my expectations is stupid.

There are too many great books out there to waste time on lame ones.

So now I'm onto How Soccer Explains the World, recommended by Nelson. Just started it, but so far it's promising.

But just in case I have The Braindead Megaphone waiting in the wings. Nothing like a little George Saunders to get me to switch books.

Chicago Marathon

2007-10-08T19:44:00.001-05:00

I was surprised at how many people didn't see the ending to the marathon yesterday. I always try to at least watch the ending of either the Boston Marathon or the Chicago Marathon if that's where I'm living.

And yesterday was a doozy.

Unfortunately, the death of a runner to due heat exhaustion and a pre-existing heart condition, ended up overshadowing the incredible finish of both the men's and the women's race.

The gist:

For the men's, it was down to two men and I was of course rooting for the underdog (U). The U was starting to fall behind as the finish line loomed and then out of nowhere he starts to sprint and they both cross the line at the exact same line. Seriously people, it was a photo-finish to a freakin' marathon! I was yelling at the screen the whole time and after a few minutes finally there was a shot that showed that U indeed took the race.

Wow.

Then the ladies. It was down to two of them as well. One, the experienced (E) woman who had won several races before and is well known. Running behind her was the Rookie (R), who was running her very first marathon, was keeping up with her.

Now, I don't know what kind of sexual-orientation stereotypes are out there for female marathoners (if any) but with around 15-20 minutes left R took off and left E in the dust. Which cued the gushing from one of the female commentators on TV. She was talking about how perfect her form was, her abs were so perfect, her determination is incredible—she basically had her on the covers of magazines and all kinds of ludicrous stuff like that.

And of course I was cheering on, her being the kind of uber-underdog of the contest. And then reports from further back in the race came that E was hurting and slowing down, that the distance was impossible to overcome.

Ten minutes later another report: she's looking stronger, better, but still, no chance.

Then we get to the last 3-4 minutes of the race and you still can't see E. R is coming down the final stretch and she's HIGH FIVING people in the crowd. Which kind of gave me a little bit of pause, as in, "wait a minute, underdogs don't do that."

Then she starts waving at the crowd.

Then WAY in the back you see what looks like a newborn, uncoordinated (but FAST) horse is barreling down the street. And R has no idea because there are a couple of men also running in the vicinity. And she's coming harder and harder and I'm thinking NO FUCKING WAY!

And then with like 10 yards left R catches a glance to her right and sees E and she panics and tries to sprint the last section but NOT IN TIME! E TAKES IT HANDILY! (then she passed out on the pavement and the look on R's face is one of those that will become Marathon lore for years to come)

I was yelling at the screen NO WAY NO WAY NO WAY!!!

I'm all about the underdog but yesterday I learned there's something I like better: the impossible becoming possible in front of my eyes.

Story

2007-10-04T07:34:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I'm getting out of a cab and I see there's a wallet sitting there that doesn't belong to me. It's a fancy Prada wallet and in a split second I decide to take it instead of giving it to the cab driver.

Minutes later I rifle through it and find a driver's license and a business card. It's a woman's, a lawyer. So I call her up and she has no idea that she's lost her wallet. She seems vaguely concerned about the whole thing but praises my honesty in a a kind of general way. Like maybe she's happy she'll get her wallet back.

So I call her later in the day on her cell phone and she picks up:

Who is this?

Carlos.

Who?

Carlos . . . the wallet guy? (and here I'm standing on a crowded platform)

Oh right! Listen I'm having lunch right now with a wonderful friend of mine here in Little Italy and then we're driving around in his spectacular convertible.

That sounds . . . awesome.

Great! I'll come to you then, OK?

Sure.

(talking to her "date"): No it's the man who found my wallet. Isn't he a lovely person? Isn't that great?

See you later.

So this is the type of person that can actually afford to lose her wallet and not even worry about it and also is the type of person who lays it on real thick. The way people in authority feel they have to treat their underlings (kind of like children) to "keep them happy." They feel they are genuine too, which couldn't be more wrong.

So she shows up in the sports car and a short red skirt (I knew she was at least 50 from her driver's license) but when I see her face you can see she's had major work done. She kind of scared of being in the River North area and kind of nervous talking to me, a stranger who works in that area. She's shy but thankful then waves some money in my face.

Please take it! Please, take some money!

No really that's OK.

No! Please!

(the money is in my face)

So I take it and wonder if she can see in my face that I considered—for a split second—to just take the 60 bucks in the wallet and throw the rest in the trash somewhere, or burn it. But that's just not me.

So now I have a pretty good story to tell and 20 bucks to spare.

It ain't 60 bucks but I'd rather have 20 and the story.

Taxing Marijuana and Morals

2007-10-02T07:36:00.000-05:00

Here is a nice little article about a new study that shows how much money could be made from taxing this drug ($31 billion).

The article itself is pretty interesting in that it's a serious study about marijuana, which I think is good. But it reminds me of a book I'm reading right now called Fiasco, in that certain people's morals or convictions just won't allow for reasoning.

In the book's case, officials wouldn't admit that their Iraq strategy is/was wrong and needed to be changed because that would imply a mistake had been made. Instead, they felt that it was more important to portray an image of confidence and strength to the American public, no matter how right or wrong it may be.

Same thing happens with marijuana—it will never be legally taxed or legalized because government leaders feel that it implies that drug use is OK.

That just won't fly in the Bible belt.

So it's unfortunate that sometimes good solutions will never be considered because of moral issues that just fog up the whole deal.

I remember having arguments with people about legalization and I tried to draw an analogy with alcohol. The other person vehemently said that it was different because alcohol was legal, hence OK. That it was an American tradition, and that alcohol was totally different.

What about prohibition, I said?

It's not prohibited anymore, he said.

Letting the government tell you what is legal and illegal is correct, but letting them tell you what is moral and immoral just doesn't make sense.

Blades of Glory—Review

2007-09-30T15:19:00.000-05:00

It's a Will Ferrell movie.

That's how all his movies are defined and for the most part it's pretty accurate (except for Stranger Than Fiction).

This one is reminds me of Talladega Nights, which I fell asleep an hour into it.

It's not that I'm not a Ferrell fan, but his kind of humor doesn't evolve from movie to movie, from decade to decade. It's like watching Saturday Night Live.

Ten years ago.

There were actually a couple of funny moments here, no thanks to either of the leads (Napoleon Dynamite is the other lead). There is a sequence where the man-on-man partnership on the ice is ridiculed, and one "fan" shows a hot dog bun with two wieners in it and says "It's just not natural," or something like that.

That was pretty funny.

The other moment is reminiscent of The Pamchenko Maneuver from that old-school skating movie where the hockey player and the ice-skating girl get together (this movie is basically a remake of that movie, The Cutting Edge, but with two guys).

Grainy footage shows a pair of skaters in Korea trying to do the move and he ends up decapitating his partner.

That's the other funny part.

The last 20 minutes or so were pretty entertaining because I kept trying to think of a worse movie. I didn't fall asleep, I didn't turn it off, I watched it all the way to the end. So I figured there had to have been something worse.

So those 20 minutes went by pretty fast. Then it was over and Mindy and I looked at each other and gave each other a visual "WOW."

As in, Wow, that sucked.

Wow, that was not funny.

Wow, I may be done with Will Ferrell.

Perfect Stranger—Review

2007-09-30T15:07:00.000-05:00

This one is starring Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, so it's kind of like "Ok, I don't really remember hearing a lot of buzz about this movie, but it can't be that bad if those two are in it."

Wrong.

I was shocked when Halle Berry won her Oscar for her role in Monster's Ball, all she did was shoot a pretty crazy fake-sex scene. Other than that, not much to it. This movie really doesn't show how well Halle Berry can act. She is certainly not Oscar caliber in my performance, but she's way better than this. And honestly, so it Bruce Willis.

This movie feels like a midnight-on-USA type movie, only the "fucks" and curses aren't edited out with ridiculous voice acting. The script is terrible, the dialog is cheesy, and the acting is abhorrent.

The whole time I was thinking to myself, "This movie was written by either the female lead (who is a journalist/feminist wannabe) or the male half-lead (nerdy computer guy who never gets the girl but is deep down disturbed).

I settled for the latter. The words that are put into the females in this movie sound like something out of an old comic book. In fact, that's probably where this guy who wrote the story got it from.

Lame lame lame.

The ending is an attempt at a "you'll never guess this" twist, which was successful for the most part, but then I read that there are three other alternative endings that have each one of the other main characters as the "bad guy." So the producers just picked the most surprising ending, figuring that it was the only thing that would make this totally cliche and awful, which it still is.

This is the most fabricated, unauthentic movie I have seen in a long long time. The characters are hollow and the plot is thin. Stay away.

Comerica Park

2007-09-24T20:52:00.000-05:00

Got to go on Sunday to one of the newest ballparks around.

It was awesome. The fountains in center field spray up really high when something cool happens. There is a loud growl sound (a Tiger, I assume) that is played when something good happens. The fans were all very polite and pretty pumped when Joel Zumaya came in.

It was a gorgeous day too.

I used some binoculars to check out the field and I was impressed at how well kept the grass and infield was. I would do anything to play on a field like that just once.

My record at Comerica: 1-0.

Now we can add Comerica to the other parks I've been to: Wrigley, Fenway, wherever the California Angels played back in the day, and The Cell. That's not that many actually.

Call Me by Your Name

2007-09-20T07:11:00.001-05:00

You know how some books/stories have titles that are kind of buried in the middle somewhere and when you finally get to it you're like "ahh, there it is. I get it"?

This book does that but it also does something reminiscent of the short-story genre, something I think is great when it's well done but is becoming more and more rare. In fact, I can't remember when the last time was that I saw it: the last words in the book are the title, again.

Here is the funny sidestory to this book: I knew very little about it, a glowing review on the Amazon Book Blog got me pointed in its direction (from the AMZ Blog: it may be the best account I've ever read of what it's like to want someone--especially when that someone may or may not want you back.) and I decided I would give it a shot. The author sounded vaguely familiar but the book itself wasn't on any best-selling lists and wasn't receiving any hype. So it was a shot in the dark. An underdog.

I went to the library to find it and, knowing it was a novel, looked under fiction. Not there. So I went and asked at the front desk.

"Oh, you want to go to our Gay and Lesbian section," and she walked me there.

"Heh, I guess that's what happens when you don't know what the book is about."

She wasn't buying it. It felt strange checking out a book from the Gay and Lesbian collection. Before that I was under the impression I was simply reading a potentially very good novel.

No worries, because that's exactly what I got.

The book centers around a 17-year-old kid at his parents' summer home in Italy. He falls in love with one of the boarders, a 24-year-old American professor working on his manuscript.

It felt like the reading was going very slow at the beginning, and that's because the writing is so enjoyable I was really taking my time going through it all. It's the best writing I've encountered so far this year.

The book made me reflect on memories of my own childhood/adolescence and the way looking back on them can be so enjoyable and mournful.

I'm realizing now that I'm not in the mood to review this book right now, so I'll stop and maybe come back to it. I just finished it yesterday and I'm still kind of digesting the thing.

New Blog

2007-09-20T07:05:00.000-05:00

I ran across a new (to me) personal-finance blog called The Simple Dollar that is great, easy reading. The guy behind it had some troubles and he managed to overcome them. Now he's sharing his insight with everyone else.

What I really like about it is he's a regular dude, no fancy talk. I also like that, because of his whole financial journey, he discovered something that seems totally random about himself: he loves to cook. It's become a real passion of his and you can see the enthusiasm when you read the blog.

It's a classic case of getting someone being so infatuated with a subject that it rubs off easily. He had me on Amazon looking at the cookware/books he recommends.

Ripping off senior investors

2007-09-17T06:45:00.001-05:00

The article is about the scams that are out there looking to grab senior-citizen's money. You've seen the infomercials on there about the Indian guy who made $3,000 in 15 minutes on his first trade without knowing English really well and on and on.

But as I read through it all I could think of was the 401k meeting we had at our job a few weeks ago. The company in charge does a little presentation every year to show us how everything works (to educate us, supposedly), for those that don't know about/care investing.

Which is great. I'm all for it. I had some questions I was curious about myself.

So after the woman goes through the presentation, the "main guy" steps up to kind of show his face (I'm assuming he's our executive contact) and tells us how great a job they are doing handling our retirement money.

A few things: I've read their whole menu of options and realized that they have one true index fund. Just one. Now, historically—if you read up on this issue—the majority of managed funds will not beat an index fund. So you pay less expenses and your money is well diversified. It's the big draw behind index funds.

So I start reading the details of each investment option we have (they have life cycle funds, which I think is perfect for most people. Conservative maybe, but ideal for most) and I'm noticing something very strange: most of their options are function like index funds but their expense ratios (their cost) are high like managed funds.

Turns out that that, for any given fund, 80% of it is tied to an index and the rest is managed. That means that with 80% of the money the manager is given, he just treats it like an index, which takes no skill at all. Then with the other 20% he tries to maneuver in such a way that he/she can beat the index.

It's a scam and I couldn't believe it.

So I raised my hand and mentioned it, "This is a two-part question. First, why do we have only one index fund and two, why are so many of the other funds 80% index funds but then we still get charged for an actively managed fund?"

A few things: this questions made me feel pretty good about myself. I was pointing out an injustice and I was also showing off how much more I knew about this stuff to my co-workers, who I was really helping out here, I thought.

The executive stepped forward, staring at me like I had just impregnated his virgin daughter, and said something to the effect of, "Why would we do that? Index fund? It doesn't make any sense to have a whole bunch of index funds in there. For us or for you. Our clients continue to come back to us, for our business, because we have"—and here is where I cringed and wanted to stand up and yell something out to everyone— "historically beaten the indexes."

This is something no fund manager could EVER get away with saying in a room filled with other managers unless he had the proof on a slide. Of course, I was being given the death-laser look so I just backed down and nodded my head.

Stupid.

I already knew the answers to all these questions. Of course they don't want index funds. They can charge 0.30 % for an index fund (which is still a little high for a standard S&P 500 index fund) but for their other funds they'll take over 1% of your money (A LOT) and tell you they are making sure that you are "beating the indexes."

It's the greatest job ever because when people get their statements and if they bother to check up against the indices and say "Whoa, wait a minute, why didn't you beat the index this year?" they can just say "It was a bad year for the economy, the elections got in the way, the war, etc. etc.

A week later I cut my contribution from 6% back down to the maximum matching of 4%. The hell I'm giving these people any more of my money than I have to.

Anyone else have good work/investment stories?

Slack Away

2007-09-17T06:44:00.001-05:00

My favorite article of the week and probably one of the biggest misunderstandings between employees and employers.

Credit Cards, ad nauseum

2007-09-17T06:40:00.000-05:00

So here we are again, railing at credit-card companies as if they were drug dealers preying on young people. Are they? Sure. But this is like the guy who sued McDonalds because he was fat.

People, credit cards are willing to give you money if you play it right. They are willing to give me $350 dollars (around every two years) worth of points (be it in cash, travel, and so on) for just using my card a lot. It costs me nothing. No debt, no interest payments, no late payments, none of that.

I think we need to enter into an era of education about a lot of things. Where the US is on a map, how to handle money, how to drive, etc. There are a lot of things, but if people would just understand, from a very young age, how important it is that they be taught these things, it would make a huge difference.

New Yorker the Food Issue

2007-09-13T17:44:00.000-05:00

This should be called the Foreigners issue instead. All it is is foreign writers writing about their experiences with food in their countries. Why is it so blatant? Is food only interesting to write or read about when it comes from some exotic place? Have they no faith that an American writer can write about some hometown cooking in an interesting way?

This has been, by far, one of the least enjoyable/interesting issues I've gotten.

The Raw Shark Texts

2007-09-13T17:04:00.000-05:00

This was one of those books you see on the outskirts of the media's book coverage. You see it in one place and you think, "That sounds interesting, I've never heard of this book/author."

Then time passes, you forget about it, and someone you know mentions it.

"Oh I saw that one, did you read it? No? Me neither, but doesn't it sound good?"

Then more time passes and eventually you'll see it mentioned somewhere else, again on the fringe. Now you're excited. Two fringy mentions tell you that it isn't mainstream—it's too unique for it to really be embraced by the masses, but it's good enough and intriguing enough for you to have spotted it twice.

So you take a chance.

I went on Amazon for this one and read the first few pages.

The movie Memento immediately comes to mind. I though "Cool." I love anything interesting where memory is played with.

So I read it.

The person who I had discussed it with asked me how it was. I said, "First it's cool, like a Memento, then it takes a turn into very abstract, very metaphysical, then it's like a detective/mystery novel for a while. Later a love story is at its center, a cheesy, cheesy, romance-novelish story. Which was awful. Then it goes back a little to the Memento type stuff for a little while before it just ends on a not-so-satisfying note."

It's on the fringe for a reason. But it's the type of book you have to read because, statistically, it means you'll expose yourself to really great books that aren't touted in the media. Sometimes you have to get through the duds though to find them. I'm glad I did because now I'm reading what could be one of the most well-written books of the year for me, Call Me By Your Name, and it too was a fringy book I took a chance on.

So it's all good.

New Books

2007-09-13T16:58:00.000-05:00

So lately I've been thinking a lot about how we discover new books and what prompts us to read them. Right now I'm reading Call Me By Your Name, which I found via the Amazon Book Blog, which is great.

I use Amazon a lot when I'm considering new books. I'll read the reviews, I'll read the user reviews, and if it has the feature, I'll take a look at the first few pages and see if I like it. Then I'll check to see if the Chicago Public Library system has it (usually they do, unless it's a really new book).

Then I'll add it to my Wish List on Amazon as a way to track which books I'm interested in reading.

I used to have a list like that on a sheet of paper but it's so messy and it got lost a few times. It's much easier to handle it on Amazon.

So Amazon, which I sometimes use to buy a book I really liked or really want, is very useful to someone like me, even if I rarely buy from them.

PS. Here's another way we take a chance on books: I went to the library to request Confessions of an Economic Hitman for me and A Thousand Splendid Suns for Mindy (which I too will read) and a Japanese woman helped me. When I asked for Hosseini's book she said:

"Ohhhhh, very good, very good. Hiss first a book, a Kite Runner, sooooo good. Sooo good. You read a this and you think 'He a cannot write a better, impossible.' Hosseini, he is doctor. Training as doctor. No writer. He come from Afghanistan when was nine."

Here she let out a guffaw.

"I think impossible! How a man write so good who is doctor and in other language! Impossible!"

So now of course I'm going to read Kite Runner. It was on the list, but it just jumped way up on the priority chart. It's one of those things that, if I see enough passion and enthusiasm from someone about something, I will want to look into it myself and see if I too will feel some of that magic.

New Place

2007-09-13T16:48:00.000-05:00

So I've moved from Lincoln Park in Chicago (here) to Lakeview, which is further north. That's not much of a difference, but now we (Mindy and I) live on Lake Shore Drive, which is right on the lake (here). And the two areas, close as they may be, are very different.

The most obvious is that we are now ON the lake. Not closer or with a better view, but we are right on the lake. Although our view is pretty good too (whenever a commercial comes on I just turn my head slightly and stare at the lake, the sailboats, the harbor—it's better than most commercials).

The differences: the people are older. More families. More older people. Even in our building you can feel the difference. It's a very nice building and most people in it you can tell have high standards of where they are supposed to live.

The word snobby comes to mind, but it's not quite right. Just more sophisticated. Less in touch with their goofy side. Older.

You walk down the street and instead of seeing people casually dressed, you feel like they have all taken it up a notch. It's weird for people like us because we are pretty simple, or at least we feel we are. So it feels weird. It was tough to adjust when we first moved in—it was like it was too nice a place for us.

But let me tell you, feeling a little weird at first in exchange for the view, the space, the pool, the gym, the grilling area on the 40th floor—I'll take it.

Also, we are right up close to Boystown, and I've never lived this close to it before.

I had visions of being stared at on the sidewalk or being hit on constantly. But no luck, as I said, I'm a simply guy and I don't think I have that put together look that is so prevalent in Boys Town.

So far the only real moment I've had where I thought to myself, "Of course! I'm in Boystown," was when I was looking around for a place to get a haircut. I saw two guys getting cuts through a window and thought, "Why not here?" The place was called "Great Head."

I walked on.

Amazon Book Blog

2007-09-12T07:53:00.000-05:00

I first got wind of this a month or so ago and it's a great way of discovering new books I wouldn't have heard of otherwise.

I'm very interested in the ways people decide to read certain books and this blog is how I heard of the current book I'm reading: Call Me by Your Name.

I would never have heard of this book and much less given it a shot, but the person who reviewed it on the Amazon blog wrote about it so eloquently and so highly that I just had to read it. That's the mark of a really good review and it makes me realize that when I review a book I'm usually trying too hard to recommend it. This person reviewed it just describing what the book was. Because he wasn't trying to convince me to read it, the review was that much more persuasive.

I need to do this more. I need to try to leave out the inevitable "You should really read this."

Anyway, check out the blog. You should really read it.

Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel

2007-09-10T21:43:00.001-05:00

It's the name of a book I just finished.

I'm always interested in how people get exposed to and eventually read certain books, and this one is a good example of how/why it can be so interesting. I'm pretty sure I got it from reading Michael Lewis' The New New Thing. He may have mentioned that this book was on one of Jim Clark's bookshelves.

It sounded interesting, so I checked it out. Is it about Zen or is it about archery? As the book would answer: it's all the same thing. Everything and nothing.

Yeah it can be confusing, and some people might get annoyed at such ethereal talk, but this is an interesting perspective on an otherwise well-guarded tradition that is intentionally difficult to penetrate.

The author was a German philosophy professor back in the day (the book came out in 1953) and he was offered a job in Japan, which he gladly took. He had always been interested in Zen and he figured Japan was the ideal place to learn it. He soon learned that Zen per-se isn't taught. It's "taught" in an indirect way. That is, you need to choose one of the arts—and be instructed in it—in order to "get" Zen. So the guy signs up for archery training with a master and over six years he is taught the art of archery.

Yeah, I know, lots of quotes. It's that kind of a "thing."

The good thing is that this guy is in and gets it, yet he's a Westerner and he understands this stuff won't come easily to us. Which is OK. Zen isn't something you can read about in a book and "get."

But since he's being exposed to Zen teachings through a sport, there are several instances in the book where—as an athlete—something clicks and I know what he's talking about.

Last week I read a quote relating to baseball:

"I've been doing a pretty good job of trying to keep things simple," Pena said Wednesday. "The less you think, the better you hit. Less is more."

Compare this to a line from the book:

"Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise."

This also goes back to something Bruce Lee deeply believed in. In Return of the Dragon, a scene was cut from the released version in which Lee expounds his spiritual beliefs on fighting. It goes something like this:

Question: What are your thoughts when facing an opponent?
Bruce: There is no opponent.
Question: Why is that?
Bruce: Because the word "I" does not exist.
A good fight should be like a small play . . . but played seriously. When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity . . . I do not hit . . . it (and here he brandishes his fist) hits all by itself.

It's all very cool and Zen and makes you want to learn it. The whole point is that, if that's what you're after, you won't learn it. That is where the arts come in. Arts like archery, sword fighting, martial arts, and even flower arrangement, which the author also gets into.

The idea is that individuals can eventually lose themselves in the "all," eliminating the "I" and achieving a state of Zen.

It's very "new agey" and hard to really swallow. And that's the whole idea behind it. It's like when Marcus Aurelius asks Maximus to be the next emperor and he says he doesn't want to. Aurelius responds with "That is why it must be you!"

That's what appeals to me about it. They aren't trying to actively bring you over to "their" side or convince you they know better than you. "They" is the wrong term here, actually. There is no "they." There is no you or I or any of it. It's all one thing that, if mastered, you can tap into and be a part of.

Zen holds great appeal to hard-headed people like me because it's intentionally hard to penetrate and get through to. It's hard work and requires discipline and sacrifice. Few things do anymore, and I like that.

I have to mention that, if it wasn't for the connections I can make with the stuff in the book in terms of sports, I probably wouldn't care to go any further and explore Zen. I wouldn't have enough to make me believe that any of it could apply to me.

But athletes have all felt those moments of Zen at one time or another. When you stop thinking and just react—letting all those hours of practice take over and just do the work without processing. Reacting according to how you've been trained.

One more baseball-related bit I found in the book. You ever watch Bobby Howry of the Chicago Cubs, the late Rod Beck, Matt Herges, or any of the other pitchers in the big leagues that do it? They have a very particular breathing routing before every pitch they throw. The first thing the author is taught in his archery lessons is breathing. It's the first step to getting your consciousness out of the way and losing your ego, your "I."

If you read this book, you'll find all kinds of connections to whatever art you practice, follow, or are a fan of, be it a sport, a hobby, or any other kind of activity you are passionate about.

Try it, it's only around 80 pages and even though some parts are tough to get through (again, that's the point—the text naturally has to be mysterious, Zen cannot be put on paper), it's well worth the journey.

Here are some parts I deemed worthy enough to highlight:

- "Wrapped in impenetrable darkness, Zen must seem the strangest riddle which the
spiritual life of the East has ever devised: insoluble and yet irresistible attractive."

- "This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious
observation."

- I also like the part about not grieving over bad shots and not getting excited over good shots. The master tells him that you should learn to detach yourself from both of them. You hear
that all the time in long seasons like baseball. "Keep an even keel," "Never get too high, never get too low." Especially with closers: "You have to let it go," "Tomorrow is another day." Are you seeing these connections?

- "But if he is to fit himself self-effacingly into the creative process, the practice of the art
must have the way smoothed for it . . . everything that he does is done before he knows it." This goes back to what Bruce Lee talked about and to something boxers mention a lot: that
fights aren't won in the ring, they're won during training. Once you step into the ring, you've done all you can to win the fight. There is no more you can do but be, do. Let what you've
prepared for happen.

- "When the tension is fulfilled, the shot must fall, it must fall from the archer like the snow
from a bamboo leaf, before he even thinks it." This one felt especially close to the golf swing to me. The master is talking about letting go of the shot, but it could easily apply to that
moment in the golf swing when the backswing ends and the swing begins. It's a "feel thing,"
involving tempo and timing. Zen believes you don't shoot, you allow the shot to come when it's
ready.

OK I could go on and on. But the analogies are for each person to make individually so they can actually relate to Zen and find out how they can come at it and "feel" it. After all, "Unless we enter into mystic experiences by direct participation, we remain outside, turn and twist as we may."

Long Time No See

2007-09-10T07:58:00.001-05:00

I've been moving in with my fiancee and our new place is almost settles. Moving sucks but we did pretty good. Afterwards it always feels like it wasn't too bad, but I remember: it was awful.

I have some stuff I want to write about, but I don't have time right now.

- The Raw Shark Texts: A weird book that tries to do a lot of different things.
- My current book: Zen and the Art of Archery, and how it relates to other sports like golf and baseball.
- Did anyone catch the special about To Catch a Predator on 20/20 Friday? I missed it, but I have a lot to say about the show and the criticism it's under.

More to come. It's hard to focus with the view I have right now, it's awesome.

The Bridge - Review

2007-08-23T22:32:00.000-05:00

In 2004, 24 people jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and killed themselves. These filmmakers had cameras on the bridge the whole time, and they have video of these people jumping to their deaths.

Death porn. Yes it is. You're watching people die. Without that footage this movie never exists. Some people have tried to defend this movie by saying it's more than that, that the footage is beautiful and carries more meaning. No. It's people dying and that's why we watch it, otherwise it becomes a lecture on suicide and the families that have gone through it.

The movie discusses schizophrenia and depression, and that part is interesting. But, again, the draw here is that footage.

The most interesting part of the movie is the guy who was bipolar, jumped, and survived. Very rare. Never happens. He tells the story and as soon as he lets go of the barrier it hits him, "I don't want to die." He calls it "very scary" and "wild." No shit! He got to commit suicide, fly, go through an experience like that, and then he got a mulligan. Crazy.

Another guy they follow was just waiting for his mother to die so he could commit suicide. Everyone knew it. With a lot of these jumpers, that's the most incredible thing: their friends and family have gotten to that point where they've given up on trying to save them. Hard as that sounds to believe, that was their reality. So this one guy finally jumps—his was the most dramatic. Others jumped like they were jumping into a swimming pool, like there were going to live. This guy stood up on the railing facing away from the water and just let himself fall backwards. Never flailed. He had been depressed his whole life. Now it was a lack of a job that had him (his mother had eventually died of cancer), although he clearly had psychological issues his whole life. On the answering machine, that very day, there was a message telling him he had gotten the job he had wanted so bad. His friend: "If he would have waited just one more day . . ."

Mindy did not like this movie. It's depressing. It shows real people ending their lives. It's disturbing. But it makes you think. Exposes you to the reality that people are living every day with mental illness. I'm tempted to quote a writer who once said of why he wrote, "To comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted," but it's really not appropriate. This will disturb everyone equally, and not in an instructive, growth-inducing way.

The movie is part Faces of Death, part suicide lecture, part loving tribute to those who have passed.

Joba is to Mariano what Mariano was to Wetteland

2007-08-23T19:04:00.000-05:00

It's a pretty easy comparison, I'm sure I won't be the only one to see it.

I don't know if the Yankees have long-term plans to eventually have Joba Chamberlain go back to starting, but seeing him set up for Mariano Rivera is very reminiscent of the tail end of John Wetteland's career.

Rivera's first season as a full time setup man was ridiculous: 107IP, 130Ks, 2.09ERA, and a 0.99WHIP.

That was the last season Wetteland closed for the Yankees. It's Rivera ever since.

It's probably too early to make this comparison since Chamberlain was in college last season and in this his first season of pro ball he's been very very good as a starter in the minors. But is he does really well in this role he may prove too valuable to move back into the rotation, especially with Hughes and Wang already entrenched as "youngsters." The Yankees like having big name veterans in their rotation.

And with Rivera having his worst season since he was a rookie in many statistical categories (BAA, ERA, and his second-worst WHIP), the Yankees will want a someone that the fans can get behind.

A lot of this will be resolved in the off season. If Rivera continues to show his postseason form, then he will close again next season and Chamberlain will start or set up again. If he looks bad and costs the Yankees a game or two, or a series, then you can start to picture Chamberlain as the closer and say goodbye to the greatest closer of all time. And the greatest pitch of all time.

My Baseball Bet: Yadier Molina

2007-08-23T18:49:00.001-05:00

During the playoffs in 2006 there was one player that really surprised me in terms of his season numbers and how they contrasted with the way he played in the playoffs.

Check out Yadier Molina's career numbers, they also show how he did during those playoffs. What strikes me is that throughout his career he's always had pretty good BB/K ratios. Even if his walk total isn't very high, he usually strikes out only a little more than he walks.

He was sped through the minor-league system because his defense was so good, so his bat never really had the time to evolve, to adjust to the better levels.

He hit .216 last season but hit .358 during the postseason with 6 walks and 5 strikeouts. I remember his at bats too, they were quality every single time. I was shocked that this guy had played a whole major-league season and only hit .216.

Well, look at his numbers this season:

He's hitting .276 with a .349 OBP. His BB/K ratio is very good at 29/36. His slugging is low, but his numbers across the board are way better than his career averages.

As far as I'm concerned, he's finally getting the hand of hitting major league pitchers, he's only 25, and he's still one of the best catchers in baseball.

The best part? He's only making half a million dollars this season.

UPDATE

At the start of this season I predicted Miguel Cabrera would have a Pujols-esque season. Well, I was close. He's having his very first 1.000+ OPS season, which is a Pujols staple. But I predicted he would finally walk more times than he would strike out, basing my assumption on how his walks had climbed and his strikeouts gone down.

Alas, I was wrong. It seems last year was an anomaly (86BB/108Ks). He's having a year like all his others in terms of strikeouts, even though he will walk around 80 times this year. So his walks are staying high, which is good, but his strikeouts are high again, the way they were before last year.

Not that this is all bad, he's an incredible player and is still getting better. It just isn't a Pujols season (77BB, 51Ks).

Mad Men

2007-08-20T08:16:00.001-05:00

So I finally checked out the new ad show called Mad Men. I had meant to watch it a while ago and just never got around to it. It wasn't what I expected. Part of the show was just regular sitcom bullshit that I don't enjoy very much.
But the main character is interesting and has moments of depth, of mystery. Kind of like Jack from Lost. The creative process is also kind of given a mystical quality, which I like and was surprised to see on a television show. This isn't meant to just appeal to as many people as possible, although it may.

Mad Men, check it out.

Microsoft Surface

2007-08-20T08:10:00.000-05:00

This computer is the future. Forget about that hologram computer in Minority Report, this is the new new thing.

Check out the demo where the camera is placed on the table and its contents are read. And then the credit card . . . this is awesome!

Michael Lewis

2007-08-15T20:43:00.000-05:00

He became famous thanks to Moneyball, and it's also how I first heard of him. After reading and enjoying that book so much, I looked up what else he had written. Turns out he had a few technology books and some investment-related books too. I was intrigued since three years ago those same topics suddenly became interesting to me. So I kept telling myself to read Liar's Poker. As it happens so often, I never did.

Then about a year ago I saw he had come out with a new book called The Blind Side. It was about football but it still sounded interesting. I read it and loved it, again reminding myself that I should read one of his investment-related books.

Finally, this year, I met someone who was a big Michael Lewis fan. He lent me Liar's Poker. Shocker: I thought it was great too.

Then we found a whole host of articles he's written for the New York Times, which you can see here. Most of those articles can be found for free on the internet if you search for the title names. Read a few. Yeah they are long but damn if they aren't incredibly interesting. The most recent one I read, this one, is about a college coach that has seemingly found a brand new way to run an offense. I'm not a college football fan, but Lewis has again found a story that will appeal to anyone.

How he manages to find and infiltrate so many great stories is beyond me, but now I'm reading The New New Thing, and it's more of the same: interesting stories that entertain.

After 50 pages of The New New Thing I want to write a biography on Michael Lewis because he may be one of the most interesting people out there. He knows and loves sports, but he was also a financial services guy. He's brilliant. He writes well.

Did I mention I want to be him?

Credit Cards and such

2007-08-01T19:39:00.000-05:00

There is so much out there on how terrible credit-card companies are, how they are basically scamming people out of so much money by creating fees and penalties that are suspect, sneaky, and downright tricky.

OK, I get it. I'm sick of it. People can keep bitching and complaining about how unfair it is. Or they can do something about it.

In this article about how credit-card companies refuse to change their ways (without fees, penalties, and obviously interest there would be no profit), there was a bit of sanity thrown in there:

"The costs people are concerned about, whether it's higher interest rates or fees for late payments, are within the control of the consumer," says Clayton of the bankers association. "They can avoid these fees and avoid interest rate increases. One of the challenges we have is getting across to people that this is a loan. If you pay it back, it doesn't cost you a cent."

Granted, that's a corporate-interest response, but it's still valid.

It is a loan. If you pay it back, it doesn't cost you a cent.

It always gets me thinking about the issue of taxes and Republicans—how so many people fear Big Government, how the government should stay out of "our" business as much as possible. Here is the thing: sometimes we need someone to save us from ourselves.

But people are stubborn and don't want to hear, and this kind of stuff will keep happening. If people only took the time to actually vote for leaders they can trust, then they could allow those same people to protect them from these kinds of problems. Things commonly filed under "saving us from ourselves."

OK that started in one place and ended up in a totally different one.

Great Investment/Life advice

2007-07-16T21:58:00.000-05:00

I was reading this article over on Yahoo Finance about athlete-turned-entrepreneur Roger Staubach and his mention of coach Tom Landry:

Staubach's role model for planning was Cowboys coach Tom Landry. "Coach Landry was a great leader," he says, "and his greatest strength was in preparation. He was an industrial engineer. He had carefully set goals that were reasonable, believable, achievable, and measured. His philosophy was that spectacular achievements come from unspectacular preparation.

That's really something you can take into your life. It's something that I've seen mentioned in writing and in boxing, but when you think about it, what does this NOT apply to?

Spectacular achievements come from unspectacular preparation.

Movie Reviews

2007-07-16T21:55:00.000-05:00

So I usually use Movies.com as the place to read reviews and check out what movies are out and all that stuff. So I decided to take a closer look at the guy who writes the reviews and it turns out that I've been ripping the guy off every time I write a review. It's crazy. Check out his reviews here and you'll see that what I've been doing is basically his routine.

The weirdest thing is I never realized it. I knew it was similar, because I liked the Q&A format, but I didn't know I was copying him.

I will try to remedy this in the future as it's pretty embarrassing.

Knocked Up, a good point

2007-07-07T16:48:00.000-05:00

There's a conversation in this movie between the married couple that goes something like this:

Man: "It's just that, once you have a family and get married, certain possibilities are closed to you."
Wife: (on the defensive) "Like what?"
Man: "I don't know, like if I wanted to go to India or something and just chill out there and explore the country. I can't do that anymore, not with kids and everything, you know?"
Woman: "What? So you want to go to India? Go to India then!"
Man: (Exasperated, Frustrated) I don't want to go to India! I'm just saying!"

I think it's an interesting look at the way men and women look at things like family and marriage. It isn't that men feel like they are giving anything up or are "suffering" by having a family or getting married. I would say that most of us don't feel that way. We just realize that the huge list of things we have tallied in our heads that we would "like to do" some time has to be crossed out. Did we really expect to play for the Chicago Cubs? Pick apples in California for a season? Cross the Mexican border, undercover, and try to sneak into the country?

No, but we're just realizing that now, finally, that now it's REALLY not going to happen. It's a bit of realism being injected into a man's otherwise wishful thinking that anything is possible.

On the other hand, I have always told Mindy that I always wanted to move to Lake Atitlan for like two months or something and live there. Just live there and write and read and use the time for introspection. Deep down I realized I had missed my chance a few years ago when I was in Guatemala for a couple years doing nothing but having my jaw examined. I didn't do it then and now I'm in a job that wouldn't let me take that kind of time off.

So she surprised me one day when she said that, when I move on to another job, I should take some time off and go live at the Lake for a month or so and do it. She said that if it was something that was that important to me, than I owe it to myself to go ahead and do it.

And this is just one of the reasons why I'm so happy that this is the person I am going to spend the rest of my life with and marry.

Vanguard vs Scottrade

2007-07-07T15:43:00.000-05:00

So I really want to move my Roth IRA over to Vanguard, since they are the Index Fund Kings. They have low-cost funds that cover the exact swaths of the market I want to be exposed to: The S&P 500, Mid Caps, Small Caps, REITs, International Stocks, and some kind of dividend component.

Right now I'm at Scottrade paying 0.50% in expenses for each fund, while the Vanguard funds typically have expense ratios of about 0.20%. In the long run (which is what I'm after), that difference turns out to be a lot of money.

BUT Vanguards index funds have minimums of $3,000 dollars a piece. I don't have that much money yet where I can allocate my portfolio according to my own specifications and still meet those minimums for each fund I want to own. So, for now, I'm stuck at Scottrade owning a Mid, Small, and S&P 500 fund, as well as an International fund. I also have one share of Warren Buffett's Berkshire (a B share), which will always stay and I'll never sell.

My problem, and maybe one of you has a good, well-developed answer, is the following: Am I better off paying double in expenses (0.50% is still relatively low) at Scottrade for a few more years until I have enough money in the account to buy the funds I want? OR am I better off buying a Vanguard Life Cycle fund (which includes most of what I want, though not at the precise allocation that I want) to get my money over there, enjoy the lower expense fees, and wait until that account gets to the point where I can buy all the funds I want?

I posed this question to Matt Krantz over at USA Today, and I'll post his answer when I get it. I've asked him stuff before and he's usually been good about answering so we'll see what he says.

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle—Not a review

2007-07-07T15:29:00.000-05:00

Someone recommended this movie to me a while back, saying that I was wrong about it. It wasn't a stupid movie with the occasional punchline. No, this wasn't another Dude, Where's my car. This was more of an Office Space type movie.

I trusted the source so the other day I watched it. It's better than Dude, Where's My Car? but it is certainly no Office Space. It's funny, sure, and it tries to go beyond just a dumb comedy, which it almost does.

But regardless, the movie is worth it thanks to the scene where Kumar sees the huge bag of weed and goes into a daydream of what the big bag of weed means to him. Check out the clip over here, it had me crying it was so funny.

The Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser) cameo was also funny, but please check out that clip, it's hilarious.

Second City—Between Barack and a Hard Place

2007-07-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

Got a chance to go see this last night at the legendary Second City here in Chicago. Let me just say right off the bat that the two things I consider the most difficult in life are: Freestyle rapping and stand-up comedy.

To go into a room filled with people who are expecting you to make them laugh, and them make them laugh, is not easy. It is very very tough.

Before I go into what I thought of the show, you should know who and what I think is funny. Seinfeld, to me, is a genius. Family Guy is the funniest thing on TV today. I like Frasier, though that's not really "Ha ha" funny. I like The Office and the whole Jon Stewart/Steve Carell brand of humor. I also really liked Office Space.

Moving right along, the first thing you see when you go into a Second City show is the wall of pictures with all the famous people that performed here, that trained here, that began here. It has to set incredible expectations with patrons and put a tremendous amount of pressure on the performers. Maybe I was about to witness a young Steve Carell or Craig Ferguson before he/she got his/her big break. So right away I told myself that what I would pick out one person from the show—the one person I think would make it or has the best chance to make it big in the world of comedy.

It was an easy choice, but unfortunately the show wasn't very funny. There was very little improv, which is good because that is rarely funny, but the show itself just didn't have many funny lines. The crowd did laugh, there was no heckling these performers. But it was like being at a sitcom taping—the laughs were expected, the humor was standard, it was like watching King of Queens—you can see each joke coming a mile away and when you get surprised with something you didn't expect, it's not all that funny.

I may have been the only one in our party that felt that way, but you never know. The one funny line I really liked was when two smokers were out in front of an office building and a guy coughs his way past them, eventually harassing them and asking them, if they know it's bad for them, why they do it. The woman (who looks JUST like Hillary Clinton) goes:

"I do it so that my unborn baby stays tiny and doesn't hurt as much on its way out."

THAT'S a line I would've written!

I don't know what could've made it funnier, I'm not a stand-up guy. I can't do it. It's too hard.

The more interesting part of the night was betting on who could blow up in the future. My guess is it'll be Ithamar Enriquez. He was the only one of them that really cut loose and let it all out. Most of the other ones were very reserved, containing themselves and trying too hard to "act" when what they need to be doing is being funny. Ithamar had some good lines but his joie de vivre was evident in his performance. He won't be the next Chris Farley (he's not that over the top) but he could be the next Horatio Sanz or the Asian gay guy on Mad TV. He looked like he was having fun up there, while the rest of them just tried to get their lines out at the right time.

Again, the whole experience just goes to show how hard it is to make people laugh. High risk, high reward, and extremely difficult.

Transformers—Review

2007-07-07T14:48:00.002-05:00

Who's in it? A bunch of hot people, Angelina Jolie's father, and the nerd from Quiz Show. Optimus Prime and Megatron.
What's the deal? Remember the toys you sued to play with? The cartoon you used to watch? They're all in the past now. From here on out, this is Transformers. For the uninitiated, mechanical aliens from another planet are able to transform into cars, planes, tanks, etc.
I'm sensing a positive review: You are correct sir. I went thinking, "It's before the release date, it's free, and—if anything—the trailer showed some pretty sweet special FX."
So are the effects cool? Does a bear shit in the woods? I can't remember the last time I saw a movie in theaters where the crows ooed and awwed like this. People were reacting like David Blaine was on the screen doing his thing. I heard a lot of
"What??!!! (Chuckle)"
"Yoooo-ohhhh!"
"Da-Aaaamnnn!"
Usually these scenes were followed by cheers and/or applause. Granted, most of the crowd were huge Transformer fans—they recognized things from the cartoon that I didn't really catch. But that energy was great. I didn't see it, but you could feel that tons of people had their elbows in their friends sides, slightly pushing as an effect unfolded (as in "yo yo yo are you seeing this!?"). When it was over, his hand would go to his mouth, he'd turn to his friend go "Hooooo! Man!" (I use he since 85% of the crowd was male, trusty Mindy was a sport about the whole thing*).
So what else? The movie is long, around 2 hours 15 minutes, which is good. Lots of effects to squeeze in. But the first half of the movie was "better" that the next. It's actually a hilarious movie with smart dialog for a big, blockbuster movie that is going for that over-the-top effect. You would be tempted, before watching it, to group it with movies like Fast and the Furious or any other eye-candy, summer blockbuster movie with a bunch of bad actors and sweet special effects. This movie isn't dumb though. It knows what it is and it avoids most of the pitfalls those kinds of movies fall into (lame dialog, unconvincing characters, ridiculous story lines, etc.).
The first half: Gets off to a great start. Sets everything up nicely and draws you into the story. Dialog is sharp and things move along quickly. Occasional spectacular graphics.
Midway point: The kid is looking for the glasses in his room and the Transformers are "hiding" in the yard. This scene is funny, yes, but it drags on forever.
Second half: Action, action, action. Here it stretches itself out a bit and you start to feel it getting a little long. It feels like it takes forever to get to that last scene between Prime and Megatron.
Prime vs Megatron: Kind of a letdown how quickly it ends after such a long buildup. Still great though.
Will you like it? The theater was filled with Transformer nerds—they loved it. Mindy didn't even want to be there—she loved it. I'm in the middle somewhere—I loved it.
Didn't expect: It would be as funny as it was without being stupid. I mean, it's hilarious in certain parts.
What to tell your bf to get him to go see it: The girl in it is smoking hot (she will also be set for life once this comes out). Also, huge transforming robots battle it out, Optimus Prime is in it.
What to tell your gf to get her to go see it: Optimus Prime is in it. Mindy liked it.
Final analysis: Yes, the guy and the girl are brought together artificially and there is the occasional cheesy line towards the end, but hey, it's a movie about huge transforming robots from outer space come to save the day. A few cheesy moments are a decent trade off.
$$$ This movie will break records, it's going to get people watching it 3-4 times and word of mouth is going to make it HUGE.

* She didn't really want to go, but she loved it!

Knocked Up—Review

2007-07-07T14:25:00.000-05:00

What's the deal? A young, up-and-coming TV reporter with ambition has a one-night stand with your prototypical loser/stoner guy. Hilarity actually really does ensue.
Who's in it? Katherine Heigl and the guy who plays a similar character in some other movie. 40 Year Old Virgin?
Doesn't the What's the deal bullet essentially tell me all I need to know about the movie? Should I even watch it now? It's got some really funny/meaningful dialog that really captures the college feel, even though no one in the movie is in college.
It is NOT believable that this hot girl will first have sex with and then even consider getting together with this guy, right? Well, sort of. The movie even acknowledges it as much. He says it over and over how he doesn't see why a girl would like him, and especially not this one. But they also tell you why it could happen—they are both good/nice people that aren't superficial (as most of us are), so that counts for something.
Who I would like to have seen onscreen: Mr. Skin. At work we actually distribute his book and he's been in the office a few times. He's kind of become a sort of mythical figure that all us guys mentally bow down to because he's basically making a ton of money doing what the loner/stoners do in the movie for their "big idea."
Lesson to be learned: Read the baby books guys, just do it. It's pretty much all you have to do while she has to get a watermelon out via the butt. Picture that. Let that image burn in there a bit. See that? Read the baby books.
I like how: The couple that was married wasn't perfect. This was more believable, as opposed to most comedies where the other couple is great and has no problems. I also liked the relationship issues that were brought up about needing alone time, sane time, etc. Not just for the man, but the woman too.
The most honest guy in the history of movies: This guy.
His most honest line: So, honestly, if this were our second date, what would we be doing? He says, "Honestly? BJ." Priceless.
Some weird parts: They just didn't lead to anything. The Asian gyno who was just mean, rude, and a little racially obtuse. He later comes around. Also, the voicemail the guy leaves their original gyno—what was that all about?
And one personal thing: I kept waiting for the whole Jewish question to be dealt with and it never came up. I didn't think it was realistic.
What to tell your bf to get him to go see it: The Las Vegas scenes, Heigl is hot.
What to tell your gf to get her to go see it: It's a relationship movie, kind of a chick flick (watch out for the inevitable, "What would we/you do if that happened to us?"—have a good response at the ready).
Wrapping it up: It's a funny/silly movie about real hardcore life issues without softening up how serious they are.
Carlos, you're recommending a funny, silly, romantic comedy style movie? Yes. I rarely do, but this is up there with Something About Mary and Meet the Parents.

Minting money off poverty

2007-06-27T07:26:00.000-05:00

This is the name of a heart-wrenching article over on MSN Money. Check it out here.

It's basically a bunch of stories of people who, once down on their luck, had only credit-card companies to turn to for help in getting through the day. It's extremely sad because these people come off as having no other choice but to go into debt to keep living day to day.

I should also note hear that, even though I haven't reviewed it, the topic of personal debt and how credit-card companies do their business should watch Max'd Out, a documentary about debt and how people get fucked over once they start in on that slippery slope without understanding the terms.

One thing I did notice about the stories in the article is that most of these people had a strike against them before debt started to screw them over. Most of them already had several children from a very young age. They were already on the brink, and then debt simply nudged them over the edge.

Cliche as it may be, this all goes back to education and the lack of it at the school level. Kids should be warned and protected from this kind of stuff, especially low-income kids. They simply won't be able to afford making mistakes like these. In college, I had a bunch of friends that probably went into credit-card debt and once they figured out how deep they were, probably just got scolded from their parents, who promptly paid it off, and then kept right on living. No sweat. That's how they learn about credit.

But if you don't have the money to learn the hard way, you enter into indentured servitude and wind up working the rest of your life to pay back all the interest and late charges. It's crazy.

One thing you have to listen to about Robert Kiyosaki is his point on educating young people in schools about financial matters. Why doesn't it happen?

As you read the article you'll realize that education in a more general sense is what's missing here.

Review—Sicko

2007-06-27T07:15:00.000-05:00

Who’s in it? Michael Moore sans 50 pounds.
Whoa whoa whoa, isn’t he totally one sided? Yes.
So why even watch it? Because the issue is important—it’s our health that is on the line here. Our lives, really.
So what’s the deal? Our health-care system is run by for-profit companies, which means the people in charge answer to two things: the bottom line and shareholders. This creates a conflict of interest as insurance companies want to maximize their profits as much as possible. Which is fine, they are a private company—that’s their job.
What’s his point? That everyone should be able to be cared for, no matter what insurance you do or don’t have, no matter what excuses an insurance company gives you.
Any crying? Yes, in Cuba. It’s unfortunate what Moore does here—he makes us cry and he makes us angry. Is he manipulating us? Sure. Are the tears warranted? Yes. Is he fooling us into being on “his side” of the issue? No. The system is broken and he’s pointing at the deficiencies with a huge red arrow so that we recognize the problems. Is it that simple? No, but he’s not looking to be a neutral, 6 o’clock news story. There is an urgency in his message.
What scares me: Besides getting seriously sick and having my insurance decline coverage for bullshit reasons, the fact that Moore’s movies are the perfect recipe for inciting rage, fears, CHANGE. I mean, unless you’re a real heartless bastard (or a Republican in the case of Fahrenheit 9/11), then his movies have to make you angry. Why is the gun issue so fucked up in this country? Are we going to put up with the kind of shit the Bush administration has done vis a vis Iraq and 9/11? Are we satisfied being bullied around by insurance companies when it comes to our lives, our health, and our livelihood? What scares me is that his previous movies did their job—they pushed the right buttons for people more aware of politics, but that was it. This movie should cause massive change. Should shock people into demanding change. History shows that the furor over this movie will be at an all-time high, and then it will go away. Why? A lot of money is at stake for a lot of powerful people (God, how cliche and “alternative wannabe” that sounds—I’m really not though).
The Obama connection: When I started paying attention to Obama’s campaign talking points, I realized his main issue was going to be health care (this is after Iraq—every hopeful’s #1 issue), more specifically: universal health care. Then I saw the release date for this movie and it hit me: Obama is a smart man. He’s been shouting universal health care for months and, if Moore’s movies provide an accurate track record, universal health care will be on everyone’s mind when this movie blows up later this month. Obama will have the necessary ammo to overtake Hillary. Obama won’t “endorse” the movie or anything crazy like that—Moore is too far out there for that—but still.
Why Hillary? You’ll see in the movie how sassy she was back in Clonton’s day—she was Mrs Universal Health Care. She fought the big wigs. Then they bought her out and she has become the second highest person receiving contributions from the health-care industry. This will be a huge talking point come election time.
Where to live then? Cuba, Canada, England, or France. The look at France is especially intriguing. The group of Americans who now live over there feel guilty as hell that they only have to work 35 hours a week, get five weeks off paid vacation, and pay absolutely nothing for all medical care (I looked this up and they actually have 85% covered by the government). Canadians are priceless: they are like “Pay? No, no, no, it’s free.” They just can’t comprehend the for-profit system. The idea of paying for health care is something that just doesn’t compute with them. And yes I know this is all very one sided and bias and all, but still.
Bottom line: This is a fucked up system. Hopefully the movie can jump start the debate on the issue and the actual movie can be put aside. It’s like driving to an environmental rally in a hummer—yeah, it may be a little controversial, but it gets you there so you can try to change things. The end justifies the means here. And if Moore needed to be one sided or a little snarky to get me pissed off and outraged about the way it all works, so be it. The bottom line is we need to get universal health care.
Post Office connection: It’s state sponsored, government run, whatever. The point is it’s not a for-profit, private company. I remember people were complaining about how slow their mail was or something and about possibly privatizing it. Someone pointed out that, if you did that, you would see what cost you 42 cents before would cost $4. It’s what would be needed to make it profitable. And that’s our freakin mail, people. Our mail is more important?
Full Disclosure: I wrote this review a few days ago and now that I’m rereading it I realize how converted I come across, how thoroughly convinced and on Moore’s side. It’s a strong movie like that, it has that power to just plain old convert you. Good or bad? Who knows, but the idea here is that it get people talking about the issue. This is Moore’s saving grace: people become aware of a very important/interesting issue.

Review: A Random Walk Down Wall Street, by Richard Malkiel

2007-06-27T07:09:00.000-05:00

Topic: Investing, stocks.
Recommended: My friend Matt is getting an MBA at the University of Chicago, so I've been wanting to kind of follow along and try to get a preview of that is like in case I ever decide to do it (get an MBA). So for one of his classes a professor assigned this book, along with Stocks for the Long Run, calling them both "essential" reads.
So it's a stock book, is it an easy read as a business school book? It's an easy read, really. The question isn't about easy but more about what you know and don't know. If you know this topic already well then you'll skip a lot of it because it gets repetitive.
Will it make me rich? Maybe, I'll let you know. Turns out the gist of the book is something I'm already doing with my own investments, so he's kind of preaching to the choir.
Gist: Over the long run, nothing can compete with a properly allocated portfolio of index finds exposed to the following markets: REITs, international stocks, US stocks (especially small caps), and bonds. That, folks, sums up the 400ish pages in this book. If that first sentence doesn't mean anything to you, and you're interested in a safe, easy, if boring way to invest in the long term, then this is the book for you. It lays everything out and explains what you need to know. I wish I would have read this back when I started.
Other books to read with it: Beating the Street, by BC grad Peter Lynch. BC what! This one is more entertaining, less academic, and just as informative. But Malkiel's book is more of a recipe book, giving you everything you need to actually go and do all of this in the real world.
How this book argues its point: By bringing down (or simply disproving) every other investment strategy out there. But still, it gets kind of annoying when he rags on everything under the sun for 350 pages, then FINALLY gets to his point.
How many pages the cliff notes version would be: Forty pages. Ten for a quick overview of everything that doesn't work (down from 360), twenty for the strategy he supports (also twenty in the book), and ten for the resources he includes at the end, which are super helpful and include the actual index funds out there to put the strategy into practice.
Full disclosure: He tells you he is connected to Vanguard, but gives you other, non-Vanguard options. Which is fine since Vanguard is probably the best place to buy a varied set of cheap index funds.
One thing he kind of sidesteps, kind of: Warren Buffett. Granted, I'm a huge Buffett fan, and he's mostly right that, for the average Joe, WB's performance just isn’t going to happen. But he's so adamant about bringing down all active stock-picking strategies (including value investing, which is pretty much WB). And he gives reasons. He does admit that Lynch beat the street for a while, but then quit. He brings up Buffett a lot, but kind of avoids any explanation of how WB is, was, and continues to beat the odds. He says value investing is not possible, that the market is too efficient for that. OK, I'll accept that (though I disagree to some extent). But you can't say that and then acknowledge WB's incredible record (which he can't say anything negative about and doesn't, I mean it's Warren freakin' Buffett!) but doesn't try to explain that, if value investing can't be successful long term, then how do we reconcile what WB has done?
But . . . Part of me knows it's probably best to leave that as is. The average person (and even super investor managers) simply can't do what WB has done. He's an anomaly, a freak—not because of luck. It's ability. Kind of like expecting people to do what Pedro Martinez or Greg Maddux does. It's just not gonna happen. In terms of the book, if 10 million people were flipping coins for the past 50 years, Buffett is the one guy who has thrown nothing but heads. . . still.
Final Word: Great if you want a beginner's look at everything people have tried and doesn't work. Could be a LOT shorter.
Up Next: Liar’s Poker, by Michael Lewis (of Moneyball fame).

Mad Men

2007-06-19T08:21:00.000-05:00

With all the reality-show craze, I always thought it would be interesting if there was a show where young copywriters and designers competed to try to get a prestigious position at a prestigious agency.

Well, I would watch it.

But for now this will have to do.

Great Obama article in the Chicago Tribune

2007-06-12T23:37:00.000-05:00

Check it out here, it tells the story of how he and his people decided that now, and not in 4 or 8 years, was the time to run for president.

Wireless Electricity= Wiitricity?

2007-06-08T18:34:00.000-05:00

I love this topic, it's something I've wondered and fantasized about ever since college. Can you imagine no more wires? No more batteries? The possibilities . . .

Well, this may be a viable way of doing it and I can't wait until it evolves.

Evolution and Creationism

2007-06-08T18:32:00.000-05:00

This is a classic example of ignorance. That people can believe two ideas so incompatible with each other can only mean they don't know exactly what it is they're opining on.

DFW in Italy

2007-06-06T23:07:00.000-05:00

Here is a nice collection of new David Foster Wallace stuff. There is a short excerpt from something new he's not even close to finishing, as well as some short videos of an interview.

I especially like the video where he talks about feeling like a baby in Italy because he can't interact, he doesn't understand, he's basically a baby but in an interesting way.

It's also painfully obvious how self aware he is about how he's coming across and what he's saying. He's thinking ahead like three or four sentences at a time. Vintage DFW.

Obama, Health Care, and Michael Moore

2007-06-06T22:53:00.000-05:00

Obama is a smart guy. If Michael Moore's next movie, Sicko, which criticizes the US health-care system, has anywhere near the effect that his last movie did, then this will be the hot-button issue after Iraq in the upcoming presidential election.

Try to go back and remember what it was like when Fahrenheit 9/11 came out—not only did it make tons of money, it got everyone talking about the failures of the Bush administration as well as some rather shadowy stuff that happened surrounding 9/11.

Put the two together—the movie comes out on June 29 and Obama has been making this his secondary issue (everything will be secondary to Iraq in this campaign) for a while now, as he campaigns for universal health care.

Anyway, here is an article that kind of links them together. It's nice to see something on the news after you've thought it out and considered it as a rather plausible idea.

This issue, and the effect the movie has on voters, could catapult Obama past Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

Like I said, Obama is a smart man.

Speaking of Obama, I like the way he answered this question in Sunday's debate. While most of the candidates gave BS answers (and I'm sure many took Obama's answer for the same) to the question of whether English should be the official language of the US, he replied:

Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., saw the question for what it was and refused to answer. Obama said that "this is the kind of question that is designed precisely to divide us" and urged his colleagues to instead refocus their attention on coming up with a legal and sensible immigration policy. When the immigration debate gets sidetracked by such questions, Obama said, "we do a disservice to the American people."

He isn't just BSing about the unity thing, he's really serious about it. I want this man as my president, especially since there is nothing worth voting for in Guatemala.

Best manager tantrum ever

2007-06-04T19:07:00.000-05:00

Check out this video of a manager in AA ball going nuts.

Kerry Wood Article in NY Times

2007-06-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

Here's a great article talking about my favorite baseball player, Kerry Wood, and all his trouble and travails with his arm injuries.

Written by the guy who wrote Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August.

Nintendo Wii

2007-05-31T18:12:00.000-05:00

A great article on the Wii from CNN.com.

Fogo de Chao

2007-05-29T19:05:00.000-05:00

This is one of those Brazilian style steakhouses where you go and pay a flat fee to eat as much as you like. Interestingly, the salad bar is incredible and you can eat as much as you want, which makes sense because that way you can't eat as much of the expensive stuff (the meat).

I really liked three of four of the cuts of meat and had more and more of those. The way it works is you have a coaster with green and red colors on each side. If you want more meat you keep the green side showing and if you want a break you flash the red side.

Repeat until you're ready to puke.

Plus we sat next to Eddy Curry, which was an added bonus.

If you get the chance to go to this type of restaurant, check it out, it's definitely worth it.

FM Tuners

2007-05-24T07:22:00.000-05:00

If you are one of those people that uses an FM tuner and have trouble finding the perfect station to tune into so you can listen to you MP3 player, then check out this website from Belkin.

Just punch in your zip code and it'll pull up "the best" dead stations.

Viola.

Last King of Scotland—Review

2007-05-24T07:08:00.000-05:00

Who's in it? Forest Whitaker and the fawn from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.
What's the deal? Whitaker is Idi Amin, a general that takes power in Uganda. Fawn is a Scottish doctor trying to make a difference in the world.
This is one of those movies that: Makes you wonder how much of it is actually true. It's not a major distraction but it does pop into your head from time to time.
Character Issues: Now here are a couple of characters I can get behind. Each one of them has depth, charisma, and charm. Not to rehash the Spiderman thing, but the deepest character in that movie is the lamest one in this one—the English doctor already in Uganda when fawn arrives. He's lame, plain, and boring. A good man, sure, but lame.
Back to Scotland: I think I like Fawn's character better than Whitaker's, actually. Even though they are both very similar, Fawn is actually likable and he's the kind of guy you want to have a beer with. You want to be his friend.
I'm having trouble with: Putting together a relevant, helpful series of bullets for this movie. It has a lot going on. It's about several things: politics power, friendship, marriage, adventure, international relations, appearances vs reality, and patriotism.
Amin was basically: Moody. When he finally snaps at Fawn for the first time you can see that the guy isn't stable. Fawn (and the audience) thought they were cool until then. It's a feeling all countries have had at one point or another a few months after a change of power: the joyful victor reveals a nasty side that hints at something much bigger. A big, collective "Uh oh."
Having trouble: Saying anything at all that is helpful or interesting about this movie so I'll just give it a B+. Nut sure why I'm having trouble but maybe that tells you something about it.

Spiderman—Review

2007-05-23T07:18:00.000-05:00

What’s the deal? A group of people I like (really like, I guess) wanted to get together to see this movie, so I obliged and went.
No Carlos, I mean the movie: Are you serious?
At least tell me something about it: OK. There are about five storylines going on here, and they are all mish-mashed together into the one movie.
Wait, so you didn’t want to go see it? There you go. You’re starting to catch on.
The New Yorker said: Something to the effect of ‘This movie is bad—but there is a sequence of about seven minutes where you don’t want to be anywhere else but there, in the theater, watching those seven minutes. I kept looking for them but I didn’t find them ever.
I would like: An explanation about the very beginning when the meteorite or whatever lands. Where’s it from? Why? Does it die? Etc.
Sequel: Should be about the new, black Spiderman—he’s way more interesting/cool/entertaining to watch than Peter Parker.
Wasn’t this movie really expensive? Not sure how much, but my friend said $400 million, which sounds ridiculous. Maybe I’ll look it up. When he told me that I said, “Wow, $400 million worth of fancy computers. Cool.” Because they didn’t spend any of it on the acting, especially the extras, who were so over the top it felt like an infomercial for the Ronco Rotisserie Chicken thingy.
But Carlos, aren’t comics supposed to be kind of like that? Honestly, I don’t care for this defense anymore. The “comics are cheesy and then so does a goo movie adaptation have to be.” Forget it. Cheesy is cheesy and bad acting is bad acting. I’m sorry, but genre isn’t a valid excuse for that. Maybe Toby McGuire is a master actor for being so dorky and cheesy and getting through the whole movie without just stopping and going “how much am I getting paid again?” But it isn’t fun to watch, that’s for sure.
What this reminds me of: An article that David Foster Wallace wrote a long time ago. I think. It was when Terminator 2 came out and it was equating the movie to pornography. Special-effects porn he called it. There is no acting, the movie is simply a showcase/vessel for all these computer effects. It’s a demo for what you can do on fancy computers (although in all fairness, I really enjoyed Terminator 2, but I think DFW was hinting at a larger trend). Impressive? Maybe. Entertaining? Sure, just take out all that cheesy fluff acting and leave the action in—we all fast forward to the good parts anyway.
What I’d like to see on the DVD when it comes out: McGuire breaking down and crying in the middle of a scene and everyone coming over to him, consoling him and going, “I know Toby, I know. I’m sorry.”
Things I noticed: There was a website I used to check out a lot dedicated to catching mistakes in movies. Like lack of continuity or wardrobe errors. Stuff like that. Well the first is that $400 million apparently can’t teach you how to sing or make it look like you can sing. Fly through New York on a web you shoot out of your wrist? Yes. Singing? No. Never for a second do you buy that Dunst is singing. EVER. Why not try a little harder? Oh, right, fast forward. Also, her phone message changes in the movie. Fist she actually says “beep!” before the beep and then minutes later she has the same message but no “beep!” Details people. With all that money, don’t forget to sweat the small stuff—it comes off as real sloppy. Also, the guy who has his face disfigured at the end—the first time we see it and the second time (minutes later) are different. They probably forgot to take a polaroid of the first time so the makeup person could replicate the face the next time he did it. Polaroids for for, what, $50?
More on Dunst not looking at all like she’s singing: It’s the root of a bigger problem. I call it the Matrix II problem. What good are special effects if we can immediately tell that something is fake? Toby McGuire is barely in this movie, unless you count his grunting and “Yeah!” while a CGI Spidey does his stuff. It all looks fake, like Dunst singing. Technology and special effects should convince us, make us believe that what we are watching is real. The perfect example is The Matrix. This movie used as many computers and effects as anyone else. The reason those fighting scenes are so great is because they look real. They spend some money on training Keanu and Co. They are really fighting and you can tell. That, along with some clever pulleys, harnesses, and computer effects, creates a believable, kick-ass movie. Here Dunst singing doesn’t even pass muster. If you want a more recent example of how to do it right, check out 300.
So what’s the Matrix II problem? Remember the scene where Neo fights like 500 of those bad guys who all look the same? The guy who always calls him Mr. Anderson instead of Neo? That scene is horrible because there is no fighting, it’s all a CGI Neo making all those moves. It looks fake. Like Spiderman looks fake. It’s one of the reasons that The Matrix franchise deteriorated as it went into the 2nd and 3rd movies—they strayed from the idea of using effects to complement a really cool idea.
Wow, anything else to say? Yes. I would like to point out that, after the movie, we all walked out asking each other what we thought. Even the friend who really really really wanted to see it had the same comment as the rest of us, “Wow, that was a long movie. Look how late it is!? Look how late it is indeed.
FYI: Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi, The Fountain (now available on DVD)) was going to direct the new Batman movies. Unfortunately, he didn’t. But his concept of a comic-book superhero sounds fascinating: He wanted to make a movie about a regular guy—no super powers—in a costume running around the city playing hero. He puts his car together himself and all that stuff. In other words, the gritty reality of Batman as he would really exist in the real world. Now that sounds interesting.

Torture Porn

2007-05-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

An interesting article from Advertising Age about horror films and how they've become so profitable that standards are eroding to the point where movies are just trying to be as despicable and shocking as possible to grab a good opening audience and make some profit.

All the while, those movie makers make it tougher for "traditional" horror filmmakers to get their movies through.

Got stocks in China?

2007-05-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

Have any money in China? In mutual or index funds that contain a significant portion of their allocation in Emerging Markets like China?

Watch out then, because things are getting out of hand.

I'm sure keeping a close eye on it.

Askauthor.com

2007-05-21T19:27:00.000-05:00

This is an idea I first got when I was living in Paris for three months and doing nothing but reading, writing, and napping (along with taking French classes in the morning).

I had no TV and no Internet, so I spent most of my time reading books. The more I read, the more I thought about the books and about the authors that had written them. I had so many questions about the story, the way the author had come upon certain decisions, and about the craft of writing.

But I had nowhere to go to get the answers.

So I came up with the idea of having a website that would allow readers to submit questions to certain authors. It would be my job (as the webmaster) to get those questions to the author via the publisher.

This would be incredible tough at first, but I think that once a few authors agree to this kind of access (especially with email and all) it would get easier.

So, my question is this:
Do you find the idea interesting/compelling? Would you be interested in being able to get very specific answers to very specific questions about the work of certain contemporary authors?

We aren't talking about general, big idea stuff, we're talking about really specific questions like "In the part of the book where X confesses his addiction to Y, he uses the word "unstoppable." That is a key term in psychology. Did you research the subject and really get into it or do you know someone who has gone through this?"

Granted, I just made that up and may not be very good, but that's the best I could come up with right now. When I first thought of the website I had some good ones, so I'll post those as I find them or come up with new ones from my current readings.

Is this something worth pursuing?

Ichiro Enlights Us

2007-05-18T07:32:00.001-05:00

Even if you don't know or follow baseball, here's all you need to know about him before reading his quote: he's really really good and he's the most popular player/person in Japan. He's played in the majors for 6 plus seasons. Ish. From USA Today:

Ichiro's reserved nature is partially reflective of his nationality, he says.

"It's a weakness to try to show yourself to be more than you actually are. To me, it's cooler to hide yourself, even if you're better than that," Ichiro says. "That's a big difference between Japanese and American cultures. Sometimes, (Americans) try to make themselves out to be bigger than they are."

Airbags Dangerous for Tall/Short People

2007-05-18T07:30:00.000-05:00

Great, another thing for me to worry about.

Ish

2007-05-18T07:22:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed how this has become such a pervasive word? Not just to tack on at the end of a word like a time or direction: "It's fiveish." "It's north of Addisonish."

This is pretty common and I use it all the time. Personally, I also like to add "plus" to any amount I'm estimating: "34 times 12 is 400 plus."

But back to Ish. Have you seen people start to use it as it's own, standalone word. I caught myself using it the other day, and then I heard my boss use it the next day. Nobody objected, everyone understood.

Is this becoming a standard thing?

This is how it sounds: "We need around 35 catalogs. (pause) Ish."

Or: Person 1: "We need 25 people."
Person 2: "Ish."

I like it, that's all I'm really trying to say here.

Failed Review—Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair (Book)

2007-05-18T07:09:00.000-05:00

Genre: Philosophy/Memoir
How I heard of it: It's a "classic." I've seen it on all kinds of "all time" lists. Didn't really realize it's more philosophy than memoir.
How far did I get? 134 of 400+.
What stopped me? Chatty McChatty. The author writes like a philosophy undergrad might talk after a few whiskey sours—on and on to get through a relatively simple topic.
Anything good? Well, the copy I have is a "P.S." copy, so it includes all kinds of extras about the author and discussion topics. The author's story is actually really interesting (mental illness, shock therapy, and so on), and it's a shame the philosophy part was done so dense and boring that it kept me from the memoir part. It's kind of a downer when, between scenes of travel and beautiful scenery, you have to put up with a long-winded professor—not nice.
Is the writing good? Yeah, the memoir parts are. The philosophy parts is not (and I double majored in philo, so enjoy it).
Disappointed? Big time. I actually really wanted to find certain stuff out—the story was intriguing—but it wasn't worth it to put myself through the torture of reading the rest of it. Plus, it's a "classic." Time tested. I thought for sure it would be a good read. T'was not.
What's next? I think I'll take a little break from novels here. I'm reading Best American Travel Writing while I try to catch up on my new New Yorker subscription. Not easy. And by the way, so far the fiction in them hasn't been anything to write home about. But the articles are interesting—I just read one on the graffiti artist Banksy the other day, it was really good.

The One Show Awards

2007-05-10T19:49:00.000-05:00

Check out the site, it's great and you can take a look at all the winners, from around the world, of the various categories of ad awards.

It's a great way to get exposed to international ads, which lead you to immediately ask: "Why don't we see good ads like that in the US?"

Answer: Political Correctness

Nanotechnology

2007-05-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

I've always been interested in this sort of thing, and this article shows how the application of this science can help mankind.

In this case, scientists were able to directly target cancer cells to destroy them and only them, making chemotherapy much, much, much more bearable.

The Lovely Bones

2007-05-10T19:28:00.000-05:00

Strange but true: Peter Jackson is going to direct the movie version of the best-selling book. I haven't read it but I know what it's about and I know the author's story, which is pretty interesting.

It just seems like a strange pairing, but I'm looking forward to it even though I haven't read the book, which I admit is a little weird. Maybe I'll read it the week before it comes out, it's what I did with Lord of the Rings.

Obama in the New Yorker

2007-05-10T19:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a recent subscriber to the magazine and I wanted to give a heads up to everyone to check out this article about Obama. It talks a lot about his ideal of unity and how for Obama this isn't just a political thing—it's part of his personality.

I could go on and on, but just take a look at it, it's well worth it.

It's nice to be excited about a presidential candidate.

By the way, it's a part-time job keeping up with this magazine every week. In a good way, though.

Cubby Greed

2007-05-10T18:58:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted on the Cubbies in a very long time, mostly because if I started to I would start to get really frustrated and annoyed with most of the decisions that are and aren't made. But actually Lou Pinella has been pretty good: he's played Theriot, given Guzman a shot, and I like the way he's handled the kids. Murton is my one issue where I feel he should play more.

But ANYWAY, this isn't about that. It's about this new promotion they are running, which makes it look like they are being gracious by offering fans a shot at on-field tickets. But look, it's an AUCTION, which means—as usual—that those of us who won't spend a thousand dollars on a single ticket.

So big whoop.

But, in the spirit of fairness and evenhandedness, I will mention that last Sunday I went to the Cubs game and sat in the best seat I've ever sat in at a baseball game:

How did I manage to score these seats? Well, the Cubs website had a "raffle" of sorts. "Of sorts" because you didn't really win anything, you won the "chance" to buy great (expensive) tickets. So I said what the hell and I entered. And I won. I was given a website and a password and was told to go there at a certain time. I did.

I found tickets available for these sections that are usually sold out at this point. So I still had to pay the big bucks, but without this raffle I would've never even had a chance.

So I guess the two sides balance each other out—the greed of the auction and the generosity of giving me a chance to spend my money with them.

Checks and balances.

Lifehacker.com

2007-05-10T18:46:00.000-05:00

I like this website, it's devoted to making life more efficient via software. I am a HUGE proponent of making all kinds of processes, be they work related or not, faster and more efficient.

This one particular tip to deal with spam seems to make a whole lot of sense for people/business that don't receive a whole lot of legitimate foreign email:

By blocking email from most of the undeveloped world, I've successfully reduced spam by 95 percent in the past year.

And he goes on to show you how to do it.

I thought nothing of it except that it wouldn't work for me, seeing as how I have people I'd like to hear from in "underdeveloped" parts of the world.

But, as is usual for these kinds of news pieces, the comments section provided infinitely better entertainment (the now-deceased comments section on Yahoo News was the best!):

I don't know why they don't just make a separate internet just for Americans - who cares about people in the rest of the world.

Then there is a standard case of the people knowing more than the writer, as they debunk the claim that the "underdeveloped" world is the cause of 95% of the world's email.

On the comments section:

C'mon LifeHacker, change your xenophobic ways! Everyone knows that the lion's share of all spam originates in the U.S. of A, with Canada, the UK high up on the list of offenders too.

SpamHaus Statistics: http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/countries.lasso

And sure enough, the statistics bear this out.

Farfour the mouse

2007-05-10T18:32:00.000-05:00

Check out this bit on the "Hamas Mickey Mouse." All of the angles have been worked here but my main concern here is for the legacy of Mickey Mouse.

Aren't some copyright laws being broken here? I actulaly remember reading something a while back about Disney's copywright on Mickey ending soon. Maybe it already did. People were getting ready to flood the market with all kinds of Mickey memorabilia without worrying about infringing on any laws. Disney was going to get an extension but, according the article I read, it didn't look likely.

Anyone have the details on this?

That would be one hell of a way of battling terrorrism—sue the shit out of Hamas in a courtroom.

New Blog on Being an American Stranger

2007-05-08T22:31:00.000-05:00

For those of you that are keeping track, I posted something a while back about possibly starting a new blog with some articles I've been writing about my experiences as a foreigner that doesn't look like a foreigner living in the US. And all the hilarity that ensues.

I got a couple of comments about it, one of which was the following:

Anonymous said...: Aren't you being just a bit disingenuous in characterizing yourself as a "foreigner" in the US? You are, after all, 50% US American by birth and were schooled in institutions following US culture-based currricula, esp. your early childhood schooling when those things are easiest to learn and get hard-wired.

My response:

Carlos P said...: Perhaps a bit disingenuous, but the way I see it I was raised somewhere that is NOT the US. No matter what kind of situation you are in while living in a place like Guatemala, it is NOT the US. It is, like any other place in the world, completely unique. So moving to the US afterwards, while being much easier for me than some other people (i.e. those that don't know english, have darker skin, etc.), was still an adjustment. An adjustment that was not easy at all.

The blog would focus on those adjustments and the new life that comes with being someone who carries a culture and experience in his heart and mind while living in an entirely different place that knows very little about the experience.

Maybe I'll post more on this later. I'm in a bit of a rush but it's a good question to discuss.

More on this later.

Well, later is now. I figured this was the perfect time to start the new blog and get my articles ready for outside viewing.

So to read up on the rest of my response to this comment, please go to the new blog, American Stranger. If you have a better name for it, please let me know, I'll consider good ideas.

And please don't stop reading this blog, as it will still be as active as ever!

Bulls = Awful

2007-05-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

So the Bulls have been playing like a piece of crap with a jersey on, only in a collective way.

I don't want to talk about it, but I appreciate that my main man Nocioni was able to bring a smile to my face with this quote after the game. If you didn't see the game or don't care about this stuff, he was clean shaven, which isn't normal for him.

When asked why, he replied:

"I missed a spot shaving," Nocioni said. "Then I tried to make everything smaller and smaller. It didn't work, so I shaved everything."

He is our everyman.

More on the housewife's salary

2007-05-08T22:05:00.000-05:00

Remember that post I made a few days ago about a housewife's "job" being valued at around $130,000?

Well, loyal MSN Money readers responded in droves and one in particular caught my eye:

I'm looking forward to your article detailing how much men are worth. A typical male's "overtime" wages would include mowing, trimming, edging, fertilizing, weeding, gutter cleaning, snow removal, general repairs, car repairs, coaching Little League six to 10 hours a week, not to mention the overwhelming stress of being the provider of his family's financial security. I won't hold my breath waiting for that article.

I think in the end we all feel undervalued, no matter who we are or what our job is. Chalk it up to human nature.

Street Wars

2007-05-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine at work tipped onto this. It's called Street Wars and it's basically a water gun/assassination game in real time, in real life. No computers (except for signing up), no fake identities. By entering your provide your address and work address and you get someone else's data too. Your job is to squirt that person with a water gun.

Sound filled with all kinds of possible scary/dangerous scenarios? Of course, and that's why it's such an awesome idea.

The idea of someone knowing where you live and trying to hunt you down though, that might be too much for the more paranoid of us out there.

There are all kinds of rules involved and I suggest you check out the site for more info.

This is the kind of thing that, if it were happening in another city besides the one I lived in, I would be telling whatever buddies I had there that they HAVE to do it. But me? I'll pass.

I'll be on the lookout for the water guns though.

The State of Book Reviews in Newspapers

2007-05-04T13:12:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting article about how book reviews are becoming less and less common in papers as the popularity of blogs has exploded.

I for one agree with the "democratic" characterization of book reviews on blogs. If I want to review whatever book I want, I can. If I want to say something is horrible, I do. Newspapers (as all other institutions) have certain interests and needs that need to be met. Freedoms are restricted. Bloggers have their own business when it comes to their reviews.

I do feel for those who can't or refuse to adjust to this change. Especially older folks who love books and want to read about them but are having a tougher time finding reviews in traditional media.

A Housewife's Salary

2007-05-03T23:05:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting article from a study done by the people at Salary.com. They've tried to come up with a salary that measures what a mom would make given her work hours and different responsibilities.

I think it's a great way for numbers-oriented people to realize the often undervalued jobs of women in the home.

Pursuit of Happyness—Review

2007-05-01T18:26:00.000-05:00

Who's in it? The Fresh Prince of Bel Air—Will Smith—his son, and what looks like the woman from Crash that gets felt up by the Cops. Might not be her though. (Confirmed, it's her)
What's the deal? Based on a true story, a smart guy (Smith) makes a bad business deal and ends up alone with his son on the streets. He gets picked for an unpaid internship at Dean Witter and must make it through some extremely tough times with his son as they live on the streets—all while preparing for his big exam that may or may not get him a permanent, paying job.
How much of it is true? No idea, but I remember reading up on this guy when the movie came out and I think the gist is pretty much there.
Is "happyness" a typo? No, it gets worked into the movie. The whole pursuit of happiness angle works well, but it's one of those things that, if it's actually true (that the real guy actually thought of Ben Franklin), then it works well. Otherwise, it's a bit contrived and semi-cheesy. Kind of like the whole James Frey thing.
The role of the rubik's cube in this movie: Pretty major, actually. I guess it was all the rage in 1981 and no one could solve them. Fresh Prince though, does, and it gets him the internship. Again, this is cool if it's true, kind of lame if it's not (research: rubik's cube was Smith's idea, didn't actually happen; for more on the disparities go here). But all this is now, after I've seen it. Throughout the movie it works, since I get sucked into movies pretty deep while I watch.
Will Smith's kid, is he any good? The kid's got charisma and he's cute—so he's halfway there.
One thing I kept waiting for and never happened, which was surprising/unrealistic: No racism. This was a business (stockbrokering) with mostly white, college-educated men, and I didn't detect an ounce of racism in this movie (plus it's 1981, remember). Although him being treated like an assistant by the one guy could pass for it, it's certainly not overt or meant to be noticed. Plus he shows up with his son in front of a beautiful CEO's house (the house is beautiful, not the CEO, FYI) and the CEO shows no issues with a black man in this neighborhood, on his porch. Instead, he invites him to sit in his box at the 49ers game. Now, I may have just been coming out of the womb in 1981, but wouldn't he have encountered a fare share of blockades due to his color? Or was the intention of the producers to show that, when it comes to stockbrokers, the only color that matters is green and not black and white.
Where I got that last line from: A PBS special on blacks in Hollywood.
Trailer teaser: They showed the best parts in the trailer, what the hell? Respect to this movie that even though I had seen the most powerful parts, they were still strong enough to swift-kick me in the guy, at which point I started to cry.
Cry factor: 8/10 (10 being Cool Runnings, the ultimate guy-crying movie)
It's incredible but I totally buy: How he kept going to work in a professional-looking suit, even when he was homeless. This was a no-brainer on his part—you gotta look the part to get the part.
Wrap up: This is a great example of a movie with good writing, good acting, and a great story. No lasers or special effects or made up accents. It's great to see an "old fashioned" movie that's really good.

Here is the real-life Chris Gardner in a recent photo:

Footnoted.org

2007-04-25T21:16:00.000-05:00

For those of you intested in investing rather than mere speculating, check out Footnoted.org. It's a site dedicated to revealing "the things that companies try to hide in their routine SEC filings."

Which is great because most people are too lazy to go through these so it's a good place to start noticing the kind of honest assessments companies actually give of their own operations to investors or anyone else willing to put in the work and read through 10-Ks.

Lakisha Jones from American Idol

2007-04-25T21:12:00.000-05:00

I have a talent for looking at people and finding a resemblance with famous people.

Here is the first in what I hope becomes a regular installment. Any good ideas for a name for this section?

Hedge Funds and salaries

2007-04-25T20:54:00.000-05:00

I was reading this interesting article on the New York Times on the ridiculous salaries some hedge-fund managers are pulling in. Check it out, the one guy they talk about made $1.7 billion.

That's $1,700,000,000.

That's 42.5 million dollars per paycheck if you're getting paid biweekly like most people.

What on earth do you do with that money?

So what exactly makes a hedge fund different than a mutual fund or any other investment device? Well, here is a good article to get you up to date if you're interested.

Basically, the difference is that hedge funds are only open to accredited investors (you need to have a lot of money) and you can short and long a stock, that is you can bet on it going up or down, which a lot of people (think of Overstock's CEO Patrick Byrne here) think is shady.

But ultimately, the thing that people have a problem with is the amount of money changing hands. That $1.7 billion is something we just can't understand—it leads many to believe something illegal is being done to earn that kind of dough.

As for the people who put their money into these funds, look at the returns some of these guys are getting on their money. They are obviously content in paying the high fees associated with hedge funds because they are getting a great return on their investment.

Executions in America

2007-04-25T20:33:00.000-05:00

I was reading this article the other day on how the lethal injection method isn't as "humane" as we all thought. But one line caught my eye:

Of the 53 executions in the United States in 2006, all but one were by lethal injection.

All but one? So I was curious what other methods are still used in the US to kill people.

According to this article from Amnesty USA, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad are still legal.

Now, whether they are still used or not, I don't know, but firing squad? Even in Guatemala we got rid of that one! Give me a break.

As for my stance on the death penalty, I think some people definitely deserve to die, but at the same time wouldn't the harshest punishment for some of these people involve keeping them alive and locked up? Probably, but that's way to expensive to bank on.

If you're interested in death penalty stuff as related to proving or disproving the holocaust (I know, seems like a stretch), check out Dr. Death.

Watch out for a new Blog coming soon

2007-04-23T22:37:00.000-05:00

I recently took a class with MediaBistro on column writing and I asked myself what I could bring to the table that was different, interesting, and interesting to me.

So I decided to write some articles on what it's like to be a foreigner in the US that looks nothing like a foreigner. Someone that in fact looks more American than his original heritage.

This someone is me of course, who else.

Some of the stuff will cover my ability to spy on Hispanic people in public places (which is even cooler when they are talking about you) since they think I'm an American that doesn't know Spanish, immigration issues, personal things I've dealt with, and other general things in the media.

If anyone is reading this blog, let me know if that's at all interesting.

I'm doing it anyway, but it's always fun when someone posts a comment on here for me.

Solar Power

2007-04-23T22:31:00.000-05:00

Ever since I can remember, I've loved the idea of solar power. This is when I was 10 years old and there was no such thing as "green."

The reason I thought it was cool was from a technological/cool factor perspective.

Running all the appliances in the house on solar power? Sweet!

Check out this article on how much solar power can save you and the different ways it can be incorporated into existing or new design of a house.

What caught my attention is that a typical system can provide about 25% of a house's total electric consumption.

Want to know what's even cooler? Net-metering. It means if you produce more electricity than you consume, you can sell that excess back to the electric company for a profit.

I just went on a family business trip to a sugar mill in Nicaragua and they produce 40 megas of electricity while consuming just 15 (ignore what a mega is or what it stands for, it's a unit of measurement of a lot of electricity).

So not only are they being "green" by producing their own electricity (which they do by using every bit of the sugar-can process and being extremely efficient with it), they don't have an electric bill, they have an electric check that they collect every month.

Cool, huh?

US Health Care system

2007-04-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

I was in Paris when Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 came out and it is what probably caused my political awakening, among other things. So I've always kind of looked forward to the "next one."

Well, his next one is Sicko, which looks at the American health industry and takes a big baseball bat to it. All I know is that in one part, Moore takes some people suffering from respiratory problems thanks to 9/11 (the terrorist attack) to Cuba so they can see what it's like to be treated in Cuba.

We all know Moore's style by now so it's hard to know how bias this will be, but this article from Alternet is pretty interesting. I've always enjoyed the discussion of how one country (mainly my own, Guatemala) compares to others (mainly to the US, since everyone in the States things they have the best system and that all other doctors are probably just sticking leeches on people).
From the article:

We are paying for a massive, inefficient bureaucracy. The increasing cost of prescription drugs also is increasing the healthcare bill, and U.S. drug costs are the highest in the world; Americans pay 30 percent to 80 percent more for prescription drugs than citizens of any other country.

You might think that this excess money goes into developing new drugs, but you would be wrong: Only 13 percent of drug costs go to research and development, and little of that goes for pioneering new drugs to deal with life-threatening conditions; 51 percent goes to marketing, administration and profits.

Profit. That's the biggest problem with the system. In other countries, it's a service the government provides for its citizens to help them cope with sicknesses. But not here. Here it's a business, which is an awful way of "taking care" of people.

Whenever I tell people that I have had this or that procedure done in Guatemala, they look at me and kind of fidget.

"But, like, no offense but . . . is it safe? Are the doctors . . . OK?"

This is after I've already told them I've gone and had it done. It's not a lack of sensitivity, it's just a lack of understanding that the system in the best country in the world isn't the best in the world.

We'll see how Michael Moore verbalizes all these things.

Bee Season—Review

2007-04-23T21:56:00.000-05:00

Who's in it? Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.
What's the deal? Gere is a religion professor who takes his work home with him and blabs on and on about God and Kabbalism to his family. The son is fed up with it once he falls for a blond hottie that seduces him into what I call Krishna school. The daughter, meanwhile (the only likable character in the whole movie), is winning spelling bees left and right, but no one cares at first.
Do I detect some negativity? Yeah. I don't like Gere, and he's a real dick in this movie.
How does the girl spell words she's never even heard of before? She closes her eyes and in what is a nifty little effect, the word comes to life, cluing her in on how it's spelled.
Is that cheating? Not sure what the bee rules are on mystic powers but I'm pretty sure it's not allowed or at least discouraged. But who cares, without the girl this movie is just awful. And it still is, actually.
Why it's still awful: There's nothing to it. Nothing happens. At the end the characters play it off like some huge catharsis has gone down. And you're looking for the explanation and there is none. And Gere is in it, remember.
What to tell anyone considering renting it: She throws the national bee at the end to "save" her family. There, you've ruined it for them and they won't go see it now. Then say "You're welcome."
Another sign this movie sucks: Juliette Binoche is very blah in it.
Don't forget: Richard Gere is in it.

300—Review

2007-04-22T15:38:00.000-05:00

What's the deal? Comic book come to life story of how 300 Spartans held off a huge Persian army (purportedly led by man/god Xerxes) via a series of sweet special effects and blood splatters. Love story sort of mixed in—for both country and wife (with a dab of father-son love too). But action, mostly action. The good kind.
Who's in it? No one, as far as I can tell. Maybe some of the LOTR secondary or tertiary characters, but no one you'll recognize right away, especially since everyone is jacked up so much.
Why now? I wanted to see this when it first came out on IMAX but I just couldn't make it. Plus that's like 15-20 bucks. I ended up seeing it for a cool $5 with Kerosotes' Five Buck Club, which lets you see movies that have been out for two weeks for five bucks. Sweet, huh?
Is it just a dumb action movie? Well, no. It's filled with action, it has a compelling lead actor, and some history thrown in to boot (which is mangled, from what I've been told). It's kind of like Gladiator light (lacks that emotional punch to the gut of that movie) in comic-book form, which turns out to be incredibly compelling in its own way (think Sin City here).
So the action scenes are really sweet? Yes. It's all computer generated, mind you, but those splatter effects become second nature right away, and when the bad guy's leg gets lobbed off you will grab your date's thigh (or the armrest) and kind of clench, going "Ooooh!"
What was the Spartan's preferred attack move? Ahh, the spear lunge, grasshopper. Sound boring. Maybe. But these guys do the best with what they've got, turning the spear lunge into an art, a tradition, and a pretty good kill move.
Did any of this really happen? I'm not sure. I may or may not research this. But I do remember a little bit from my classical rhetoric classes and the Spartans marching, building a wall, and fighting off invaders in boats—it kind of rings a bell. That 300 men held off so many doesn't, but who cares. You'll be too busy trying to find evidence that all this was done with blue screens—ALL OF IT. The two (or more) heads lobbed off are especially good.
The only thing that made the gore and couple of sex scenes seem awkward: That a couple behind us brought along their six-year-old daughter with them. Every time blood splattered she went "Oooooh!" just like the rest of us and then her dad would chatter something in here ear . What it was I can't imagine, "It's OK baby, that's not really a wall of dead bodies nailed to a tree. Blue screens honey, blue screens."
Why Xerxes was clearly not a god: He was a Transsexual, listen to his voice and look at how tall he is.
Why Xerxes was clearly a god: He got a bunch of naked chicks to get all freaky with the disgusting Quasimodo character.
What to tell your gf to get her to come see it: Six packs. Every Spartan between the ages of 15 and 50 was apparently hitting the gym twice a day. These dudes are JACKED up and don't wear any shirts, only the "Spartan red" capes. Which is weird because all the Spartan old men are short and look to be in pretty shitty shape, which you don't have to tell your gf, obviously.
What to tell your bf to get him to come see it: Sweet action scenes, sweet battles, good enemies, and a little sex thrown in there too. If your guy is into it, you may want to mention the forced-sex scene (hey, you never know, different strokes).
One more thing: Two, actually. This is basically Gladiator mixed with Braveheart on steroids without the star power. The other is about the oracle. There's a scene where she's in a trance and she was clearly shot underwater to give that strange effect you see in shampoo commercials. But she's sped up and slowed down to the point that it kind of puts you in a trance. Just FYI is all.
Bonus: As we walked out of the theater, I looked back to watch the parents who had brought their little girl to this violent, R-rated movie, and the girl was just sitting there like "WTF?" and the two parents (who were around 35 or 40) were making out. WTF?

Wal Mart Effect—Review

2007-04-22T15:26:00.000-05:00

Genre: Business book.
Why I read it: It was one of the editor's picks for the best business books of 2006 over at amazon.
What's the deal? Wal Mart, as the biggest non-oil company in the world, has moved to a place where the rules simply don't apply. There are two sides to the Wal Mart effect, the good (low low prices, every day and making it's suppliers more efficient) and the bad (Wal Mart forces it's suppliers to be so "efficient" that some of them decide to cheat to maintain their end of the bargain). This means mistreating employees, lowering the quality of their product, or firing employees to accommodate a move to China.
Something I didn't know: How shadowy and mysterious Wal Mart is as a corporation. Also, I had no idea of their size or influence on so many other companies and the economy itself.
Fun Facts: - 90 % of Americans live within 15 miles of a WM.
- WM is the largest retailer in the US, Canada, Mexico, and 2nd largest in the UK.
- How many people went to WM last year: 7.2 billion. Earth's population: 6.5 billion.
- WM is as big as Home Depot, Kroger, Target, Costco, Sears, and K-Mart combined.
- WM sells more by St Patrick's day than Target does all year.
You have to hand it to: Sam Walton, much respekt, yo.
My favorite parts: The first one on how, thanks to WM deodorant no longer comes in boxes. The Makin Bacon story, Snapper lawnmowers, and the Salmon part.
What it all comes down to: "That kind of dominance at both ends of the spectrum—dominance across a huge range of merchandise and dominance of geographic consumer markets—means that market capitalism is being strangled with the slow inexorability of a boa constrictor. Choice is an illusion."
Says a lot: Even people who get laid off because of WM's low prices go back to shot there. Why? Prices are so low.
You can tell: This was originally an article—probably a really good one. You can tell because it looks very drawn out, very deliberate. Some of it isn't very well organized, he starts spouting facts with very little context. Informative, for sure, but a little disorienting.
Verdict: Eye opening, for sure, and very interesting. The writing could be better, especially when he has to explain complicated business stuff. But it's pretty clear and above all informative, if not longer than it needs to be.
What's next: Suite Française

Power of One - Review

2007-04-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

Who's in it: Morgan Freeman in a supporting role.
What's the deal? South Africa, Apartheid, a jail, a British boy, a friendship with a black man, love, etc.
How old is it? Really old. I cried the first time I saw it, but I saw it again and certain parts were pretty corny. Still cried though.
What else is so good about it? The soundtrack. Lots of chanting in African tongue.
What I never realized about it the first time I saw it: How many shitty things happen to this kid in his life. It really sucks.
Another cool thing about it: The Afrikaner accent, it's like a mix of Australian and Jamaican.
Added plus: Teaches you about South African history in a totally passive way.
Who you think is playing the bully character (Botha) after you really take some time to look and listen closely - you'll swear it's him circa 1980 and you'll congratulate yourself on recognizing him before he made it big as James Bond and Munich: David Craig. Turns out it's some random guy you've never heard of, though.

TV Commercial Ratings

2007-04-10T20:01:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of articles from Ad Age that should interest everyone that watches television, regardless of whether they're interested in ads or not.

Turns out a new system is being set up to rate ads on whether or not consumers "liked" them. The idea is to rate ads the way shows are rated. In other words, if your ad—no matter how much you've paid—causes viewers to change the channel, you'll be punished because of it.

One of the articles believes that, by putting ads and shows on an equal measuring scale, a new era of creativity will emerge. Not in TV (unfortunately) but in the ads sandwiched around those shows:

Proper commercial ratings -- the type that rate each individual spot, even on a second-by-second basis -- have the potential to reinvigorate creativity. Just as the TV buyer can call the seller after he or she receives the overnight ratings to discuss why a program isn't pulling the promised numbers, commercial ratings will give marketers a real insight into whether people actually want to watch their commercials. Marketers and their agencies will be able to see the exact drop off in viewers and compare that across different types of creative.

A top creative at BBDO makes a good point though, indicating one of TV's biggest flaws: it's American Idol-ish democracy:

"You'd hate if every ad became the equivalent of 'Two and a Half Men,'" he said.

As someone looking to get into the business, this all sounds very cutting edge and exciting, though I'm sure ad veterans may feel their current models are threatened.

We'll see what happens.

Babel - Review

2007-04-05T21:42:00.000-05:00

Who's in it: Brad Pitt, Kate Blanchett, some goats, a Japanese perverted deaf girl.
What's the deal? Four different stories (or is it five) about the relationship between parents and children are flimsily joined together by random shit like a rifle and an illegal babysitter.
Is that a negative tone I'm detecting? Yes. The movie was nominated for all these Oscars (didn't it win a bunch too?) and I finally get to see it and I wasn't blown away. When I don't understand why so many people liked a movie I assume they bought the hype or that they are pretending, all of which aggravates me.
What's the deal with Brad Pitt's eyes? I guess they wanted him to look older, but those wrinkles and the grey hair just make him seem perpetually tired.
My favorite of the storylines: Probably Brad Pitt and Blanchett. It really could've been a movie in itself, it wouldn't've been so long (140 minutes) and I would've gotten more attached to the characters. Although I did like figuring out their historiesfrom the bits and pieces of information that were parsed out.
Mindy's one-sentence review: "I don't even know." (she was tired here and barely paying attention—look for more on point remarks in the future from the Minster)
What to tell your girlfriend to get her to see it: Umm, Brad Pitt.
What to tell your boyfriend to get him to see it: A Japanese schoolgirl in a super short miniskirt and no panties keeps flashing her cooter and, later, is completely nude.
What the Netflix label says it's about that I would never have guessed from watching it but that could probably be said about 90% of all movies: Human
Communication.
Why I watched it: The hype. I'll never learn.
Why it's called Babel: I still don't know.
What I said five seconds after the movie ended when I was asked whether I liked it or not: "I don't know . . . yet."
What I think the reaction should be to qualify as a great movie: "Wow, yes, that's incredible."
Movie where I said that: Requiem for a Dream, Gladiator.
Movie it will remind you of: Crash, after all, it's the same posse that made that one. A little bit of Haven too, an obscure Orlando Bloom movie that came out last year and no one ever saw.

Halfway House - Book review

2007-03-26T20:45:00.000-05:00

Genre: Family Epic
Premise: Girl has a psychotic break at a swim meet and the whole family starts to crumble.
Author: Never heard of her, but I saw her at a reading. She read the opening swim-meet scene and I just had to read it.
Movie it reminds me of: American Beauty without the violence.
Why I chose it: The reading I went to. She had some really original analogies and the writing was very fresh. Plus the story kind of hooked me early on.
Fun facts: Her husband, Eric Puchner, is also a writer.
Verdict: It's great, entertaining writing. It makes me wonder if I would enjoy a book that had great writing but no story. This wasn't it, but since the writing was so good and so enjoyable, the question popped into my head.
Favorite: The analogies. The voice of the girl and the insight it gives to mental illness.
Underlined: "Her mouth was jagged, like a bottle broken off at the neck."
Should you read it? Simple. Get over to Borders, find it, take 15-20 minutes to read the first chapter, the swim-meet part, and you'll know if it's for you or not. If it is, you're in for some fresh writing.
Time: Week and a half.
Next up: The Wal-Mart Effect

The Namesake - Review

2007-03-26T20:35:00.000-05:00

Genre: Family Epic
Premise: Indian man comes to America, has kids, kids adjust, parents try to adjust to childre adjusting so easily. Somehow, it's all very interesting. Scenes where you will cry ensue.
Who: The guy from Harold and Kumar, Kumar, though I've never seen it and have been told it's brilliant. The author of the book, Jhumpa Lahiri, makes an appearance as well. The two Indian parents are great in this.
Dictionary word that describes this movie: ethereal. adj. light, airy, or tenuous
Talking point: It's a long movie. It's got lots of emotional scenes. It's got a lot of India scenes. It follows the book to a T. Would you ever change your name? Why? To what? Isn't it funny how they try to make an actor look both 17 and 30 in the same movie? Kumar just got a job to teach at some university.
Verdict: I thought it was great. I absolutely loved the book, but the movie does a good job of using its advantages to tell the story. The sound/music and cinematography really creates a sense of two different worlds existing side by side. This is one of those movies that sounds lame when you describe it in one sentence when it's actually pretty good. I wish Gogol was played by someone else though.
What to tell your girlfriend to get her to see it: "I will probably cry, baby."
What to tell your boyfriend to get him to see it: "Ashima is a MILF."
What Randy Jackson would say about Kumar's performance: "It was kind of pitchy, dude."

Crank - Review

2007-03-26T20:28:00.000-05:00

Genre: Action/Comedy
Premise: Guy gets injected with mysterious Chinese poison, meaning he has to keep his adrenaline going for 24 hours or he dies, which means the movie has an "excuse" to be one, long uninterrupted action scene. Hilarity ensues.
Who: Jason Statham, the guy from The Transporter, who is the picture you see in the dictionary under "cool."
Talking point: The hangover you would get the next day if you took all the over-the-counter stuff this guy takes. And the public-sex scene, of course.
Verdict: It's funny and it's an action movie. Because it doesn't take itself seriously, you can enjoy the crazy action scenes without feeling like an idiot. Especially the ending. Rent it, it's what I did - it's an original idea with original cinematography.
What to tell your girlfriend to get her to see it: Jason Statham is in it.
What to tell your boyfriend to get him to see it: Jason Statham is in it.

Subprime Mortgage Devastation

2007-03-23T12:04:00.000-05:00

Forget about the economic effects of this meltdown, this article points out the reality that many neighborhoods around the country will soon be facing.

As an aside, I had been following a business for a little under a year called New Century Financial, a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) that was a provider of sub prime mortgages. Their dividend yield was outstanding and I even went through their annual report and the more detailed 10-Q statement. Seeing nothing wrong, I decided to add it to my watch list for a possible purchase.
That was when the stock was hovering around $40. Today, because of the crash, it's trading as a pink stock (de-listed) for under a buck.

Phew!

Body for Life - Week 1

2007-03-13T19:26:00.000-05:00

So I've gone through just two days and I can say right away this isn't going to be as easy as I thought. The running really gassed me and it reminded me of the days or practicing with the Guatemalan National Baseball team. It's a hell of a workout and at the end of the 20 minutes you're glad it's over.

The weight training is almost a cardio workout because of the little rest and the continuous increasing of the weight. That last rep of 12 is a killer and it makes you feel like you're doing a serious, hardcore lifting workout.

As for the food, I'm kind of modifying the whole thing. I'm definitely cutting down on my portions and I'm eating more vegetables. I'm also trying to do 5-6 small meals a day instead of 2-3 bigger ones.

Starting point: 185.4 pounds, 15.7 body fat %, 56.2 Total Body Water Percentage

By the way, I have a neat little Tanita scale that tells me the numbers. We'll see what the effect is since these numbers have pretty much been static for over a year.

Body for Life

2007-03-10T18:44:00.000-06:00

A coworker of mine told me about this website and the physical fitness program that it details. I guess it's based on an old book that's famous. Well, since I've been looking to really work out consistently and stick with it, I'm going to try their "challenge." It's three months long and it consists of watching your portions and doing a certain type of exercise six times a week. Interval training plays a big part of the program but it's basically watching how much you eat, doing 20 minutes of aerobic exercise, and a weight-lifting program.

I could describe the whole thing on here, but go to the website. I know the before and after pictures are hard to believe but I'm going to try it out. I'm taking the picture and everything. I'll try and put messages on here as often as I can to kind of let people know what it's like and how hard it is. And, of course, to see how effective it can be.

I'm looking forward to just following a plan that's laid out because I can't be trusted to stay on an exercise program that I've created. I get lazy or inconsistent and it loses its effectiveness. So this program fits with me because you just "follow the map" and it gives you a little flexibility to keep you from getting too bored.

Sunday's are "free days" where you rest and you can eat whatever you want.

Watch out Taco Bell.

Super Bowl Complaints

2007-03-09T09:14:00.000-06:00

Here are some fun comments on the Super Bowl halftime show. My favorite:

"It was obscene to show Prince, a HOMOSEXUAL person through a sheet, as to show his siluette (sic) while his guitar showed a very phalic (sic) symbol coming from his below-midriff section. I am very offended and I would preffer (sic) not to have showed it to my 4 children who love football. One of them has hoped to be a quarterback and now he will turn out gay. I am actually considering to check him for HIV. Thanks CBS for turning my son GAY."

Thunderstruck and Letters from Iwo Jima

2007-02-27T08:21:00.000-06:00

Read the book, it was good. It's from the guy that wrote Devil in the White City, which was incredible. I would read that one first and only read this one if you become a huge fan of the way it's written and the dual storyline deal.

As for the movie, damn. It felt like I was watching a Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. Very good.

No time for more chatter, but watch the movie, it was awesome.

Crazy Guatemala story

2007-02-27T08:16:00.000-06:00

Here is a really fucked up story that happened in Guatemala recently.

The gist: A few days ago a group of three Salvadorean politicians get chased by a car that eventually crashes them and some guys shoot all the people in the car, bodyguards and everything. Both countries are in shock, I mean, what the hell?

A few days later four (or was it three?) people are arrested for the crime. Who are they? Anti-organized crime cops, and one of them was the chief. Crazy.

Then, as they're sitting in jail, a group of men in ski masks breaks into the jail, assassinates the cops, and leave. Jail officials blame the killings on random riots from prisoners, so the prisoners take hostages and demand to have a TV crew come in so they can say that they had nothing to do with it, that this was done by someone.

Organized crime is going apeshit down there and it's pretty scary.

This is the type of story you tell people to impress them what a dangerous country you come from, but it's also the story you have to convince people isn't a commonplace occurrence.

Scary shit, though.