Thursday, February 10, 2005

I’m at work today. For how long, I don’t know. I feel about the same as the past couple of days, but I don’t want to use up my sick leave until I’m nearly dead, which I know is coming from when ECD had it. Meanwhile, she’s relapsed a bit and is at home today. How the kid has managed to avoid it is a mystery.

Anyway, I’m going to take it easy and try to get some things done today here at the office since my boss is at a suboffice all week. I’m more productive when he’s not here.

It took me two afternoons to get through Troy and it was a wee bit painful. I almost just stopped it but I wanted to see the Trojan horse part, so I stuck to the bitter end. I’m grateful that I managed to miss this one in the theater, although maybe the battle scenes would have been improved.

As with Tom Cruise, I’m not really a Brad Pitt fan. ECD thinks I’m crazy to not think he’s all that, especially as the uber-buff Achilles. But while he’s buff, I don’t find him that pretty. And in this movie his acting was awful; just dreadful. Ugh. Eric Bana, now, he’s the one I wished was the lead, but Hector was only a supporting role sadly. He’s attractive and a good actor - imagine! And the true eye candy was Orly Bloom as the idiotic and adulterous wife-stealer, Paris.

This is a long movie, so there were a lot of places where the movie could have improved, but aside from a couple good scenes, the rest was plodding and badly acted. The worst scene for me was Achilles seduction of Briseis, classic romance novel technique and laughable. Stockholm Syndrome accomplished in a day! It was when Briseis started making out with Achilles while still holding the knife at his throat that I almost turned it off. I wish I had because the Trojan horse scene was a little anticlimactic by the time it arrived.

For other points of view, see Jared’s review and Roger Ebert’s review. From Ebert:

“Troy” is based on the epic poem The Iliad by Homer, according to the credits. Homer’s estate should sue. The movie sidesteps the existence of the Greek gods, turns its heroes into action movie cliches and demonstrates that we’re getting tired of computer-generated armies. Better a couple of hundred sweaty warriors than two masses of 50,000 men marching toward one another across a sea of special effects.

Yeah, I should have read that review before watching it. *sigh*

Anyway, I pretty much hated it. 2 stars out of 5.

LATER: Oh yeah, one other thing. I get highly annoyed when composers try to mimic another successful sound. James Horner pretty much ripped off Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for Gladiator and I got really tired of hearing the moany-singing of that chick on the soundtrack. When the soundtrack distracts from the action on the screen, it’s bad.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

So remember the deputy with whom I have a deal where everytime he utters the F-word in my presence he has to pay up $.25? I got two quarters from him yesterday (one was actually from Friday, but he didn’t have any money on him then).

We were in the conference room eating lunch. As he was digging the coins out of his pocket, a woman in the room let fly with GD in a series of sentences about whatever it was we were talking. And he said, “Why you got to say the Lord’s name in vain like that?” (His exact wording - he’s from Cajun country.) She laughed and said, “He’s not my Lord,” to which he said, “Well, he’s mine, and I don’t like that.”

*crickets*

ECD and I were stunned into silence for a few seconds. And then I said to him, “Thank you,” as he rolled the quarters over to me, not only for the quarters but for the line he will not verbally cross. So I’m almost willing to cut him a little slack on the F-word, except that it’s a fun game to play with him and he’s paying for the candy I keep on my desk for people who visit my office.

On the other, I let that pass - I’ve had conversations with her in the past about spiritual things. She grew up Baptist, until her mother decided she was a witch. Yeah, wow. That one is covered by prayer.

Finale quiz answers can be found here.

Players—Quiz 12—Final Score

Jared—65—1240
jen—55—1085
Jaynee—40—1075
Ace—95—1045
kdeweb—0—1030
chrissw—70—1015
tygertyger—45—1005
SteenShell—40—870
princess jami—60—705
bryankelli—55—670
BigOrangeMichael—0—515
fij—0—470
Tara—0—460

More to come. I am home sick again today, so I’ll post my notes from the finale in a bit.

UPDATE: I answered the flights questions wrong - brain not working - scores corrected.

LATER: Notes are in the extended entry.

LATERER: One more note, Season 8 is in casting call and they’re looking for families of four. I have no idea how that will work or how many teams that will mean. We’ll see...and it means no All Star TAR yet.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

I don’t know if this is the flu for this season or just a very bad cold, but I’ve caught it. Not surprising since ECD had it last week. From what my officemates have shared, it’s a 2-weeker and dreadful. That I’m in the early stages and feel like doo-doo makes me tremble at what’s to come.

All this to say that I’m going home and I don’t know when I’ll be posting again. (Actually, that’s not true - I have to post the results of the TAR game tomorrow, so that’s a guarantee.)

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - love this show, although I forget about it on Sundays because of Cold Case. So I’ve been watching the How’d They Do That? eps on Mondays. I cry everytime because the crew cries everytime.

The Amazing Race - ya’ll know I love this show. Big finale episode tonight, which makes me sad. Season 7 premier March 1, which makes me glad. Next season we get the added bonus of Rob & Ambuh of Survivor: All Stars.

Anyone want to take on the game next time? I’ve done all the front-end work with the spreadsheets; you only need to come up with 10 creative quiz questions every week. I’ll help, but I can’t take the lead. Email me at jen at [my domain] dot com if you’re interested or leave me a comment.

Monday, February 07, 2005

I’ve moved this back to the top since it was a weekend post that is getting ready to scroll off the page. I think the topic is important enough to keep it on the front page for another day.

On my way home last night, I listened to the Chris Core show on WMAL. His topic: a pattern of very poor judicial decisions by a Circuit Court judge in Montgomery Co, MD, with regard to sexual assault cases, primarily child molestation/rape.

Chris started with the article from the WaPo about Sidney Richardson.

A Montgomery County man was sentenced to 10 years in prison yesterday for impregnating his 14-year-old stepdaughter. The girl became pregnant after a judge allowed the man to move back into the girl’s home following his release from jail for sexually abusing her when she was 9 and 10.

The rest of the article is in the extended section to save space here.

Chris then related these stories:

Circuit Court Judge Durke G. Thompson said that the alleged victim — an undocumented immigrant who prosecutors say was raped and beaten by a former boyfriend — may have accused the man of rape to get revenge because he refused to marry her. Then he overturned the conviction that a jury returned in 45 minutes back in November and ruled that the man, who is currently free on bond, should be given a new trial.

[...]

During a sentencing hearing for a convicted child molester two years ago, Thompson reportedly told the 11-year-old victim that it “takes two to tango.”

Core also said that he had talked with the county prodecutor’s office to verify these accounts and was told of additional examples that he chose not to share on the air. His point in bringing the subject up was that in his calling around the county and state, he learned that there is no way to remove an out of control judge like this - there’s no process for impeachment, no accountability. All we can do is complain and maybe he’ll get a reprimand. In my search on Judge Thompson, I found this article from 2003.

A state disciplinary panel is expected to rule soon on whether Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Durke G. Thompson violated judicial ethics by talking to a reporter in August 2002 about a pending case.

[...]

The case involves Sidney Ray Richardson, a convicted sex offender whom Thompson allowed, over a prosecutor’s objections, in January 2001 to return to his home and live with the 15-year-old stepdaughter Richardson had abused. The ruling infuriated law enforcement officials after the stepdaughter gave birth to a child and her mother told police that Richardson — who fled in May 2002 — was likely the father.

When details of the case surfaced in August 2002, Thompson told Washington Post reporter Phuong Ly, “I’m not responsible for people committing crimes.

“OK, I made a judgment … What do you want me to say, that I’m omniscient and I know what’s going to happen in every situation? People violate probation all the time.”

Charming. Common sense says that you do not return a child molester back into the home where he molested a child, especially when that child is still in the home. I was gratified to hear all of the radio show callers asserting the same opinion and a few questioned the mother’s judgment for allowing him back into the home as well. And I have to admit that the question of Thompson’s home life popped into my head at about the same time that another caller suggested that someone should investigate the judge because he seems rather sympathetic to child molesters.

But then the show got surreal because the next caller was the mother.

His then-wife told 630 WMAL’s Chris Core tonight she asked that Richardson be allowed to come back after serving time for molesting her daughter because her pastor advised it.  She says her church frowned on divorce.  She also says she was overwhelmed after her husband went to jail. She lost her home and creditors hounded her.  The woman said finally, that her husband’s probation officer and doctor recommended a gradual reintroduction to the home with a schedule to follow.  The woman’s then 14-year-old daughter gave birth to Richardson’s child about 10 months after he moved back in.

Oh, my blood pressure! Her pastor advised her to take back the convicted child molester. I was infuriated. How irresponsible and completely, absolutely wrong. I was all set to be sympathetic to the woman, but she blamed it all on the system - no one helped her, she got bad advice, yadda, yadda, yadda. This is where I lose patience with people adults. Lady, your first and primary responsibility is to care for your children - that includes their protection from harm. You can blame all the people you want, but you were the one who pretty much invited that man back to rape your daughter again.

I didn’t think the show could get more surreal until the daughter-victim came on the phone. That poor girl defended her mother, as I would have expected, and also blamed the system. Now, I’ll agree that the system messed up - led by the judge who let that man back into the house. And she also clarified that the WaPo article was wrong about the second molestation circumstances - she was not drunk and she did not ask for sex. Oh, that poor, poor girl.

Anyway, getting back to the point - there’s no way to remove a sitting judge. This judge’s term is until 2011. What can be done about this?

Jared has an excellent review of Hotel Rwanda up at his solo blog. I’m going to have to wait for the DVD on this movie, but I am anxious to see it. 

Hey, Dad, this one is for you. More backstory here.

Courtesy: Dean Esmay

As far as I can tell, the import of my stuff from the old blog was successful. Major kudos to the Solo-Jedis at Accidental Verbosity for the technical assistance with the comment spam clear out. Jay spent some time on Saturday basically doing the work for me and I am truly grateful.

I have to give kudos to pMachine Hosting as well. Julie spent many hours working with me yesterday to figure out why I wasn’t able to import the database file. Her last message to me was timed at 1am to say that she had loaded it and I was clear to import through EE.

The import took less than 5 minutes from that point. Amazing. Taking a quick look at a couple of the categories, it looks like that didn’t go very smoothly, but I’m not so worried about that. I just didn’t want to lose the posts altogether when my other hosting has expired.

Next major task - uploading all the photos/graphics so the posts are complete. Oy.

ECD and I were watching What Women Want on cable yesterday afternoon when a commercial for Brawny paper towels came on. (At the link, it’s the top ad listed, “Role Reversal.” We saw the 30 second ad.)

I knew they had gotten a new Brawnyman to replace the mustachioed dude from the 70s/80s era. The new lumberjack is a huge improvement. However, that TV ad is yucky. Both of us were quite grossed out and thought the ad very ineffective in that neither of us is inclined to by that brand of paper towel again because of the ad.

My problem? It is way too sexualized. He’s fully clothed in the whole thing, but the tone of the voiceover and the “sexy” way the guy is acting made us think that maybe he was a male stripper (oh, welcome, you Google pervs!) in another life. Ew.

What stinks? Brawny towels are actually a very good product, but I just can’t buy them now.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

What an odd little movie with amazing performances by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.

A couple undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories when their relationship turns sour, but it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.

I’m surprised that Carrey wasn’t nominated for this performance by the Academy - I think it’s his best work. He played his vulnerable and insecure Joel so convincingly that I have no problem believing that Carrey himself experienced a bit of Joel in his own life. Winslet at Clementine was flamboyant and flawed without being over-the-top and deserves her nomination for the Oscar.

I don’t even begin to know where to start describing my opinion. I found it depressing and maudlin at times, but that was the idea and there were moments of such sweetness and love as well. I found myself loving and hating the main characters at times and the interjection of reality with the secondary characters sometimes seemed jarring. Back and forth from memory to reality and then the twist with two of the secondary characters that ties to closely to the main story.

Solid performances from Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, and Tom Wilkinson as well.

I very much like this movie.  3.5 stars out of 5.

Last night at the restaurant where my parents and I ate dinner after church, I was internally cracking up because at one point the song that was playing was George Clinton and the Parliament/Funkadelic‘s Who’s Got the Funk?, which immediately brought to mind PCU.

The song title came to mind this morning when I woke up with the tickle in the back of my thoat that starts the cold/funk that ECD has/had last week. It starts in the throat, I’m told by all who got it. So I have something to look forward to this week. Joy.

I know this has been discussed at The Thinklings, but it’s been in my head for the past week, so you know that means it’s got to be blogged.

Which is Better?

Steven Curtis Chapman

OR

Michael W. Smith

Leave your opinions in the comments.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Interesting movie, Collateral. I think of myself as not much of a Tom Cruise fan and then he comes out with a movie like this and I have to rethink my prejudice. I think he tends to overacting where he’s probably trying to be subtle or passionate. Sometimes he misses, but as Vincent-the-hit-man he hit just about all of the right notes.

Jamie Foxx (Max) is very deserving of his supporting actor Oscar nomination for this role. Wow, was he good. He’s come a long, long way from Wanda. And it makes me really want to see Ray asap.

Overall it was strongly acted movie with solid performances from Jada Pinkett-Smith and Mark Ruffalo as well.

It starts out a little slow and I was struck by the use of a classical piece of music for several minutes when all hell breaks loose and the real action starts. Max is shocked, we’re shocked right there with him, and all we can do is go along for the ride. It’s a dark movie, both in tone and because it’s set at night. It’s violent and I found myself not so much sympathizing as understanding Vincent (much like Leon in The Professional). Max is the one we’re rooting for, though, and watching him come into his own as the movie progressed was something.

***I paused to go check Jared’s review, just to see where we may agree/disagree. His review is great but somewhat spoilerish.***

Note to Jared - you said:

In another club scene, Mann stages a claustrophic and exhilarating action sequence. Cruise’s Vincent looks awfully cool shooting up the joint, spinning around, firing guns two-fisted from a prone position on the dancefloor. Once again, it’s tempting to think, “Man, that was awesome” and forget exactly what Vincent is doing – taking lives away. To remind us, Mann throws in an excruciating plot twist at the tail end of the scene. It’s a complete surprise, one that literally took my breath away. I don’t want to give out a plot spoiler here, so I won’t say exactly what happens, but it’s a necessary shock. Mann took a calculated risk in that moment to put the preceding “stylish” deaths in context.

Absolutely.

I have to agree that it’s an excellent movie. I wish I had seen it in the theater.

4 stars out of 5.