I got into San Diego at 10:35am PST this morning. The weather was beautiful when I arrived. 72 degrees I would say. And it felt incredibly warm in the sun.
I am now home with Cathy, Garrett and Zoe. The kids are a joy. Garrett wants me to come play with him. So I am going to wrap this up early.
Everything is well.
The city has gone totally insane. Just in time for my trip to San Diego.
I say to you TWU and MTA. Cut it out and get back to work.
I'm going to go to San Diego for a week. When I get back I want the two of you to be getting along. The trains will be running. The buses will be stopping and picking people up.
And none of this.
In James Bond movies (or Orwellian stories), the evil mastermind (or ruling party) only reveals its secret plans when he deems himself to be insulated from the repurcussions. He has already subjegated all his opponents, or he has convinced everyone around him of the rightness of his actions. In any event, we are assured, the outcome is (I'm afraid) in-ev-it-able.
Usually, it's only our protaganist (James) in chains and we (the audience) who know just how evil this man really is. In this desperate moment, our hopes are bouyed by the knowledge that somehow (and only at the last minute) James will find a way to stop him. Usually, the mastermind's own hubris (and english pluck) is his downfall.
That thought popped into my head as I was perusing some of the reaction to George W Bush's acknowledgement of authorizing illegal wiretaps on Americans.
My first reaction was, "Aha! Caught red handed!"
But now, I am beginning to think that perhaps George wanted to be caught. He wants an opportunity to gloat. Because without the grandstanding, no one will remember that it was he who changed the way America is governed. That it was he, and no else, who re-established the strength of the Presidency.
Which, I am sure, is how he and his advisors think about what they're doing. They are the executive body of government, after all. While Congress bickers and the courts dicker, someone has to be out there protecting our great country from the bad men. The evil men. The forces led by the ever-present and yet rarely encountered Man With The Arab Name (currently Zarqawi).
The current administration has set up a major power-grab for the position of the Presidency. War & occupation without cause. Unlimited detention without trial or charges being brought. Extraordinary Rendition. Torture and abuse of prisoners. Warrant-free wiretaps. All under the guise of "keeping America safe". All legal and within the law, according to Bush's lap-dogs.
Bush isn't standing up there saying "I'm sorry I abused my position of authority to illegally listen in on the conversations of individual Americans." He's saying, "I did it and I'll do it again." because he isn't sorry; he's proud of it.
Which is where the evil mastermind comes in. Maybe the reason that so much information is coming out about the bad behavior of this administration isn't because they're getting sloppy.
The problem with the perfect crime is that no one knows you did it. George wants his victims, his opponents and his allies to see what he's doing. He wants to unveil his masterpiece to the world.
It's important that we recognize him now, so that, in ten years, when the government is intercepting and scanning everyone's email and phone conversations, monitoring they're television, kidnapping... er... detaining "suspects", marching soldiers down our streets to prevent an "insurgency", we'll all remember that it wouldn't be this way if George W Bush hadn't taken the first steps.
Muwahahahahaa!
The flaw in the Evil Mastermind metaphor is that there's no James Bond in our current situation. There's just the mastermind and the audience and the creepy music.
You guys remember Nelly? My girlfriend? Know how she's the most amazing girl ever?
Right. Not only that, now she's on the radio. She was a guest caller on NPR's news quiz Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me this week. She played the "Bluff the Listener" game. In which the panel makes up two fake news stories to go along with one real (and weird) news story. And then Nelly had to guess which one was the real one.
She guessed it! Cool as a cucumber on the radio.
You can hear for yourself. If that link doesn't work, you can listen to the whole show at their Archives page (look for the Dec. 17 2005).
Well, the deep dark secrets of the Narwal are slowly being exposed. I'll admit that I'm a little less intimidated by the Narwal now that I know that the tusk is just a sense organ.
I bet they don't spear stuff with it, because I bet it's really annoying to have something stuck to your horn-nose.
Anyways, they're still the animal battle champion.
Here's a little snippet of the sport I play. Now, I'm not saying that I do all the things on the video, but I have at one time or another, done all those things. Except that weird sit-up thing those two girls do. I've never done that.
Ultimate girls are weird. Who am I kidding? Ultimate players are weird.
I have to admit that I did enjoy the 4th Harry Potter movie (Goblet of Fire! OOOOOH). It moves briskly from place to place and keeps that same pace of discovery that has made the Potter books and films so popular. There's always something new, some new spell, some new creature/object/book/person to discover. And the visual presentation of Potter's world is, as always, stunning.
While there are elements of the story that might be disturbing to small children, it's actually a pleasant reprieve from the gore and ludeness of many other films.
All of that led to an enjoyable movie experience. Though this film, like the other Potter movies, left me with an uneasy feeling.
The story is... um... colorful (read forced). Due to a technical malfunction, Potter is selected as the fourth competitor in what the film's characters consistently refer to (without irony) as the Tri-Wizard tournament. While the four of them undertake inane magical contests in the quest for the... er... Tri-Wizard Cup, Harry's also facing veiled threats from Voldemort (bad-guy) and dealing with the problems of being a Tween. His friends hate him, no one understands him, and all he wants is to be left alone.
Also, Hermione (12) starts dating some russian dude (18+). And creepily, all the guy wants to do is "watch her study". Yah. Right. These kids are in need of some serious parental oversite.
In a nice change of pace, they've added some bit parts for ethnicities. Including an Irish-Asian girl who Harry is sweet on, and two Indian girls who Harry and Ron take to a dance. Now that's inclusiveness.
Harry muddles his way through the competition and his social life, blindly, awkwardly and idiotically. All the while complaining that he doesn't want to be special. But everyone around him winks and smiles. He is special, you see! So very special they say as they smile! Yay, Harry Potter! You've done it again!
But, and here lies the hidden creepiness of this movie, Harry's actually not special. His character isn't flawed, it's non-existant. When the movie demands that he cower, he cowers. When it demands that he be brave, he's brave. When he needs amazing magical powers? Bam! Amazing magical powers. When he needs to be magically weak? Bam! No magical powers to speak of. Hmmm...
The only ability he consistently has in this movie is ultra-sonic whining.
And that's the problem with this movie. Harry's not a hero. He's a perpetual victim of circumstance. The people around him worship him, they're enthalled by his successes. But we know that he's just a kid and his successes have more to do with happenstance than anything else.
Harry doesn't do things; things happen to him. Kinda sucks for Harry, but it really sucks for the viewership. Maybe it's the English-ness of the films, with their strange turns of phrase and stiff-upper-lip mentality. Maybe that's how the like their stories told.
Perhaps it's small-minded of me, but I really do prefer my movies to have a hero. Or at least a protaganist. Harry Potter's films (and quite possibly the books as well) don't have a protagnist. Despite having his name of the cover, Harry doesn't move the story.
Still, the Potter movies have an excellent combination of steady direction and solid character acting. And the success of the Potter books has opened up a wonderland, where the old horses of fantasy fiction are set free and wild on the screen. Which is a treat in and of itself and something I, personally, hope I never tire of.
But, in the end, when everything has turned out right and everyone is back where they started, you can't help but wonder if anything actually happened.
The transition to blogger is coming along smoothly. You should be automatically redirected to this page if you try to go to http://tom.castoday.com/tomog. Which, is the way it should be.
If you've been using an RSS reader to read my feed, you should probably modify your settings to point to my new RSS feed here. It's in Atom format, which is different, but should work fine on any major news reader.
Meanwhile, the transition is moving along smoothly. Only missing the busy months of March-May 2005. But now I am going to do that.
Working hard?
Whatever had been plaguing my blog has been resolved. I believe that somehow my hosting service was mirroring my website on two different computers. Changes to one didn't end up showing up on the other, or showed up only partially. It was very strange.
And frustrating... So frustrating that I have given up on self-hosting my blog and moved over to blogspot. I've begun moving my posts (starting in January '05) over. The move's been surprisingly easy.
I'm a little apprehensive about moving my blog into the maintstream blogosphere. What if something happens? Blogger is owned by Google who, so far, have turned out to be pretty good. So though I still despair over this transition I do feel a little less uncomfortable.
Also, Blogger has some nice tools. They have inline editing, which is really great. They have comment moderation and CAPTCHA. Both of which were lacking on my other site. I think you can also search. And they do all the hosting.
The thing that Blogger doesn't do is categories. And they don't do directory-style grouping the way Bloxsom does. Good ol' Bloxsom. On Bloxsom I can get all the articles from 2005. All the articles from a specific Month or Day. All the articles on a particularly subject. Ohhhh... I miss my Bloxsom already.
But mainly, Blogger is taking away the responsibility of maintaining my own blog and scripts. All I have to do is come up with inane chatter. Phew!
My blog is dooomed! Doooooomed!
This is so much nicer. And you know, what can I do?
I'll work on transfering over all my old content soon. Whee!