Monday, February 28, 2005

Oscar Opinions

So the Oscars were on last night. Mrs. X walked the carpet show while I did not. But I did come down in time for the opening skit of Chris Rock. Pretty funny. I liked his razzing style although his retread on a couple of jokes, like Cuba Gooding Jr. paying him $80 after Pootie Tang, wasn’t as funny the second time around. Even his cracks at Bush were funny. I only wish he had directly mentioned the Razzie that been awarded to Bush. But I imagine that’s still a taboo subject at the gala. Although Hallie Berry went to pick up her Razzie, making her the second actor to do so, after Tom Greene. So maybe they’ll get the starch out of their shorts. Nahhh.

Mrs. X and I only watched up to the In Memorandum section so we didn’t see the big awards. I was rather surprised when I got up this morning and found out that Million Dollar Baby had won both director and picture. Before the Oscars started, I was thinking that there might be a split between that one and Aviator since they were running neck and neck in the talk. After Aviator kept winning all the technical awards, I thought that it might even take both, but that Martin Scorsecee would surly win the director award. But it didn’t happen. I was glad that Morgan Freeman won Best Supporting Actor. His was recognition for past work as well as this picture, much like Denzel Washington’s Oscar was when he won.

It was rather interesting that all five of the best picture nominees took home at least one Oscar. Aviator took home 5 awards, the biggest being Best Supporting Actress. Million Dollar Baby took home 4, the biggest being Best Picture. Ray took home 2 awards, the biggest for Best Actor. Finding Neverland and Sideways each took home 1 award: Best Score and Best Adapted Screenplay respectively.

So, overall I only lost 4 or 5 picks. But since three of them were Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Song, I don’t think I can claim as good a year as last year. Such is life. But at least we can now focus on the crapfest coming out this year. Honestly, no movie this year even pings my radar until Episode III comes out in May. After that, only Goblet of Fire has made itself known for my interest. We’ll see what else is coming but nothing is registering so far.

Friday, February 25, 2005

A Surviving Apprentice Lost in the West Wing

Okay, so we now have four TV shows to cover for this week.

Lost - Lost was pretty good this week, although it dragged in a few points. The primary focus of this episode was to tell us that Jin is actually a nice guy who is trying to hide aspects of the world from his wife. Now that his wife's English has been exposed, he might be given broader storylines from which to be used as he learns English. Of course, the other two main points were to free up Sun so she can develop a relationship with Michael, and to go ahead and destroy the boat so no one will be leaving anytime soon. That Walt was the one who destroyed the boat was predicted by Mrs. X and lends itself to my theory that Walt has very little objection to using others and his apparent powers to get what he wants. Very dangerous combination. Next week we get Hurley's story and hopefully an explanation of how he does Korean car commercials.

West Wing - One of those confusing episodes that tells you something at the start and doesn't explain it until the end, where you then spend the next 15 minutes sorting out the storyline in your head. This week was also the "please give Richard Schiff the Emmy" episode of the season. While I can say that Toby's storyline was somewhat compelling, the fight was very out of place. Josh acted totally out of character and the fight made very little sense in my and Mrs. X's mind. At least we have this article from MSNBC that indicates that they have signed Martin Sheen for next season and that its still "up in the air" as to whether or not Smits will win. I think they've already made up their mind about Smits, unless Bradley Whitford suddenly decides that he doesn't want to play Josh anymore.

Survivor - After an interesting opening, Mark Burnett is returning to the safe ground and making Survivor 10 just like every other season. I will say that there is a bit of improvement this season in the engagability of the people. Kuror is clearly the favored tribe, with Tom and Ian being set up as people to root for, at least initially. Most of the development on Ulong has been negative with only the tattoo girl getting some positive spin. Mrs. X has read a rumor that Kuror will dominate for a while, losing only one member before going into either a tribal shuffle or a straight on merge. So the negative spin for Kuror may not come until a bit later.

Apprentice - Mrs. X and I were shocked again by Trump's ability to actually fire the person who deserved it this season. Tara just immediately jumped in the wrong direction and pulled the whole team with her. As such, I am forced to make my first amendment to my final four prediction. I was first thinking that it would be Jon, Tara, and Craig from Net Worth and Alex from Magna. Now I have to pull off Tara and maybe Craig as well. We've seen mostly just flying under the radar from him and he will need to make an impact soon to save his skin. I expect Audrey's blowup next week to either bring success or to get her fired. Either way, she's on the hot seat.

Monday, February 21, 2005

TV Update

Sorry about the delay. I’ve been distracted by a project that I’ve been working on mostly over lunch, although I have picked at it during the slow times of the day. I’ve also been restricted from working on it at home as the home PC needs to be completely wiped and reconstructed from scratch.

Anyway, West Wing was better than I thought it was going to be, although it was almost mundanely predictable. But there was enough humor in the situation to salvage it. Mrs. X and I miss the other cast members though and are looking forward to the WWE match up between Josh and Toby. Josh is younger but Toby seems to have more inner strength so I really don’t know who is going to win in the fight.

Lost was much better than I was expecting. ABC had billed the episode as the romantic triangle coming to a head. But it turned out to be more exploring of the character of Sawyer. The fleshing out of his character has helped him to a degree in my mind. He is no longer just the 2-D bad apple that stands in opposition to the triumvirate and tries to hit on Kate. Instead, he is moving in the direction of an anti-hero. A dark, miserable character that will do the things that the group cannot necessarily do and maintain their “good” status.

Mrs. X was a little confused as to who the man was that Sawyer shot, so I had to explain that the contact at the beginning of the episode (T-1000 from T2) invented the link from the man as the original Sawyer in order to turn our Sawyer into a hit man, without him knowing it. A slightly confusing premise, but understandable in the right light. I also liked the contact with the Doc’s dad who convinced Sawyer to go ahead and put himself deeper in the pit. The irony was particularly enjoyable at the end with the idea that the Red Sox never winning the series was the equivalent to fighting fate, given that they had just won the series.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Ezekiel Thoughts

Working on research can give your mind a great turn here and there. I was thinking of something on Saturday that turned my attention to the prophesy of Ezekiel 38 and 39. For those of you not readily familiar with this one, it’s a prophesy of a coming war in which several nations will attack Israel by surprise, but be defeated by supernatural power.

This particular passage has been one that has displayed the politics of the times with ready abandon. Prior to the reestablishment of Israel, many interpretations were such that Israel was a figurative representation of either the Jewish remnant or the Church. Then, after 1948, people began to play with all sorts of different nations as the attackers. The Soviet Union was a favorite choice for quite a long time.

So lets look at who is involved. The easy ones are the later nations mentioned: Persia, Cush, and Put. Persia is Iran, Cush is the land south of Egypt and is now the country of Sudan, although Cush has occasionally been used as a reference to just black Africa, but I’m leaning a little more towards just Sudan in general. Put is the old name for Libya. The other countries are a little more difficult.

The alliance under Gog is Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Beth Togarmah. All of these countries are to the north in the area surrounding the Black Sea. Turkey controls almost all of it, although there are parts that extend around the Black Sea and into Chechnya. The confusion comes about when people wonder if it was just referring to the land or the people in the land. Magog was the land that was under the domination of the people whom the Greeks called Scythians and had settled to the north of Lydia. These later involved into one of the dominant peoples of Russia. Gomer in turn was the land controlled by the Cimmerians, in western Turkey who migrated north and turned into the Germanic peoples. I myself, favor the actual land rather than the peoples. My interpretation is of course colored by the times and this article, but I envision a pan-Islamic assault on Israel. Now, Russia may be behind the scenes in support but I think of the active participants, a jihad makes the most sense.

Probably just as interesting is the nations who are not mentioned in Ezekiel’s prophesy. The three notables are: Babylon, Egypt, and Aram. Babylon would be representative of Iraq and possibly Jordan, Egypt is Egypt and Aram is Syria. Of all the countries, Syria is the most puzzling due to its longstanding hatred of Israel and its open commitment to its destruction. One of the primary theories to explain Syria’s absence from the invasion is the prophesy in Isaiah 17. In this passage, it is prophesied that Damascus will be completely destroyed and never rebuilt. Damascus was in fact briefly destroyed by the Assyrians not long after Isaiah made his prophesy, but it was quickly rebuilt and currently enjoys the designation as the oldest inhabited city in the world, going back over 4000 years and maybe longer. So, sometime before the overall attack, I would expect to see Syria overrun and Damascus destroyed. Given the current climate, I wouldn’t be at all surprised by a joint Israeli-American assault on the country. There are already whisperings about how Syria and not Iran is the big target on the list next. Jordan and Egypt all have nominal peace treaties with Israel and I would suspect that Iraq might go ahead and sign one as well, especially after some sort of resolution is reached with the Palestinians, leading to the dismantling of the security wall.

A later notable of the prophecy is that after God destroys the invading armies, the Israelites take the weapons and use them as fuel for seven years. Part of this is to convey the magnitude of the loss of the invaders, but then you couple this with the later part of the prophecy which states that men will regularly employed in clearing the land, that it will take seven months to bury the dead and then a special system has to be employed if anyone finds human remains in the area. To me, this sounds a great deal like the procedures used in nuclear waste removal. Given this, coupled with the known research activities of Iran, I would not be surprised if the invaders attempted to use nuclear weapons in the assault.

Of course, everyone has their own theories, but this is where my mind wandered on Saturday.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Happy Birthday Shout Out

Happy 24th Birthday to my sister: Mrs. S. I hope your husband has good plans for you. Birthday and Valentine's all rolled into one weekend :)

TV Commentary

My apologies for not writing sooner but I was a bit under the weather on Wednesday and then had to play catch up on Thursday.

First, the finale to TAR. I was rooting for Chris and John but I have no qualms about Freddie and Kendra winning. My only real complaint is that we never saw some of Kendra’s better side. We got a lot of complaining about how poor and dirty things were. The comments she made about how the poor Senegalese kept breeding was particularly obnoxious. But they were good competitors and they were my second choice among the final 4. Hayden kept annoying me and I was glad when she got put out of her misery in the second to last leg. I also never really felt that Adam and Rebecca ever earned their place in the final 3. They came in last in all three of the final three legs. The first was a non-elimination leg, the second they benefited from the penalty to Hayden and Aaron, and the third was the end of the race.

Overall, a good season. We had our main villains eliminated in 6th place so it was just sort of a pick as you go after that. Next season I have mixed emotions on. Boston Rob and Lamber from Survivor are going to be on it; that means that we’ll get a heavy dose of editing in their direction. We’ll also have to hear Rob talking about how smart he is and how everyone is against them because they already won 1.1 million dollars. Still, maybe it won’t be as bad as I think and I’ll enjoy it as much as other seasons.

Now, to Lost. I didn’t care much for the back-story of Charlie actually liking this girl while he’s still doped up, but the rest of the story was good. I was also glad that someone had the good sense to just shoot Ethan dead before he could do any more damage. In action and suspense movies, you always see how the good guys take the bad guy prisoner and he ends up causing so much more havoc that you would have just been better of killing him in the beginning. Any good plot person would have told you that if Charlie hadn’t killed him, Ethan would have been taken back, resisted talking for a while and then broke free, probably killing someone in the process. You just don’t take prisoner a guy that has killed one person, tried to kill another and kidnapped a third member of your party.

Mrs. X has raised a bone of contention with the show as well in that it’s very sexist. There are no females in the triumvirate (Doc, Locke, and Sayid) and when they do branch out their discussions, it’s only to various male members of the cast: Michael, Charlie, Hurley, and occasionally Sawyer. Kate has to force her way in and is still stepping back into the role of the other women: growing produce and overseeing the camp. I’m hoping that when the Korean woman’s secret is exposed, she will become a stronger character. I sense a stronger role for her that is being held back by her husband.

Next week looks to play into the love triangle so that will be a bit of a bland episode as far as advancing the overall plot.

Speaking of bland episodes, the next on of West Wing looks to be an absolute stinker. Jimmy Smits is on the brink of ruin with his candidacy and has to appeal to the public to resurrect him. It will be predictable, formulaic and very “Up with the people.” So, don’t expect much for West Wing next week.

Monday, February 07, 2005

Patriot Shoots Eagle: Pats win Super Bowl

For those of you lost by my title, that's a nod to the mascot vs. mascot battle. The Patriot would shoot and Eagle with his gun so of course the Patriots would win. Doesn't always work, but it makes for amusing battles. Anyway, I can pat myself on the back for correctly predicting the winner, although I never got around to posting it here. Actually, I have to say that I thought the Patriots would beat the Eagles more soundly. As it was, Philadelphia could have won that game. If McNabb hadn’t thrown that second interception after his first was negated by a penalty, the Eagles would have at least gotten 3 points. If the rest of the game proceeds normally, the Eagles tie it up with that long pass late in the 4th. Now, Brady probably would have led the Pats downfield and Adam Vinetari would have kicked the game winner just like the last two Super Bowls. But, there is a chance that the Eagles defense could have stopped them. It’s hard to say. I truly believe that unless the Eagles had jumped up by 14 points, the Patriots would have found a way to win the game. Their screen passes were mauling the Eagles and the defense was just worn out. So lets raise a glass to New England and enjoy the football off-season.

Now, as far as the commercials go, this was a pretty sucky year. Budweiser had a couple of good one, although the skydiver one is a recycled one I think. The two that have generated the most buzz around the office were the two Ameriquest commercials: the convenience store “robbery” and the cat “slaying.” I also was partial to the Fed Ex 10 rules of Super Bowl commercials. This was made even funnier by the fact that immediately following it was a Diet Pepsi commercial that used 5 of the rules. The rules, for anyone that missed it, are:
1) Celebrity appearance
2) Animal appearance
3) Animal acting like human
4) Groin kick
5) Talking animal
6) Smart mouth kid
7) Hot woman/hot man
8) Product labeling (optional)
9) Something that eludes me at the moment
10) Additional joke at the end

For the record, the Diet Pepsi ad (hot guy walking down street) used celebrity appearance, animal appearance, hot woman/hot man, product labeling, and additional joke at end.
But, for the most part, the commercials stunk. There was very little imagination and certainly nothing overly amusing or edgy. Part of the problem is that the cost is becoming so high for a spot that no one will go longer than 30 seconds and that limits creativity. Several years ago, Mountain Dew had a very good add that was a take off of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. It was imaginative and fun. Nothing like that could be found last night. So we must suffer through more and hope that advertisers will learn from this year and come back with something better next year.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Social Security Thoughts

With the attention given to Social Security in Mr. Bush's speech last night, I found many posts arguing about it. The following is a list of comments that I tend to agree with regarding the program. Most of the comments come from here. I've sanitized it to remove names of people and clean up some of the insulting language used by certain, less than mature people.

1) Bottom line–it is theft. The government is stealing my money. It IS my money. I go to work everyday and I earn it. I love you Mom, but it is not your money and it is not the government’s money. It is my money. You raised me to be a hard worker but if you had told me so it was so the government could steal from me maybe I would have considered other options. I could have been a crack whore-liberals would claim it was because I was downtrodden and I would have had a free ride for life. Or, I could have become a housewife with a pile of kiddies-conservatives would say I was doing my wifely duty and given me lots of nice tax cuts like the Child Income Credit. As it is I am paying for the welfare Moms, the soccer Moms, the Viagra needing lecherous old men, and I am staring down the barrel at having to fund the bingo and golf money for the enormous Baby Boomer generation–give me a break, can I please keep something for me??

2) Fascinating debate. My position is a simple one. Republicans say it’s your money and your responsibility. Invest wisely or suffer the consequences. Democrats say you can’t be trusted with your money, give it to the government and the nanny state will do what is best for you. Hmm, tough choice, eh?

3) Argument: And just where are younger people supposed to get all of this money to put in non-SS 401k’s and other such private retirement accounts? In 2018 the outflows overwhelm the inflows for SS. Then the Government must use the "SS Trust Fund.” The government MUST either:
· Cut spending and run a perpetual surplus (impossible AND is using MY income tax money to give to older generations who used that revenue to lower their past income tax rates/spend more)
· Raise FICA taxes on my (and future) generations AGAIN (started out at 4% for the LOTTERY WINNERS but don’t seem to be quite that low any more)
· Raise MY income taxes to make up the shortfall
· Borrow more money and add it to the national debt (and by doing that use up more of my income tax money to pay debt service so fewer services for me and also make interest rates rise and increase the costs of public and PRIVATE borrowing.)

Seems to me that any way the pie gets sliced all I end up with is the bill. In addition, that only "works” until 2041 when the fictitious "trust fund” runs out.

So we in the future are facing: massive cuts in OUR available government services, higher interest rates, MUCH higher income AND FICA taxes, and working MUCH longer since we will have far less take home pay and no way to have thousands let alone pennies to throw into a 401k.

Raise the retirement age to the average age of death NOW and index it to life expectancy. Everyone who is already collecting SS made out like a bandit and spread the rest of the pain FAIRLY to the rest of us. People have been shouting about the coming SS implosion for DECADES!We future generations owe you NOTHING! Voting yourselves largesse out of the Treasury and giving future generations the bill is not a "generational social contract” it is THEFT! If you and people like you continue on with the charade that Social Security is fine and dandy and needs no reform, NOTHING is exactly what you are going to get! When every working man and woman in this country is paying 80 to 90% tax rates so you can get far more out of SS that you ever paid in you better believe that we are going to cut you off! You have absolutely zero sympathy for our future plight and we will have zero sympathy for yours when you are living in the street because you tried to do it to us first.

Rebuttal: I agree with you that SS is broken and in need of a radical fix. Still, you can’t blame us boomers for a system that was created in the 1930s. We (well, not me but most of my generation) have been paying into this crappy system for 30 years, based on a promise made by Uncle Sam. Whatever money we get back will be less than our investment unless we live to be well into our 80s. Had that money been put into a mutual fund with a 12% return we wouldn’t be facing this issue. So, let’s find a way to get you people out of the system while keeping the promise made to the oldsters. It is not our fault that we are in this situation, and we are not asking for anything more than we were promised, and have even acknowledged we will have to settle for less, but not 60% less.

4) We pay to fix it now, or we pay triple to fix it later. Are private accounts critical to the fix? No. We could raise the age limit, cut benefits or tax the crap out of our kids, all unacceptable in my opinion. The only way to go are the accounts. Take any 30 year snapshot of market performance - from any starting point – You’ll see that the market beat the pants off of the current SS growth rate.

These are just a sampling. I do think the system either needs to be majorly reformed or just killed off. But, as that won't be allowed to happen, I'm leaning in favor of the private accounts myself. I'm sure we'll get more information and vitrol later.