p e n g u i n d e v i l

Well two really. Two complaints.

One is, we bought this Samsung Syncmaster 997df CRT Monitor a couple of years back. Yes, I feared Samsung and, of course, wanted something fancy like a NEC or somesuch (I don’t really like the looks of LCD screens)… But we were swayed. We were swayed by two factors…

1) it was the cheapest 20″ (or something) monitor they had that wasn’t total crud and

2) it actually seemed to have a really nice picture…

So after all this time? What can I say? Well the picture is great! It is bright and richly colored and it’s never had the slightest problem!

The problem is the other monitors out there! I have this blog colored oh so very nicely in black and shades of gray… The screen shots are well colored, deep and rich. but when I go elsewhere (usually work) and view it, the dark pictures are so dark as to be indistinct and the headers and darker gray text is nearly invisible. And at work, we have generally nice monitors… big new NEC’s and all that. Anyway, I’m trying to brighten up the text, but it’s hard, because it looks so nice at home… Which, of course, is where I do this.

Complaint number two? This week I started listening to my pal Jon’s college radio show. I know… And (You’re thinking…). Well, the college that he works at is in New Zealand, so it’s been my first experience with Internet Radio, since I listen to it here at MUNTFM. In a strange timing situation, the next day I read about this atrocity, another horrible example of corporate greed and (yes) fraud and their government lap dogs…

The RIAA managed to scam through some (one would assume) corrupt judges with their heads stuck back in the 1950’s, a law requiring internet radio to pay more royalties than regular radio stations but also, and this is the killer part, also pay royalties to the RIAA for music that isn’t controlled by the RIAA. In other words, all music streamed over the internet radio stations will need to pay high royalty rates to the RIAA, no matter what the music is or who owns the rights to it. Of course, this is so absurd that it almost defies comment. It brings back memories of when they shut down mp3.com on some trumped up “piracy” charge when any one who spent time there knew that most of the music up there was placed there by the artists themselves and most never had any form of commercial release. Hopefully their next step will be admitting that they just can’t stand anyone listening to music or making music or making money from music without them getting the lion’s share of the money. I wonder if you would be sued by the RIAA if you made an original song and broadcasted it from your own website?

Anyway, enough from me. More and better opinions and details are available at:

Of course, Wil Wheaton at SuicideGirls

Bit-Tech

WebProNews

DailyKos

TechDirt

Newsweek

And

Save Net Radio

So in the late 1970’s I was living here, Portland, just not too many miles upriver from a nuclear plant that had one of the largest reactors yet built. It was quite a sight and quite a target for the large number of progressive citizens in these parts. I went on a tour of it in grade school, which I found quite memorable and I even got to look into the control room from the observation deck! In 1978 they discovered: building construction errors, the proximity of a faultline and cracking of the steam tubes.
It was made all the more interesting because this plant was, strangely & symbolically, named Trojan Nuclear Power Plant (yes, it even used a chess knight for a symbol… Were they trying to make us think of the condoms or, more likely, the Trojan Horse… Either way, the meaning seemed such a blatant signpost of hidden threat, I am still shocked at the gall it took to use it.). Of course there was a concerted effect to shut the plant down.

Into all of this, a movie was released called The China Syndrome (it even featured cracking welds on tubes…just like Trojan!). Most of the meat takes place in the control room, which was modeled after the Trojan control room (in fact a lot of it took place on the observation deck for the control room, making it doubly eerie to me). Then to make matters worse, two weeks after the movie came out, the incident at Three Mile Island occurred (don’t even bring up the double Pennsylvania connection!). This all made for a very unfriendly Nuclear environment here and Trojan suffered many protests, shutdowns and minor accidents before being finally closed 16 years into its 35 year lifespan. Of course, in walks Chernobyl (and more recently, Robert Polidori’s brilliant photography book on it, Zones of Exclusion) and for a lot of people, including myself, nuclear was removed from the table as a viable energy source.

Well, to be realistic, I know that the fuel disposal is the big issue and that there have been hundreds of Nuclear plants operating for years without any known big problems. But it still is a dangerous industry. It seems to me like it may be the future of power, whether we like it or not, but boy, if we would build houses and buildings with modern solar panels for roofing, our need for dangerous power would be much diminished. But then again, I am a renewable resource person, living somewhere that most power is hydroelectric (31 power generating dams?).

In honor of the 60 Minutes last night where they were discussing the embracing of Nuclear Power in France and the weakening reluctance towards it in the USA. We watched The China Syndrome. I hadn’t seen it in many years, but I think it has aged well. The threats of nuclear power, the attempts to downplay those and the reluctance of the media to confront these issues remain timely, especially now when plans are being presented across the nation for additional plants to be constructed (for the first time in something like 20 years). It is the story of a reporter who is in the right place at the right time to witness a near-accident at a nuclear plant and the efforts of the power company to silence the story. Things get ugly, as one might imagine and, as Carter Burke would say, a few deaths were involved. I may be cynical, but I don’t feel like the lengths the company would go to to protect itself were exaggerated and it really does make you think about the dangers of Nuclear Power and it feels like it was based on a true story (though it wasn’t really) and it is, in fact, very similar to Silkwood. It’s also pretty involving: they don’t shy away from technical jargon, and it has some good little thriller aspects to it and a car chase! Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas are the film crew (I am not a fan of either one, but they do just fine) but two actors that I always enjoy make it an a-list movie: Jack Lemmon plays the plant supervisor who is torn between his plant and the knowledge that he has of its faults and James Karen (yes, of Return of the Living Dead fame) plays Fonda’s producer.

I do highly recommend it for people who have issues about nuclear power, for people who don’t have issues about nuclear power, and just plain for anyone who likes a good drama with some political meat to it.

Since everybody likes discussing the “browser wars” and platform popularity, I thought I would throw in my two cents. It seems that when people report on market share, they give about 80% to internet exploiter and 90-95 percent to windows users.

Looking at the stats for this site, the last 100 visitors show this breakdown (the different versions are compressed…):

62.00% Firefox (2.0=35%, 1.5=25%, 1.0=2%)
27.00% Safari 1.2
7.00% MSIE (6.0=6%, 7.0=1%)
4.00% Other (Camino=2%, Mozilla=1%, Omniweb=1%)

and

45.00% Mac OS X
39.00% Windows (XP=33%, 2003=5%, 2000=1%)
16.00% Unknown

And for the old Blogspot incarnation?

61.00% Firefox 1.5.0 (1.5=32%, 2.0=28%, 1.0=1%)
19.00% Safari
18.00% MSIE (6.0=13%, 7.0=5%)
2.00% Other (Camino=2%, unknown=1%, Mozilla=1%)

and

60.00% Windows (XP=56%, 98=2%, Vista=1%, 2000=1%
24.00% Unknown
16.00% Mac OS X

I don’t know if that means anything but I certainly like the looks of it. It shows a very strong tendency towards Firefox and Mac OSX, well above the average… Though blogspot shows 60% windows (what are earth is that “16% other”), even the 16% Mac is above the trend.

First off, what about the long term? I know that it will seem a bit hyperbolic but, I must comment on a trend. Around these parts, real estate is a hot item. I would venture to guess that houses are now worth double (or more) their price of ten years ago. The trend that disturbs me this moment though is: all of the new construction seem to be houses or condos, not much rentable property seems to be appearing. I would expect that with the dramatic increase in population over the last 20 years, there would be a demand for lots of rentals. On top of all of this, the number of apartment buildings (especially the nice old courtyards and brick ones) that are being converted to condominiums seems quite high. There is one that was just converted right up the block and one being converted across the street from it. So if: 1) new rentals units are not being built, 2) old rental units are being converted to non-rentals, 3) the price of purchase is steadily going up, and 4) the population is on the rise… What will be the options for people who want to rent? What will happen to the age old tradition of your first apartment? If you want to get out of high school and get a little job and an apartment and go do some college or whatever (what everyone I knew was doing at 18-20). It seems that time may be going. It just makes me wonder what happens when the availability of rentals goes away… Will we end up in that San Francisco state of affairs, with people renting out hall closets and such? Also, I have to question some motives because, if one owned an apartment building, they would certainly get more money out of it by renting the units out for decades than they will for just selling all of the units at once… I would imagine. Is it just more obnoxious “cashing in and making things worse”?

Since we’re talking about Portland, I’ll start off with the HP Lovecraft Collection Volume One… Now, though I like these, I must warn you all that the shorts on these discs are made by Lovecraft fans for Lovecraft fans. There is nothing fancy here: short films, generally black and white, with low (very very low) production values and without the most accurate set design. But it is a good and commendable effort to have the drive to turn one of these stories into film. And, if one hasn’t access to a HPL Film Festival then they are about the only way to watch any Lovecraft films outside of the flashy Gordon/Yuzna oeuvre. Volume One focuses on Cool Air, which is a nice film. They found a good player for Doctor Munoz and the movie does a good job of sticking to the story… The disc also includes Nyarlathop, which is a voice over reading the stories with some acting out behind it, a little odd. But I appreciate what they seem to be trying to do. My favorite was An Imperfect Solution, which follows Part IV (screams of the dead) of the Herbert West Re-animator stories. I really love the Herbert West stories, they have more of a fun air about them then all of those serious stories. Though the movie shares similar production values with the other, it also shows a higher level of spunkiness that I find both more entertaining and I think is also more in character with the story.

To continue on with my Blind Dead series, I put on Ghost Galleon. Okay, well, so far the silliest one of the series, and the least exciting. This time the Blind Dead have left their countryside and are floating around in an abandoned galleon in the sea (in a different dimension) surrounded by a warm fog. When two models on a publicity stunt encounter the galleon and disappear, a group sails out in search of them. So while that’s all fine and good, it seems a bit sketchy… Especially for a third movie. I mean, how did they get on the boat and what’s with the multi-dimensional warm fog cloud that is only visible from small boats? Sure in the first two movies you had to do a little reality-suspension but at least it was a reasonable back-story. This one isn’t just sketchy, the first two movies make it seem even sketchier. And the boat model they use is awful and they use the same lady with shoe stuck in the steps while fleeing the Blind Dead” as in the other films. There is some intense melodrama though… The high points would be: the zombies, who are just as good as always (pretty much exactly the same as before, though without their horses), Barbara Rey’s scene where she spends three straight minutes either crawling forward on the ground or being dragged backwards with blood in her mouth going, “ahhh ah ahh ah” in scratchy sounds (of course, that doesn’t turn out well for her)… The other high point is the music, which is great with lots of chanting and creaking. Of course, it’s still a must see for Blind Deaders.

I then witnessed a slow motion train wreck. It goes by the name of If I Should Fall From Grace and it’s a great documentary on Shane MacGowan. Yeah, I knew he was a messed up drunk, but man, I never really knew… He’s basically never straight, always lounging about in the drink with his orange smoking fingers and missing teeth. Speaking of those, no matter what excuses folks may give for him missing his front teeth, you can follow a very noticeable decline in the size of his front teeth as time goes on. Including the famed “Meth Jellybean” stage (reminiscent of the “watch Michael’s nose” pictures). The guy is basically a complete wreck who mumbles on about how he wrote all the songs while drinking fifths of gin and drooling (teeth aren’t just for eating, kids!). Not the most sympathetic character. But the documentary is quite good. Some great live performances (including him doing Fairytale of New York with the great, late, Kirsty MacColl) and videos covering most of his career from the Nips to the Popes. Also lots of interviews with all sorts of folks: his girlfriend, his mom and pop, Pogues members and Nick Cave. A handy feature is that the Scene selection menu is listed by song title. So if you click the song you want, it brings you to the beginning of it.

How those talking heads love to yack on and on about Democracy as if it’s a law of physics or the only form of crowd control allowed upon god’s green earth… They seem to have conveniently forgotten that most of humanity, most of the time, has gone along without it. It seems like it is pretty much the least used of political forms historically and also seemingly one of the most unreliable. When I think of its modern spread and how closely that seems to be tied to the industrial revolution and tremendous corporate growth (one should remember that business entities have played a very minor part in history until recently, also) I am thinking that the reason that America likes to promote democracy is that in other forms of government there is one person (or a small group of people) in charge who make the decisions and are not really accountable to anyone. If you have an agenda they are opposed to, that causes such unneeded stress. The general public are easier to manipulate and mislead and the “voting” process is so easy to undermine, why not install a “freedom loving democracy” and either scare (aka, mislead) the voters or just stuff those ballot boxes! These days, it seems that democracies may exist primarily for the benefit of First World Corporations because it is the easiest form of government to subvert.

But maybe I’m just feeling grumpy because we just watched Why We Fight, which may be the best of the anti-“Iraq war” documentaries I have seen yet. it goes back to Eisenhower and it basically covers the creation of the “military-industrial-congressional complex” (that’s how it was originally spelled out) and its quick evolution to the level that we have it now. It then views the imperialist antics of the Iraq war in those contexts. It is really quite good. Lots of good interviews: some Eisenhower’s, some military officers, some politicians, some military consultants. One thing I like that they bring up is something that I’ve always felt is overlooked. Which is that this Bush/Iraq thing isn’t anything new (Kissinger/Nixon in Vietnam, Clinton with Somalia, Reagan support of Iran and Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war, Kennedy with Vietnam and the Cuban missile crisis, Truman and Hiroshima).. American leaders using dishonest practices and false reasoning and our military power for the political and financial gain of a certain group of people. It is an old trick, used, in fact, by most countries throughout history who have had the ability. One should remember that it wasn’t the Bushes that those old founding father types were warning us against… It was politicians and greed and arrogance in general. None of this is new, it’s just that the media coverage has changed.

For some good old hometown cheer and a nice little dose of crime, I sat down for Portland Expose! Based on the same true-life shenanigans as the Portland Confidential book, but it’s a 1957 noir movie. The story of a nice family who buy a restaurant and get talked into getting a pinball machine. Of course, when hoodlums from Seattle muscle in on the scene, they force this poor guy to take on their pinball machines and other sinful entertainments and he decides to fight back… by going undercover. Well, it’s not the best noir by any stretch, the story’s not that interesting and the actings not great, but it’s fun to see the old place of fifty years ago and hear the narrator go one about the place. He says alot of nice things about this town. Plus, yeah, it is an organized crime film with some of those great old lines, silly violence and backstabbing.

We then watched Inside Deep Throat. Well, the original film is, honestly, a bit gross and dully bad (but then, what 70’s pornos aren’t?), but I’d always been fascinated by the mafia angle and wondered how on earth so many celebrities ended up going to see the damn thing in the theater. Well, they cover that here, and alot more. Maybe too much. There are so many odd angles to the history of this silly movie that try to talk about all of them in one film is a bit of a task and so it seems like a lots of things are breezed over (though they do show more of Deep Throat then is really needed). The movie’s pretty alright, though. There is some hokey stuff and dumb editing techniques, but they’ve dug up some interesting oldsters to interview and that can be pretty entertaining. I would have liked to hear more about the mob angle and the Peraino’s, though.

films biggest stars of the seventies?
inside deep throat

All these articles about the future of our fair city. Well, let me tell you, I don’t like it. Our grand last mayors 12 year drive to build up a huge fancy hip reputation at the expense of the people? I dunno, maybe she was thinking that a big enough facade would attract people and business that would fill that facade in. Well, I think it’s just too expensive for our own good. This parade of dumb ideas… Extending the light rail down the bus mall seems the dumbest yet. What? The parallel train a few blocks away and the dozens of buses that ply those same streets all day long aren’t enough? How does spending god knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars to put in these tracks when every year they talk about cuts to schools and police and fire… yeah, I’m sure that it’s all “different budgets” so that the money “can’t be used for other purposes”. Regardless. It seems as dumb as “covering the freeways” and short sighted. Anyway, Portland. yeah, where counter culture has gone from being the opposing culutre to the culture on the other side of the counter.

But I’m also ticked off by the FDA’s lock on the “plan B” pill. Sure, it’s not the most pleasant concept, but it’s a million times better than people being stuck with unwanted pregnancies or abortions. Denying them to rape victims on religious grounds? Well, bringing unwanted children of children into the world or leading someone to go for traumatic surgical procedures due to activities that were either mistakes or, worse yet, forced upon them, seems to lack a certain sense of compassion. Why does the Bush Administration keep skipping the page about the separation of Church and State? Damn that 60 minutes, always bringing up this terrible stuff…

Anyway. Yeah, now y’all have to pay with a rant before I continue on… Hopefully, I’ll have a more intesting selection of movie for next time but for now?

I feel like I must be missing something.. It’s been a week!

Anyway, Spellbound. Well, not to continue harping on this subject but… It was fine. It had some stuff that I liked a lot and Criterion did a really good job with it, but it just didn’t really do it for me like I would have hoped. I know, I shouldn’t keep complaining about Hitchcock movies but man, his good ones are soo good… The “dark lines on white” trigger I didn’t really buy… Not just because it seemed a bit all encompassing, but considering the situation wherein it had its roots… It just didn’t seem like it would leave quite that powerful an impression. This movie just didn’t really leave much of an impression.

A Very Long Engagement though, I did like quite a bit. Ths Jeunet fellow, well, I am pretty non-plussed by Alien IV (not as bad as, gaahhh, AVP, but dumb nonetheless) but Delicatessen is one of the finest films I’ve seen and Amelie is tremendously well made, quite very picturesque and entertaining (yes, I do need to see City of Lost Children again. I just didn’t get into it, it must be better then I recall). Anyway, not knowing what to expect; either a dry Lit movie or a silly chickflick, A Very Long Engagement was really quite good. I may need to add it to my wishlist. Very Jeunet: same actors, same style, same quality… I found it very engaging and interesting and, though some of the plot connections seemed very far-fetched (yeah, Amelie, but still) it seems quite forgivable with the overal quality of the movie.

As an aside. I started, for I think the third time, Demons of the Mind. I just can’t do it. I have a healthy atttraction to Hammer, as I imagine everyone out there does… And while I am very fond of some of their more fringe works like Lost Continent, this boring gothic flick just doesn’t do it. All I can say is that I don’t recommend it to anyone except maybe the Patrick Magee completest.

Now then, last night? Of course, out here first run theaters are dominated by the evil wal-theater chains of bloated prices, fake customer service, and that strange color scheme that makes you scream. I was shocked to realize that one of the few remaining classic theaters in town is not only not part of a chain but also a first run theater and one that prices its tickets well below the chains! Regal and Century and stadium seating be damned! Off we go to the Moreland Theater from now on. It’s a beautiful old theater: awesome interior style, velvet curtains between the lobby and the seating area? Awesome! But anyway, they are playing Walk the Line so I went to check that out. Quite good, I liked it a lot. Though I have a long fixation on John, it was a bit odd to see him portrayed as a pop-star. Yes, I know that he was but I always think of him as being a bit more off the beaten path then that. The Phoenix guy did a good job. I didn’t think that he seemed to be imitating John really, but he did really good with the singing and the part. The lead girl, well, I don’t really like her and she makes me nervous to look at, but she did a good job, especially with the singing. I actually really liked Robert Patrick. Kind of funny because I’ve never really liked him. He generally seems bland and I am disturbed by all of those Fox-free X-Files seasons, but he struck some kind of nerve with me in this film. Highly recommended.

And then, just now, we watched Last House on the Left. As the jaded young-un that I am, it didn’t’ seem quite as shocking as I had expected. It also wasn’t quite what I was expecting, I was thinking it would be a more a cross of the Hills Have Eyes and Chainsaw… But once the first half hour was done, it was pretty fun. I couldn’t watch the teeth scene and the death of Mari took me by surprise, but the soundtrack was great and I’ve got to respect a film for doing all those sorts of things back in 72.

Man and also, did I mention how the region free player is dying? I blame it on the fact the 2 years ago, on the day I got it, I was rear-ended with it in the trunk. Hopefully, after the holidays, I’ll be able to get the bucks together to pick one up, maybe one like this fine little Malata…

Anyway, drinking too much beer and listening to too much Deichkind and these posts are maybe getting too long…

So yes. Lessons learned? I have learned to be sure and communicate
with people in such a way as to ensure that they ignore whatever
point I may be trying to make. In my personal life, yes, of course.
But also, in my other correspondense. I have mastered the art of
over-stating my point (and over-extending my point) to such an
extreme that the orginal point becomes lost.
Why am I speaking of this? Well, I sent off an e-mail today to CNN.com
regarding their quickpoll and issues that I think exists with the system
they use for supply possible answer for respondeds to utilize. What was
contianed in my little e-mail? Well, I’m glad you asked! Once again, in
the name of anti-brevity, here is my e-mail:

“Hi! I just have a comment about the Quickpoll. I am a fan of the
quickpoll and I tune in nearly everyday to respond to it but I had
one question: It seems to me that polls results become lopsided if
the answers offered do not express a full range of opinions. Maybe
you could also offer an “Other Answer” option?

For instance. Today’s poll at edition.cnn.com: “What’s the best
way to fight terrorism?”

The answers that you offer: Promoting democracy, Military action,
Tighter security… All reflect a support of dominance over people
(Spread our political system everywhere, military domination, control
our nations and our citizens). So no matter what answer one picks,
it shows that 100% of responses show that domination & control are
the only way to combat terrorism.

If someone believes that domination and control are, in fact, the causes
of terrorism, if one holds the thought that “terrorism is people fighting
back against nations that oppress them: say Palestine vs Israel (Israel
trying to basically destroy the Palestinian people in their own land),
IRA vs Britain (a people trying to end centuries of military, religious and
political domination by those across the Irish sea), the Middle East vs
the West (the 20th century long battle to change Islam and their society
into something that we find acceptable and to dominate the oil fields),
there is no way to express anything like that on the poll. If there was an
“other” option, then at least whatever minority of the population believe
that people have a right to self determination and that say, Islamic
terrorists wouldn’t attack the west if we weren’t over there with our
miltary and oil interests. People who realize that those folks don’t
actually “hate our freedom” but actually “hate our presence in their
lands” (as we would hate their presence in our) don’t have anyway
in this poll to express that maybe none of those three options would
really be the best way to fight terrorism and would, in fact in two of
those cases, actually cause more terrorism.

But I digress… In short, with a multiple choice poll, it would seem
sensible to offer one vague option just for those who want to vote but
whose opinions don’t match whatever specific answers that have been
supplied.

Thank you.”

Yes, as you might guess, this will end up in the “never got to the end…”
pile. Along with the e-mails that I sent to 2 Oregon State Reps’ regarding
the mass poisoning (er, I mean, the Fluoridation) of Oregon’s drinking
water and the e-mail that I sent to the NYT about the blantant right-wing
slant they showed by putting “Don’t Think of an Elephant” in the “Self-Help
best sellers” to prevent such a wonderful and helpful piece of progessive
politics from appearing on the Non-Fiction list.

Strangely, I never seem to get very many responses…

What year is this? Yesterday, on the news, did I really hear “ol’ dub” say that he “thinks it’s time we started building nuclear plants again?” Did the news really follow that up by mentioning the “bother of what to do with the nuclear waste?”… Well, since the old waste is still a bother, doesn’t making more seem a bit counterintuitive? Other horrible things? The “supreme” court ruling that cities can condemn private property in the name of developer profits? Yay, American Freedom! Yeah, let’s spread more of that kind of liberty around the word… Kissenger style!

Not to sound like a ol’tyme New Deal Socialist or something but was there not a time when the American Government expended at least a little effort and expense for the non-corporate citizen, instead of taking taxpayer money and handing it over to for-profit corporations? Contrary to what the Republicrats like to say, I think the Founding Fathers and yes, ol’ Jesus himself (when did Christians take it upon themselves to think that Usury, by which we mean all interest charged on money loaned, was a godly thing?) would be mighty disappointed with this “slave to the corporation” republic.

Of course, not being a religious man, I may be wrong. I may be mis-understanding the few religious bits that I’ve heard. The new American Christianity of “good things for those who take, nothing for those who don’t” just wasn’t quite what I thought it was all about.

Anything positive to report today? Well, no. No movies. No books. A bit of enjoyable comics, Shaolin Cowboy, were read.