No End in Sight

Here’s a simple plea to those who voted for Bush/Cheney in ‘04. Match every dollar you donated to their campaign with donations to charities working in Iraq.

After watching No End in Sight I felt like ripping the seats out of the theater. I had tuned out documentaries about Iraq because most of them are just piling on. I only saw this one because of Ebert’s four star review, a friend’s recommendation and a dearth of other interesting movies. It’s similar to Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room in the way it does a postmortem on a complex failure.

King of Kong

King of Kong came out this weekend and will be gradually hitting more cities. I saw this movie back in March at the AFI Dallas Film Festival and have been excited about its release ever since. It’s about the fight between two guys to be Donkey Kong world champion. I have been trying my hardest to get people to make this one of the five movies they see in the theater this year.

So You Think You're a Samurai Warrior?

I was watching Harakiri tonight when I got my million dollar TV series idea: “So You Think You’re a Samurai Warrior?”

Willpowered air conditioner

I’ve been trying since mid-July to find someone who will replace my water-sourced heat pump. It has a freon leak in the condenser coil. It no longer cools.

I used to leave it on anyways and pretend that moving hot air around the loft made it feel cooler. This August I just switched it off entirely. Now the 100+ degree weather has come and my willpower doesn’t seem strong enough to make it feel cool anymore.

Excellence and mediocrity

The Amiga computer was a dream given form: an inexpensive, fast, flexible multimedia computer that could do virtually anything.

Ars posted the first part of a history of the Amiga. The Amiga 1000 changed my life. I got it as a birthday present, a few months after my father died.

Since then I’ve learned that it is rare for something of excellence to persevere for very long. Evolution rewards the mediocre. The more average you are the more likely you are to breed.

Eisner Winners

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, which I shared some love for earlier, won Best Reality-Based Work. Another title I was pulling for American Born Chinese won for Best Graphic Album - New. It’s nice to see an industry award the great stuff unlike say the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys.

And my favorite writer, Grant Morrison, picked up an Eisner for Best Continuing Series for All Star Superman. I’m glad that Morrison and Brian Bendis keep things interesting at DC and Marvel.

Limits of Creativity

I’m back from a trip to Huntspatch for Emily’s twelfth birthday. It was one of the best times I’ve ever had with her. One of the things I noticed is just how much more agile her creativity is.

Emily innovated her tactics in Hive and won despite my best efforts. Her use of the spider to isolate and pin my pieces was particularly novel. In Super Paper Mario she came up with a technique for flipping enemies into a new 2d orientation that I’d never thought of.

Perverted / Twisted / Crippled

Saw The Hustler tonight. Devastating movie. Got me thinking about K. She knew the game like Sarah. I didn’t cause her death but I could’ve done something. In the parlance of The Hustler, K is a winner. I’m just a loser taking down winners so I can get by in life. Probably get it from my loser dad. Helluva way to go through life.

Yeah, I beat a ticket today. Go me. What a joke. M hed feel all fat and floaty . my body even. just numb likke novaciane. I guess hats selfpreservatioonn kiiccking in. why can’t i see where i should be going? it seemed so clear for k or maybe it wasn’t she jst … “The trick is in not minding that it hurts.” -TEL

"Don't get cocky kid"

I knew things were going well when a cabbie motioned me over and gave up his spot in front of city hall, and the meter had over an hour left on it. Dallas cabbies earned quite a bit of good karma with that movie.

I had prepared a bunch of notes for my hearing about a red light violation. I was looking forward to dazzling the hearing administrator with my defense.

Robot Empathy

Is there a special word to describe empathy with robots? I get choked up whenever I revisit the story of Pioneer 10. I think about the part where Pioneer 10 attempts to be the first man made object to cross the great Asteroid Belt — 50 million miles thick and filled with dust and objects the size of Alaska, some traveling 45,000 mph. Nobody knew if Pioneer 10 could make it. Of course it makes it through and goes on to make the first flyby of Jupiter. Then it makes history again when it leaves our solar system. Then on January 23, 2003 we hear its signal for the last time.