Bad news day for space travel

Ok, first off, late last night just before bed I read that an explosion occurred at the Mojave aerospace site of Scaled Composites LLC (makers of the SpaceShipOne that won the Ansari X-Prize), killing two [edit: a third died today] and injuring four others. My heart sank as I read this news. I am a big fan and proponent of private space flight, and I am saddened by the death of these two [now three] contributors and the hurt to the others. I hope this does not set back Scaled Composite's efforts too much, though.

I was also very disappointed with MSNBC (as I so often am) to see that the report was buried by this morning, replaced by the news that NASA has admitted to letting astronauts fly after they'd been drinking. From the article:

"The report said NASA was not equipped to deal adequately with episodes of flying after drinking. 'The medical certification of astronauts for flight duty is not structured to detect such episodes, nor is any medical surveillance program by itself likely to detect them or change the pattern of alcohol use,' it said."

....ummm, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest: maybe it should. Hello. A little pre-flight breathalizer could solve this problem.

To top that off, NASA also admitted there had been at least one case of hardware sabotage of a part destined for the International Space Station by a contractor that it refused to name.

Of concerts and getting old

So I was chatting on IM with a friend who just attended Ozzfest, and I said it used to be cool but I have no interest in going anymore. Then this followed:

ME: Besides, I've seen Ozzy 6 or 7 times, at least

He says: this was my first time
He says: rocked, still don't have all of my voice back

ME: heh, I know that feeling
ME: Ozzy was the first rock concert I ever went to

He says: really? right on

ME: I still have the tshirt, with a rip in it from the fence I was against

He says: that is awesome. Family Heirloom

ME: that was 19 years ago. I may have to go cry now

He says: You are old.

ME: no doubt about it

He says: practically ancient

ME: thanks, asshole
------------------------

And in weird news:
In Washington DC, an armed robber broke up a dinner party, but then just drank some wine and asked for a hug. Hey kids, can you say "High as a kite"? I knew you could.

Obscure Movies I Love, pt. 4: Laurel Canyon

So, when Wiwille posted his "Movie Review" challenge offer, I suggested he review the little-known indie film Laurel Canyon. I also said that once he posted that I would respond with my own review. I'm a little late.

Written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko, director of another great indie film High Art, Laurel Canyon centers on the relationship of a couple of young doctors (played by Kate Beckinsale and Christian Bale) who move out to L.A. for the husband's internship. The couple plans on living in what is supposed to be the vacant home of his record producer mother (played by Frances McDormand). Unfortunately, she is still in the house recording a record with a rock band. Her loose rock'n'roll lifestyle does not jive with her son's rather straightlaced outlook, but proves tempting to the sheltered wife. Add to the mix his sexy co-worker (played by Natasha McElhone) who is tempting to him, and life gets messy.

The foundation of the film is the writing. Many a story has been drawn around relationships and the stupid things that people do to screw them up. This one, however, rang true to me. It's not something everyone can relate to, but having been the conservative, uptight type (I was once, yes) I can relate to Bale's character's conflict with what he views as the irresponsible lifestyle his mother leads. Having also been somewhat sheltered, I can relate to the temptation of Beckinsale's character when she gets close to that other kind of life. Jealousy, temptation, and lack of communication are all relationship factors most of us have experienced, and they are the foundation of the well-written characterization in this story.

The acting is also top-notch. Cholodenko clearly found herself an amazing cast, and must have known how to help them do their job well. Some of the actors, like Bale and Beckinsale, were not nearly as famous then as they are now, so perhaps part of it was luck. Either way, I felt the performances were excellent.

The cinematography was so-so. Nothing fantastic. It's the story and acting that make this movie great.

The biggest criticism I can give this movie is that it delves into experiences that maybe not many viewers can relate to. But if you can look past the face of it and see the truths of relationships that it addresses, you can find something in this film to relate to. Rent it!

Previously on The Inexcusable:

Obscure Movies I Love, pt. 3: the Jason Priestley double-feature

Obscure Movies I Love, pt. 2: A Shock to the System

Obscure Movies I Love, pt. 1: Diggstown

Reverend Mattbear presiding

If you're a long time reader of this blog (and I think all two of you who still read this are) you may recall me complaining that while I am an ordained minister, I have never had the opportunity to perform a wedding ceremony. Well, I've finally been asked to officiate a wedding in November. Yay, me!

It's going to be especially interesting since the union is between one nominally Christian and one nominally Wiccan, and they want to incorporate elements from both traditions. I'm going to have to consult the only Wiccan priest I know.

The Crazies and the Woodwork they come out of

While some may want to discuss real political issues, I'd rather talk about the crazy mofos that inevitably come out when an election is coming. Even if it's a year and a half away. And I'm not even talking about psycho-bitch Hillary.

I can't believe I'm linking to MTV, but they do have a funny blurb on some of the crazier Presidential candidates. I've heard of ol' Sharkey (beware: web site seems designed by 13 year old goth) before, so I was unsurprised to see he is officially running. My favorite? To quote the MTV article:

"Jackson Kirk Grimes — 56, a single pagan with a GED who once portrayed Hitler on 'Star Trek,' this director of the United Fascist Union (which promotes the economic theories and political ideologies of Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein) and two-time presidential candidate promises to abolish paper money and create a global government if elected."

Between him and Sharkey, they're really giving pagans some good press.

I'm not quite progressive enough to vote for the vampire (or perhaps he would prefer vampyre), and not quite militant enough to vote for the fascist. But this guy might get my vote:

"Warren Roderick 'Bob, Warren G.' Ashe — 50, ran for president in 2000 and 2004, former U.S. Navy pilot and 'Earth Ground Computer Specialist' in the Army National Guard, president of the Air Force's U.S. Anti Drug Task Force (2000-2007) and president of the Marijuana Legalization Committee."

In any case, it's always nice to see that being sane isn't a prerequisite for running for President. I expect a TomKat ticket come 2012.

Still here

To the two or so people who still read this: Yes, I will be posting more soon. The last few weeks have been very hard on me, despite the fact that I have returned to work - in fact, I'm happiest when I'm at work. How fucked up is that?

Anyway, expect more posts soon.

Dr. Death goes free

After serving eight years of a 10-25 year sentence, Dr. Jack Kevorkian has been released from prison. He has promised not to help anyone kill themselves anymore, and if he does it's a violation of his parole and he goes back to the slammer.

Assisted suicide is a hotly debated thing, although it has cooled off a bit since Kevorkian went to the big house. The whole Terry Schiavo public circus brought up some aspects of the debate again, but that was short lived (pardon the rather tasteless pun).

Me? I know I have a great fear of living as an invalid or slowly circling the drain with cancer or some other wasting disease. As such, I am pretty cool with assisted suicide, and ol' Dr. Jack.

This one time, at Burning Man, I learned some stuff...

So, yesterday, I was using Stumble Upon for the first time in quite awhile (if you've never used Stumble Upon, you're missing out on one of the coolest 'net-surfing experiences evar). I was perusing videos, and got a few very cool science and astronomy ones. This made me start thinking of the last time I went to Burning Man, back in 2004.

I was pretty burnt out (pun intended) on Burning Man by then, what with 2004 being the 8th year in a row that I had attended. I did not have much fun, for various reasons, and vowed I would not be returning (and thus far, I have not). But there was one stand-out, flat out awesome experience I had while there.

Some folks had seen fit to build a dome waaaaay out on the playa to server as a planetarium that they named Bok Globule, and every night they would give presentations using a software package called Digital Universe that was created by Hayden Planetarium. (In theory, one can download it for free from their site here, but it's been giving me a "service temporarily unavailable" error since yesterday). The presentations were given by one Carter Emmart (warning: super-long YouTube video), who is "Director of Astrovisualization" for the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

Now, I had an interest in astronomy when I was a kid, but it really fell to the background as I got older. These presentations way out in the desert were awesome. I saw it one night, and it truly blew me away. It gave you a feeling for how amazingly huge and awesome the universe is. Sometimes, things like that can leave you feeling really insignificant, but this one left me feeling full of hope, with a sense of how important it is for us to care for the one Earth we've been given.

Watching the cool science and astronomy videos via Stumble got me thinking about the planetarium, and I did some Google searching and found the site of a guy named Don Davis who worked on the planetarium. I have always hoped there was some kind of recording or more permanent presentation made by these folks, so I shot Mr. Davis an e-mail to ask him if he knew of one. Mr. Davis was nice enough to respond in a very short time and let me know that unfortunately I was out of luck on that count. I thanked him anyway, and tried to let him know how much the work of their group meant to me.

I wish I could find something I could watch at home that would be as inspiring as that awesome show I saw in the desert, but I've found nothing. I've watched things like the IMAX movie Cosmic Voyage (which was kinda cool), but there isn't anything that matches up in my mind to Bok Globule. I guess my memory will have to do.

Employment looms; selling house seems distant...

Got some good news yesterday in that I will have a job come end of June. Yay me! I have grown weary of being broke.

However, the house has been on the market for a week and a half, and no one has even come look at it. I know in my head that I can't expect it to sell overnight, but I do want it to hurry up. We have an "Open House" tomorrow from 1pm to 4pm, so if you know somebody who wants to buy a house a little bit in the country, direct them here.

Test Drivin'

So, the other day I had my Durango at the dealership to get its regular service. It was going to be about an hour, so I cruised out to the showroom and was drooling over a Dodge Charger R/T. I started chatting with the sales manager, who was trying to get me to trade the Durango in on one. I told him that was not going to happen, but he said I could take it out for a test drive.

I swear, this car is made out of testosterone. It is the most unashamedly macho car I have ever driven. Five minutes driving this bad boy around, and I felt like Vic Mackey. I wanted to drive real fast, knock down some doors, rough up some gangbangers, and take their drug money. It was cool.

The Charger mixes old school muscle car raw power with modern amenities and something of a luxury car feel. It has much better handling than I expected from a car of its size and design.

Still, even if I had the $30k or so it would take to buy one, this isn't the car I would buy. It's nice, it's cool, but it's just not $30k worth. I wouldn't turn one down if somebody just wanted to give me one, though.

Fox fucks Fillion...again

Perhaps you've heard of a little show created by Joss Whedon called Firefly. Perhaps, like me and so many others, you didn't discover it or become a fan until after the series was gone...because Fox canceled it after a single season. Despite the fact that it had a rabid fan following. Despite the fact that it could have - probably would have - gained significantly in ratings if given a little more time.

Firefly starred Nathan Fillion. A few weeks ago, Fox began airing a new series starring Fillion, called Drive. After airing a whopping three episodes (four if you count that the first one was a double), Fox has already canceled Drive. And this after Fillion apparently signed some kind of "talent holding contract" with Fox. Ouch. I really like Fillion, too; he's a charismatic and interesting actor.

So yeah...fuck Fox. If they didn't have House, M.D. (which they're going to show re-runs of in place of Drive) I'd never watch their damn network.

Woops

OK, Wiwillie is giving me crap about not posting the correct answer from my "contest" with it's whole two contestants. And rightly so. I've been busy arranging contractors and such and having them in my house doing work to get it ready for sale. Huge headaches.

Anyway...Wiwillie's guess was good, but incorrect. Memophage's answer was alluding to the fact that he knew exactly what I posted on Wikipedia (I edited a line about a reference to the movie used in the show "Gray's Anatomy")...obviously, there is some way to look up what another user has posted. The correct answer was "Silence of the Lambs" (my favorite movie evar).


However, I specified that the contest was a guessing game...not a "cheat and look up my specific entry" game. So Memophage will get a prize...but it will be one deserving of his cheating ways.

And for the record, punko, Gray's Anatomy is a perfectly good show. Or was. This current season is too soap-opera-ish. Needs more surgeries and blood and death.

...And Stuff

It's a well-known fact that I organize a yearly "Dead Pool" competition with my friends, and I had to check the Dead Pool list this morning because author Kurt Vonnegut died today. As it turned out, no one had picked him, so the standings haven't changed any. Vonnegut is always said to be one of the most important authors of the 20th century, but I've never read any of his work. Perhaps I should correct that. Just as soon as I finish painting almost all the rooms in this house, get a job, and finish muddling through the incredibly boring Catcher in the Rye. By the way, if any of you are good at interior painting and are free this weekend, please let me know. Or if you'd like to spend some time splitting fire wood.

On a completely unrelated topic: Inspired by Rawbean and her contests, I've decided to have a little guessing-game contest of my own and send a prize to the winner. You can post your answer here (I won't reveal the correct answer for a few days) or e-mail them to mattbear69-at-hotmail-dot-com. The question:

I have only ever edited one article on Wikipedia. It was about a movie. What movie was it?

Busy bee, busy bee

I've been super busy the last couple of weeks trying to get the house ready for sale. It's been a huge pain in the ass, and I'm not even done yet. Originally, today was supposed to be the deadline of when our realtor was going to come over again, but it got pushed to Tuesday, thankfully. Two day reprieve.

Not making this any easier is the fact that yesterday I had to move my mom in to our place. She's going to be living with us for awhile. I'm looking for a place to rent that has a mother-in-law unit with it so we can all have some measure of privacy/separation.

Anyway, I better get back to work. Mattbear out.

A Big Decision

Well, the missus and I made a big decision this weekend...we're going to sell our house to help us get our debts paid off. In a year or two, we'll buy another place. In the meantime, I have a lot of work ahead of me to stage the house for sale, and then the stressful process of actually selling.

This rug really tied the room together, did it not?

It's been a crazy week. Last Saturday was the birthday of my brother-in-law and my nephew's wife (niece-in-law, I guess?), but I had no time to visit them...for Saturday was also Lebowskifest Seattle!

Lebowskifest was fun. Lots of people dressed up as characters from the movie, bowled, drank, and generally acted goofy. Launchpad, Loxie, Jen, and myself shared a lane with Greg, Willow, and Mike from Boise, Idaho. It was cool to kind of be forced to interact with these strangers. They turned out to be really nice folks and very entertaining. Launchpad and I had a lot of White Russians, which the bar staff was making literally by the bucket. Launchpad also had a pitcher of beer, and that combined with the caucasians...well, he was regretting that choice by the end of the night. And the whole next day. But I think he had fun anyway.

Speaking of the next day, Sunday was my son's sixth birthday. So that was fun, to spend Saturday night drinking and Sunday dealing with a six-year-old's birthday party. We kept it small this year, mostly family, and it went well. As always, the boy got spoiled and made out like a bandit on the presents.

Tuesday was my wife's birthday. We didn't do a whole lot other than go to lunch with her family. Tonight is a birthday party for a couple of friends, but unfortunately I don't think we're going to make it, due to lack of babysitting and such.

And tomorrow is our anniversary. I am referring to it as our 16/1 anniversary, as it marks sixteen years of us being together, and one year of being married.

Anyway...suppose I ought to get back to looking for a job. Mattbear out.

Did someone spike Boston P.D.'s drinking water with stupid juice?

So, you may have read my previous post about Boston police freaking out about a viral ad campaign and blowing up Lite Brites because they might be a terrorist attack. Well, they're at it again. This time it seems they blew up a traffic counter because it was chained to a light pole and therefore looked suspicious.

I wish I had some kind of punchline or better commentary, but I think this really speaks for itself.

Brief movie review, and being a good samaritan

So last night, I went to a late showing of "The Number 23". Obviously continuing to attempt to rid himself of the "funny man" typecasting, Jim Carrey stars in this thriller loosely based on the "phenomenon" of the number 23.

The movie was "ok", and that's about the best I can say for it. It did a good job of building tension in the first two acts, but the third blows it all on a weak explanation and ending. I could have written a better ending. I'd say if you're interested in this one, wait for video. If you want to see Carrey do something other than comedic mugging and pratfalls, you're better off with "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Although I will say, if you watch "The Number 23", you're likely to come out of it counting damn near everything and adding up every series of numbers you see, looking for a 23.

As I said, I went to a late showing, so there were very few people in the theater. As I was walking out and heading toward the car, a guy holding jumper cables flagged me down. There were a grand total of three other people in the parking lot, and one of them was gone before I could even get over to the guy. I drove over and was going to try to jump-start his car, but upon opening the hood of the Mini (I was driving the wife's car for various reasons) I discovered I could not find the battery. It was nowhere to be seen. I quickly got back in the car and zoomed over to where the other couple were pulling out, and got them to stop for a minute.

They were driving a BMW. The guy said BMW makes their cars "unjumpable". I have no idea why this would be, but it certainly helped explained why I couldn't find the Mini's battery (modern Mini Coopers are made by BMW). I drove back over to the poor stranded guy and told him what the other guy said. He asked if I could drive him a couple miles to his girlfriend's place to get her car, and I said sure. He went back to his car and was talking to somebody, and I realized for the first time he was with his girlfriend - I couldn't see her before because the hood of the car was up. I asked if he wanted to bring her along too, but he said she would be fine as it would only take a few minutes. I zoomed the guy home. He thanked me as he was getting out, and said, "I don't know if I owe you anything, or...."

"Oh heck no," I said, "I just hope the rest of your night goes better." I shook his hand, and away we went our separate ways.

So yeah...I can be helpful and a nice person. Just don't tell anybody, ok? I have a reputation to keep.

- Mattbear out.

My current fascination

I recently have become fascinated with all things Steampunk. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's a genre of fiction based in the Victorian era, but with sci-fi like technology, albeit powered by chronologically sensible sources. So, for instance, their tanks are steam powered; robots wound up like clocks, etc.

Mostly what I like is the visual aspect of Steampunk, with lots of gears and cogs and brass. There is a great deal of Steampunk art out there, including animation, comic books, novels, music, and - best of all - homemade mods and art. I found a great blog called Brass Goggles (which I've linked to on the side there) that posts about all things Steampunk. The best post, in my opinion? The guy who made his home theater the interior of Captain Nemo's Nautilus.

If you read Jules Verne when you were a kid, like I did, or if you're fascinated by Nickola Tesla and Charles Babbage, you'll like Steampunk stuff. If you're "too cool" for such nerdy stuff? Screw you. This stuff is cool.

Mattbear out.

On the Hunt...

...for a job.

A year ago, I quit my full-time Microsoft gig, with all its comfort and security, to pursue contract work as a Technical Writer. I wound up right back at the Evil Empire with far less job security, the same pay, and a lot more hapiness. But at Microsoft, there's a year limit on a contractor's employment. My year limit comes up this Friday, and I can't be assigned to Microsoft again for 100 days.

As much as I would like to just take 100 days to chill out, then try to get a new assignment at Microsoft, I cannot afford to. So I've been on the job hunt. So far, no bites, but a few nibbles. A number of recruiters have contacted me about possible contract jobs. We will see how it goes.

Anyway, I don't want to think about that too much right now. Here's some interesting tidbits for you:

"An Inconvenient Truth" has apparently become Paramount's number one money-maker, ever (it's buried in that article somewhere).

Kevin Smith is going to be directing the pilot of a TV show titled "Reaper". Hopefully it will be better than "Clerks 2".

A new item marketed to gamers: one company didn't want to compete in the energy drink arena, so they're making a gaurana-filled toffee bar called HeadShot to market to gamers. Great. I can wash 'em down with some Bawls (which, by the way, I recently was amused to see ring up at the grocery store as "gaurana drink" rather than the brand name).

I really dig this clock. Anyone want to buy me that for my birthday?

- Mattbear out.