If you’re coping with dyslexia, take heart. You could one day become a successful business magnate, thereby mocking all of us part-time bloggers who have deluded ourselves into thinking that we’re making good use of our English degrees.
Dec 262007
Dec 252007
Happy Holidays, everyone. Now, get off the computer and go talk to someone. And consider sending a little something to charities like Second Harvest, which provide food to people in need during the holidays and throughout the rest of the year.
Dec 242007
My brother is staying with me for the next week and blogging might be more sporadic until the end of the year. Incidentally, I had the opportunity to mess around with my brother’s iPhone. I’m normally indifferent to cell phones, but I could probably be convinced to give up my landline in exchange for one of these at some point. The storage capacity needs to increase and it needs to be provider-neutral before I’ll seriously consider it. Still, I felt a goofy smile spread across my face as I admired the touch interface and the purty display.
Dec 232007
The Strib has a Flash-based overview of the installation of the new clocks atop the Minneapolis City Hall. I drive past the clock tower during my commute and it’s good to have the time pieces in working order after a months-long absence. They add a touch of analog charm to our PoMo neighborhood.
Dec 222007
I Am Legend, based on the Richard Matheson novel of the same name, tells the story of Robert Neville, a military scientist who is the survivor of a lethal manmade plague that has killed off most of humanity. Neville continues to live in New York City and works diligently in his private lab to find a cure. While the virus almost always kills its host, it also has the unfortunate tendency to turn a small but significant percentage of victims into your typical post-apocalyptic homicidal mutants. His only companion is the family dog and he is beginning to show the psychic trauma of three years of without human contact.
I’ve been looking forward to the this film for a while and it mostly lived up to my expectations. Will Smith gives a strong, nuanced performance as a man trying to carry on after the unimaginable has happened. The story is gripping and provides several genuinely frightening moments. But the movie does collapse towards the end, descending into hokey spiritualism and giving the viewer cause to wonder whether Neville found his science degree at the bottom of a cereal box. It’s a letdown after the virtuosity of the film’s preceding two-thirds. Still, I Am Legend is infinitely better than The Omega Man, that cheese platter starring Charlton Heston.
Dec 212007
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are returning on January 7 sans writing staffs. I’m curious to see how the content of both shows will be affected. Stewart’s review of the headlines and Colbert’s “The Word” segment are heavily scripted, but these guys should be clever enough to fill the time with improvised off-the-cuff remarks. I still hope the writers can negotiate a fair deal and return soon. The upcoming primary season demands to be satirized and it would be a shame to miss out on the opportunity.
Dec 202007
The only people who have sent me Christmas cards are my friends who work in law firms. It’s comforting to know there are people I can call if/when I ever get busted for some indeterminate offense. Not that I’m guilty of anything. I’m just saying.
Dec 192007
I hosted a holiday party for my co-workers in my building’s community room and I took some of them on a brief tour of my place. I’ve lived here five years and I’ve grown habituated to my admittedly spectacular view. A sharp intake of breath usually accompanies a visitor’s first glance at the panorama beyond my windows and this serves as a reminder for me to never get to so accustomed to something that you stop seeing it.
One of my colleagues watched the big clouds of steam from the local energy plant blot out the silhouettes of the nearby buildings. He remarked that it looked like a scene out of Blade Runner.
Dec 182007
The universe is a weird, weird place. Take, for example, the recent discovery of a black hole at the center of a distant galaxy that is firing an enormous stream of lethal radiation at a neighboring galaxy. The creators of Star Trek never thought up anything this cool. I’m betting that these kinds of findings begin to reveal only the slightest hint of the universe’s deep and abiding strangeness.
Dec 172007
I just signed up for the Internet Chess Club, in case anyone out there is also a member and wants to humiliate me. I signed because my dad has an account and he’s been wanting to play me on-line. I played a few blitz matches with random strangers over the weekend and cringed at my performance. I’ve never been very good at planning my moves in advance and that weakness becomes only more pronounced in blitz games. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to boost your ego, my ICC handle is “mcsiegel19”.