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Old Extra-solar planet discovered
The oldest known planet was just discovered this week. It
was dubbed, "mind-boggling" by leading scientist
in
this fascinating article.
 The
Game Has Begun
After watching the first three episodes this week and reading
far too much commentary on the issue at a couple of 'reality
TV' web sites, I'm still not convinced that this year's cast
is very interesting or compelling. There are no colourful
gay characters and no really ethnic characters... Jun, the
Korean "girl next door" is working the "All-American
Girl" thing so hard that she's almost indestinguishable
from the blond "twins" Alison and Michelle. Thank
goodness Alison weighs more than Michelle that layer of baby
fat is the only thing that allows me to tell them apart. While
Dana claims to be cuban and Robert and Erica might be "hispanic"
themselves, so far we've seen nothing that would show anything
but a white bread (read mainstream or bland) approach to life
or this game in particular.
I like to see cunning and skill. Like their giant chess game
in the backyard, the house guests will have to think a few
moves ahead. If BB3 taught the producers anything, it should
be that the House Guests should go into the private diary
room and spill their strategy to the audience at home. Danielle
was great to watch in BB3 because we were in on her secrets.
This year, the audience was told that the HGs would get to
see the live feeds, but not the diary room tapes once they
are evicted because of the outcome of last season's game.
As far as initial currents of play from this first week:
Bed Passes
Jee and Robert proved themselves to be sexist pigs by using
their bed passes on the short and young girls... there were
other beds in the blue room, obviously Jee moved in on what
he percieved as a weak player. It will be interesting to see
if this gets played out. I'm hoping that Dana will muster
support against him in retaliation. Showing that he's equally
stupid, Robert used his pass on one of the blond girls...
lame ass manuever dude. If he was really a cool guy, he would
have used his bed pass to kick Jee out of the bed and try
to get in good with Dana... but how was he to know there might
be a back-lash against the using of the bed pass? Apparently
he ignored the histrionics that followed in the wake of Jee's
actions... If these initial actions are any indication of
how these guys play this game, they are ripe pawns in the
strategies of far more intelligent and perceptive players.
Food Competition
Losing key catagories of the mainstream, American carnivorous
diet means that the House Guests are likely to get cranky
and lethargic. In that condition, they're more prone to laying
around and bitching about each other... the audience LOVES
conflict and drama, so next week's shows could be quite good
for this reason alone.
The HOH Competition
Nathan as first Head Of Household could play out well for
the alliance of eight because true to their initial strategy,
he put up to of the 'exes' to be evicted. Of course that caused
inner turmoil for Scott because he's still got feelings for
Amanda and knowing that the rest of his alliance say they
want her gone must be stirring up more conflicted emotions
for him. This could be great to see how it plays off as Scott
has already flown off the handle several times and his relationship
with Amanda seems quite volatile. If he was smart, Nathan
would play it like, "You wanted the exes gone... don't
back down now" but alas, he's not smart and made a speach
about how it's Amanda's own fault for not coming out of her
shell a little more. Poor Nathan, as the resident hunk it
must be extremely difficult to fill BB3's Roddy's shoes. Roddy
is sexy, witty, intelligent AND charming. His handling of
the eviction nominations proves that Nathan is almost none
of these. Beyond being eye-candy and using sex as a lever
Nathan has no game and is therefore a potentially weak player.
Silence Is Golden
I saw a couple of films in this year's SILENT FILM FESTIVAL
because art is timeless and because my pal Irwin had
tickets.
The Crowd
Directed by King Vidor, this classic melodrama chronicled
the life of John Sims. It was interesting to see the story-telling
style and how vastly different it is from current Hollywood
conventions. From the opening shots of his birth, his parents
and then he himself promised that one day he would do great
things... those great things never materialize and I was left
thinking about the famous quote from John Lennon that "Life
is what happens when you're busy making other plans".
John grows up to become 'one of the crowd' he's a cog in a
big machine and his pal Bert introduces him to Mary whom he
proposes to after their first date. Through their long, tedious
marriage and it's inevitable mishaps she remains more or less
faithful to him. After the death of their baby, friends and
family keep them apart for some reason and I was left thinking
that it must be some disgarded belief about the grieving process.
Though it could have just been a convention of silent film
used to turn up the heat on the pot-boiler of tension and
angst surrounding their lives together. By the end, the couple
has seen each other through and they go off to a show. We
see them as a laughing, happy family before the screen goes
black.
At first, I thought there was something wrong with the titles
or something. The film spent hours going over his rather un-remarkable
early life and seemed to establish that John was destined
for greatness. My pal Phil Ford said it was like a 'slice
of life' because real life follows that type of trajectory.
How did I get so conditioned to require a happy ending? Todd
Solondz films rarely have a happy ending and I love every
one of them that I've seen. I guess I'm basically un-happy
with the way they portrayed the marriage and the characters.
I never got a sense of what they saw in each other. On their
first date, Mary was dressed identically as her friend. She
looked a lot like Jody Foster, while the friend was a bit
too plump and non-descript to register much notice. Later
after two kids and several financial calamities, they re-styled
her hair and she looked like Helen Hunt... OK easy to see
why she was a star, but what made her so special to John?
And John? He was such a looser, great to look at and a little
clownishly funny at times but she almost left him like three
times. Each time I kept wondering what changed her mind? Such
a disfunctional relationship to my 21st Century perception,
but perhaps it was perfectly normal and acceptable in 1928
when the film was made?
GO West
This light-hearted comedic western was so good. It was full
of a very sweet and innocent humour that is desperately lacking
in 21st Century media. Buster Keaton wrote, directed, and
starred in this feature and it was easy to see why he's such
a mega-star. His leading lady was a cow named 'brown eyes'.
She stole the show more than once. What a perfect way to wrap
up the weekend.
The Doctor is IN
This weekend, DJ Doc Martin was in town for a couple of parties.
Saturday night he was spinning at Club Six. Irwin and I wandered
down there and had a micro-groove before the heat drove us
out of the basement.
Sunday night, Doc played an outdoor gig over in Oakland but
I couldn't get a ride and it was rather late after the film,
so I skipped the party.
Election '04
Back pedalling and applogies from the administration led
to the word "impeachment" floating around the more
liberal media outlets this week. What did the administration
know and when did they know it? Bush's political life depends
on that one question.
Misleader
An ad campaign was launched in key political markets this
week. The print version had a picture of the shrub with the
word, "Misleader" written on his forehead. I found
it to be quite incendiary and will certainly take the election
in a very new direction.
Bush shifting blame on exaggerated reasons for war can
be found HERE
A nice laundry list of bush lies can
be found HERE
 The
Age of Imperialism
Death Toll Mounts
Reports rolled in DAILY about fresh attacks on US forces.
The US millitary did their best to spin it as 'forces loyal
to Sadam' when in reality we have a crisis of historical proportions.
For the first time in US history, we have absolutely no plan,
no strategy, no direction and a vacuum of authentic leadership.
The bloodless coup of 2000 is bloodless no longer.
"Misled" or Mondacity?
Administration officials caught exaggerating their pre-war
"evidence". bush admited this week to including
"misleading evidence" in his pre-war case against
Iraq. The admission was due to facts surfacing about Iraq's
attempted purchase of Uranium from Niger.
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Week
Ending 13 July
Workin'
It 
