8 Minutes On High

4 Minutes of Fun

March 31st, 2009 by Max

http://www.vtm.be/mariadans/

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Pretty scary

March 30th, 2009 by Max

What would The Inquisition have done with nuclear weapons? Pope Urban II?

Posted in Changes in the World In My Lifetime, Politics, Social Commentaries | 2 Comments »

How would you like to get Rush Limbaugh in the mail?

March 28th, 2009 by Max

In March!
I keep getting these fliers from Scott Murphy, the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives for Kirsten Gillibrand’s old seat here in upstate New York.

I’m going to vote for Scott and I hope everybody else does too. Not because he’s a great guy. I’ve seen PA LENTY of his tv adds, and the adds from the Republican as well. I don’t much like either’s adds, so I’m going to vote on party lines.

Besides the other guy is a long time Albany guy and we had our legislature voted the 2nd least effective state government in the country. And the Republicans ran it till the last election.

But I digress. I have in my hand a flier with a picture of three people on it. It says we can have a Congress man who works for these people or one who works for you. These people are The Fat Fascist, The W, and with her mouth wide open and her cool glasses on …Sarah Palin.

It actually turns my stomach to look at them. Not flattering pictures of course, but they are in color. W has his lips purse and it looks like he might be thinking of a word. His eyes are kind of glassy.

Rush has two fingers pointing to the ceiling and that “corner of his mouth is pinched” look, that makes me think “Republican!” right away.

I know the Republican candidate isn’t Rush the Tush, and I think its interesting that Scott Murphy uses his wife’s local roots in his adds, not his own. But I’m going to vote for him, because I still have faith in Obama …

And Obama’s picture is on the other Scott Murphy flier!

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The never ending election

March 27th, 2009 by Max

On Tuesday … I get to vote for my new Congressman.  My old Congresswoman, is now my new Senator.  My old Senator, is now my new Secretary of State.  My old Secretary of State, is now buying shoes!

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The drawer of inappropriate starches …

March 27th, 2009 by Max

Dollhouse today was funny. Especially Topher and Adelle.

Topher’s Brink: You haven’t seen my drawer of inappropriate starches? -Was the best line.  Here are some others, in no particular order.
Topher: He wouldn’t try to have fun!
Adelle DeWitt:Lentils.
Topher: I’ve got a huge phalanx of machines that go Bing!
Adelle: I am your superior – Topher: In every way!

We also learned that Caroline was an “activist” before. We learned that the actives can be degraded by drugs, or should we say “unblocked”. This appears to culminate next week.

But who did Caroline need to get out of that building? Was it the dog?

And we still don’t know what the Russom Corp had over her that would make her give them 5 years of her life, epecially since she hated them and they killed her boyfriend. I know … she could think she’s being a spy. But why would they have made the offer in the first place?

Its getting a little more complicated … and a little more funny.

Posted in Arts, Dollhouse | No Comments »

Home alone?

March 25th, 2009 by Max

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtC7b05mBGg&feature=player_embedded

I swear its real.

This dude just comes into David Prager’s house, goes into the bathroom.  Comes out with his pants around his ankles and falls on the bed.  He ushers/talks the dude out of the house and he just hangs around.

Posted in Changes in the World In My Lifetime, Photos, Uncategorized | No Comments »

New pictures from my long day yesterday

March 24th, 2009 by Max

The Great Blue Heron is a great blue heron.  I kinda like this picture.  But the thing that surpised me was that I’d never seen this kind of white goose before.  And there must have been a thousand of them.  They took off and circled like WWII planes stacking up before a long mission.  It was beautiful watching them bank into the sunlight.

Posted in Capsule Reviews, My New York, Other People's Theories, Social Commentaries, Sports, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

My answer to the “bonus” question

March 23rd, 2009 by Max

“But some executives at private equity firms and hedge funds, who were briefed on the plan Sunday afternoon, are anxious about the recent uproar over millions of dollars in bonus payments made to executives of the American International Group.

Some of them have told administration officials that they would participate only if the government guaranteed that it would not set compensation limits on the firms, according to people briefed on the conversations. The executives also expressed worries about whether disclosure and governance rules could be added retroactively to the program by Congress, these people said.”

Yes.  Everybody is upset that people who gambled away all of their own company’ money (AIG) effectively bankrupting it, get to have millions of dollars in bonuses.  Its clearly wrong by weight of obvious moral standards.  You shouldn’t get a bonus for wrecking the company.  And in their case they wrecked the country too!

But for Congress to say that we can create a special burden just for them.  A special tax written so specifically that it only affects companies who have received at least 5 billion of bailout money and only affects employees of those companies making over $250,000, is way too powerful a tool for the government to have.  I suspect it is illegal, [Pat Buchanon called it a Bill of Attainder, which, while I don't remember what it is, I do remember that the Constitution says that you shall not make any of them!]

We don’t want Congress having this power.  They’ll change it just slightly and then use it again on someone not so obviously deserving.

Surprisingly Elliot Spitzer was on the TV today on CNN’s Faried Zacharia show and Spitzer said that he would do what I was thinking that I would do.  Don’t pay it, and make them sue to get it.  Leave it in the hands of a jury to see if they can extract their ill gotten gains.

Spitzer said he would sue them under a legal principle called Unjust Enrichment.  He said he didn’t know if he’d win but it would be a valid path to try.  Like I said.  Ask a jury if these jamokas should have 200 million for their own pockets!

Spitzer also said that we could just say [as 80 percent stakeholders, the people of the US own AIG] there IS no money.  So you don’t get none!  [My emphasis added].

I think he’s right and I think he’s right.

As for the opening quote.  Mr Geithner wants to bring private money, which is now on the sidelines, into the saving of our financial system.  It won’t help him to have Congress going all Ex-Post-Facto on these AIG execs.  Even though there is no moral ground for these bastards to stand on … the execs, not Congress.

This is a wild eyed distraction based on the righteous  indignation of the people and Congress’ desire to look righteous and relevant in the midst of them having passed the legislation that allowed the payments in the first place.

Yes.  The administration should have stopped the payments and dealt with the lawsuits, but the real task right now is putting to work the money that is sitting on the sidelines.

Posted in Economics | 2 Comments »

Lost on LOST

March 20th, 2009 by Max

Why do some poeple come back to life, and others stay dead?  Now, Arzt aside, many people have died on the Island and they are still dead.

John from work suggests that if you die on the island you stay dead.  Maybe.

And how did Dr. Richard Alpert get on the Island, after he got off it?  We think he is the key!  John thinks he may be an ancient Egyptian!

Cool.

Posted in Arts, LOST | No Comments »

Dollhouse – expanded!

March 20th, 2009 by Max

Joss … is doing better.

Tonight Paul Ballard kicked ass.  Tonight Echo kicked ass AND told us there was a spy inside the Dollhouse.  Tonight Mellie became a major character.  Tonight … Eliza Dushku was … funny!

Big props for the much expanded Dollhouse.  We find out tonight that there are several Dollhouses around the world and they are tied into bigtime world power.  Paul Ballard meets the girl of his quest, twice, and kicks ass for her, then kicks her ass [and she kicks his ass].

Last week we get a lot more “in house” drama.  They explain why the communal showers exist and why no one seems to care, we get new dramatic tension when the doll who plays Lubov gets a little tense about Sierra.  Its not important, but it begged the question.

So more questions are being answered.  And more questions are being created. Who is the mole?  Who does she work for (I think its the Asian helper woman who works with Tohper (supergeek) [and btw its really frustrating to go to the Fox webpage and not be able to find all the characters names]).

We also learn that the goofy, shy neighbor (Mellie) is really a plant from the dollhouse to watch the FBI man. She is not just the girl next door but goes from unnoticed casual throw in wanna be lover to the batmanlike detective but now is his lover and is the spy and kick ass killer and doesn’t know it.  She with the baked goods is hot too.   Intended to look like the girl next door Mellie turns out to be “gorgeous”.

And finally Echo makes a funny.  As the naive fantaasy housewife to a dot com millionaire, when the fantasy goes way wrong and the FBI kicks ass on all the bodyguards, she jumps to the conclusion that it must be about porn!  Its not the most hysterical thing Joss has written, but it was a nice break for humor, in a show that Joss has said won’t be typical Joss in reference to his usual pop cultural referencial humor.

But that could change.

So to sum.  We got the main characters together.  We find out the Dollhouse is watching the cop.  We find the good ex cop saves Sierra.  We find Mellie is a Doll.  And we find lots o action and a little bit of humor.

And oh yeah.  I just learned that there are 5-6 more minutes of show and less commercial due to a special deal that Joss has worked out with advertisers.  More show!  I thought those breaks went fast!  Dollhouse will be back in 90 sec …

Posted in Arts, Dollhouse | No Comments »

Let me be the first this year to publish this again.

March 20th, 2009 by Max

One of the first internet hoaxes, this essay was not written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. as was widely reported, but rather by a Chicago reporter named Mary Schmich and Brenda Starr and published in the Tribune June 1, 1997. It was and is a bit of wisdom. Especially the part about advice. I offer it as advice for graduates anyway.

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97: Wear sunscreen:

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blind side you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t know.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Posted in Other People's Theories | No Comments »

Lights camera action

March 19th, 2009 by Max

More of my painting with light.

Posted in Arts, Photos | No Comments »

Colors

March 17th, 2009 by Max

I’ve been working on these for a couple of days.  Its an artform that I consider my own.  No doubt people are doing this somewhere else, but I came across it by myself so its mine.

I hope to do more in the future.  For now, here’s the latest edition:

Posted in Arts, Photos | No Comments »

warm burgeoning spring

March 16th, 2009 by Max

warm burgeoning spring

i always expected to go back and talk to
Charles Eldred
He could really draw
i was so busy with my self doubts that i never realized what a resource i had
and not just about art
a resource for me to talk to
about seeing

every time i see a melting snow pile
filled with ash, filled with dirt and sand hard as rock, losing the battle, the ever ever battle against spring
and the warmth it brings
i think of
Charles Eldred
and his magnificent DaVinci styled drawings of transistor radio husks and faucets and things that he found in the remains of melted snow piles in

burgeoning spring
small treasures
and a way of seeing

i miss him
and i grieve for lost opportunity
in warm burgeoning spring

Posted in Arts, My New York | 3 Comments »

What I do

March 15th, 2009 by Max

I get in my car.  I drive.  I listen to podcasts.  I take pictures.

Posted in Arts, My New York, Photos | 2 Comments »

Eliza saves the Christians

March 14th, 2009 by Max

Joss is saving Dollhouse.

Tonights episode finally cracked my perception.  The thing about Echo is that she really IS herself.  This from the first episode: “Have you ever tried to clean an actual slate?  You always see what was on it before.”  So today it made sense to me, when Echo who was in a cult compound, not pretending to be, but actually being a believer who had just had her sight restored from being blind for years … when that Echo was told by the cult leader to stay and withstand the flames of a burning building, just as the hebrew children did … she konked him on the head and lead the people out of the buring building.  Not for religious reasons, but just because that’s is who “Caroline” is, and what she would really do.

In other words she is still herself to a small degree, even after her personality is wiped.

The other thing that I thought would be trouble for Dollhouse was the lovely Eliza herself … but I think I’m seeing just a smidgen of differentiation of character in her characterizations of the “implant” personalities.

In other words Eliza is getting better at acting.

And she’s still a babe of babes!                

The Fabulous Eliza Dushku

Posted in Arts, Dollhouse | 1 Comment »

Virus

March 13th, 2009 by Max

Run your virus scan.

At work we found “Trojan.Clampi” and Trojan.Dropper” making Zombies out of our networked computers.  Most likely one computer brought it in and then it propogated through the wireless network.

Lots of work.  Lots of disruption.  No apparent damage but in an abundance of caution the word came down from on high to wipe out everyone’s machine that had it, and start them with a clean machine.

We’re counting footsteps for big brother.  This virus adds up.

Posted in Other People's Theories | No Comments »

Interesting tidbit

March 13th, 2009 by Max

A guy at work sent us a note, that he’d seen in the newspaper (local).

The four biggest reasons laptop computers are damaged.

Spills

Theft (not really damage but you get the point!)

Drops

and my favorite … user anger! (13% off all corporate laptop damage comes from user anger.  Maybe there IS a future for the IT guy!)

Posted in Fun, Social Commentaries | No Comments »

John Stossel

March 13th, 2009 by Max

I just watched John Stossel’s report on the government stimulus plan.  He interviewed Stenny Hoyer (no great friend of this blog) and seemingly cut the hell out of the interview giving Mr Hoyer about 3 seconds per answer by my estimate.

Left wing media my ass!

Posted in Social Commentaries | 1 Comment »

Zack and Miri make it work!

March 9th, 2009 by Max

4 of 5 Smiling Maxes

Its always better to do the thing, than talk about doing the thing.   I dreamed of making movies.  Kevin Smith made movies.  Thus, he is one of my heroes.  His movies are stupid and quirky and “cult classics” and often almost good.   Chasing Amy and the ever popular Clerks (his first) being the best.  And Chasing Amy is the only one that holds up from beginning to end without getting into the weird Kevin Smith distraction of too much vulgarity (although Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back works because it is so ridiculously vulgar) or his unfortunate trouble with ending a movie, c.f Dogma, which is otherwise a great movie.

So while Kevin Smith is my hero, and I’ve watched all of his films.  There’s only a couple that I can recommend.

Zack and Miri Make A Porno is one of them.

He’s still a bit too graphic, and a bit too crude, for mainstream tastes, but this movie succeeded where Kevin Smith has his most has trouble; it had an ending.

Obviously Zack and Miri is not a movie for kids.  Its not even a movie for grownups with high sensibilities.  In fact you kind of still need to leave your sensibilities near the door when you click play.  But its good.  In its own Kevin Smith way, Zack and Miri rises above Smith’s obsession with anal sex, homosexuality, scat and just a lot of swearing, to tell a cute little tale of love that, except for the scat, warms the heart.

And the cast is great.  Elizabeth Banks as Miri is Oscar worthy in this movie.  No!  Really.    As the good friend, roommate and buddy, Banks is so reserved and yet expressive that the whole story line is played out in her face.  I heard Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier in their podcast “Smodcast” talking about casting this part.  They wanted someone who was attractive but not “too” attractive.  Well they missed and when the movie started I wondered how they got such a star, and how they figured that she was not “too” attractive.  Quickly though, she just became Miri and her wide open vulnerable expressions told a sensitive subtle and straightforward tale of … well I won’t give it all away.  But I will say this.  This is one of the greatest performances I’ve seen, especially since it was in a stupid Kevin Smith comedy.  If he should get credit for that because he directed it, then, so be it.

Also surprisingly excellent were Seth Rogan as Zack Brown.  Again, a sensitive performance in a comedy setting.  We totally buy Zack Brown – fuckup – no, loveable fuckup, right from the start.  Seth is great in this, which may be considered a perfect vehicle for him.  Jason Mewes as Lester steps out of his role as Jay the Blunt Man doper, and cleans up well.  Mewes looks good and goes full frontal.

There isn’t a lot of sex in Zack and Miri and its simulated.   Almost no one else goes full frontal, but the movie is about making a porno – so don’t kid yourself.

But if you like Kevin Smith, or Elizabeth Banks, or Seth Rogan or stupid Kevin Smith potty mouth comedies, and espicially if you like well acted love stories, then rent Zack and Miri Make a Porno [and watch it when the kids are at grandmas].

4 of 5 Smiling Maxes – One of my hero’s better efforts.

	Elizabeth Banks	…	Miriam Linky
	Seth Rogen	…	Zack Brown
	Jason Mewes	…	Lester
	Gerry Bednob	…	Mr. Surya
	Edward Janda	…	Customer
	Nicholas Lombardi	…	Teen #1
	Chris Milan	…	Teen #2
	Jennifer Schwalbach Smith	…	Betsy (as Jennifer Schwalbach)
	Kenny Hotz	…	Zack II
	Brandon Routh	…	Bobby Long
	Anne Wade	…	Roxanne
	Justin Long	…	Brandon St. Randy

Posted in Arts, Max's Movie Reviews, Video Rentals | No Comments »