What is it about Alan Rickman that rocks? Well, for starters I think I’ve liked nearly every movie he’s in (or at minimum, his part in it). Despite being ‘genetically predisposed’ to like Galaxy Quest in being a big nerd – I could only put up with the first half hour or so. However, Alan Rickman’s bit as an alien with the catch phrase (‘By Grapthor’s Hammer’) uttered both at critical plot points – and at the grand openings of car lots – is TOO classic.

Who else goes from German terrorist (Die Hard) to guardian angel (Dogma) to sarcastic, doomsayer robot (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) to Professor Snape (not all the HP movies have near enough of him in them, but most have a good amount )?

I think it’s the combination of subtle, voiced exasperation, sarcasm without even trying, and just his mannerisms that do it for me. The guy just cracks me up!

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So another fun thing we did while camping (see previous post) is during transit time between campsites, we listened to the Ricky Gervais Show podcasts (these are now about 5+ years old, methinks) while driving. They just debuted recently in animated form on HBO, but the original podcasts are slightly better, and longer (they edited some of the content out of the HBO versions).

So if you haven’t heard these yet, you can get them for a nominal fee on iTunes or Audible.com. They are really funny, especially the Monkey News segment in each ‘cast. Apparently they are up to 5 seasons of them – we were only listening to the first…. Enjoy!

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John Callahan passed away earlier this week. He was a true Pacific Northwest original – a twisted cartoonist that made the most of his self-created situation (he became quadroplegic from a drunk-driving car accident when he was only 21 and was in a wheelchair the rest of his life). While his cartoons were an acquired taste for some (and generated lots of funny – largely to fans like me – hate mail from others) he definitely had a unique take on life, and wasn’t afraid to spend a lot of political capital making fun of anyone, including even the disabled community (who often supported him stronger than the non-disabled).

Some examples of his humor are here. A few obits here, here, here and here.

And you can get his books at Powell’s – where else?

You will be MISSED – R.I.P.

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kerewin sent me this today – I am not sure what to think, save that the Four Horsemen have to be galloping around the corner not long from now…

Beef Bacon Hot Dog Turtle

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As seen elsewhere on this blog, i’ve become a fan of anime in the past several years. I think there’s several reasons:

a) I’ve always liked animation, whether movies, TV cartoons, and in many cases, even ads;

b) the diversity of animation just keeps on getting better and more interesting, even if increasingly computer-based. Of course, just as seen in video games over the past 15-20 years, there is no substitute for actual plot, good writing and coherent themes with good character development. The best looking animation(s) can still end up boring and predictive without them (yes, Appleseed Ex Machina – I’m talking to you!);

c) I think in part anime is also interesting because so often the characters are written in a more over-the-top sensibility (certainly every Initial D episode i’ve ever seen qualifies on that score, but many others are right behind) and often have characters act as if they are in ‘life or death’ struggles (which in many cases isn’t true, but they act that way anyway).

d) Anime just has a different take on things. It’s not usually glorified sitcom situations or plots (at least not the anime I watch) and often has crazy inclusions for characters (Poipodor in Mars Daybreak comes to mind) or fantastical futures that all but make no sense (IGPX) but somehow still manage to entertain.

Which brings me to Initial D. This is an anime series about a school kid living in Gunma province in northern Japan, whose father runs a tofu shop and is an ex-street racer. The father, Bunta, subtly encourages this trait in his only son by having him deliver tofu to several accounts in the early morning over a mountain pass. The kid, Takumi Fujiwara, is fairly dense but seems to have a talent for racing and surprises older 20-somethings who race more seriously. In the first several series, we see Takumi’s talents develop until he’s the equal or better of most other racers in the area and beyond. In Stage 4, ‘Project D’ – he’s now become part of a traveling race team led by a former rival, Ryosuke Takahashi, who dreams of conquering japan’s many mountains and street racing teams with his brother Keisuke and Takumi as the two ace racers on the Project D team. They travel around Japan, challenging team after team in tough and varied races.

What’s appealing about this series is as mentioned before – the characters take themselves VERY seriously, which in some cases comes across as laughable but endearing in a way. You’d think the world would end if this kid doesn’t win a given race by the way they act in posturing against each other up to and during each race.

Also cool is simply the thought of blasting down mountain roads in souped up cars at clearly WAY illegal speeds – watching it on animation is about the only way i’d ever do THAT – I don’t like driving SLOW on cliffside roads – ask kerewin about that one when we were driving around on Crete or Santorini last fall!

Also amusing is how no matter where they go, everyone (racer-wise, anyway) knows about them and keeps putting the best racers up against them. Yet no cops ever show up to THROW THEM IN JAIL for such blatant mountain-racing at nearly every mountain pass they encounter? This was amusing in Wangan Midnight too – although in that series they are largely blasting around highways IN THE CITY at ridiculous speeds but also apparently immune to police (or at least, invisible)?

Anyway, Initial D is pretty entertaining – don’t expect detailed character development or much valid social commentary – it’s pretty focused on one thing, blasting down mountain roads in the middle of the night. But it does a good job of handling that story over and over. Hoping there will ultimately be a Stage 5, but time will tell…..

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Picked up an old arcade game for my buddy – Wizard of Wor. This game dates back from the latter arcade classic era, 1981. It shares the same robotic speech as Gorf from the same era (both of us actually have one of those machines, although mine currently languishes in my dad’s barn in OR). Basically the game consists of either one/two people in what seem like land-going spacesuits in a maze, zapping weird creatures, some of which are invisible at times (you can see them on the radar screen below the maze, though).

Once you clear the maze, other bad guys appear you have to zap of course (e.g. Warlock) – and then the Wizard himself may or may not appear. The game also has organ-style music at the start and end of each maze-zapping session, in addition to the weird voice.

Good stuff. This is also a convenient moment to shamelessly plug the upcoming 3rd annual pinball/arcade show here in Seattle next month, weekend of June 11-13. Come one, come all!

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Being a huge newspaper/anime comics fan (also ‘traditional’ e.g. Marvel/DC too but not quite as much) it was a sad day many years ago when Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson hung up his drawing tools seemingly for good. Barring some nice compilation(s), there hasn’t nary been a peep out of him since the end of 1995, when he ended the strip.

Last October, a self-described ‘diehard fan’ published a biography of sorts on Watterson and most prominently, Calvin and Hobbes itself. I was finally able to read a copy of this book at the end of last week. My impressions are thus:

a) I liked the book. I liked the extent to which the author (Nevin Martell) goes all out to find every source and potential lead he can about C&H, its elusive author, and any other history, talkative peer cartoonist, diehard celebrity fan or supporting information he can find to tell the story at its most effective. I also appreciated the respect paid to Watterson’s privacy (especially considering what’s happened to privacy as a general matter since Watterson retired – going kablooie as we speak! ) even if it meant some information could simply not be obtained in the end. Good for Mr. Martell.

b) I was also glad to see this book come out because while the strip isn’t coming back, this country (and perhaps world?) needs Calvin’s biting commentary (and Hobbes’ sage wisdom, often looking at humanity from the outside with more than a small puzzled expression) more than ever. Not that C&H ever needed any help with growing their fan base, but this book helps remind us they are still out there when we need them, even if Watterson himself has long since moved on.

c) Finally – even after having read this book, i’m left with more than a little puzzlement myself – do I have a better sense of Bill Watterson the person? Do I better understand the sources of his enormous talent and special sensitivity as expressed in C&H? I have to say in both cases, possibly no. Despite reading a work as detailed as this one, i’m still wondering about Watterson’s fundamental abhorrence of his own success. I remember reading the Tenth Anniversary book some time ago and thinking BW came across as more than a little sanctimonious in the surrounding notes and essays included – Sure, he’s more than earned the right to have strong opinions about his own industry and his own/others’ place in it, but at times it came across like ‘most cartoonists are sellouts and I’m not, even though I’m way more successful than most of them!’ – not really the most convincing argument when examined in the bigger scheme.

I think Mr. Martell tries to strike a better balance on this particular point, and does take pains to point out the effect of BW’s stance on his peers and even his employers. While no one will be particularly sympathetic to a large publishing syndicate missing out on (yet another) big cartoonist cash-in – Watterson sets the bar higher than anyone before (and likely anyone else will, ever) in his ‘leave me alone’ stance. It is to his syndicate’s credit that they let him get away with it and not haul in the lawyers to get rid of him and keep the strip going with unknown writers and artists behind the scenes. Definitely adding to the allure of C&H – but still not completely explaining why BW felt so strongly about those issues.

Sidebar: The research done in this book paid off for me in two other neat ways – Martell interviews several cartoonists I had never heard of (and now can check out), and, he took a trip to the Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University in Columbus. Bill Watterson contributed a very impressive amount of artwork, materials and personal items in and around C&H to this museum, meaning it’s going to be a ‘must visit’ next time I’m in Ohio, definitely!

I guess in the end, C&H is apparently one of those rare art creations we are simply meant to enjoy on any level we can, and not bother the creator for the ‘how’ beyond anything he cares to offer. And I can definitely live with that. Thanks to Mr. Martell for writing this book and for reminding us how great a creation C&H truly is, and how much Watterson really sweated the details to make it that way during its run.

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Saw this in today’s NY Times and it got me thinking – what is a ‘generation x’ anyway?

First, there are a lot of big words in the first few sentences and beyond. Far be it from me to castigate anyone about using an overabundance of enormous, hyperpretentious and likely overreaching words when a simple piece of profanity will otherwise do – there are still many I don’t understand in here.

It reminds me of an otherwise horrible book about Smashing Pumpkins (the band I like, Billy Corgan, a.k.a. Bat Boy, I can do without) that had so many big words rammed into the first 5 pages I couldn’t even finish the foreword without retching – back to the library (and for once, on time!) it went.

but back to the article. I will have to look at the underlying book they are indirectly reviewing here – ‘The Ask‘ – never heard of it or the author. But then they mention the much-despised (by me) Douglas Coupland who coined ‘generation x’ in the first place. Thanks, El Doo-shay – we’ll never live that one down. I had a roommate in college who was obsessed with that book, which naturally I read at one point and have loathed ever since.

What’s very spot-on in this article is the repeated slams on our aging 40-something sense of cool (“fake-vintage rock ’n’ roll T-shirt and thick-framed glasses”), the constant need for pop-culture-quip-meets-relevance in our daily conversations, and calling out John Cusack and Ben Stiller as movie archetypes of our generation. There are others, but these will serve quite well (and Lloyd Dobler loved Fishbone, so there!). I haven’t seen Greenberg yet, but will definitely have to now.

Also – the article implies/hints at the marked difference between compatriots of mine who have had children (and thus, being responsible adults, had their priorities completely adjusted for them by reality) rather than the self-indulgent ‘high drama’ I seem to have mastered of late. Or maybe not of late – maybe for way too long? Dunno.

this quote is telling:

“But what if you never gave up adolescence in the first place? What if you donned the binding garment of maturity only tentatively, and accessorized it with mockery, as if it were a hand-me-down from Grandpa or an ugly shirt plucked from a used-clothing rack? And what if, from the start, your youthful rebelliousness had been a secondhand entitlement, without a clear adversary?”

As someone who still revels in ‘sticking it to the Man’ (regardless of what form, major or minor, that takes, even if only a delusional metaphor many days) this sticks pretty well. If you are middle class, grew up in a suburban-style town, went to public school, went to college, etc. and now have a job that pays the bills – barring chronic illness or some sort of major tragedy – what do you have to bitch about? So where’s my ‘adversary?’ I’m not going to answer that, if you’ve been around me more than 10 min. you already know at least one – but one thing is certain – even in going to graduate school, i’ve never connected with ‘suit society’ – and it’s only due to luck (being in the tech industry with its -shall we say ‘loose’ – theories of proper dress and hygiene) that i’ve largely avoided it as an adult. Being on the West Coast doesn’t hurt either. So maybe I never did grow up? Again, dunno.

Is this rambling getting anywhere? Back to the article – in talking more about the main character of The Ask – this quote sums it all up, doesn’t it?

……“If I were the protagonist of a book or a movie,” Milo says to his onetime boss, “it would be hard to like me, to identify with me, to like me, right?” The response is devastating: “I would never read a book like that, Milo, and I can’t think of anyone who would. There’s no reason for it.”

Wow. the above reminds me of Woody Allen’s classic Annie Hall quote about his relationships “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” Boom!!!! or the more modern version, from the (other) spokesman for our generation, Homer Simpson – and his attempts when a kid to join the ‘No Homers Club’ – Sad, but effective use of plurals, that.

What was the original point again? That someone wrote a book summing up ‘modern 40-something’ – yet most of us it describes don’t want to read it? Or that we are simply beginning to reach the midlife angst felt by others before (and will be felt by ‘millenials’ someday – ha – suck it!) and we 40.x still can’t deal with it.

Who knows? Interesting to ponder, though. And for those in the same age group who parade around like they’ve got it figured out – ha! I fart in your general direction! Your mother is a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries! The point is, they’re kidding themselves too – which based on the Bill Watterson book I literally just finished reading – gives me that evil, evil Calvin grin…muhhahaha!

So in summary, if you can find real meaning in the above, I have some beach property in Tibet that I’ll sell you for a song…

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Pretty d*** cool – if you haven’t ever read him – he was one of the ‘big three’ way back in Weird Tales days – the other two (better known than CAS) were H.P. Lovecraft (Cthulhu sushi, anyone? Tastes better than Soylent Green! ) and Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian).

I had never heard of CAS myself until reading Stephen King’s ‘Different Seasons’ many many years ago – Different Seasons is really four novellas, the first 3 of which have since been made into movies – bu the fourth story – ‘The Breathing Method‘ – has not. If you’ve read it, you probably know why. But several times through the story King references CAS alien landscapes and settings, which got me interested in finding some stories to read.

Given no convenient ‘internets’ to check out at the time – I went to the next best thing – Powell’s Books – which actually had some used paperbacks (imagine that) – CAS is often as hard to find on the stacks as Philip K. Dick and for a while there, I was thinking CAS was harder to find than Kilgore Trout books. But, thankfully other fans exist out there too and besides the existing paperbacks here and there, a few hardback story collections have been put together. CAS didn’t write novels – only short stories and poetry.

Anyway, check out some of the stories here and enjoy – after which you may be ready to find a copy of The City of the Singing Flame all your own…..

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Watched Pirates of Silicon Valley again (all the way through this time – only had seen bits and pieces of it before). It’s not the world’s most riveting film in a second watching, but it’s decent (more so if you are a computer nerd, definitely). If you didn’t already know – it’s basically a TNT-made movie, the story of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates – with ancillary players including Steve Wozniak, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen and a few other assorted personalities. Woz and Ballmer take turns narrating it, depending on whether the movie focuses on Apple or Microsoft at any given point. The movie basically covers the period in time from the very earliest days of Apple and Microsoft in the mid-late 70s, up until about 1998.

This is an interesting film for me on so, so many levels:

a) Watching what goes on in this movie (and having read a bit on the subject of Silicon Valley craziness elsewhere) and by virtue of simply having worked in the software industry the last 12+ years – it still to this day boggles my mind as to the money flying around. With Apple and Microsoft – it’s at the level beyond what most COUNTRIES have, let alone personal fortunes – really! How many countries can you name that have $40B+ in the bank like Microsoft does? Not bloody many, barring our own, maybe Canada, and possibly some of Western Europe and Japan? It’s just beyond the ability to comprehend.

b) It’s not completely clear how many actual situations in this movie are ‘factual’ – and they sure don’t paint a nice picture of Steve Jobs (Gates gets off a bit easier in my view, because he gets to be the ‘business nerd’ that doesn’t care about saving the world and then points out Jobs’ hypocrisy on this point to his face in a short, but effective outburst) – but in a recent speech (2006), Woz noted that they got the real feel and gist of what happened all but exactly right. The fact that this movie is already over 10 years old, the events in it already over 20-30+ years old makes ME feel old – doh!

Side comment – Dr. Edward Roberts, creator of the Altair 8800 (the home computer Gates and Allen wrote their first software for) passed away earlier this month – RIP.

c) I guess this movie in many ways crystallizes what I perceive as core dysfunctions (and crazy advantages) the tech industry has and to some extent, still enjoys – Certainly most corporate environments end up creating ‘empire builder’ people who care most about getting to the top and lording it over the rest of us – that’s not exclusive to the tech industry by any means (nor are egomaniacs – sadly that’s a human problem, not a tech problem). But on the other hand, if a tech company is driven and (definitely) lucky at being in the right niche at the right time, the acceleration from bootstrap to crazy wealth happens in such a short time it’s not to be believed. Along the way, many yes-men and bottom feeders manage to attach themselves for the ride, and naive people in at the start may be left behind (through a combination of their own ignorance/personality, coupled with key people deliberately taking some advantage). The old adage ‘looking out for #1‘ applies in many ways across the tech industry – mostly neutral, but some crazy good (for a lucky, often early few) and some actually really bad in a few cases.

d) I remember from dot-com days when I would sometimes look around the office and muse whether the founders were in it for ‘building the best software x we could build’ – or just for the money/IPO cashout – or some ego thing, or something completely different and not apparent. I never did figure it out, although certainly people cashed out quite well, and we did have a great product for a time, too.

I guess the moral of the Apple/Microsoft story is ‘watch your back, because just when you think you’ve conquered everyone and established yourself as untouchable – someone is poised to knock you right off the mountaintop’.

Certainly just when Jobs thought he had obtained the crown jewels from Xerox (the ‘rich neighbor/open back door’ analogy Gates makes – pretty spot on, whether or not he actually said it), Gates was there to take them away and move in a completely different (and far more lucrative) direction. It helped enormously that Gates also built a monopoly (which they milk to this day), but those parameters weren’t apparent until much later and not to Jobs until it was too, too late.

To me, the bigger lesson (which I think in many companies has yet to be learned) is ‘most people don’t care about building an empire, they just want to be treated well, paid a decent wage and valued for their input and contributions (dependent on role).’ It’s too bad that money, egos, and turf battles often obscure this simple fact and make far too many people’s lives otherwise unhappy for no good reason.

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