Lamb Chops

No, not a Lions For Lambs movie review from me - if I didn't get around to shelling out money for films I was interested in (like Grindhouse), you know I'm not opening the wallet for leftist crap like this. But while I get to enjoy the movie's failure ($7 million in the first weekend, not likely to recoup its $35 million cost), I thought I'd take a look at some other reviews. Metacritic posts reviews from various newspapers and divides them up into green-yellow-red. Here are some quotes from some of the green reviews for Lions For Lambs:

The tiny scale and armchair talkiness mark the movie as a bit of a folly, an act of idealistic hubris in today's commercial marketplace, yet that's its (minor) fascination too. - Entertainment Weekly

All the good intentions in the world and solid performances from three of the biggest and most respected movie stars of our time cannot disguise the fact that Lions for Lambs is resting on a talky, disjointed and not-very-well-thought-out script. - Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Though characters make some strong points, the film feels preachy and falls flat as entertainment. - USA Today

All true, but not new -- and not especially compelling. - Charlotte Observer

There is a long stretch toward the beginning of the film when we're interested, under the delusion that it's going somewhere. When we begin to suspect it's going in circles, our interest flags, and at the end, while rousing music plays, I would have preferred the Peggy Lee version of "Is That All There Is?" - Chicago Sun-Times

And remember - these are the good reviews.

Actors vs. Doers

Remember the Dell Dude? He's apparently now between acting gigs and, understanding that some publicity is better than no publicity, has popped up in the news working as a bartender. Newsworthy? Well, at least he wasn't busted running drugs or (shudder) working in porn.

More interesting is the fate of child actor Charles Korsmo. Who? Well, he played the kid in Dick Tracy, Hook and What About Bob?, where Bill Murray taught him to dive after Richard Dreyfus failed (I'd rather have Murray for a father, anyway). Hook was quite a long time ago, though - what happened since then?

Well, according to IMDb, he stopped acting, and went on to:

• graduate from M.I.T. with a degree in physics
  
• get a law degree from Yale
  
• work for a while on the Missile Defense Project, and
  
• currently work as a Deputy Domestic Policy Analyst for the House Republicans

Too bad he couldn't be out there making a real difference - like some other actors.

Is Our Children Hugging?

Apparently a middle school in Kyle has decided to ban hugging in the hallways. Not because of innappropriate "public displays of affection" (and not a sight of ABC News in the area). No, the problem is congestion.

Not the nasal type. The logistics type.

Yes, the school officials decided that all of the hugging going on in the hallways was blocking traffic too much, and that students were showing up late for class because they couldn't reach their classrooms in time.

Really. This is the excuse they are giving. Presumably with straight faces.

Well, we already have a solution for this here in Central Texas. If there is a congestion problem on the roads, we simply build a toll road and the problem is magically solved.

(It must be magically solved - there don't seem to be any other plans in place except for the commuter rail line that will carry upwards of a few hundred people a day to downtown.)

So, all they need to do is rope off part of the hallway as a special tolled "hugging-allowed" lane. Pay an extra $1 a day, and you can hug your BFF until your arms fall off. Plus it forms an extra revenue stream for the school. It's a win-win.

But Don't Forget The Rest Of November

Some usually-rational parts of the blogosphere are overly impressed by the haul Ron Paul managed to rake in yesterday. Apparently, a heavy fundraising push netted over $4 million, well short of their target, but still a large amount.

O.K. - an impressive amount to be sure. But as Hot Air notes, this still is way behind the fundraising efforts of the real candidates.

This is just a variation on the old "don't buy gas on Saturday" boycott. The ever-rabid Ronulans have known about this day for a while (and you know those nutjobs love the symbolic ties to their anarchist wet-dream V For Vendetta). So they've held up any contributions to be counted on that day. Let's see what happens before and after that day. There will be a big drop outside of November 5, and the total amount for the quarter will still be lagging the rest of the crowd.

As will the poll numbers. This guy is on the fringe - he has a few good ideas, but they are buried underneath a huge steaming pile of bullshit and whackjob followers, and the sooner this guy is completely off the radar (instead of just mostly) the better for the country.

It's Not Easy Being Green Stupid

This may be the stupiest "green" stunt I've ever seen. NBC has apparently dimmed the lights in the studio for its Sunday NFL game between Dallas and Philly. I haven't actually been listening to them - I prefer to listen to the Dallas radio broadcast rather than Madden, Costas and (the horror, the horror) Olbermann. But just seeing these tools sitting in their dark studio - with several large flat-screen monitors, the scrolling sign in the background, the large lit-up "Football Night In America" signs, not to mention all the things we don't see like the teleprompters, and so on, and so on - makes me roll my eyes like few things I've ever seen. Are we supposed to pretend that NBC is somehow "saving the planet" by cutting a few watts out of the huge energy draw they are expending to bring us this football game - hell, even just the studio show.

If they really want to cut some energy and "save the planet", here's a good idea - turn off MSNBC. The twelve people watching will find something else to do.

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Listening to: Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble - Boot Hill
via FoxyTunes

Movie Review: Freaks

Gee...who woulda thought circus people would be so dysfunctional?

Oh, right - everyone.

This movie didn't do much for me for the first forty minutes or so - just a so-so set of dysfunctional couples...who happen to be midgets, armless, conjoined, or what-have-you. Even the famous "one of us" dinner scene didn't actually do much for me, certainly not based on its reputation.

But once that first knife shows up...so casually...

Brrrrrrrrr that was quite an ending. I can only imagine how freaked out (so to speak) contemporary viewers must have been at that. Three stars.

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Listening to: Soulhat - Brian's Waltz
via FoxyTunes

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I joined EDS straight out of UT back in 1993. I had the good fortune to be recruited and hired by the EDS R&D Lab in Austin, which means that rather than maintaining COBOL systems as the typical EDS'er was doing back then, I got to work on cool things, like using Prolog to do program analysis and transformation, getting an early jump on things like Java, and so on. EDS has changed a bunch over the years, deciding it really didn't want a full-time R&D group, and so we became a kind of shadow group - we'd examine some technology at the behest of a specific account, produce some really nice tools out of it, and occasionally build services or offerings out of them. That's how we got into Y2K business for a while.

The problem with our group has always been: we're too good. Most of our group have doctorates (just a Master's degree, myself). We aren't well-suited to working on project plans and the ever-increasing amount of process that seems to surround everything here. Not to say we can't do it - we can, it's just not our forte. And as any elite group, it becomes more expensive to keep us around. Even moreso because we are trying to stay down here in Austin, while EDS is currently in the midst of consolidating more of its people into a few larger sites.

And so this morning we got word that the latest attempt to relocate our group as a unit into somewhere new in the org chart has likely failed. We're probably going to be moved into a new organization, but not as a team - instead, we'll just be individual resources available to help troubleshoot accounts that need help. So, the effective end of "The Austin Team" - we're now just "The Austin Location".

It's too bad, because I think EDS will be losing out as a result of this; a couple of our team members have decided to take an early retirement offer rather than join the new organization, and those that remain will be lessened by losing the team organizations we've built up over the years. (And of course, this is still in flux - technically, there is still the possibility of just being laid off completely).

I suppose I should probably be amazed that we held our group together as long as we did, given the realities of the technical workplace these days. Still, it's sad to see a group that has been successful for over 15 years go away.