OK, yeah, that "uncompromising vision" hyperbole is crap; I understand John Q Publick will recognize "the creators of The Matrix" more than they would Alan Moore, but given how much compromise this film has, it's laughable at that alone. But the image and the top text is a real beaut. All you people out there take note: my birthday's in six weeks. This poster would be one hell of a birthday gift.....

The V forum's been a little off it's game lately, but today they've started a thread that is back to their usual standards of brilliance, and snarkiness, with a mix of irreverance and intelligence. (But not hyperbole.)

V: The board has started a thread that lists all the racist subtext in various movies. Just forty posts long, this already includes such gems as:


In MEN IN BLACK 2 they have to bring back Tommy Lee Jones because it's clear The Man doesn't believe a black man can get the job done without whitey's help.

Pirates of the Caribbean is racist because it clearly implies that, while white pearls are fine and good, freaky black pearls are cursed.

THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is obviously representative of how whitey feels about ethnic neighbourhoods.

The suave and attractive Billy Dee Williams was Harvey Dent in BATMAN, but by BATMAN FOREVER he'd been jettisoned in favour of a cackling white Tommy Lee Jones.

Denzel Washington doesn't even kiss romantic interest Julia Roberts in THE PELICAN BRIEF.

In DANCES WITH WOLVES, the barbaric treatment of Native Americans is really hard on Kevin Costner.

TERMINATOR 2: A black man is responsible for Skynet and eventually, the destruction of the world as we know it.

Disney's Tarzan: A magical AFrican dreamland devoid of Black people. First white [person] to step foot in the jungle is declared KING.

INDEPENDENCE DAY: A screed against illegal aliens if ever there was one. RACIST!

CINDERELLA - she's kicked to the curb and treated like dirt when she's all covered in ashes and her skin is darker, but once she's cleaned up and sparkly white again? HELLO PRINCE CHARMING.

Lord of the Rings: Who are the vile enemies of the Army of the Last Anglo Hope? The only non-white humans you see in the entire trilogy.

Yes, yes, you must join Delphi to see the thread, but goddammit, for the umteenth time, the V is so worth the five seconds it'll take for you to join. Get thee hence!!

I missed the Solstice this year.

As I know I've muttered about elsewhere, my time management skills have gone to shit these last few months. So while a more orderly person would have scheduled himself properly to allow himself time to enjoy the longest day of the year, yours trully has spent the extra sunlight glued to his computer working on designs for a Bright-Matrix client.

Now, I know, as my cousin Kenny pointed out last year, technically speaking, today's Solstice is not the actual longest day of the year. According to the website Ken told me about, we actually get a whole minute more sunlight tomorrow (and the next few days) than we did today. But that's as may be, but today is still Solstice, and the First Day of Summer, and it should be commemorated in ways better than me cursing out Macromedia's Fireworks for not rendering it's pixels the way I need it to.

On the bright side, today was absolutely perfect. Mid eighties, very little humidity. A gorgeous Summer day. I went out to lunch with some co-workers and playfully asked my supervisor if I could work the rest of the afternoon outside. And I was very happy to have gotten back into my regular walking route (I started up again yesterday, not having walked--thanks to my Albany trip--since the 9th of June.) There isn't as lovely a park as the ones up where I used to live; the land down here is dissapointingly flat; if I want real hills and valleys I'll have to drive into Pennsylvania and visit Valley Forge. So there couldn't have been any "back to nature" moment like I had last year. But even so, it would've been nice to grab my book and sit out on my patio, enjoying the fact that I could read until 8:30 without aid of electric light.

But no. I had to procrastinate yesterday, and as I recouped from my walk (which seems to be leaving me practically comatose for a solid hour after the fact, which leads me to question just how healthy this is; Lord knows I'm probably doing something wrong. How one can mess up something as simple as walking I am unsure--but that's jsut all the more reason to doubt whether I'm doing it right in the first place. But I digress....) I decided to spend the time web surfing rather than working, so it's not like I could have even afforded myself an appropriately timed break to enjoy the sunset.

But hey. Tomorrow's another (sixty-second-longer) day so I can always go out and read tomorrow. And according to Ken's site, there's only going to be about a sixteen minute drop in daylight between July 1 and July 30, so I still have plenty of daylight ahead.

Regardless: it's mid-year. This Sunday will be exactly six months (to the date and day that I've moved down to Maple Shade. I'd be less than honest if I said it's been a rip-roaring success, socially speaking, and that is a subject for another blog entry, or judicious use of Setec Astronomy while I sort through the logistics of building a social life from near scratch. But All in all . . . the job is good, the apartment is good, the area is nice . . . there are trully worse fates than the one I'm experiencing at the moment.

Ah well. Time to do a minor polish on the site designs and then I'll relax a bit more before calling it a night.

Needless to say, I made it back to Maple Shade. And snagged a lovely get-out-of-jail-free card from the office due to the unexpected travel revisions, which was muchly needed as I was able to actually unwind from the trip, unpack, check the mail, do some errands, and then get a gift for Caryn's birthday celebration that evening. (In friggin' Princeton. Not a bad drive, really, as it was a straight shot up 295 to Rt 1 and the resturant was right off the hgihway. But still. Princeton. We all actually went into downtown Princeton--if that was "downtown"; perhaps it was uptown, or lefttown or who-the-fuck-knows--for dessert, right next to the University. Oddly, I kept thinking of Gilmore Girls.)

I've temporarily shelved the White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan. It was actually rather difficult to do this because I enjoy the album. I can't say for certain whether it's "better"/"worse" than Elephant, but it is very strange to be enjoying songs with incredibly Country-music vibes. I tell myself it's OK to sing along to "Little Ghost" because it's technically Bluegrass and not Country, but, well, who am I kidding? But I think I redeem myself for liking "My Doorbell" better.

But, yeah, though this would upset Noah, I've had to shelve the "new music" in favor of ye olde Floyd. Breaking out the old school stuff: Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, Atom Heart Mother, Obscurbed by Clouds, disc two of Ummagumma, Wish You Were Here, and Relics. Yes, yes, Wish You were Here isn't technically Old School, but if I have to listen to Atom Heart Mother I think I can be forgiven for skipping Meddle.

I have to say, Piper is fucking brilliant. I'm not a fan of drugs-for-inspiration, but between Syd Barrett's natural genius and whatever else the drugs gave him (before they turned his brain into tapioca), I can't see how Piper can be regarded as anything less than the pinnacle of psychedelic rock. The lack of Syd's genius is glarringly obvious in the enjoying but far less interesting Saucerful of Secrets. After Barrett's depature it really felt like the band was just trying too hard to be psychedelic.

But I actually jumped sequence after Saucerful to head into Wish You Were Here, an album I really haven't listened too in a solid decade. Brilliant work, so evocative and haunting. It's dated in its sound, but I think it's acceptable given that it was very much an in the moment work--recorded in the shadow of Dark Side of the Moon, the band was left reflecting on their new uber-stardom and thinking back to their beginnings with Syd.

(Useless Floyd Trivia Fact #4382: while recording Wish You were Here, which is very much the Floyd's attempt to reconcile both themselves and the band in the shadow of their former leader, Barrett actually showed up in the studio. No one recognied him at first until Waters' realized it. By all accounts, Barrett was compeltely unaware that the lyrics being played back through the studio were about him.)

Eh. This was the point where I was planning to write this big musing on the essence of Pink Floyd and the quality of their musical catalog, which parallels the impending reunion of the band and my own nostalgic kick, with subminal references to my upcoming 30th birthday and a more overt rumination on the concept of nostalgia itself. Except the whole thing fell apart after one paragraph and I got too-side-tracked skimming through the band's biography.

Ah well. Perhaps next time.

So . . . I was supposed to be home by now. My flight was supposed to leave at 5:58, land around 7:20, and, OK, maybe I'd be home in about fifteen more minutes. But still, I'd be in Jersey by now, certainly.

Except the Philadelphia airport blows. And it wouldn't let its plane take off, and so after an hour of our flight being delayed (first to 6:15, then 6:30, then 6:50, then 7:20....) it was instead cancelled.

So my co-worker and I are back at the hotel we've been stayng at for the last three nights. Which isn't a totally bad thing, because it's a decent hotel and, as I've mentioned, they have lovely hi-speed internet access so I get to vent my frustration properly as opposed to stewing in the bed flipping through network TV. Which I may do later anyway.

I also have a new book to read. Half a spur-of-the-moment decision to pick it up at the airport. It's called The Historian. It's apparently part of the latest literary vogue started off by The Da Vinci Code about historical mysteries, and this time the focus is on Vlad Tepes and the Dracula legend. There's been mixed reviews about it, basically that it's structually sound and the ideas are good, but the characters are bland and aren't half as interesting as the mystery their pursueing. I have to say this is probably the first contemporary "popular" novel I've read since Jurrasic Park. Thanks to my delay at the airport I'm about 50 pages in, and it's definitely interesting, though it isn't particularly revolutionary.

And that's about it, really. I'm off to check some e-mail and putz about online. Tomorrow's flight is at 9:15 so we'll still be getting up fiarly early to make the flight, and there's even money on whether or not I'll have to go to work in the afternoon or get the day off.

About the only other thing I'd like to note is that the bastards at the Albany Airport broke the lock off my suitczse. It was a small padlock, the kind that you put on the zipper to keep things tight. I used it when I went to Morocco, and I used it when I flew out of Philly to here. But when I picked up my luggage before heading back to the airport, I noticed the lock was gone. The bastards broke it off, presumably to search my suitcase to see if I was hiding anything. So how do you like that? I can go to Morocco and keep the lock; I can fly out of the ten-times-busier Philadelphia International Airport and I keep the lock. I fly out of Po-Dunk, New York, and the yokels break my suitcase open. God Bless America, eh?

I'm not a Jessica Simpson fan. She's got big tits and a decent smile, but at the end of the day her image is just all too average for my taste. Plus her music sucks. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm as big a pervert as the rest of you, so when Corporate Marketing starts shoving a sex symbol down my pants, I consider it my patriotic duty to give said sex symbol a proper, objective--I'm sorry, I meant objectifying--look.

It seems whoever markets Jessica Simpson is still trying to give the impression that Ms. Simpson is still a singer. I thought they gave up on that and were trying to sell Ashlee as a musician, but considering how laughable that has turned out, I guess it's only natural that the Powers That Be would attempt to ressurect Jessica's music "career" as a back-up.

Now, I stumbled across this by semi-accident and coincidence. See, I just saw Batman Returns tonight, and there was a Dukes of Hazard trailer before it. (I was originally thinking of musing about the Batman flick, but--and I apologize to all you Christain Bale fans out there--I'd much rather think about Daisy Duke than Bruce Wayne. Anyway, I digress....) And then whilst rummaging through Mollyknight.com I stumbled across a link regarding Jessica Simspon's latest music video, which is appaently a tie-in with the Dukes movie. So here I sit, past my desired 11:00 bedtime to blog about Jessica Simpson. It's amazing the depths one is willing to sink to just to make a blog entry.....

Back on point: Jessica's latest single is a cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walkin'" and this is ridiculously silly for several reasons. Firstly, what the fuck does this sing have to do with The Dukes of Hazard? They try to bridge this incongruous gap by giving the song a country twang, and adding an extra verse referencing the Dukes. They even have Willie Nelson appear in the video playing guitar. (Wille also plays Uncle what's-his-face in the Dukes movie. Is that Uncle Jeb? I want to say Uncle Buck, but that's John Candy. And I digress again....) I can only presume this was done to reinforce the "country" aspect of things. As if the dreadful southern twang Simpson uses while singing the song wasn't enough of a hint. But it doesn't disguise the fact that the real purpose of this video is to sell the idea of Jessica Simpson having sex with you.

Go ahead, watch the video. You'll note that this "music video" is nothing more than a four minute lap dance, minus the actual body in your lap. Really. Jessica Simpson is wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes so short Catherine Bach would blush. She's wearing this half-shirt that's stops about six inches above her navel, and she spend the bulk of the video shaking her ass like Shakira. And, then, after three minutes of of Simpson shaking her ass in this country bar, complete with bootylicious line-dancing (because this is a country song, remember?), the video drops all pretense and switches to showing Jessica Simpson in this hot-pink string bikini, giving the General Lee a sponge bath. Needless to say, at this point the subtley drops the sledge hammer and goes for the Ebola virus.

The best part is somewhere near the second verse when Simpson--who is strutting around in a bar--gets her ass slapped by one of the bar patrons. To which she responds by first grinding her ass in the guys crotch for a few seconds before hitting him in the face and knocking him out. Because it's not sexual exploitation if the woman is in control, right? Riiiiiiiight.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand the need for fantasy. And this video, with Simpson gyrating and dripping with the promise of sexual paradise, is nothing but pure fantasy. I understand that sometimes just selling the fantasy is all that's intended. Regardless of all the come-hither looks and provocative clothing, I somehow doubt that, even if porn was an accepted, open genre, you'd never catch Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson filming a gang-bang, regardless of how much they may strut and tease around the idea. And let's face it--at the end of the day, all that celebrities like Simpson and Spears have to offer is that they're sexual fantasy's. If they don't exploit it--and if we're not willing to be exploited by it--then these women wouldn't be famous at all.

Of course, that Fantasy it loses its appeal once you become too self-conscious of it. You can't lose yourself in the daydream because you know that's all it ever will be. And the backlash and the resentment and the derrogatory commentary that generates against Simpson and Spears and the rest of 'em has less to do with any moral outrage but rather that what's so blatantly dangled in front of us is equally blatantly out of reach. Not that I'm talking about myself or anything, heaven's no; I--I--I got this friend, see....

Anyway, there was a point to this, but it is so waaaaaaaaay past my bedtime that I've lost it completely. So watch the video (again) (and again) (and....) and make up your own minds. If anybody is still reading this blog, you can post a comment about it and go from there....

Today is marks the 35th wedding anniversary of my parents.

How fucking cool is that? Most marriages these days don't last 35 months, and while my parents will be the first to admit the years haven't been all-bliss, they're still together and they still love each other and I'm intensely happy that they've made this milestone. If I could, I'd post some then-and-now pictures, but alas I have none, even at my apartment. One of these days I'll have to sneakily scan some of those photos onto the computer.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Not that they know this blog exists, and I already marked the occasion with them this past Saturday. But all the same.....

So, let me tell you how grand technology is. I am sitting at the desk of my hotel room in Albany, New York, in front of the laptop that my office loaned me, hooked up to the inherent via the Holiday Inn's hi speed connection. RAWK. Now, I know, as hi-tech goes, this is fairly lame stuff. If I had some wi-fi doo-dad's, I could be blogging my way via my cell phone and uploading pictures that way; using a Blackberry, or whatever the latest wi-fi widget is. But I have none of that, and I'm just enjoying the fun of being able to blog whilst on a business trip, regardless of access.

Yes, I am on a business trip. My job has a new client and I am the back-up service rep for this little instructional visit, wherein the senior service rep is giving our client a tutorial of the system as well as helping address any bugs or tweaks the system will need as we begin the implementation. I'm here 'till Thursday. I suppose I could've mentioned this earlier but, well, let's face it, my blog's been pretty weak for the majority of this year; honestly, if it wasn't for the novelty of blogging in my hotel, I doubt I'd be mentioning it at all.

But never look a blog entry in the mouth, I always say. So here I am in Albany and thank Christ I'm here in June 'cause if it was the winter I'd probably have twenty feet of snow surrounding me. (Yes, even in my hotel room.) It very much reminds me of my trip to McAllen. It's more built up, and my co-worker and I actually drove, sort of, into downtown Albany this evening to check it out. There are sky scrappers there, so it almost looks like a city. (A city for all of two blocks, but still a city.) But it also has wide, purely grided highways with a strip mall on every corner and a chain business in each space. It's a thoroughly undistinguished area--it could pass for any other suburban area in the country.

Albany, the city proper, has a bit more character. I'm kicking myself for not bringing my camera as there's some lovely architecture. Fortunetly, I believe we'll be returning in two weeks to continue the implimentation so pictures will be had soon enough.

And that's about it, really. I'm actually going to bed soon because the concept of a decent night's sleep has become increasingly appealing of late, and if I follow-through it would be the third night in a row that I'd put my bed-time at 11:00. I don't think I've gone to bed that early this consecutively in years.

I tell you one thing, though: I really wish I had my Pink Floyd CD's with me now. Ever since the news hit yesterday I've been dying to break out my Floyd. I'll have to load up my car with their catalogue once I get home later this week.

Right, well, enough of this enthralling ruminations. Maybe tomorrow I'll write something witty and interesting. Maybe.

Pink Floyd is reuniting for the July 2 Live 8 concert.

PINK. FLOYD. WITH ROGER. WATERS.

You don't understand--or perhaps you do, if you're a Floyd fan--but this is unprecedented. The Waters/Floyd feud is the stuff of legends. When David Gilmour was reuniting the other band members for their 1987 comeback, Waters tried sued, unsuccessfully, to prevent themfrom using the name "Pink Floyd". Whenever a Floyd boxed set or commemorative album has been released that required Water's participation, all contact was handled through lawyers.

The band did not play Live Aid back in '85, when Floyd was official over and even though that concert featured several reunions (most notably Led Zepplin). They did not play together when they were inducted into the Hall of Fame a few years back, a time when most fueding bands put aside their differences and reunite for one night--I'm pretty sure Waters didn't even show for the ceremony. (Not that Floyd is the only band to keep their grudges. Creedence didn't bury the hatchet for their induction, either; but I digress.) The idea that a Pink Floyd fan would have the chance to see Roger Waters performing with David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright was less likely than John Lennon and George Harrison coming back from the dead and jamming with Paul and Ringo.

The feud, most publically between Waters and Gilmour, is legendary. The anger and resentment had been building for years. The Wall has the honor of being one of the greatest records ever made by a band that was barely speaking with one another at the time of its recording. (Gilmour and Waters were rarely in the studio together, recording seperately. Drummer Nick Mason was kicked out of the band during the recording; his presence on the supporting tour was part of his severance agreement.) When the Gilmour-led Floyd reunited, they had originally titled their album (a title which escapes me completely). Waters commented something to theeffect of: "Well, it's going to suck, but at least they came up with a decent title." In response, the band changed the title of their album. So acrimonious has Waters been of the Waters-less FLoyd that he titled his 1992 album "Amused to Death" in response.

Technically speaking, this is not the ultimate coup-de-grace for a Floyd Fan. If Syd Barret were to perform with them, then the Apocolypse would trully be upon us. But as the best you can hope for from Syd is that he can drool in time to the music, there's little to ask for recieve. (An exaggeration: Syd is definitely fried from too many acid trips, but last I read he was still highly functioning, if not 100% self-sufficient.)

But, still. Waters. Gilmour. Mason. Wright. Dark Side of the Moon. Wish You Were Here. Animals. The Wall. Sorrowfull, contemplative, ominous. Meditations on insanity, on loss, and the descent of the spirit. Brillant and moody. A band of musicians so powerful as a group that most fans didn't even know what the members looked like.

I just got off the phone with Dave a little while ago. Dreams of a reunion tour are dancing in his head. (He has more reason than me to be excited: I came to Floyd late, a decade after their initial dissolution, and Rush and Tori Amos were already the soundtrack of my life's dramatics. But Dave was with Floyd when their music was new--Floyd was his life's soundtrack.) But I doubt it. Twenty-five years may be long enough to bury some grudges, but grudes don't last twenty-five years without there being some weight to them in the first place. Floyd will play, together again, and then return to memory and times past.

Still, despite delusions of granduer and reunion tours, I'll be happy enough to sit and watch four old geezers take to the stage just this one time. Their voices will crack, and their musicianship will no doubt be rusty, having been so long since they've played together. But it will be more than sufficient. And for half an hour, they'll celebrate (while millions of fans rejoice in) the music that will outlast us all.

I never bothered to change the clock on my wall when DST ended. It's an hour behind; has been for a month and a half. My VCR clock automatically changed when DST ended, and yet this evening I've discovered it's an hour ahead of the actual time. Since at least six-thirty this evening my apartment phone rings; there is no one on the other end, only a single beep that comes in regular intervals. I hang up the phone, and then it rings again a few minutes later with nothing but a beep coming through. This happens half a dozen times in the space of a few minutes, then stops for an hour or so, then begins again. And for the whole month of June I get to stare at a shirtless Alan Niehbur; a drunken hill-billy shit-eating grin on his face, peeking out from behind a shower curtain; with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and making a "come hither" motion with his other.

I can't say for certain when my apartment turned into the Twilight Zone, but apparently I missed the memo.

Well, it's official:
W. Mark Felt has been confirmed as the Watergate whistleblower "Deep Throat".

The Washington Post as a whole section on the news. And how ironic is it that to Post's articles detailing the man who revealed secrets will not show you the articles without first registiring with the paper.