Disbelief

There are a lot of unexpected tragedies in life. In fact, last week was the 10th year anniversary of the death of INXS lead man Michael Hutchence. While INXS had already peaked long before he died, as opposed to the stereotypical parody of the aging rocker Hutchence was still quite a charasmatic performer with spark. While he left behind a young daughter he certainly departed already having left his mark on the world...

I woke up this morning to the news that Sean Taylor, the best defensive player for the Washington Redskins (my favourite football team) was dead. He had been shot yesterday in the leg near the groin area, had lost a lot of blood (the bullet grazed a major artery), was air-lifted to the hospital, and was in a coma. However, when doctors attempted to solicit a response from Taylor, he squeezed a nearby person's hand. I went to bed optimistic that he would be OK, and hoped he would not be brain damaged from the loss of blood. When I turned on the TV this morning from my California hotel bed, news of his death was all over the headlines.

Taylor had only been in the league for 4 years, but forged a reputation as "The Reaper" for putting the hardest hits on opposing players. In sport which rewards combined bursts of energy/skill, he was one of the finest athletes I had seen in terms of the defensive plays he could make (there are numerous highlight reels of him on YouTube). He could intercept when he dropped back in coverage, hit as hard as a linebacker (often causing a turnover) and could also effectively blitz the quarterback. Speed, power, finesse.

He had a number of on-field and off-field incidents early in his career, but had made major strides in maturity over the last 18 months after becoming a father. Sadly, he had barely made his mark on what he was capable of in the NFL (Hall of Fame potential), as well as what he could achieve in life as a father and husband (Taylor had plan to marry the mother of his daughter).

It's strange that you can feel this depth of sadness for a person you have never actually met. Mike Wise uses the perfect word in his Washington Post column: disbelief.

RIP Sean. For me personally, this is by far the saddest day in the history of sports.

So far, so good -- almost...

Showing uncharacteristic braveness, I installed the newly (zero day!) released version of Apple OS X -- Leopard (10.5). One pleasant surprise is that a lot of things seem a lot zippier; I'm guessing there's a lot of optimisation in the code for the hardware I'm using.

Overall, the upgrade has been incredibly painless, and everything seems to run very nicely...

...except for my VPN client, which means I can't get to my work email!

Is that a feature or a bug?

[Update: latest version of the VPN client works! As an added bonus, it is logo compliant. I don't like Cisco's new logo, but now it's staring at me from my dock!]

Core Memory

While I'm not sure I'd agree that computers are sensual...

...I would love to have a few of these photos as a series of full sized prints.

Congrats Boks!

You've saved the world from another four years of Pommy bragging. It wasn't the finest Rugby ever, but the intensity from both sides was terrific.

I will now reverse my national colours back to the Australian Green and Gold (err... Gold and Green), and carry on with business as usual: hating you :)

Grindhouse - Death Proof

Two of the most drawn out hours of my life that I will never, ever get back.

I appreciate Tarantino's attention to detail in attempting to make a movie in homage of B-grade 70's drive-in flicks and exploitation films, but sadly this has resulted in a C-grade movie whose only redeeming feature is some nice casting/eye candy.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I loved the references/inspiration/ideas, but hated the execution (where Tarantino normally excels). I loved the idea of getting Snake Pliskin (err.. Kurt Russell) to drive the Death-Proof-mobile.

What kills it is that, while the characters all have sharp tongues, the character-driven (read: monotonous) dialogue fails to reward the viewer any truly Tarantino-trademark-worthy sound bites. While the movies Tarantino references are drawn out by nature, the interaction between characters is where this film falls down; for the lengthy exchanges, there's no legitimate wit. The sparse action between dialogues cannot salvage the film. And while the music (another Tarantino trademark) is OK, it also fails to leave a distinctive mark.

[Minor note: if you are going to put in all the extra film grain, jagged splices/transitions and "accidental" artefacts, do it for the whole film. It seemed to be concentrated into the first half hour, and then only very occasionally for the remainder of the film.]

Maybe a shorter edit from when it was paired in the double feature with Planet Terror would be watchable. But the 2 hour standalone edit is simply self-indulgent, and I don't mean that in a good way.

If it is your fantasy to be a voyeur watching a script writer masturbate to Cosmo and Street Machine, then I recommend this film.

Otherwise, watch this short clip on Tarantino's theories about Top Gun instead :)

The Gold Standard

While I've been a little disappointed by the second season of Heroes, I'm really enjoying Entourage (season 4 has just ended in the US). The premise is a little cheesy: a young actor (Vincent Chase, played by Adrian Grenier) is starting to hit it big, and is using his newfound fame and fortune to have a good time with his closest childhood friends. Vincent is a laid back and free spirited guy who grew up in a poor neighbourhood in New York, and generally doesn't care about material things, but does love to have a good time.

However, what makes the show really work are the interactions with Vince's agent, Arie Gold (played beautifully by Jeremy Piven). Arie is well connected, aggressive and abusive. On the surface, he's a stereotypical Hollywood asshole and his exaggerated personality comes across like he's speeding on amphetimenes. The funniest moments in the show are the frequent barrages of insults he will fire off at his gay PA, or the actor's manager, really for no reason other than ball busting.

Yet, while he'll do anything to get the job done (work is unquestionably his highest priority in life), he's never cheated on his wife (in four seasons) despite his high flying lifestyle. It's not unusual to see Arie put himself into a very precarious position between a deal he's desperate to win and resolving a family situation (such as trying to get his daughter into a prestigious school).

While Arie generally acts in Vince's best interests, the tension created from the misalignment between Vincent's principles and artistic values vs Arie's mission to maximise Vincent's earnings can make for some excellent viewing.

Watch a few good episodes and you'll be hooked.

Somebody's Hero

I don't know what's happened to the writing staff of Heroes (maybe they've changed writers?), but from the first three episodes of Season 2 it doesn't seem anywhere near as compelling as the first season.

Something that did work very well in the first season was that it was never quite clear if the bad guys were really bad, or the good guys (or girls) were really good. Obviously the race against time to stop the obliteration of NY added some urgency to the actions of the characters.

Unfortunately the new season seems to contain neither of these elements. Also, with Isaac Mendes no longer painting after getting capped in the first series, it seems to have lost "live comic book" styling that I enjoyed.

It's early on, so I'll keep watching...

Die Bokke!

I'm not a South African rugby fan. In fact, while I respect their strength as a Tri-Nations opponent, I generally root against them.

However, for one week only, I'll be cheering for the Springboks. They play England in the Rugby World Cup 2007 final, and it would be a very, very bad thing for the sport if England claimed victory.

Consider this:

1. Albeit legal, England play with negative tactics which go against the spirit of the game (defined in the first page of the law book as scoring as many points as possible). On the other hand, South Africa have finally developed a truly expansive and skillful brand of play. There were a lot of columnists post-RWC 2003 suggesting field goals should be dropped from three points to one; at the time I reduced this to sour grapes after a genuinely good English side claimed victory over Australia. However, with the amount of mindless kicking we've seen in an otherwise entertaining world cup, I've come around.
2. There hasn't been another world cup where such an undeserving team had a shot at being the champion (defending a previous title, no less!) From the day after England won the previous title four years ago up until the quarter final victory over Australia two weeks ago, England have been consistently bad -- either underachieving or losing against comparatively weak opponents. There is no question that in previous world cups that the victor of the tournament has been at least considered in the world top 3. On the other hand, the Springboks have been slowly building in strength and ranking, consistently improving their team over the last 4 years. (No mean feat for Jake White, considering the union and race politics in South Africa).
   
3. I just couldn't handle yet another four years of bragging rights to England!

Unfortunately, the game will probably be on in Australia at a time too late/early for a Braai...

A Quick Update...

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last 3 or 4 weeks. Things have been pretty busy, and internet access (not to mention phone reception) has been a little sketchy. We are just finishing up in Paris...


I'm not sure that spare time or net access will get any easier in Romania, which is where we will be for the next week (as of tomorrow), but worst case I'll work on a few entries on the plane ride from Bucharest back to Sydney.

Au revoir!

Silly Toys

Working in IT with the occasional trips to Silicon Valley, you meet the odd people who have made a lot of money -- a few odd million to 10's of millions. The paupers hanging out in Santa Row would still be sickened by some of the moolah being thrown around in Monte Carlo. (So you can image how po' ol' me feels...)

This is the random selection of cars parked outside of the hotel I was staying at in Monte Carlo:


The array of Ferraris and Lamborghinis outside of the Casino is even more impressive.

However, these seriously are children's toys. The real status symbol in Monte Carlo is boats:


I'm pretty sure I've seen both Larry Ellison's and Paul Allen's boats parked outside the balcony of where we were staying on different days. They are noticeable because they dwarf the other nearby boats. We are talking about boats worth 100's of m's.

And the horrible thing is, I don't think these guys do any fishing!