THX-1138 Dept. - BART riders and fans of engineering porn should check out the story of
Dr. Bill Wattenburg’s battles over the original BART control system. They're reminiscent of Richard Feynman's work investigating the Challenger disaster.
posted by Ernie at 10:53 PM
Orwellian Potentials Dept. - This is one of the more
interesting observations I've seen on the games the entertainment industry is playing with copyright lately. Maybe a little naive, but it's appealing.
posted by Ernie at 6:05 PM
Versatile for Discos and Parties Dept. - I am reticent to attend any event whose organizers feel the need to explicitly warn the participants
not to involve their own fecal matter in the festivities.
posted by Ernie at 7:17 PM
Boeing Boeing Dept. - There's nothing like a little
September 11th conspiracy theory to sprinkle over your cornflakes. But then
Snopes comes along to point out that the milk has curdled...
posted by Ernie at 9:06 PM
Unfortunate Associations Dept. - I wonder if Orbitz and Expedia mind the ad placement they get in response to
certain Google queries...
posted by Ernie at 7:11 PM
Dialing for Dollars Movie Dept. -The 1967 David Janssen film
Warning Shot was on Encore Action the other night and called to me thanks to its high recommendation in the program guide and the fact that I've got a soft spot for manly late '60s/early '70s flicks lately. I guess I'm hunting for another
Charley Varrick, but I need to keep looking. The plot -- Janssen as a cop named Valens who shoots an apparently innocent man and spends the rest of the movie trying to clear himself -- is about as deep as a half-empty kiddie pool...the kind of earnestly bloodless, sexless pre-
Dirty Harry drama that used to fill airtime between the news and the National Anthem on pre-cable late-night TV. Despite Janssen's then-current role in the popular "The Fugitive" for ABC, the studio hedged their bet by packing the cast with a non-stop barrage of name and significant character actors. Keenan Wynn, Ed Begley (Sr.), Stefanie Powers, Carroll O'Connor, Joan Collins, Walter Pidgeon, Steve Allen (typecast as a noxious trash-talk show host), and Lillian Gish all walk through for at least a scene or two, and George Grizzard has the best lines in the movie as a swinging-sixties airline co-pilot. I admit to appreciating the testosterone-soaked set design in Valens' den, with its phony gas fireplace, service revolvers hanging everywhere and knotty wood paneling on the walls
and ceiling. Plus whoever lit this movie lit the living fuck out of it, which is a good thing 'cause despite being set in Los Angeles it wanders off the soundstage no more frequently than your average "Dragnet" episode. I give it 0 on the Erland scale -- not bad enough for the MST3K treatment, but not good enough to sit through as the second feature at the local drive-in either.
posted by Ernie at 2:33 PM
Mmmm, Last Week's Lunch Dept. - The smell of the day today is stale potato chips soaked in sour milk, courtesy of a fellow passenger on the
M-Oceanview. The source was stealthy...the scent was not.
posted by Ernie at 9:22 PM
It's Only Fair Dept. - Justice demands that the first Blogger(TM)(C)(XXX)(RSVP) post to this site acknowledge noted movie monkey Scott Phillips, whose new web site at
www.exhilirateddespair.com inspired this adoption of third-party weblog automation. Also I now know how to spell "exhilarated." Scott isn't a guy with much patience for nitpicky geekwork, so if he uses the software it must be a pretty smooth ride. Thanks, brah!
posted by Ernie at 12:33 AM
