Month: March 2006

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Vital Statistics

It’s snowing outside right now – big, fat flakes, too. However, they are hitting the ground and melting.

I installed a new plugin for the blog which allows me to pre-approve comments for certain email addresses. It should make it easier for people to post comments here now.

Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
McCartney Trivia: Paul wrote “Got To Get You Into My Life” as an ode to marijuana.
Recent listening: Coverville, KBOO Bike Show, Blame The Vain, New Roman Times, Michael Martin Murphy
Recent viewing: Oscars, Sportscenter, Pardon The Interuption, Crime Scene Investigation, ER, Drawn Together
Imperative To Do: Rebates, renew prescription, start taxes
Cool link: Calling All Wingnuts: A grassroots effort to hold right-wing radio hosts accountable

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Jon Stewart and the Oscars

Have I mentioned how much I like Jon Stewart of The Daily Show? The shows I missed the most when my Tivo was broke were The Daily Show and Countdown. Here’s a few random thoughts:

  • One of Stewart’s specialties is taking something a politician says recently and then going back through old footage and finding contradictions and straight-out lies. He makes it funny but why can’t the “real” news do this? It seems so obvious.
  • Jon Stewart himself describes his job as “making faces at the camera.” This may be true, but he is the best face-maker in the history of television.
  • It’s hard to decide which I like best: the fake news at the beginning of the show or the correspondent story in the middle. After Steven Colbert left, the new crop of correspondents they got seemed like they weren’t as good, but last night I saw a story about a women’s prison in Minnesota that was incredibly funny. The interviews with the ridiculous questions are enough to make anybody laugh.

Sour PussBTW, despite the ill-humored Hollywood denizens (Joaquin Phoenix, I’m talking to you) there that obviously didn’t appreciate his humor, I thought Jon Stewart was really funny at the Oscars. I think they were expecting a bunch of Republican bashing and when he started tipping their sacred cows, they just didn’t find it funny for some reason. For example, he said Walk The Line was a remake of Ray with white people. Or that you normally have to go to a Democratic fundraiser to see so many movie stars. Comedy gold!

For me, other parts of the program had negative entertainment value:

  • I counted at least three “reminders” about how the theatre-going experience beats watching movies in other venues. DVDs were specifically called out for their poor recreation of the theatre experience. Telling your audience how they are supposed to enjoy your product is condescending, but many would also argue that viewpoint is very flawed. Sometimes you just want to curl up at home in front of your TV and DVD player. Who the hell do they think they are to tell you that’s the “wrong” way to enjoy a movie? Total bullshit.
  • The film editing union must be very strong this year because the number of montage sequences was totally out of control. The worst was a montage about films that “change the world” (or something) which included The Day After Tomorrow. I liked that movie, but I don’t think it changed the world.
  • Aside from Dolly Parton’s performance from Transamerica, none of the other songs grabbed me. I thought they ranged from boring to over-the-top unbearable. BTW, how cool is Dolly? Despite the fact that she looks like total white trash, she’s got to be the coolest member of country’s “old guard.”
  • I’m a George Clooney fan and really dig when he sticks it to blowhards like O’Reilly, but his tirade about being “out of touch” early on was very self-righteous and hypocritical in the historical facts he mentioned. For example, he said Hollywood talked about AIDS when everybody was whispering about it, but Hollywood never made an AIDS film until 1992.
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First Place

Yesterday was a great day in the history of Pinewood Derby cars at the Ring household. I knew it was going to be a good day after only two races when both Thomas and Graham came in first with a big lead.

The track that we race on has four lanes with electronic timing. Each car gets to race on every lane in order to minimize the impact of slower/faster lanes. A computer schedules all the races and tabulates the time for each car. At the end of the round-robin tournament, each racer has four times that are added together. The two lowest total times are chosen as 1st and 2nd place for each of the four dens in our pack. These winners may all participate in the regional competition. The eight den winners then compete for the honor of best in the pack.

After the round-robin, Thomas and Graham were both first in their den and participated in the pack championship round. Thomas took first in 3 out of his 4 races, but Graham didn’t fare as well in the stiffer competition. Graham finished 4th or 5th in the pack and Thomas finished 1st!

I went to the post office in the morning to make sure that both cars were regulation weight (no more than five ounces), and so we had some last minute weight stuck to both cars. Both boys had two golf club weights on their cars because they are light enough to get you very close to regulation weight (more weight means more speed). In these pictures, they are the flat, rectangular weights that are light silver in color. On Graham’s they are mounted vertically (at his insistence) and on Thomas’ they are are flat against the body near the rear (by the fin):

During one of the two races where Graham and Thomas raced against each other, all four weights came off their cars. Evidently, that had been happening to Graham’s car for awhile, so the race official just slapped all four onto Graham’s car where they remained until after the racing was all done. When I picked up Graham’s car after it was all over, I was perplexed to find the extra weights on the car. I couldn’t figure it out until I saw Thomas’ car without the weights and then it all became clear.

I weighed Graham’s car right before we left and it said 5.4 ounces, which might have been a big advantage to Graham, but probably was also a disadvantage to Thomas. Or was it a disadvantage? Physics experts, please weigh in!

There are more pictures here.

Tina’s blog entry is here.

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Vital Statistics

Pinewood Derby is tomorrow and once again we’re down to the wire in finishing the cars. This year I had three months to get the job done, but that still was not enough. I am a lifelong procrastinator. Fortunately, we have Tina to help us with the finish, so the cars look really cool again this year. We’ll have to see how we do tomorrow.

Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: De-Loused in the Comatorium, 12 Songs, Dark Side of the Moon, The Beatles
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, Attack of the Show, My Name Is Earl
Imperative To Do: Rebates
Cool link: State of Oregon Surplus