review & spoiler good girl. good, well made and acted movie. yes, jennifer aniston CAN act. not really much of a comedy outside of the bible thumper's line about spending one's evenings alone in hell, and the whacky teen sales goth girl. aniston's character is a soul seeking escape and ends up betraying everyone in order to sidle back into her miserable life, and get past the mistake of sleeping with a miserable angst ridden 22 year old. of course, and she admits as much as she sits at the crossroads of a miserable choice (neither one is worth much it seems), that her mistakes will be there just under the surface and right there in front her in the form of a child. this is a bleak bleak movie

Altered States great propoganda posters altered for the wierd times in which we find ourselves.

Also want to publicly state that I am against this war that we are trying to drag the world into. Yes the world would be better without Saddam, but it would be better without many dictators who are our friends (and enemies). I think the Bushes and those cabinet we've inherited from earlier days are eager to redress their failings, and really their defeat -- Saddam still alive and kicking for a decade past the Gulf War. This isn't about oil, or terrorism this is about revenge. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Saddam is ready to strike out at the world again, but it doesn't quite fit. He's got to know that if he does use them, he is essentially a dead man, I don't think he's that much of a madman. He's a weasley survivor -- the only plans he probably has for those chemical and biological weapons is US troops when they invade, otherwise he'd already be using them.

book review the war of don emmanuel's nether parts by louis de berniere of corelli's mandolin fame. good, in short. magical realism done well, although given that it takes place in south america, it can't but help feel a bit derivative. which harks back to the conversation with my friend about copying. in the end i can't fault it too much, its a fun and amusing book, but with darker undertones of nasty politics and the viciousness of ideology (whatever it happens to be). Except in the case, it all, or mostly, ends well, and even the dead aren't so bad off. The array of characters is as brilliant as it is in corelli's mandolin and the level which humor operates is very similar, and one of my favorite sorts of humor.

speaking of de berniere, I'm also reminded of red dog which is a short little book, telling the tales of a dog in nw australia, who travels from town to town winning the hearts of those he encounters. It's really brilliant - funny and sage, and sad too. Maybe it reminds me a little of my youth reading tales about Old Yeller. I read one chapter on his encounter with Red Cat, to great effect (with an australian accent of course) at a story telling party a while back.

deep thoughts interesting email conversations about "copying" in design, led to rapid fire thoughts about copying in general. Human "progress" both biologically and culturally has relied on copying. Sometimes not very accurate copying, but copying nonetheless. If one thinks about one's life, career, relationships, conciously or not, one is always copying what has been done before you. Not that there is no room for originality -- but originality is more often than not, either an imperfect copy or a combination (juxtaposition of copies) of something that has come before.

The more I think about it the more I see it to. Take the example of a meeting I am going to go to tonight. We are a political action committee. Our meetings run according to a set of by-laws. Those by-laws, while somewhat fit to our own particular circumstance are essentially the same as a thousand other committees across the country -- all running our meetings according to some protocols invented by some unknown organization genius way back who knows when.

Any manufacturing process is obvious, recipes (i.e. just about any food you eat, cooked or not!).

This is not to denigrate copying at all -- in fact more just thinking about it as an essential part of human ( if not biological ) experience. We all should have the right to copy. Down with copyright -- since they, in the end, have just really copied someone else anyway.