Good news and bad news from Gregg Easterbrook

First the good news: Gregg Easterbrook's review of last weekend's NFL Draft is on NFL.com.

The bad news is that he's discontinuing Easterblogg as of Tuesday. He's got more books and articles to write. I've enjoyed the blog for the past ten months or so, and I'll miss Easterbrook's daily thoughts on governmental missteps and his illumination of events and stories that readers may have missed due to lack of media attention. While I haven't always agreed with his politics, Easterbrook's posts have always given me something different to think about. There is a bit of good news here: I'll have one less time-sucking blog to read each day.

I guess I should remove the link on the right. I'll leave it up for a few days; maybe he'll reconsider.

It's been a while...

I hate to say I've been busy, and that's why I haven't posted anything for a while. But it's true.

Last week was my office's biennial meeting of worldwide IT staff, held here in New York. That meant I attended several half-day meetings and after-work receptions and dinners, and didn't have much time to do my actual work, let alone goof off by posting entries here. By the time Friday came around, I was exhausted.

On Sunday, I rode my bike down to the West Side cruise ships piers to see just how big the Queen Mary 2 actually was. It's big. The Queen Elizabeth 2, parked next to it, looked like a "pile of puke" by comparison. I actually think the Explorer of the Seas, which I saw here in 2000, is a more gargantuan ship than the QM2. The QM2 looks like an old Titanic-style ship, while the newer ones look more like the floating hotels they all really are. But they're all just damn big boats. Even the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, which was also here in 2000, didn't look as big as the QM2.

This week our apartment's kitchen and bathroom are undergoing some unplanned renovations. We woke up on Monday morning to a power problem in the kitchen. The circuit breaker for the kitchen and bathroom wouldn't stay on, and kept tripping despite a lack of visible power drains in either room. By Monday night, the refrigerator was on its own new power circuit, but the other breaker for the lights and appliances still wouldn't stay on. Tonight I came home from work to find our floors, countertops, and tables covered in a thin grit of powder and plaster, and many holes in the ceilings and walls from where the electrician ran new wires and conduits. According to Liz, we're in for a few more days of work as the electrician and building superintendent continue the rewiring. Apparently there was some old wiring and new wiring in the walls, and the old wiring wasn't rated for all the appliances and might have eventually caused a fire! Great! As long as they fix everything, I don't really mind the mess, but it is a nuisance.

Also tonight was my firm's college fair for students at Washington Irving High School. My office has a longstanding tutoring, mentoring, and otherwise educational relationship with WIHS, and one of the annual events is a college fair where students can meet alumni and counselors from many different schools. They hold this fair in a conference room at my office, so I don't have far to go to represent Georgetown. I had more copies of the school's prospectus and financial aid booklets to give out than I did last year, but I still ran out of materials about an hour into the two-hour event. Most of the students asked me about the business school or pre-law programs, but there were a few that wanted to know about music and art studies, and one passionate young man who wants to be mayor of New York eventually and asked about government and community leadership programs. Nearly everyone asked me about Georgetown's SAT score requirements, and that was one thing I didn't know about. According to the university's web site, they don't have a minimum required score, but that didn't stop people from quizzing me about what it would take to get in. Part of me enjoyed coming up with BS answers to their questions, but the rest of me felt guilty about it and thinks that next year, I should try to get an actual representative from the Admissions office to attend the fair. While the college fair is manned in part by firm employees who attended the schools they represent, many other schools just send admissions counselors. Or I could just read up on Georgetown's current list of majors and admissions requirements, so I can seem less like a bumbling fool in front of these kids.

I am Qui-Gon Jinn

:: how jedi are you? ::

Comic Times no more

Yesterday afternoon I went for a bike ride around the Manhattan waterfront greenway. One of my favorite sites along the way was the old collapsed shell of a pier around 60th Street on the West Side. Years ago, someone painted the words "COMIC TIMES" on the front of the shell, and I could always count on seeing that pier and remind myself of the city's history. (Somewhere in there is a metaphor for the cyclical collapse and rebirth of New York City, but it's eluding me at the moment.) Anyway, when I passed the pier yesterday, I saw that it had been partially disassembled. I guess the city found money somewhere to get rid of this eyesore. But you can see what it used to look like here (thanks to Photo_a_Day and Google).

The Second Avenue subway in our lifetime?

New York Magazine featured the proposed Second Avenue Subway in last week's issue. It's a history of the project and reasons why the current rumors about imminent construction have more truth to them than in previous years. For anyone who has to ride the 4/5/6 trains during rush hour, another East Side subway line is more than a necessity. It's a life-altering issue at this point. The line's been crowded for forty years; I'm surprised that service disruptions aren't more frequent than they already are, and that people regularly make it to work without killing their fellow commuters. If the Lexington Avenue line were to be out of service for any length of time, I think East Siders would revolt. Another subway line might just save a few lives, if only because we'll all be a little bit saner at the end of the ride.

The unfortunate news is that construction of just the first few miles of the Second Avenue line will take seven years, and more like 8-10 with the realities of working in Manhattan. Even if they break ground next year (and it won't be the first time that's happened), the line won't open until the end of the decade. Once it finally opens, hurray! Assuming I still live in Manhattan at that time, my commute and the commutes of thousands of others improves. But wait! What about the effect the new line will have on property values? It's more than likely that rising rents and housing costs will force me to move out of the neighborhood, even as the new subway makes it more convenient for me to live there. On the other hand, if I can somehow scrounge up enough money to buy an apartment on the East Side before the line opens, we're looking at solid growth potential for that investment. Which brings me back to reality: people have been buying apartments on the East Side for decades, thinking that a soon-to-open Second Avenue subway line will push their property values up. They're all still waiting for that line, and riding to work with me on the Lexington trains while they wait.

Too much TV on Sunday nights

I can't believe I watched "The Sopranos" instead of this.

'Happy Together?'

If you are as disturbed as I am at the popular songs showing up in TV commercials, you can learn all about the ad wizards behind Applebee's current campaign in this article in Tuesday's Washington Post.

April Fool's Day story roundup

Slashdot has many strange-but-true "Ask Slashdot" entries today. I especially liked "Will 100 cups of coffee in 24 hours kill you?" On the main Slashdot page, there's the story about the proposed "Omniscience Protocol" for networking that would allow the RIAA and MPAA to keep track of what people do with their PCs. That proposal goes hand-in-hand (or is that cable-in-port?) with the RFC from last year to implement an "evil bit" in all network traffic, to tell the viruses and trojans from the regular packets.

John Kelly's column in today's Washington Post has several classic April Fool's Day pranks. I love the Richard Stockton NJ rest stop story.

ThinkGeek is offering some great new products today, including a new weight-loss device and an EZ-Bake oven for your PC. I've already promised Liz I'd get her one, and a USB-powered Snoopy Sno-Cone machine if I can find one.

Google's new moon base sounds like a great way to launch a stagnant career.

New Line Films announced that a film version of Tolkien's The Hobbit is a go. There's even a web site for the project already. For some reason, Peter Jackson is not involved.

Seriously, I'm starting to dreak April 1. While I enjoy the occasional prank story with my regular web surfing, it's not so funny when every web site I read does it. At least it's only one day a year.

The Trunk Monkey

Last Monday night, while at dinner with a number of Novell employees and customers, the subject of the Trunk Monkey came up. Only a few people in the group knew what the others were talking about, and I was one of the clueless ones. Now you can share in the wackiness that is the Trunk Monkey.

The only thing funnier than a monkey beating a man with a tire iron is the monkey hitting the man in the groin with the tire iron before pummeling him with it.

The Sammy Hagar shots will be online in just a minute. Honest.

Sammy Hagar can still rock

Wednesday night's conference party featuring Sammy Hagar was better than I expected. The food was Mexican, mass-produced but still tasty. After we ate they warmed us up for the show by showing us homemade Novell commercials they commissioned at last year's BrainShare. Then a comedian (Jay Headron?) did about half an hour on turning 30, getting married, and growing up. He started out slow but got better as he went along. Then Sammy and his band came out.

They put about 70 people from the audience on stage behind the band, in the "On Stage Funatics [sic]" section, sort of like what Metallica used to do when they had a "snake pit" in the stage filled with fans. Most of the songs in the set were Hagar originals like "I Can't Drive 55," "One Way to Rock," "Where Eagles Fly," "Mas Tequila," and a few others I didn't know. He sang two Van Halen songs, both from F.U.C.K.: "Runaround" and "Top of the World." Hearing Sammy's originals made me wonder just how much influence he had over the other members of Van Halen, since his stuff sounds too much like what VH did for 10 years with him. I had the realization during the show that Sammy Hagar has become the Jimmy Buffett of the hard rock crowd. His songs are all about the beach, margaritas, spicy food, and hot chicks. But it was a good show anyway. I got some decent pictures I'll upload later today.

so much for blogging LIVE

I had planned to post entries more frequently, but actual conference sessions and events have prevented that.

For the past three days, during the day I've attended tutorials and information sessions about various Novell products and technologies. I'm supposed to pay attention during those, so it's hard to blog. The most exciting part of the conference so far was the appearance at Monday's keynote address of Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel. He's as close as any of us attendees get to a rock star in our midst, and crowd reacted accordingly. He didn't stay long, but the fact that he was here says a lot about Novell's commitment to Linux and open source software. Torvalds tends to stay out of the spotlight, at least at things like this, and prefers working on Linux code to making appearances. Getting him here was a complete surprise and a real coup by Novell management.

The past two evenings I've been out to dinner and drinks with some of Novell's NY-area customers. Monday night we ate at The Melting Pot, a chain restaurant that serves fondue (cheese and chocolate) and where you cook your own meat in a pot of oil or broth. We had two different kinds of cheese and two different kinds of chocolate fondue for dessert. Last night (Tuesday) we ate at Metropolitan, which was expensive American cuisine. I had a wild mushroom ragout appetizer and a lamb shank entree, with warm apple crisp for dessert. I've been to Port O' Call both nights, but I've managed not to inebriate myself too badly. It's too hard for me to drink at night and then get up early the following morning. I'm not a callow youth anymore.

Tonight is the Sammy Hagar concert at the Delta Center. I hope I can get better pictures of this show than I did of Styx two years ago. I'll put up some more pictures later today or tomorrow. Definitely before I leave on Friday.

A toga party, Utah-style

Tonight's welcome reception was a college fraternity-themed party, with toga-clad partiers, a surprisingly good cover band, and goofy games for all of us techies. They had toilet races (motorized toilet-scooters), an inflated boxing ring, Playstation games, and plenty of food. After not eating most of the day, I pigged out on sandwiches and cookies. Most of the games they invited volunteers to play were funny, like the whipped-cream plate trick where the first one to find the message on the bottom of a paper plate covered in whipped cream won. Too bad for the folks that wiped the plates with their faces that the message was literally on the bottom of the plate (the underside). In between games, the emcee tried to get a rise out of the crowd by making jokes about Bill Gates and Windows BSOD (blue screen of death) error messages. Didn't anyone tell him that Bill Gates isn't our punching bag anymore? Someone needed to give him some SCO Unix and Darl McBride material. I stayed long enough to get my fill of food and entertainment, then rushed back to my hotel room to watch "Arrested Development" and "The Sopranos." I considered going to Port O' Call instead, but after not sleeping last night, and overeating at dinner, I decided that alcohol wasn't a good move. Tomorrow night for sure.

I've posted some pictures of tonight's revelry on my Webshots page; see the link on the right. Liz, you asked for some new pictures, so that's what I took.

Have blog, will travel

This week, Phil's Occasional Musings is on the road. I'm coming to you LIVE from Novell's annual BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. After a long flight sitting in the extreme rear of the plane, I got here about 11 AM this morning. I got to my hotel just in time to see the dreary end of the Mississippi State-Xavier game. I took a quick nap and now I'm sitting in the Salt Palace wondering why Novell doesn't provide free food until 6 PM tonight. A small breakfast and no lunch have left me a ravenous shell of a man. But they have games and sponsor booths to check out, so I'll have something to do until the party gets started. And I can bring it all to you, my few loyal readers, through the magic of wireless networking. Truly, this is the age of enlightenment.

One of the highlights of registration is picking up the BrainShare bag. Every year it's a different bag: usually a backpack, laptop, or duffel bag. I love my backpack from BrainShare 2002 : it holds my laptop, my gadgets, a book, and my lunch, and it goes everywhere. The only problem is that it's falling apart after two years of constant abuse. This year's BrainShare bag was hyped extensively on the Novell newsgroups as "not a backpack" and "not a laptop bag." My guess was that it would be some sort of rolling bag, like airline pilots and stewards use. And that's exactly what we got, in red and gray. I'm sure it will serve me just fine this week, but a rolling bag won't last long on the streets of New York. If the wheels don't fall off after I drag it up and down 86th Street each day, I'm sure it won't survive the beating it will take on the subway. But I'll find a lasting use for the new bag, and they're selling BS2002 backpacks in the conference gift shop, so I can always replace the old one. Or I could get off my cheap ass and buy my own laptop backpack when I get home. Like that's going to happen.

Desson Thomson on Joel Siegel

Last Saturday, Washington Post film critic Desson Thomson wrote an eloquent tribute to the late Joel Siegel. I can't believe I forgot to mention that Professor Siegel used to bring his dog to class and his office all the time, and she (I think it was a she) might have come along for some of our class adventures as well. I thought the picture that accompanies the appreciation piece is worth clicking on the link.

By the way, in case anyone is confused, this is not the same Joel Siegel that appears on "Good Morning America." He's a different movie critic that didn't teach at Georgetown in the early 1990s.

on the passing of one of my former professors

Today's Georgetown Voice mentioned that one of my English professors and my former advisor, Joel Siegel, passed away last week. (The Washington Post obituary is also available. Along with one of my high school English teachers, Professor Siegel was responsible for my desire to become an English major at Georgetown. I only had one class with him, and it wasn't his popular "Elements of Film" class; it was his section of the writing workshop that was an option for the freshman English requirement but that most students avoided. (From that last sentence, you can tell that his writing lessons didn't sink in. That's my fault, not his. Students avoided the writing workshop sections for the workload. They didn't avoid his section in particular.)

His class used the cultural resources of Washington, DC, as the basis for the papers we wrote every week. We wrote about paintings in an art gallery, a dim sum brunch in Chinatown, reviews of a play, a movie, and a concert (I was the class expert on the concert, which was a solo violist with piano accompaniment), and even a little fiction based on an Edward Hopper painting. While I was familiar with some of the museums and cultural opportunities in DC, it was his class that showed me the variety of options that students had at their disposal. Writing two-page papers every week wasn't hard for me, and it allowed me to work on my writing skills and apply them to papers for other classes. Throughout everything we did as a class, Professor Siegel was a knowledgeable, entertaining host and educator. He offered his opinions about our experiences and led engaging class discussions of our excursions. I was so impressed with his style, wit, and approachability, along with his writing talents, that I asked him to be my advisor when I decided to major in English. He was perhaps not the best choice (he said so himself when I asked him), since he was on sabbatical for my junior year and I had to ask another professor to substitute for him, but when I was able to see him for advice about my schedule, he was helpful and tried to provide what insight he could into other classes and professors. I wish I'd gotten more of a chance to know him while I was there. Given my current interest in films, I'm sure I would have liked his film class. One of the films he showed us was Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story Todd Haynes' infamous movie about the life and death of the singing star, told with Barbie dolls. It's extremely hard to find, since Haynes had to withdraw it from release after the Carpenter family refused to grant him the rights to the songs. It's disturbing and grotesque, yet oddly compelling, and it's just the sort of film that Professor Siegel liked for its effect on his class.

After graduation I continued to enjoy his movie reviews each week in the Washington City Paper. He was always entertaining, whether or not he liked the film he was reviewing. He won a Grammy in 1993 for liner notes he wrote for a jazz album, and I was sometimes proud that I could say I knew a Grammy winner personally. I thought of him occasionally but didn't think I knew him well enough to contact him. I regret not making any effort to stay in touch, and hearing that he's gone saddens me. It's so easy to write a letter to an old friend, and clearly writing is something that I enjoy, so I must make more of an effort to stay in touch with former educators like Professor Siegel while I have the chance.

What's that book again?

Today's Washington Post has this article about Mel Gibson's potential profits from The Passion of the Christ. He stands to make at least $150 million, and possibly as much as $350 million from the movie. But what struck me was this line:

Add profits from licensing and merchandising revenues on the best-selling tie-in book, soundtrack, and items like collectible "Passion" nails ($16 for the 25/8-inch pewter pendant on the Internet), a pay-TV sale, and robust video and DVD sales and rentals, and Gibson's returns could reach $500 to $700 million.

Isn't that "best-selling tie-in book" the Bible?! How did Mel Gibson get himself a piece of the sales action for the all-time No. 1 bestseller?

Esherick gets canned

I'm almost stunned at the news of Georgetown head coach Craig Esherick's dismissal. I figured that Georgetown's administration didn't care about the basketball program anymore, after school president Jack DeGioia and AD Joe Lang gave Esherick a vote of confidence two weeks ago. I forgot the "law" of votes of confidence: anytime the coach or GM gets one from management, he or she is likely going to be fired unless they win a championship.

Esherick seems like a decent guy, so I'm almost sorry to see him go. He was one of the Georgetown "lifers:" someone who takes a job at the school after graduating and never leaves. Unfortunately, the program has been in decline for years, since Allen Iverson left after the 1996 season, and Esherick wasn't able to make much of a difference. It's interesting how John Thompson's departure in 1999 looks now. Maybe he didn't leave because he was tired of the game, but because he saw the way college basketball was headed (more recruits spurning college for the NBA, diluted talent pool, academic scandals, etc.) and decided that coaching wasn't worth the trouble. I wonder if he doubted his own abilities to reverse the decline of the program and left while he still had some creative energy left. Esherick tried to continue the Thompson way and clearly didn't enjoy the success his predecessor did. I'm just a little surprised he got fired this year. I thought the school would give him one more year to improve. Maybe that's just what I would have done were I the president.

I'm glad to see that DeGioia still sees the need for a successful Division I basketball program. Aside from the financial advantages, a winning basketball team draws needed academic attention to the school as well. And I'll be able to wear my Georgetown hat with pride again.

The Sports Guy watches Wrestlemania XX so you don't have to

Twenty years ago, I was a 10-year-old boy who loved professional wrestling. I had magazines, action figures (I think), and I even saw it live a few times when the WWF came to Johnstown. I remember being near or even in tears when my mother wouldn't pony up the dough for me to watch the first Wrestlemania on PPV. I tried to watch the scrambled version but that was worse than not seeing it at all, so I gave up. Eventually, I outgrew my interest in wrestling, about the time Hulk Hogan went evil and/or started appearing in movies. The last time I watched wrestling was in 1998, three days before my wedding, when I put it on while waiting for my friends to drag me off to my bachelor party. My friends ridiculed me for it, and they were right to do so. Before then, it might have been ten years since I'd watched it; I'd dropped that habit long before they told us what we already knew: that it's all fake.

The Sports Guy has been a wrestling fan for much longer than I, but even he has his limits. Check out his diary from last night's Wrestlemania XX. It's all good, but it gets especially funny near the end, when the event threatens to drag on into the wee hours and wipe out the chance to see "The Sopranos." It reminded both of us (yes, I think of TSG as one of my friends) why we stopped watching wrestling years ago.

And I think Goldberg might just be one of the greatest Jewish athletes ever.

It's that time again...

No, not the NCAA basketball tournament, at least not this morning. I'm dreading the task of doing my taxes this week, before I go out of town next week. I'm either in for a pleasant refund surprise, or another annual gouging by both the federal and the NY state governments. It's usually the latter. An editorial in today's Washington Post discusses one writer's problems with his own tax forms -- it's quite a horror story. My taxes have never been as bad as his, but I can understand the headaches. However, the most important point in the piece is that the people who make the tax laws, Congress and the president, don't know how difficult it is for the average American to figure out the tax forms. Members of Congress can afford to pay accountants and tax preparers to do all the work for them, and they just sign the forms. But we have to wade through the paperwork or computer screens ourselves, and still wonder when we're done if the numbers are right. If the men and women in government could see how tough tax time can be for their constituents, would it make a difference? I'd like to think so.

"Hoosiers"

To get myself in the mood for March Madness, I spent my Thursday evening watching Hoosiers. I'd never seen the movie before, so now I can cross it off my list of "I can't believe you've never seen [x]" movies that often come up in conversation with my friends. I really enjoyed it, but there's not much I can say to praise the movie that the Sports Guy hasn't already said. I didn't have as dramatic a reaction to the movie as he did: it didn't make me want to run out and play hoops for two hours, though I did briefly think back on my short career playing basketball in gym class and for my Jewish youth group when I was in high school. I couldn't shoot or dribble, though my passing wasn't too bad if I had enough time to think about it. Anyway, this isn't about me. The only aspect of the movie that bothered me was the score. Jerry Goldsmith composed the music, and in some places it was exceptional and suited the scenes perfectly. Unfortunately, for most of the film the music was the synthesized crap that filled out countless soundtracks of '80s movies. Hoosiers is set in 1951 in Indiana, but the music sounds like it's New York, 1985. How hard would it have been for Goldsmith to come up with something a little more appropriate to the '50s? Maybe it was a budgetary thing: they couldn't afford an orchestra to play the entire score, so they went to the drums and synth for the rest of the movie. I was surprised to learn that Goldsmith received an Oscar nomination for best musical score for this movie. I guess that the music went over better in 1986. It really was distracting to Liz and I. More than once, I sang along with the music, making up cheesy lyrics like "Hickory's gonna win it/look, there goes Jimmy/the cheerleaders are dancing/oh no, Shooter's off the wagon." Aside from the music, it was a great film, and even knowing the outcome, I got a little misty-eyed at the end. To be fair, it IS dusty in the apartment. We haven't cleaned up in a few days.