23 December 2001

That’s pretty funny. The long-playing record I made fun of Cameron Crowe for referencing in Vanilla Sky in my review is available in a heavy vinyl limited edition at Tower Records/Video #822. I might even recognize a few of the songs.

08 December 2001

If you liked Whettestone’s illustrated wisecracks about the deficiencies of each episode of Enterprise that I mentioned in the entry for 31 October below , you might enjoy this savaging of each episode on a scene-by-scene basis.

01 December 2001

The British public was most upset by what they saw as an outrageous American usurpation of historical truth in U-571 . We shall see what Serbia makes of Behind Enemy Lines .

25 November 2001

That’s just great. From now on, I’m gonna be bothered by kids text-messaging their way through an entire movie. Chirp, chirp, chirp.

22 November 2001

The web space of my mother has been updated with Fall photographs. Inflate her counter! International visitors, try here .

18 November 2001

I found myself this afternoon behind a red Ford Festiva with what looked like a hand-drawn flag of the United States on its hatchback. Except it had forty-two stars. I’ve checked my copy of So Proudly We Hail: The History of the United States Flag by Rear Admiral William Rea Furlong and Commodore Byron McCandless (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981) and have determined that there never was such a flag in our history. The admission of Idaho to the union on July 3, 1890 (following that of the territories of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington the previous November) meant that the flag of July 4, 1890 was supposed to have forty-three stars (supplanting the thirty-eight star flag of 1877). To the extent that this vehicular decoration was prepared by a child, I’m not worried about it, rather less than I am about the local apartment complex that is flying a forty-eight star flag. The flag has not had forty-eight stars since July 3, 1959. My entire life has been under the fifty-star flag of July 4, 1960.

15 November 2001

Shhh! Don’t tell anyone. I’ve discovered that the street date for The Stunt Man on DVD is November 20th. Apparently, the workers at Tower Records/Video #XXX had not been paying attention when I found the limited edition (that includes the documentary The Sinister Saga of Making The Stunt Man ) in the rack on Monday. Woo-hoo!

08 November 2001

This time, there hasn’t been any clamor for this list, but here goes anyway:

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Director’s Edition
• Shania Twain The Platinum Collection
• Legally Blonde
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail Special Edition
• Fawlty Towers Volume 3
• Fawlty Towers Volume 2
• Fawlty Towers Volume 1
• Bridget Jones’s Diary
• time out with britney spears
• Behind the Planet of the Apes
• To Die For
• Die Hard
• Thirteen Days
• The Gift
• V The Original Miniseries
• Dogma Special Edition
• Requiem for a Dream [Director’s Cut]

Too many of these came with broken hubs in the case.

31 October 2001

I almost should keep watching Enterprise just so I can appreciate the criticism and parodies.

07 October 2001

America is at war, buddy. Yeah, you, in the blue Ford Escape with the temporary tags which means you bought it on Wednesday. You could stand to give me a little less s*** these days and not honk so much just because I decline to turn right on red. You see that dumb fellow truck-owner in the Chevrolet Blazer in the left lane? He’s pulled up so far past the stop line it’s behind his rear bumper. If I were to pull forward, I can’t see through him . And from back here, the sun is in my eyes and I can’t tell which lane oncoming traffic is in. So excuse me if I choose safety over your pulling into Kingstowne Boulevard a few seconds earlier.

01 October 2001

A colleague insists that if I have links to Frank Cho-related sites (over on the Diversions page), I must include one to ALG . It is a weekly online strip, mentioned in the Washington Post a few weeks ago, from the perspective of an Asian girl (elementary school age) and her irritating life amongst the norteamericanos .

15 September 2001

People are still speeding. People are still running red lights. People are still littering. People are still talking on their phones while driving. Is there no end to self-absorption? Update: Apparently not. Later today, as I was driving along Hayes Street to the Aurora Hills Library to return a book, a lady driving a gray Saab blithely followed the example of the driver of a Mercedes-Benz by driving through a stop sign from 20th Street without hesitation. Although there is no chance that she will ever read this web page, she and all like her need to know that one day I will be tempted to perform a PIT.

11 September 2001

I’m ok. The office closed about ten-thirty and I walked to the King Street Station and caught a Blue Line from there.

08 September 2001

If the 1999 release was manufactured in 2000, is it still a collectible? The Matchbox release #64 for the United States in 1999 was the (1967) VW Transporter in red and white with UFO-related decorations. Nostalgia and a realistic casting conspired to induce the scalpers among us to snatch these up as soon as they appeared in stores. No doubt I could have found one on eBay or at a die-cast show. So when I found one warming the peg at a Wal-mart for 94¢ on Tuesday, I was satisfied. The batch codes thereon indicate that the miniature was manufactured and packed late in September last year. Who knows what combination of circumstances led it there? Did Mattel realize that the supply was insufficient and order more production, then let the boxes sit around in China? Or is Wal-mart’s vaunted inventory control and stock turn-over rate something less than as advertised?

03 September 2001

There’s no Labor Day sale at Tower Records ? I was just reading in Stereophile the other day (completely unsolicited copies, you can just imagine the letter they’ve got) that Tower is struggling financially. Who is surprised? Their we’ll-sell-at-list-price-or-above policy (I kid you not, they once tried selling laserdiscs for five dollars over list) isn’t going to work when DVDs can be bought at Wal•mart and Target. Their only hope is selection: if there is a choice of versions which differ by rating, the mass-market retailers will always choose the safer one.

01 September 2001

The message is not getting through to the patrons of the AMC Hoffman Center 22. Turn your wireless telephones and your pagers OFF when you enter the theater. The sense of entitlement from these rule-breakers is palpable. Short of rebuilding the theaters as Faraday cages to deny transmissions in and out, or frisking and confiscation, I don’t know what the answer is.

23 August 2001

No one notices when a guest on The Diane Rehm Show (streaming Real Audio file from yesterday ) says that Milosevic shot down a stealth bomber . You say you believe the United States and NATO on the issue of losses of aircraft and manpower during the war against Serbia? Fine, but check this out anyway.

18 August 2001

Do I know where an ABC store is?! What a hysterical question to pose to me. There I was, innocently walking to the Big Kmart in Fairfax at 5:35 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon when a Ford Explorer pulled in front of me and the tinted window lowered to reveal what I took to be a blonde mother-daughter team. Let’s see if I remember my answer: No, I don’t drink liquor. Now, that’s not true [that I don’t know where an ABC store is]. There is an ABC store in Annandale at Little River Turnpike and Backlick Road, and another in Fairfax at Little River Turnpike and Pickett Road!

The scan engine of my antivirus software was so old that the latest definitions of August eighth interacted with it in such a way as to cause the general protection faults I described below. Could the vendor have been any less forthcoming? The read me file plainly states that the SuperDAT utility does not work with my brand of the software. Nevertheless, I downloaded and ran the utility and the computer has settled down to its usual level of insolence.

D’oh! It occurred to me only yesterday morning that the hail of HTTP port probes I’ve been logging from subscribers to my own ISP and to Roadrunner and from others who disguise their origins is the Code Red worm sniffing around for vulnerable instances of Microsoft IIS. Deal with it , people!

10 August 2001

Why is having a Windows computer such a nightmare? Wednesday, it decided it would not allow editing of this file. Indeed, doing anything with this file (like right-clicking on the name in the Windows Explorer listing) created the Blue Screen of Death because of the virtual device driver MCSCAN32.VXD, which I suspect is from my anti-virus program installation. But the file is dated May 3, 2000. Why would it give me trouble now? Argh. Starting last Saturday, my compatriots at dialup.rcn.com decided it would be fun to start sending HTTP port probes in such numbers that they arrive every 3 minutes, 2 minutes, even every minute and a half. I had to change the threshold level of visual and audible indication in my intrusion detector. Don’t tell me that life is better on the Macintosh side. We are using Fetch 4.0 now to transfer files back and forth between the web space of my mother , right? It works fine on my emulation, Basilisk II. But on the real 68040 chip, we can only get one file sent in any direction before an error message appears and we have to File -> Quit and start Fetch again to transfer the next file. (Both of us are using the authentic System 7.5.3, only the hardware is emulated.) Argh!

Tuesday, the online magazine Salon had a semi-amusing article about the Aeron chair from Herman Miller and its popularity among the dot-com crowd. Not even one mention of the competitor Steelcase.

They will probably be the last five laserdiscs I ever buy new : Bringing Out the Dead , Grace of My Heart , Sophie’s Choice , Soul Food , and Ripe . I have not seen any of them before. Bringing Out the Dead is the last, or close to the last, domestic release of a home video title on laserdisc, from October 3, 2000. DVD Planet will discontinue the sale of laserdiscs from their site on September 30, 2001, and Laser Visions Direct already ceased operations entirely on January 31, 2001. It was a fun 10 years. I think I have a good mix of the serious and the comic, the historic and the ephemeral. Just last night, I played American Pie as preparation for the sequel hitting theaters later today.

The web space of my mother has been updated with Summer photographs. Inflate her counter!

I’ve added folders and images to my account at Brickshelf. I haven’t been making much progress with my tow truck (and I’m procastinating until the new 4x4 Off-Roader comes out later this month to return to serious contemplation of chassis work) so I might as well release two photographs of what I did accomplish. Only one of the images in the BrickFest/2001 folder is of my own work.

17 July 2001

Are you still desperate? This is getting ridiculous. Photograph . Photograph . Photograph . Photograph .

16 July 2001

Are you desperate for a current photograph of me?

12 July 2001

The press release from AMC Theatres regarding the AMC Hoffman Center 22. Note that the attendance offered by the local newspaper that I describe below was before the fundraiser they describe. Check this out! AMC Theatres’ new Premium Card offers ‘season ticket’ to movies at low monthly rate. So far it’s only in Omaha and Oklahoma City. I know I would have already seen Moulin Rouge and A. I. Artificial Intelligence again if I had such a card. Maybe Bridget Jones’s Diary , too. Or taken a chance on Blow or Josie and the Pussycats . The Mexican ?

22 June 2001

Just in case it would have been a violation of the terms of service not to do this, I offer this mystery link to pages at this web space. I have foolishly volunteered my amateur services to the Publications committee of my homeowner’s association. This makes me the only member of the committee. While the Board decides what they want to do with the domain name that the (now former) president of the Board purchased, I am having a smidgeon of fun. Check it out [link deleted].

15 June 2001

Poetry , Captain. Non-regulation.

A look at the new Hannaher’s building in Fargo.

The Washington Post offered four free tickets per coupon for attendance at the AMC Hoffman Center 22 on Sunday (10 June 2001). I showed up at 10:30 a.m. and got in line. Leave it to Americans to have the line extend to the sunny side of the building. Wow! Back when the movie theater was first announced, according to this article from the Post courtesy of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer of the District of Columbia, the twenty-four screens and seating were to make it the biggest megaplex on the East Coast. (The 22-screen movie theater scheduled for Gallery Place is down to only over 15 theaters by now.) It’s still plenty huge with twenty-two theaters, with escalators that extend what looks like three stories into the air. There’s ten theaters on the first level, some of which are very large, and twelve smaller ones on the second. The concession stand is traditional, with none of the coffee bar and pizza and candy selection like at Hoyts or Loews Cineplex. The developer offers a site which includes at least one sketch which proves that my comment that the parking lot is destined to disappear is true. Another article from last year. The Alexandria Journal had an article in Tuesday’s edition, they offer page 1 and page 6 in PDF. If necessary, search the print edition for the ALX jurisdiction, a date of 6|12|01, and pages a1 and a6.

14 May 2001

Some, frustrated with my long hiatus in theatrical attendance, have asked for information on which DVD titles I have bought recently. I think they’re just casing the joint. But here goes, the list of DVD titles purchased in 2001 to which I will admit:

• Center Stage
• Miss Congeniality
• Billy Elliott
• Smilla’s Sense of Snow
• britney spears live and more!
• Urban Legends Final Cut
• Clerks Uncensored
• Bring It On

13 May 2001

The web space of my mother has been updated. I feel it is fair to identify the welcome page there as Made with MacOS because although the photographic negatives were scanned and the JPEG files uploaded using a Windows 98 computer, the HTML coding was accomplished using BBEdit Lite 4.6 and the uploading of the HTML files was using Fetch 3.0.3 all under Macintosh System 7.5.3.

29 April 2001

The saga of the quest for Corel® WordPerfect® 3.5 Enhancement Pack for Macintosh has a happy ending.

Some months ago, a certain mature relative had complained that the site of an Austrian newspaper, der Standard , had identified her browser, Netscape Navigator 3.04 for the Macintosh, as zu Alten (too old) and insisted that a Version 4 browser was necessary to view more than the few selected text-based pages the site offered to older browsers. I relied upon a dim memory that this mature relative’s computer was inadequate to run any 4.x version of Netscape Communicator to do nothing. On March twelfth this year, however, while editing my web pages on my Windows 98 notebook, I discovered that document-level styles totally incapacitated Netscape Communicator 4.5’s ability to render the pages. I wondered if I had Microsoft Internet Explorer anywhere. It turned out I did have Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 SP2 sitting in a folder from its OEM installation with Windows 95, and that it would center my photo pages and display the menu thumbnails side by side. I dug out my original installation compact disc from Erol’s Internet and installed Netscape Navigator 3.01 and was editing my pages with all three browsers open. After 10 days of getting used to the idea of running Microsoft Internet Explorer (something I had not done in the past 2½ years), it occurred to me to wonder whether this relative could run any version 4 edition of Microsoft Internet Explorer on her computer.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Macintosh was the last to support the 68k processor. The security certificates therein expired December 31, 1999, so Microsoft urged upgrades of hardware and software. The download site still existed (although the order on CD option was a dead link). An appointment was made, and we prepared to download. But the Microsoft site turned out to link to a download which no longer existed. I searched using Google . There was a site which asked for seven diskettes, it was some program for connecting educators in Massachusetts offered by RCN . I continued searching and found an ISP in the Pacific Northwest somewhere with an FTP site that still included the file on its own server. The download started and got stuck at 54%. I attempted to download again, and this one completed. At first, the installer declined to run. I extracted the installer again, and this time obtained a logo for the installer file icon on the desktop. Yes! We installed without Outlook Express and declined to have Microsoft Internet Explorer be the default browser (its first question). Actually running the browser showed it to be creaky but workable, after a fashion.

The next day, I was curious what other programs of this relative could be upgraded and continued searching using Google. The FreePPP program (used for connections to the Internet) was up to 2.6, and the latest version was available from a variety of sources. Based upon her computer model, my relative might be able to upgrade to Macintosh System 7.5.5, 7.6, 7.6.1, maybe even 8.0 or 8.1! I started my downloading adventures on March 27th with the FreePPP site . The download of the 2.5v2to3 upgrade was quick. The download of the full 2.5.3 installer got stuck at 703KB, and I had no idea how big the file was. I dialed again. From download.cnet.com I found out that version 2.6.2 (from 1998) was available and 787KB. The download was successful (I was using a new ZIP Disk). The download of the full 2.5.3 program got stuck again, at 701KB, so this file was not in the cards. I started downloading the Apple Macintosh System 7.5.5 upgrade , this was successful. Next up was the Corel® WordPerfect® 3.5 Enhancement Pack for Macintosh page . This exciting word processor is offered as a free download to the Macintosh community. The BinHexed file was 34 megabytes, and I began the download. 2% with 3 hours remaining. Oh, I only noticed then, the MacBinary file would have been only 24.3 megabytes. 10% with 2:42 remaining. Printing has confused the download. Dial again. I next started the download of the MacBinary file of 24912KB, 1% with 2:11 remaining. Noting the progress of the download. The sound of the ZIP drive writing under my desk was disconcerting. Flipping through Vanity Fair . On schedule for eleven o’clock. Listening to WCSP-FM about Homeland Defense. Listening to Loveline on WHFS-FM . The monitor’s power saving feature activated. (10:45pm) At 84% with 7 minutes, 41 seconds to go, BlackICE Defender complained of a SOCKS probe. Dialed again. I would use the CuteFTP program to download the WordPerfect program because the FTP client could resume interrupted downloads. A good thing I had recognized the user name and password in the HTML of the download instructions page! A broken connection, I dialed again, and clicked resume. Another disconnection, but I was up to 4.3 megabytes downloaded already, and I quit for the evening.

The next morning, I logged in to Corel and resumed the download with CuteFTP and went about my business upstairs. There was a disconnect. Dial again and resume. The download continued. It occurred to me that I would probably have to check remember password to allow CuteFTP to reconnect by itself. (7:20am) 56% with less than an hour left. (7:40am) The modem status indicator dark at 71%. Dial again. Resume. Eh, a dead connection at 73%. I shut down thinking I would be able to pick up the download in the afternoon. Apparently, by now I had become interested in the idea of emulating the Macintosh on my Windows-Intel notebook.

But when I started the computer in the afternoon and tried to connect to the Corel FTP site , nothing happened. Where did the download folder for the Macintosh WordPerfect go?! Corel switched to the Future Tense scheme during that particular day (March 28, 2001) for its web site , and took the opportunity to rearrange the FTP directories. Disappointed, I turned to other programs offered as free downloads to the community and successfully downloaded Netscape 4.08 (7.3 megabytes) using CuteFTP. My attempt to download Netscape 4.04 was successful, too. (My dim memory had been wrong, but Netscape is a little contradictory as to which is the latest version which can run on 68k Macintoshes, so I wanted a selection.) I began attempts to download Macintosh emulators. Emulators Online managed to freeze me, I used the power button to restart, and succesfully downloaded the online evaluation copy of Softmac 8.0. I attempted to download the Basilisk II Open Source 68k Macintosh emulator as ported to 32-bit Windows to a ZIP disk in drive E, but it got stuck at 75%. (To make the saga at little shorter at this point, let’s just stipulate that the 75% limitation, which I encountered a second time, was a result of a lack of disk space on the 100 megabyte ZIP disk.) Buried in the Emulators Online Gemulator’s Beginner’s Guide (on the twenty-second of thirty-one pages as printed) was a small notice of the failure of the SoftMac 8.0 emulation program to implement any TCP/IP networking! Basilisk II, on the other hand, was supposed to work to connect to the Internet using the modem in the Windows computer. I spent some of the next few weeks attempting to configure these two Macintosh emulators.

I had a new reason to download WordPerfect 3.5e, for myself this time, since it offered a complete word-processing solution, incorporating all updates and patches issued by Corel before they surrendered the Macintosh word processing market to Microsoft. (To be fair, Nisus has included a 68k version in its latest word processor Writer 6.0.1., but it costs $100.) By April 21st, I had located a potential download site for WordPerfect 3.5e in the Tucows network. The download (of 33798 kilobytes) started. There was a request for the name of the decoded file to be saved which I didn’t understand, and there was no suggested file name, but I managed to supply a name that allowed the download operation to proceed (I gave the file name a .hqx extension). (9:32pm) Fifteen percent. Disconnected? No, just a scare. I could hear the operation of the ZIP 100 MB drive in the radio. As the download proceeded, I remembered that the Corel BinHexed (.hqx) file was 33870 kilobytes. I found it easier on myself, tense with the prospect of another intrusion breaking my connection, to hear the ZIP drive work by its interference with the reception of Fox5 ( WTTG-TV ) on the shortwave radio. What could have been in the extra 72 kilobytes in the Corel FTP site version of WordPerfect 3.5e, I asked myself? (12:14am) The download was allegedly complete. Hmm, the download was saved as a 24866 kilobyte file. The next morning, I was encouraged when Basilisk II recognized the ZIP disk, and I copied the downloaded file (to which, remember, I had given a .hqx extension) to my Macintosh desktop. When I used Stuffit Expander 4.0.2 to attempt to decode the file, it reported that it was not a complete BinHex file and cannot be expanded. I tried not to mope. What had gone wrong? So that afternoon, I attempted the download again (I might have used another Tucows site this time). At 44%, a NetBus port probe disconnected me. Dialed again and started again. Listening to C-SPAN radio . Flipped through cinefex . At less than an hour to go, the percentage number display had gotten stuck at 62% even though we were at 68% and the bits continued to move. Ack! At 74%, a DNS probe, but the download continued. At 97%, another DNS probe, the download continued. My download was converted to a 24866 megabyte file! I was upset. I had watched every byte go past. I wondered whether I should turn off ZipMagic , and I disabled the program and deleted the small file from the ZIP Disk. Page 4 of the ZipMagic manual does not identify HQX as an archive type which ZipMagic recognizes, so why is the extension associated with the program in my copy of Windows 98? When my next download attempt did not even begin successfully, I unloaded ZipMagic entirely. However, BinHex is mentioned in the chapter of the ZipMagic manual on email attachments. Things were not going my way that evening. I booted the Basilisk emulation program, and connected to the Internet using Netscape Navigator 2.02 Macintosh. I went to the iinet site and the download started with: Will open with Stuffit Expander . Apparently, Tucows was expecting actual Macintoshes to download this file. BlackICE Defender has no idea I am connected when I am emulating the Macintosh. Late in the evening, the download is complete, but the file does not expand automatically. It is the correct size (33.4 megabytes) though. I copy the tucows_corelwrdprf.hqx file to a ZIP 100 disk. Using Stuffit Expander to decode the Binhexed file, a folder with a file inside having a .sit extension (Stuffit archive) was created. Now what? How come Stuffit Expander 4.0.2 won’t expand the archive? Was there not enough space on the 100 megabyte partition I was using to simulate a Macintosh hard drive? I created a 200 megabyte partition and installed System 7.5.3 (also a free download ). Had ZipMagic been able to create a .sit file, I asked myself? Had I gotten the decoded file Saturday morning all along, and not known it? Even so, I was still unable to do anything with the .sit file, no matter how much I fiddled with the Macintosh Easy Open Apple Menu Control Panel. Why wouldn’t it show me a list of potential programs like it did once? Refreshing the installation of Macintosh Easy Open from a System 7.5.3 disk had no result. I tried a clean install to a new System folder. No progress.

The Corel_WordPerfect_3.5e.sit file remained on the desktop, with the generic file icon of the page with the corner turned down. Every time I dragged it atop the icon for the Stuffit Expander 4.0.2 program, the expander would activate and then quit with no messages. If I started Stuffit Expander 4.0.2 and selected Expand from the File menu, the dialog would not even display the WordPerfect archive in the file list! Downloading a graphics converter extension from download.cnet.com resulted in a decoded archive with a file icon demonstrating its link to the Stuffit program. Why didn’t my WordPerfect archive get the same respect? So the situation remained last week while I tried to learn more about the structure of Macintosh files.

I would not be stopped. It was already past midnight (which technically made it Saturday). I booted Basilisk II. I rebuilt the desktop file. I connected to the Internet inside the emulation. I downloaded ResEdit 2.1.3, a 464 kilobyte file, using a link at a site since the actual Apple site gave me so many JavaScript errors, my browser (by now I was running Netscape 4.04 in the emulation) was unable to proceed. The dialog box for Macintosh Easy Open opened a few times, but not when it counted. I fiddled with ResEdit, examining the types and creators of various files, and succeeded to induce Stuffit Expander to UnStuff another .sit archive with the generic icon, but not WordPerfect’s. Using ResEdit and ignoring the admonition to work on a copy of the file (there was still the original BinHexed distribution file on the ZIP disk), I changed the creator of the WordPerfect archive from SIT5 to SITD to match other Stuffit archives I had. Now, Stuffit Expander claimed that the Corel_WordPerfect_3.5e.sit file was locked and damaged. I was ready to attempt a download of 3.5e again (the iinet site, maybe, or the one I thought was in Liechtenstein), but I quit. I booted Basilisk II again to activate the ZIP drive. I copied the tucows_corelwrdprf.hqx file from the ZIP disk to the desktop (having trashed the one Stuffit said was damaged). As I was decoding the BinHexed file again, I got an idea: what if Corel had used a Stuffit 5 to stuff the archive? I knew that Aladdin Systems currently only offered a Stuffit Expander 6 which runs on MacOS 8.1 and above. I connected to the Internet in the emulation again and started looking for information about any Stuffit programs with version number of 5. I found an article that confirmed for me that archives created under the Stuffit compression of version 5.x were incompatible with the Stuffit expansion of version 4.x and that the error messages I had received earlier about file locking and a damaged archive were wrong! I continued to search for the version 5 and found a site which claimed to offer a download of Stuffit Expander 5.5 at 1.094 megabytes for MacOS 7.1.1 to 8.0. The web site turned out to be for the school district of Yamhill County, Oregon. My download was successful. It was already four o’clock. I successfully installed Stuffit Expander 5.5 to my Macintosh partition. I rebuilt the desktop file. There was a catch in my throat. Corel WordPerfect 3.5e was UnStuffing! I launched the Corel WordPerfect 3.5e Installer which had some advice before proceeding with the installation. I restarted with extensions off. I ran the installer program and installed the program to my Macintosh hard disk. I had been listening to WAMU-FM the whole time. WordPerfect was operational! I fiddled with the settings. Hmm. A status bar date display of 4/28/1 was not terrifically Y2k-compliant. The program is supposed to be able to understand the WordPerfect for Windows file format used since version 6.1. The HTML conversion is not great, but I now had a working word processor for the Macintosh platform, as the Installer is capable of installing WordPerfect for either the 68k Macintosh or the PowerPC Macintosh. It was getting light outside. I created a My Documents (Mac) folder and shut down both computers.

Ultimately, we have concluded that der Standard will freeze a 68k Macintosh running a Version 4 browser, anyway.

24 March 2001

The April Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair is on newsstands now and I had to laugh. The theme this year is Legends of Hollywood and on the first page of the foldcout cover with Catherine Deneuve and Meryl Streep is... Gwyneth Paltrow! Please. As much as it might distress a mature relative or two, I find her mopey slouch congenial, but a legend? No. I have no specific quarrel with any of the nine other choices VF made, but if Paltrow and Nicole Kidman and Kate Winslet can make repeat appearances, where is Thandie Newton?

It has been over 3 weeks since I installed the tracker on the first page of the web space and invited visitors to inflate my counter and populate my statistics. I thank all of those who visited in response. From the frequency of repeat visits, the pressure to update my site regularly is off! There are still a few mystery guests which I have been unable to identify.

14 February 2001

Yesterday, the nominees for the Oscars were announced and I rushed to my local Tower Records/Video after work. Was I eager to purchase Gladiator so I could share this Best Movie nominee with a mature relative? No. I was after the Universal Studios Home Video Collector’s Edition DVD of Bring It On instead. I was up past midnight exploring the supplements, watching the movie with subtitling on (disappointingly, there is no closed captioning for decoders), and watching the movie again with the director’s commentary and Universal’s animated anecdotes . I was especially pleased to hear the director use the word crucial to describe the casting of Eliza Dushku! Now that I have seen it four times, I notice that no one has commented on the fact that the production design of the East Compton High School includes a giant leprechaun on an outside wall (the squad is known as the Clovers). This is only significant to the extent that the filmmakers have made cross-cultural borrowing a theme of their movie. There are a number of cruel comments at the Internet Movie Database about this movie. The Universal’s animated anecdotes (think of a Pop-Up Video without the trademark infringement) suggest that some of the commenters are confused about the extent of cheerleading worldwide and other matters. There is a special treat on the DVD for those with technology nostalgia. Someone, I’m not clear on who, showed up at the location of the bikini car wash scene with a Super 8 camera and the result is included among the supplements. What am I reading? Keith Scott’s The Moose That Roared .

11 February 2001

That free hit counter from my ISP doesn’t seem to distinguish visitors. A colleague has loaned me the laserdisc of Nosferatu with commentary by Lokke Heiss and this has permitted me the chance to correct the spelling of the main character’s name in my commentary on Shadow of the Vampire . The title comes from an intertitle near the end of the film Nosferatu describing the effect on the town of Wisburg that the destruction of the vampire has—the plague ends as the shadow is lifted, you see. Furthermore, Shadow of the Vampire plays very loosely not only with the mechanics of film production but with the text of Nosferatu as well. And the interest in modernity I noted is antithetical to the theme of Nosferatu if I understood the commentary correctly.

28 January 2001

Am I nuts?! Am I trying to recreate the movie-going pace of 1994?! At least I found the time to complete my income tax returns.

20 January 2001

I just had to laugh out loud this week. Watching trailers Thursday night, I realized that I was seeing one for the American version of Les Visiteurs [The Visitors] —that very funny film about a French knight of the Middle Ages thrown by a wizard’s spell into modern-day France, which I saw July 23, 1996 at the now-defunct Key Theatre— with Jean Reno playing, in English, the exact same role as he played in the French original! (It’ll be called Just Visiting . Since there are no American knights of the Middle Ages, the transposition of action and humor will necessarily be limited.) A postscript to my commentary on Antitrust : to show how cool the software company is, the programmers each have Herman Miller Aeron chairs.

16 January 2001

Just to show that it could be done in the year 2001 CE, I placed an order with DVD Planet for five laserdiscs from their list of sale items and actually received four [the fifth arrived on the 26th]. One of the laserdiscs was Notting Hill which means I have paid a grand total of thirteen dollars US to see this three times. It still bothers me in the same places each time. This allegedly romantic film about the attraction between a famous American movie star (Julia Roberts) and a none-too-successful travel book shop proprietor (Hugh Grant) takes its first misstep, in my humble opinion, with the kiss. It’s times like these when one wishes for the flashing subtitle used in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the television version): THIS NEVER HAPPENS. Oh, the fact checkers among you are going to point to an incident on July 15, 1984.