lightning strikes twice

for Technical and Business posts, see my professional blog: http://www.davidbolton.net

Some time ago I finished reading Truman Capote’s last book published while he was alive, “Music for Chameleons”. It’s a collection of shorter works that were written over a very long period of time.  His brilliance is evident in this collection, even if it is a little self indulgent.  I liked his assertion that it wasn’t arrogant for him to think highly of his writing, even as a young published author, since he had been working diligently and forcefully towards writing perfection since he was very young.

• Juno – 16 year old gets pregnant, decides she’ll be giving it away, and many funny things happen. The first half of this film had me convinced this was going to be another over earnest American indie film (like Garden State, Crash, Little Children etc), but they managed to pull it off in the end. Not perfect, and the second half is a lot better than the first half, but pretty good nonetheless.
• Proof – pretty good film with Gwyneth Paltro, who I’ve usually enjoyed in films.  The premise ends up being “did she write the proof” which just seems a little contrived, but the interactions between her, Anthony Hopkins and Jake G were good, even if the plot let it down a little.
• The Graduate
• The Great Gatsby
• Last Days – rambling and irrelevant.
• Disco Pigs - pretty decent Irish film starring Cillian Murphy.  Has a wierd rastafarian-irish accent thing happening though, which was super confusing.
• Curse of the Golden Flowers – visually spectacular as with Hero etc.  The CGI effects of large crowds were pretty obvious though, which was a little disappointing, and the end of the story was a bit anti-climactic.
  
• I Think I Love My Wife – I thought this was semi-funny, but Inez hated it.  Oh well.
  
• Into The Wild – great, and Emile Hirsch is superb.  The actual character was inspiring, but foolhardy.
  
• Ice Storm – a little depressing but great styling and engaging characterisations in this film of suburban family life in the 70s.
  
• Glengarry GlenRoss – good adaptation of a play, with Ed Harris and Al Pacino in particular delivering strong performances.  Who broke into the dodgy real-estate hawkers office and stole the good leads?
  
• In America – touching story of a young Irish family moving to New York and the heat of one particular summer.  Samantha Morton is great as usual, and the two little girls (I think real life sisters) were amazingly adorable.
  
• The Bourne Ultimatum – good modern action film, but a bit too intense.  The first two were better, with their more spacious and interspersed action scenes.
  

by Jeffrey Euginides

Brilliant Pulitzer-prize winning book (won in 2003). Tracks the story of Calliope, a hermaphrodite raised as a girl, but whose gender identity crisis is made understandable.  Will she find happiness?  And as sad as her story is, how different are our formative years?

For Gomez’s birthday we went to Bentley Restaurant, which used to be the seedy old Bentley Bar many years ago.

Gomez: Pork Cheeks, Pork Neck

Me: Roast Quail with Pistachio and Tapioca, Roast Duck

Deserts not so great, but the rest was superb.  Excellent wine list too.

Spotted: former Australian Test Cricket player Geoff Lawson a couple of tables away.

I recently got hold of the OS X only image editing program Pixelmator and have been very impressed with it.  Great look-and-feel, very responsive and cheap!  No need for Photoshop here, Pixelmator seems to blow it out of the water for my needs.

Great work guys.  More detailed review here at Wired.com

Couldn’t agree more with Peter Roebuck of the Sydney Morning Herald, Ponting and the Australian team are unsportsmanlike and embarassing:

If Cricket Australia cares a fig for the tattered reputation of our national team in our national sport, it will not for a moment longer tolerate the sort of arrogant and abrasive conduct seen from the captain and his senior players over the past few days. Beyond comparison it was the ugliest performance put up by an Australian side for 20 years.

I thought the New Years test against India might raise my interest in cricket again, but … no way.  The Australians are arrogant jerks.

Former Australian test cricket captain Mark Taylor just said that he agrees with Ian Healy in liking the human element with regards to umpiring decisions. This is topical after Symonds and Ponting were clearly caught out on day one (of the Jan 2-6 2008 Sydney Test vs India) but refused to walk.

I believe if Taylor is going to support the “human element”, he should call for the players to do their part and walk when they know they are out. Why put ALL the pressure on the umpires? If Taylor and co. think that technology shouldn’t be used to make decisions, shouldn’t we insist on a more sporting stance from the players too?

In other news, the Australian team continues to be a bunch of over-aggressive, unsportsmanlike jerks (just watching Andrew Symonds abuse an Indian player on television a couple of minutes ago).

Update: Wasim Akram spells out how I feel: Australians hypocrites