Questions? We don' need no steenkin' questions!

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The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, has decreed that any questions to the White House must be filtered through Republican committee chairmen, effectively cutting off any questioning from Democratic representatives.

The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.

[…]

“Given the increase in the number and types of requests we are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in writing from the committee.”

He said this would limit “duplicate requests” and help answer questions “in a timely fashion.”

It would also do another thing: prevent Democrats from getting questions answered without the blessing of the GOP committee chairmen.

“It’s saying we’re not going to allow the opposition party to ask questions about the way we use tax money,” said R. Scott Lilly, Democratic staff director for the House committee. “As far as I know, this is without modern precedent.”

From what I can tell, this seems to be the political equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears, squinting your eyes shut, and chanting “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Classy.

(via Len and Atrios)

The allegations are untrue

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According to CNN, Prince Charles has come out to publicly announce that the allegations are “totally untrue and without a shred of substance.”

Just to further clear up the matter a bit:

  1. I haven’t been to England since I was around twelve, at which point I most certainly did not have a custom-fitted vinyl body stocking.
  2. That amount of marshmallow creme would be extremely difficult to acquire unnoticed.
  3. Platypi just aren’t that flexible.
  4. Neither is Prince Charles.
  5. I’ve never even heard of that brand of lubricant, let alone tried to smuggle two cases of it into Buckingham Palace.
  6. Getting a llama to stand still long enough to shave it is difficult enough without the gratuitous application of day-glo body paint afterwards.
  7. Once peeled, bananas are too soft to be inserted anywhere.

I certainly hope that this clears up some of the misinformation, and that the rumors surrounding this incident cease forthwith.

Thank you for your time.

(via Neil Gaiman)

Alien Quadrilogy

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Just in case any Alien/Aliens/Alien^3^/Alien Resurrection fans happen to stop by here who haven’t heard about this yet…

…you really need to hit Amazon and order your copy of the Alien Quadrilogy.

Press release with full specifications follows (though be aware that while mostly correct, it apparently contains a few inaccuracies — for full, correct specs and reviews, see The Digital Bits’ review):

A L I E N QUADRILOGY

BURSTING WITH 45 HOURS OF BONUS MATERIALS AND NEVER-BEFORE-AVAILABLE VERSIONS OF EACH MOVIE, THE DEFINITIVE 9-DISC SET LANDS ON DECEMBER 2, 2003

Fox Home Entertainment Sets The DVD Bar With Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Original Film Editors, Five FX Companies And More To Deliver The Ultimate Alien Collection

CENTURY CITY, Calif., — The Alien Quadrilogy is hatching! The ultimate nine-disc Alien DVD collection, loaded with never-before-available versions of each movie, plus a bonus disc, explodes on December 2, 2003 from Fox Home Entertainment. Featuring 45 hours of never-before-seen footage, the Alien Quadrilogy includes the original theatrical releases of each of the four films in the franchise plus alternate versions of each film and out-of-this-world bonus features including new director commentaries, original screen tests and production footage. A ground-breaking initiative from Fox Home Entertainment, the significant under-taking marks the first time a studio’s home entertainment division has finished a theatrical film (Alien3). Working closely with Directors Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, original film editors, and teams from Fox Restoration, Fox Sound, Visual Effects houses, TCFHE and the DVD producer coordinated the restoration of original footage, reconstruction of original audio, new visual effects and foley work, and much more to allow fans to experience the Alien franchise as never before. The most highly anticipated box set of the year is set to infiltrate homes this holiday season with a suggested priced of \$99.98 U.S./\$139.98 Canada.

On January 6, 2004, the Alien singles DVD discs will land. The two-disc Collector’s Editions of Alien, Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection will be loaded with the never-before-available versions of each film, plus commentaries from the world-renowned directors, behind-the-scenes featurettes and much more for a SRP of \$26.98 U.S./\$37.98 Canada. Pre-book date for the singles is December 10, 2003. The Alien Quadrilogy bonus disc is exclusive to the box set.

DVD SPECIAL FEATURES

Presented in English 5.1 Dolby Digital (except for Alien and Alien Resurrection, which are also presented in English 5.1 DTS), French Dolby Surround (Canada only) and Spanish Dolby Surround (U.S. only) sound. All films are anamorphic widescreen with their original 2.35:1 aspect ratios (except for Aliens, which is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio) and THX certified.

ALIEN
  • The original 1979 theatrical version of Alien and the 2003 Director’s cut
  • An introduction by Director Ridley Scott, Dan O’Bannon, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt and more
  • Brand new commentary by Ridley Scott and the technical crew
  • Nine brand new documentaries:
    • “Star Beast” — On developing the Alien story
    • “The Visualists” — the direction and design of the film
    • “Truckers In Space” — Casting the movie
    • “Fear Of The Unknown” — Behind the scenes at Shepperton Studios in 1978
    • “The Darkest Reaches” — Developing the Nostromo and Alien planet
    • “The Eighth Passenger” — Creating the Alien
    • “Future Tense” — Focusing on the music and editing of Alien
    • “Outward Bound” — Peering into the film’s visual effects
    • “A Nightmare Fulfilled” — Reaction to the film’s opening
  • A Multi-Angle Scene Study on the Chestburster sequence with optional commentary by Ridley Scott and the production team
  • Sigourney Weaver’s original screen test with optional commentary by Ridley Scott
  • Seven deleted scenes with a deleted footage marker and deleted scene index
  • The first draft of the screenplay by Dan O’Bannon
  • Ridleygrams — Original thumbnails and sketches by Ridley Scott
  • Storyboard Archives
  • The Art of Alien including a cast portrait gallery, production gallery, the sets of Alien, H.R. Giger’s Workshop, continuity polaroids and VFX gallery
  • The original theatrical posters and stills from the premiere
ALIENS
  • The original theatrical version – available for the first time ever on DVD – and James Cameron’s special edition version of Aliens
  • An introduction by Director James Cameron
  • Brand new commentary by James Cameron, Michael Biehn, Jenette Goldstein, Carrie Henn, Terry Henn, Lance Henriksen, Gale Anne Hurd, Pat McClung, Bill Paxton, Dennis Skotak, Robert Skotak and Stan Winston
  • James Cameron original treatment
  • Nine brand new featurettes:
    • “57 Years Later” – Continuing the saga
    • “Building Better Worlds” – From concept to construction
    • “Preparing For Battle” – Casting and characterization
    • “This Time It’s War” — A look back at Pinewood Studios, 1985
    • “The Risk Always Lives” – Weapons and action
    • “Bug Hunt” — Creature design
    • “Beauty And The Bitch” — Power Loader vs. Queen Alien
    • “Two Orphans” — Revisiting Sigourney Weaver And Carrie Henn
    • “Aliens Unleashed” — Reaction to the film
  • The Art of Aliens including conceptual art portfolio, cast portraits, production gallery, continuity polaroids, Stan Winston’s workshop, VFX gallery and premiere stills
  • Deleted footage marker and deleted scene index
  • Multi-angle videomatics with optional commentary by Miniature Effect Supervisor, Pat McClung
  • An Easter Egg
ALIEN 3
  • The original theatrical version and a restored pre-release version with more than 30 minutes of never-before-seen footage
  • Brand new commentary by Cinematographer Alex Thompson, Editor Terry Rawlings, VFX Designers Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., Visual Effects Producer Richard Edlund, and actors Paul McGann and Lance Henriksen
  • 11 new featurettes:
    • “Development” — Concluding the story
    • “Tales Of The Wooden Planet” — Vincent Ward’s vision
    • “Pre-Production III” — The making of Alien 3
    • “Xeno-Erotic” — H.R. Giger’s redesign of the Alien creature
    • “Production: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three” — Behind-the-scenes on the production of the movie
    • “Adaptive Organism” — Creature design
    • “Optical Fury” — Visual effects
    • “Music, Editing And Sound”
    • “Post-Mortem” — A reaction to the film
  • E.E.V. Bio-Scan — A multi-angle vignette with optional commentary by Alex Gillis
  • The Art of Alien 3 including conceptual art portfolio, production gallery, and visual effects
  • Furnace construction time lapse
  • Storyboard archives
ALIEN RESURRECTION
  • The original theatrical version and an extended cut with alternate opening and ending sequences
  • An introduction by Director Jean Pierre Jeunet
  • Brand new commentary by Director Jean Pierre Jeunet, Herve Schneid, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Pitof, Sylvain Despretz, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon and Leland Orser
  • First draft of the screenplay by Joss Whedon
  • 11 new featurettes
    • “From The Ashes” — Reviving the story
    • “French Twist” — Direction and design
    • “Under The Skin” — Casting and characters
    • “Death From Below” — Underwater photography
    • “In The Zone” — Basketball scene
    • “Unnatural Mutation” — Creature design
    • “Genetic Mutation” — Creature design
    • “Genetic Composition” — A listen to the music
    • “Virtual Alien” — Computer generated imagery
    • “A Matter Of Scale” — Miniature photography
    • “Critical Junction” — A reaction to the film
  • Multi-angle rehearsal footage
  • A Mike Carro photo gallery, a conceptual art gallery, VFX gallery, a promotional photo archive and continuity polaroids
  • Storyboard archives
  • An Easter Egg
BONUS DISC
  • A brand new Q&A with Ridley Scott
  • “Experience in Terror” — A promotional featurette from 1979
  • “Alien Evolution” — Channel 4 U.K. exclusive documentary on Alien
  • A complete laser disc archive of Alien and Aliens
  • Original theatrical trailers and TV spots from all four films
  • “Aliens In The Basement” — Inside the Bob Burns ALIEN Collection
  • Dark Horse cover gallery — Anthology of 11 issues of the ALIEN comics
  • DVD-ROM feature — Script to screen comparisons

SYNOPSES

ALIEN

Alien is the first movie of one of the most popular sagas in science fiction history, and introduces Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the iron-willed woman destined to battle the galaxy’s ultimate creature. The terror begins when the crew of a spaceship investigates a transmission from a desolate planet, and discovers a life form that is perfectly evolved to annihilate mankind. One be one, each crew member is slain until only Ripley is left, leading to an explosive conclusion that sets the stage for its stunning sequel, Aliens.

ALIENS

In this action-packed sequel to Alien, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, the only survivor from mankind’s first encounter with the monstrous Alien. Her account of the Alien and the fate of her crew are received with skepticism – until the mysterious disappearance of colonists on LV-426 leads her to join a team of high-tech colonial marines sent in to investigate.

ALIEN 3

Lt. Ripley (Weaver) is the lone survivor when her crippled spaceship crash lands on Fiorina 161, a bleak wasteland inhabited by former inmates of the planet’s maximum security prison. Ripley’s fears that an Alien was aboard her craft are confirmed when the mutilated bodies of ex-cons begin to mount. Without weapons or modern technology of any kind, Ripley must lead the men into battle against the terrifying creature. And soon she discovers a horrifying fact about her link with the Alien, a realization that may compel Ripley to try destroying not only the horrific creature but herself as well.

ALIEN RESURRECTION

Ellen Ripley (Weaver) died fighting the perfect predator. Two hundred years and eight horrific experiments later she’s back. A group of scientists has cloned her-along with the alien queen inside her – hoping to breed the ultimate weapon. But the resurrected Ripley is full of surprises for her “creators,” as are the aliens they’ve imprisoned. And soon, a lot more than “all hell” breaks loose. To combat the creatures, Ripley must team up with a band of smugglers, including a mechanic named Call (Winona Ryder), who holds more than a few surprises of her own.

A recognized industry leader, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is the marketing, sales and distribution company for all Fox film and television programming on VHS and DVD as well as video acquisitions and original productions for the U.S. and Canada. Each year the Company introduces hundreds of new and newly repackaged products, which it services to more than 70,000 retail outlets — from mass merchants and warehouse clubs to specialty stores and e-commerce — throughout North America. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a Fox Entertainment Group company.

More on the unintended consequences of blogging

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It seems I’m not the only person in the blogosphere who’s recently faced surprising consequences due to the content of their weblog. Shelley Powers, aka Burningbird, had a rather interesting conversation with the ~~IRS~~ [California franchise (tax) board]{.underline} this morning…

The person I talked today was compassionate, and extremely helpful — but she was also very thorough.

Before she responded to me by calling me, she mentioned that she gone out to my weblog, this weblog, and read the entries scattered about in it where I talked about my financial situation. She mentioned about reading that thanks to unemployment, I can at least keep my car; about the other things I put online that I didn’t think I would hear back from the mouth of a member of a representative of a governmental tax organization.

I’m not faulting her or shouting out cries of ‘government invasion of privacy’ just because she was thorough. What privacy? I put all this online for anyone to read. Am I going to blame the government, or my creditors, or anyone else for that matter because they read what I write?

She’s since gone back and deleted any posts dealing with her financial situation — and I don’t blame her one bit. It must have been quite a startling revelation when she heard that from the lady she was talking to.

More and more, we need to face the fact that barring password protection, there is no such thing as a “private” weblog. Once the information is there on the ‘net, and available to be read, you can bet that it will be, and not always by those you expect it to be. Some people might say that anonymous blogging is the answer, but I’m not convinced of that — for more on that, read the conclusion to my Fifteen Minutes of Fame post. Best to just accept the fact that anything you put out there can can be found, assume that it will be found, and post accordingly.

(via Scoble)

Fun with piercings

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Body piercing is something I’ve never been terribly interested in, on a personal level. I have no problem with it on other people, and often find it quite attractive, I just have never felt any need nor desire to do it to myself. For quite a few years, I used to joke that I was a “freak among freaks”, as I was the only one in my group of friends who was “unmodified” — no piercings, no tattoos, no body modification of any sort. Once I got my tattoo that was less true, but I’d still joke about it from time to time.

One night, the club I was DJ’ing at had just closed down, and our group of late night rabble rousers had found our way over to our usual post-club breakfast spot, “Vinyl” (Village Inn, Northern Lights — VINL). Most of the wait staff there had gotten used to us, generally we were liked, or at least tolerated. A bit rowdy, to be sure, all amped up on sugar and caffeine, but as the club was a non-alcoholic all-ages dance club, at least we weren’t drunk and rowdy.

We were being especially energetic this night, and at some point when the waitress came by, one of us apologized to her for being so raucous. “Oh, don’t even worry about it,” she assured us. “You’re not that bad, and besides — working the bar rush shift, I don’t think there’s anything that’ll surprise me anymore.”

Oooh — a challenge! Marc and I looked at each other. To this day, I have no idea where the inspiration came from, as I don’t remember us discussing this in the least. One way or another, though, our Muse was with us.

“Excuse me — miss?”

“Yes?”

“I bet we could surprise you.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yup. Tell you what. If we can come up with something you’ve never seen before — that won’t get us kicked out or arrested — we get our breakfast for free, okay?”

She laughed. “All of you?”

“No, no — just us two,” I said, pointing to Marc and myself.

“Well…what’cha got?”

We grinned. I grabbed the Dr. Pepper she had just brought me and set it between us, and Marc took the straw and placed it in front of him on the table. Sticking out his tongue, he calmly unscrewed the ball of his tongue stud, dropped it in the empty coffee creamer dish, then slid the post out and put it in the dish. He then unwrapped the straw, brought it up to his face, and slid the straw into the hole in his tongue until his tongue was halfway along the length of the straw.

“Okay,” said the waitress. “The straw is a little freaky, but I’ve seen people play with their tongue piercings before.”

“No worries,” I said.

Marc then leaned over, letting the bottom end of the straw drop down into my Dr. Pepper. I leaned over, took the top of the straw in my mouth, and proceeded to take a few big sips of my Dr. Pepper, though the straw, right through Marc’s tongue.

We got our breakfast for free.

(Inspired by Nate‘s Household Items I can fit in my Piercings post)

Oops!

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I found the following anecdote in a Home Theater Forum review of the Finding Nemo DVD, and thought it was wonderful…

The marketing people at Buena Vista are surprisingly cool. The first package I got…which looked like the normal mailer they send me for DVD marketing material…had a letter stating “Here is the DVD to some movie that I can’t remember!”. There was no DVD. The message was printed on a color printer on “Finding Nemo” letterhead and was signed “Dory”. Ok so Dory is forgetful…so I figured she’d just forgotten to include the DVD.

The next day I get the typical bubble-mailer (the way BV sends me all their DVDs) with a DVD case with a note “Oops! Forgot to send the DVD the first time! here it is!”…signed… “Dory”. Opening the DVD case revealed…there were no discs inside. Ok…at this point the folks at Disney had me. I placed a call to their PR department just to make sure that they were aware of the mistake. I left a message on their answering machine which had the voice of…you guessed it…Dory. Dory was kind enough to return my call and when I got home she assured me that she had discovered that she had sent out all the DVD packages but had forgotten to include the actual discs and that they would be sent forth shortly.

The next day a third package arrives with yet another letter on Nemo stationary apologizing for the previous mistakes and this time containing 2 Nemo DVDs (Discs 1 and 2) in a shnazy little custom Nemo 2-disc plastic holder. All in all I’m impressed with Dory’s promptness in discovering her mistakes, her self-awareness of her memory problem and her ability to make it all come out right in the end.

The DVD, by the way, is incredible (as is the movie). Gorgeous to look at, and a good selection of special features. I highly recommend taking the time to watch the commentary track. Not only are Pixar’s commentaries generally among the best that I’ve listened to, they intercut the movie with behind the scenes clips that focus on whatever particular effect, technique, or moment that they’re talking about at the time. Very nicely done.

And, of course, there are a few fun easter eggs to be found…

…including an ad for the AquaScum 2003!

AquaScum 2003

The AquaScum 2003’s hermetically sealed dual phase motor technology is not for use as: air conditioner, fountain, tire pump, pool sweep, water purifier or laser pointer. Not approved for fresh water fish. The AS2K3 contains a class 3 laser. WARNING Laser beams may cause permanent eye damage. Filter canisters contain ammonium nitrate, may cause ichthyological diarrhea, scale warts, cankers, fish gout and/or bloatation. One additional canister filter supplied in EAG compliant areas if purchased on 3rd Sunday of the month. Free keychain on purchase of two or more at participating Fish-a-ramas.

Matrix: Revolutions first impressions

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One benefit to being unemployed. If, while bouncing around the ‘net, you happen to stumble across a reminder that today is the opening day for Matrix: Revolutions, the third and final chapter in the Matrix saga, you can immediately buy a ticket online for a show that starts in 20 minutes, walk to the theater, and see the film without having to think twice about it.

End result: While neither Matrix: Reloaded nor Matrix: Revolutions are the tour-de-force that The Matrix was, taken as a whole, I think they’re a very solid trilogy, and sure to be some of the most talked-about movies for quite a while as people work their way through all the various philosophical, religious, and symbolic threads throughout all three films. That in itself is something of a coup — love them or hate them, they’re sure to get people thinking.

The Wachowski brothers definitely took some chances in Matrix: Revolutions, making a few decisions that I was quite pleasantly surprised to see as they unfolded in the latter half of the film. Some of those choices might not sit too pleasantly with people used to the more “traditional” endings of most of today’s fare, but I was quite happy to see that the Wachowski’s recognize that even a happy ending doesn’t necessarily mean one without consequence or sacrifice.

I’m going to stop there for now, for a couple reasons. Firstly, I’d like to see the movie again when I have a chance, and let it percolate in my brain a bit longer before diving into more of the events and explanations behind the events. Secondly, though, as this is opening day, I’d like to give people who haven’t seen it yet some chance to go in spoiler free!

Lizette&: This Is

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Lizette&, an excellent band from Sweden whom I’ve mentioned in the past, has finally finished their debut album! The release party is scheduled for December 2nd. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend — a small matter of me being in Seattle, and the party being in Stockholm, Sweden — but I’ve been looking forward to this album for a while, and will be snagging a copy as soon as it’s available to be ordered.

They’re an alternative/industrial band that I discovered a few years back via the Internet, somewhere along the lines of the Kidney Thieves (who opened for KMFDM on their last tour). Well worth checking out, I’d say, and you can get a few samples of their sound from their MP3.com page.

Fun with bandwidth

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Since getting Slashdotted, my bandwidth has been going through the roof. On an account rated for 5Gb/month of data transfer, that on a normal month would use roughly half that amount, I hit about 90Gb of data in the last five days of October, and over the first four days of November have already hit about 40Gb of traffic. Crazy.

After realizing this, I did a bit of investigating, and realized that each of the posts that have been getting the most traffic (Even Microsoft wants G5s and Of Blogging and Unemployment) have picked up so many comments that they were up to ~300kb each! At that rate, each page would only need to be loaded three times to produce 1Mb of data transfer — and with the amount of traffic I’ve been getting, that number grows quickly.

In an attempt to try to slow things down a bit, then, I’ve had to both disable any new comments on those posts, and disable the display of the comments I’ve already received, which brought each of the two pages down to around 60k. Turning TrackBack pings off brought the page size down even more, to around 6k each — far better. If things die down, I hope to be able to re-enable at least the display of the TrackBack pings, if not the comments (some of them are pretty entertaining, if not rational) next month sometime. Until then, though (and quite possibly permanently), they’ll have to stay ping- and comment-free.