Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
“I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq,” said Wolfowitz, who is touring the country to meet U.S. troops and Iraqi officials.
How is this adminstration able to say anything with a straight face anymore?
(via Atrios)
Still, [Douglas J. Feith, the No. 3 official at the Pentagon] and other Pentagon officials said, they are studying the lessons of Iraq closely — to ensure that the next U.S. takeover of a foreign country goes more smoothly.
“We’re going to get better over time,” promised Lawrence Di Rita, a special assistant to Rumsfeld. “We’ve always thought of post-hostilities as a phase” distinct from combat, he said. \”The future of war is that these things are going to be much more of a continuum.
“This is the future for the world we’re in at the moment,” he said. “We’ll get better as we do it more often.”
— The final three paragraphs of this LA Times article
(via Atrios)
Note for Americans, that the speed is kilometers per hour not miles. To convert you multiple by 5 and divide by 8 then add 32 less the number you first thought of and then cross out the answer and write “really fast for an old car” or something like that.
— Jon Wright, in Blog Roundup
Am I suffering from TPS: TypePad Snobbery? You know it, baby! ;)
Common symptoms discovered so far:
Okay, so I finally got a chance to go see Pirates of the Caribbean yesterday. When I first started hearing about it, I was pretty skeptical — a movie based on a Disney theme park ride? Interest was reawakened once I started hearing the cast list (Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Geoffrey Rush). Then, it finally came out, and was getting good reviews. Wow, did Disney manage to do something right without Pixar‘s help?
They did indeed. PotC:CotBP is an absolute blast, start to finish. From the wonderfully understated opening credits (a rarity these days — nothing but the title of the film is shown) and spooky opening sequence to set up the story, right through to the end credits, I was grinning all the way through.
One of the things I was very pleasantly surprised to find was that in contrast to the ride itself, which has been toned down over the years due (in one sequence, lusty pirates chasing nubile young women are now hungry pirates chasing women carrying plates of food), the movie didn’t flinch at all from innuendo, violence, and flat-out pirate fun. Swashbuckling swordfights, cursed treasure, cannon fire on the open seas, plunging necklines, it’s all there — and, of course, what would a pirate movie be without someone walking the plank?
The plot, while bearing little overt resemblance to the classic theme park ride, works well as a way to create an enjoyable movie while allowing the filmmakers plenty of opportunities to slip in references to memorable scenes in the original ride. Wench chasing abounds as the pirates sail in and invade the port, cannonballs flying and swords slashing, as other pirates locked in a cell vainly try to coax the keys from a pooch sitting just out of reach.
Depp’s portrayal of Cap’n Jack Sparrow was an absolute treat, as was Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa, commanding the pirate galleon The Black Pearl itself. While I didn’t think Orlando Bloom as Will Turner particularly stood out, he definitely didn’t do a bad job, and Keira Knightley did a fine job as Elizabeth Swann (and she’s not bad eye candy, either!). I was also pleasantly surprised to see Jonathan Pryce pop up as Elizabeth’s father, Gov. Swann — I’ve enjoyed seeing him in things since I first noticed him in Brazil and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
The effects were, as far as I’m concerned, near-perfect. The cursed pirates, who appear normal unless seen in direct moonlight, when they appear as rotted skeletons, were simply amazing to see. Shots where the characters walked from shadow to moonlight and back into shadow, alternately concealing and revealing their true forms, were flawless. Even in the most trying of sequences — during a furious swordfight, running and leaping all over the screen, moving in and out of moonlight — it looked dead-on. Excellent work.
And the fights! Finally, I got a movie that addressed one of my main complaints about most modern fight sequences: that they’re too fast and cut too choppily to be of any real interest whatsoever. I never ended up grumbling to myself that I couldn’t tell what was going on during the movie, and the staging and coreography were equally impressive. Easily my favorite fight happens early in the film, as Jack Sparrow blunders into Will Turner’s smithy. Both Depp and Bloom obviously have fun with the sequence, and while there are definitely moments that defy credibility, none of them stretch it to the point of breaking. This may very well be my favorite swordfight since the fight between Inigo and The Man in Black in The Princess Bride — high praise indeed!
All in all, an absolute thrill ride of a movie. Highly recommended indeed.
The ‘Live Comment Preview’ hack that I use on The Long Letter has now been implemented here on Eclecticism. If you know what I’m talking about, then we’re good to go. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then click on the “Comments” link to any post, type something in the comment box, and look just below the comment box. It’s a nifty trick. ;)
I originally picked this up from ScriptyGoddess, with help from Phillip. Geeky tech details on my implementation here follow.
All this is is a nice little JavaScript addition to the page. I don’t believe that this will constitute a security risk, but I’m no expert, so use at your own risk. ;) Obviously, if you do want to use this on your site, you’ll need to have access to your templates.
In the header of the individual entry template, just after the already included JavaScript bits, I added the following code:
<script type="text/javascript">
var newline = /n/g;
function ReloadTextDiv() {
var NewText = document.getElementById("text").value;
NewText = NewText.replace(newline, "<br />");
var DivElement = document.getElementById("TextDisplay");
DivElement.innerHTML = NewText;
}
</script>
Then, in the body of the template, just after the closing </div> tag following the preview and submit buttons, but before the </form> tag, I added the following:
<br />
<h2>Live Comment Preview:</h2>
<span id="TextDisplay">Note: if you're comfortable with HTML, feel free to use it in your comments. If not, just type away. Single returns will be automatically converted into linebreaks (<br />), double returns will be converted into paragraph breaks (<p>). This text will disappear as soon as you start typing.</span>
Lastly, in the textarea tag that defines where the comment text is entered in by a visitor, I added a onkeyup="ReloadTextDiv();" declaration. The full textarea tag should look as follows:
<textarea tabindex="4" id="text" name="text" rows="10" style="width: 80%;" onkeyup="ReloadTextDiv();">
What all this does is actually simple enough. As a visitor enters their comment into the comment box, each time they release a key the onkeyup function calls the ReloadTextDiv JavaScript snippet that I added. This function loads any text inside the comment box (identified by its ID of "text"), replaces any carriage returns with <br /> tags so that line breaks appear correctly, then writes the output into the element identified as "TextDisplay" — in this case, between the span tags I added after the submit and preview buttons.
If you find this useful, feel free to use it in your own pages. While I wouldn’t refuse credit, it really does belong to ScriptyGoddess and Phillip. Enjoy!
On the bright side, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous all this weekend. On the downside, I haven’t wanted to leave the apartment — once temperatures hit the mid-80’s to 90’s, I’m quite content to lay in a near-comatose puddle on my bed. ;) However, this being the weekend for the Bite of Seattle food festival, I couldn’t very well stay indoors in the shade all weekend.
Prairie had come in to town to visit for the weekend, so Saturday morning we got up around 11, wandered downtown to see Pirates of the Caribbean (which rocked — more on that later, most likely), then walked from the Temple of Avarice to the Seattle Center to wander around the Bite for a while. As I mentioned above, it was gorgeous weather, so Seattle was out in full force. Lots of people, and at times a little overcrowded (does nobody ever pay attention to where they are walking at these things?), but aside from that, not bad at all. I even went out and soaked myself in the fountain — and boy, did that make the sun more bearable for the rest of the afternoon!
After grabbing some food and finding a seat in the shade to eat, we each grabbed an ice cream cone, and sat down at one of the music stages to watch The Retros play — if the name hasn’t given it away already, they specialize in 80’s pop, and are a blast to see. We finished our ice cream about the same time they finished their set, and, deciding that we didn’t really want to risk sunburn any more than we already had, we hopped on the monorail and came back to the apartment.
The rest of the weekend was spent mostly here at the apartment, resting and trying to avoid the heat as much as possible. Movies were watched, laundry was done, and not much else. Which, as far as I’m concerned, makes for a perfect weekend.
Concurrently with today’s announcement that Alaska Airlines has contracted with Jack Nicholson to act as spokesperson for the airline in all of their television and print advertising in 2004, the airline also revealed an upgrade to the traditional and distinctive Alaska Native image on the tail of their jets:
Tribal leaders and Mr. Nicholson’s representatives have so far declined to comment on the announcements.
(Image found in this mindblowing Worth1000 Photoshop contest. Pesudo-‘news’ dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the dingy corners of my brain.)
The jury’s still out on this one, but I’d be willing to bet that the Hunting for Bambi ‘business’ (in which men dress up in camo, grab paintball guns, and go running through the woods ‘hunting’ naked women) is nothing more than an elaborate spoof. While most media reports have been long on hype and short on investigation, the Urban Legends Reference Pages are extremely skeptical.
We’re still investigating, but we’d be quite surprised if this scheme was hatched as anything but an attempt to sell videos. (After all, \$19.99 tapes and DVDs, and not \$10,000 hunts, are the product advertised on the site’s opening page.) Our estimation is that the whole “hunt” concept was a phony promotional dog-and-pony show staged for credulous reporters, but now that Hunting for Bambi has attracted plenty of free publicity from the media, they’re attempting to make the concept work for real.
How much do you remember about the events surrounding Sept. 11^th^, 2001? MSNBC has an interesting pop quiz available. I have to admit, I didn’t do as well on it as I would have liked to.
(via Dad)