Water shutoff

by

Oh, this is good — our building has a 30-day shutoff notice from the water utility posted on the front door.

Not one of the tenants. The building. In other words, the leasing agency for the building hasn’t paid the water bill for long enough that under normal circumstances, it would be shut off, but as this is an apartment building, we’re given an extra 30 days to see if something can be worked out.

I’m thrilled about this one.

Update: Even better — I just tried calling the offices of Kauri Investments, our leasing agency, and couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone, not even a receptionist. Better and better…

Update: The following is the text of an e-mail I just sent to the sole Kauri employee with an easily accessible e-mail address on the Kauri website, after my failure in contacting anyone by phone.

From: Woody Hanscom
Date: Mon May 19, 2003 12:23:18 US/Pacific
To: kenta@kauri.com
Cc: parkseneca@speakeasy.net
Subject: Park Seneca Apts. water shutoff?

Kent –

I’m neither an investor nor a real estate professional, however I was unable either to reach anyone (even a receptionist) by calling the Kauri offices, and yours was the only e-mail I found for anyone at Kauri on the Kauri website. I do hope that this isn’t too much of an intrusion. I’m cc:ing this message to parkseneca@speakeasy.net, though I’m not currently sure who checks that e-mail account as it was set up under Melvin Kelly’s name, but he is no longer the building manager.

I am a resident of the Park Seneca Apartments, in unit 405, and this morning I found a notice posted on the front door of the apartment building alerting us to the fact that due to delinquent payments, we face having our water shut off in 30 days. I hope you’ll understand that I find this to be a fairly major concern. While I have fallen behind on bills from time to time in my life, when I do so, that affects only myself – not a 50-some unit apartment building.

In the year that I have lived here at the Park Seneca Apartments, I have had to cope with an elevator that seems to be broken more often than not, a renovation that seemed to drag on forever, with constantly shifting reports on when various services would be turned on or off, months without on-site laundry services, and a few weeks surrounding the replacement of the water heater when there was little to no hot water at all in the building. I have watched as many of my fellow tenants, equally or more disgusted with the difficulties encountered during the renovations, moved out. I chose to stay on, as I do enjoy the location of the building, its proximity to downtown and Capitol Hill, and as I haven’t wanted to deal with the hassles of trying to find another apartment and moving (not to mention attempting to move without the benefit of a working elevator). However, instances such as this shutoff notice go a long way to making me question the wisdom of continuing my residence here.

I sincerely hope that the current situation with the water bills will be resolved soon, and I (and my fellow tenants) will not have to deal with the severe inconvenience of not having water next month. My intent at this point is to continue living here, for all of the reasons previously stated. I did, however, feel that it was worthwhile to raise my concerns with the conditions I have been living with, in the hope that difficulties such as this will not be a concern in the future.

Sincerely,

Michael “Woody” Hanscom

Who knows if it’ll do much good, but hey, I feel (a little) better.

Getting personal

by

An interesting article in the NYT today about the pros and cons of getting personal with weblogs, something I occasionally struggle with. My site tends to be somewhat dry much of the time, but while I occasionally toy with the idea, I’ve never been too sure if I want to “open up” more in such a public medium.

I’m not likely to make a dramatic shift in the tone of this weblog — I’m naturally fairly private and reserved, and not likely to go into any sort of no-holds-barred expose — but there are definitely times I consider broadening the scope of what I write about. Maybe I’ll head that direction at some point, maybe I won’t, I’m not too sure. It bears consideration, however.

Of course, since I just edited this post three times, and almost deleted it, things may stay just as they are. ;)

(via Paulo)

Ari Fleischer resigns

by

Can’t say I’m dissapointed to read this…

“I informed President Bush last week that after 21 years of doing nothing but government and politics…that I have decided that my time has come to leave the White House. And I will leave later this summer, most likely in July,” Fleischer said.

…I just wish the article wasn’t so frustratingly brief. What prompted this?

(via Atrios)

[Update:]{.underline}

There are a few more details in this CNN article, including this somewhat bizarre little piece of information:

He notified Bush of his decision Friday. The president ended the conversation “by kissing me on the head,” the spokesman said.

So…was this kiss a benediction of some sort? Does Bush now think he’s the Pope? Or maybe just Godfather Coreleone? (Snarky, non-PC possibility — which head? Could we have a scandal to put Clinton/Lewinsky to shame?) It just seems odd to me, behaviour more fitting of a religious figure than a political appointee. But then, given Bush’s conservative religious leanings, maybe it’s not that much of a surprise.

ACLU report on post 9/11 suppression of dissent

by

I haven’t read this yet (it’s pushing 2am, and bed is sounding better and better all the time), but the ACLU has released a report on the suppression of dissent in the US since Sept. 11^th^, 2001.

The 18-page report finds that dissent since 9/11 has taken three principal forms: mass protests and rallies, messages on signs or clothing, and other acts of defiance by communities and individuals. These have ranged from silent vigils in parks to the passage of resolutions in more than 100 communities across the country protesting federal measures that violate civil liberties.

Police have beaten and maced protestors in Missouri, charged on horseback into crowds of demonstrators in New York, fired on demonstrators in California, and helped FBI agents to spy on professors and students at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, the ACLU report said.

Attorney General Ashcroft’s Justice Department has further asserted the right to seize protesters’ assets and deport immigrants under anti-terrorism statutes rushed through Congress after the attacks, and debated whether to revoke U.S. citizenship in some cases.

The press release and the full report are both available online.

(via Brooke Biggs)

Howard Dean interview

by

There’s a good interview with Howard Dean over at LiberalOasis. Dean continues to talk a very good line — I only hope that if elected, he follows through. So far, I’ve yet to see anything to convince me he wouldn’t, but it’s quite hard to tell at this point.

While I quite honestly didn’t realize that this was much of an issue right now, I liked his response to a question about the legalization of medical marijuana:

LO: In Vermont, you opposed a bill that would have given terminally ill patients access to medicinal marijuana.

What was your rationale? As President, would you direct the FDA to objectively address this issue?

HD: My opposition to medical marijuana is based on science, not based on ideology.

More specifically, I don’t think we should single out a particular drug for approval through political means when we approve other drugs through scientific means.

When I’m President, I will require the FDA to evaluate marijuana with a double blind study with the same kinds of scientific protocols that every other drug goes through.

I’m certainly willing to abide by what the FDA says.

(via Kevin Drum)

Almost perfect

by

My current workspace here at home has been a bit cramped for a while. I’ve got two computers under my desk (one Mac and one PC), and three 17\” monitors on my desk (two for the Mac, one for the PC). It’s a nice workspace, but when you factor in two keyboards and two trackballs, it leaves very little actual deskspace left over.

This weekend, I picked up a new trackball for my Mac (a Microsoft Office Keyboard that I got free from work), my trackball, and my printer all plugged into the USB hub, switchable between both of my computers. Far more manageable, and I’ve got a lot more desk space available (of course, that means I’ll just have that many more soda cans strewn across my desk, but that’s beside the point…).

The only oddball glitch is that, for some odd reason, the Mac will occasionally forget about all the devices after I switch over to the PC and then switch back to the Mac. I’m not sure why this is, and was afraid I was going to have to go back to two sets of keyboards and trackballs. Then I discovered that as long as I leave the old Mac keyboard plugged in (sitting vertically on the floor, leaning against the Mac’s case), then when the Mac doesn’t respond to the keyboard or trackball that are on the switch, all I have to do it tap a key on the old keyboard with my toe, and suddenly everything on the switch starts responding again. It’s a little odd — and not quite a perfect solution, but hey, it works.

This babble brought to you courtesy of the fact that as I’ve been posting rather sporadically for the past week, I need some filler posts on the main page so that my site doesn’t look too tweaky. ;)

The Matrix has me!

by

I’ve been in complete Matrix mode for most of this weekend — saw the sequel Thursday night, watched the original yesterday with Prairie, and then went back to see the sequel again tonight.

I’ve also been going through the discussion thread on the Home Theater Forum (all 20-some pages of it so far!), and in addition to a lot of very interesting conversation about the film, many good links have been posted. I’ve added quite a few of those to the end of my movie post, so if you’re as caught up in all this as I am, you might enjoy poking around some of them.

Lastly, an amusing post from the forementioned discussion thread…

I’m entirely baffled how anyone can characterize this as the WORST Movie/WORST sequel of all time

Many people

  • don’t see a lot of movies
  • have a short memory or attention span, so they give more weight to recent events
  • have a poor vocabulary
  • have no sense of scale or nuance, as evidenced by the typical “sucks”/”rules” dichotomy
  • can’t hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts in their head at the same time
  • are unable to balance their high expectations in an objective appraisal
  • are idiots
  • are about as useful as a Duracell
  • some of the above
  • all of the above

— Ken Chan

Firing blanks?

by

The rescue of Jessica Lynch is making the rounds again, only this time with more details — according to one of the doctors at the hospital, the troops entering the hospital were firing blanks.

The doctors told us that the day before the special forces swooped on the hospital the Iraqi military had fled. Hassam Hamoud, a waiter at a local restaurant, said he saw the American advance party land in the town. He said the team’s Arabic interpreter asked him where the hospital was. “He asked: ‘Are there any Fedayeen over there?’ and I said, ‘No’.” All the same, the next day “America’s finest warriors” descended on the building.

“We heard the noise of helicopters,” says Dr Anmar Uday. He says that they must have known there would be no resistance. \”We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital.

“It was like a Hollywood film. They cried, ‘Go, go, go’, with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show – an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors.” All the time with the camera rolling.

Admittedly, this is one man’s unconfirmed word — but given that real bullets would leave holes that blanks wouldn’t, the claim could be disproved easily enough that I’m not sure he’d make it up. We’ll probably never know for sure, though.

(via Tom Tomorrow)

The Matrix: Reloaded

by

Just got back from seeing The Matrix: Reloaded. In short, I’m quite satisfied with what I was presented with. At the same time, I can certainly understand why so many middling to flat out bad reviews have been popping up in the last few days. I don’t think that this is the sequel that people were really expecting, and I think that that is what is affecting many of the reviews. For my part, the fact that the story is moving in ways that weren’t expected is exactly the reason I enjoyed it, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final chapter in six months or so.

Briefly, I’d definitely recommend it — on three conditions.

First: Realize that this, much like Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, is not a self-contained movie. It doesn’t answer all the questions it raises, and ends on a cliffhanger. Thankfully, it’s a relatively short wait for the next and final chapter.

Second: Don’t expect a standard-formula Hollywood sequel. Don’t turn off your brain when you go in (one of the things I enjoy about these movies is that they provide brain food as well as good eye candy), but don’t head in with too many preconceived notions and expectations, either.

Third: Probably the most important, this is not a movie to go into cold. I’d highly recommend watching The Matrix beforehand, if you’re not already fairly familiar with the first film in the series. The Matrix: Reloaded builds and expands upon the foundation laid in The Matrix, but without some familiarity with the first film, it’d be fairly easy to get lost, especially towards the end. Optionally, if you have the time/bandwidth to do so, reading through the comics (especially ‘Bits and Pieces‘) and watching the Animatrix episodes ‘The Second Renaissance, Part One and Part Two to get some historical background of the Man/Machine conflict and the creation of the Matrix. More thoughts…more loosely structured, and ripe with possibilities for expansion and further exploration later on.

Firstly, just to get it out of the way, the effects are 95% of what they were hyped to be. There were a few instances in the “burly brawl” (where Neo is fighting upwards of 100 Agent Smiths) that didn’t quite look right, but overall, mindboggling work. So. Done. Now on to the more interesting stuff.

The Matrix set the ground rules, but The Matrix: Reloaded is rewriting them. Not disregarding them, but fleshing them out and re-interpreting them, finding the loopholes in the rules that were previously written and exploiting them, while still remaining true to the core story. Fascinating to watch, and a big part of why I believe that this isn’t a “safe”, normal Hollywood sequel.

Lots of interesting questioning of beliefs, and how much beliefs (or conflicting beliefs) really matter. Early in the film, Morpheus is having an argument with one of his superiors. After Morpheus expresses his belief in Neo as “The One” and in Neo’s ability to save everyone, his superior says, “Not everyone believes what you do.” Morpheus responds, “My beliefs don’t require them to.” A little later on, Link (one of the new characters) is getting ready to leave with Morpheus and the gang. His wife, not thrilled that he’s leaving, gives him a necklace for luck. “Aw, come on, you know that I don’t believe in all that…” he complains. “But I do,” she tells him, and gives him the necklace. I thought both scenes were nicely done.

Three key scenes that I’d like to watch quite a few more times to work my way through the various ideas and concepts presented, just to make sure I understood them all: the Merovingian’s monologue in the restaurant regarding choice and cause/effect; the conversation between Neo and the Oracle in the playground where we learn more about the Oracle’s role in the Matrix; and the revelations regarding the Matrix given to Neo towards the end of the film. Lots of information is presented fairly quickly in those three scenes, and they each bear some re-watching.

A very interesting (and very spoiler filled, don’t read this before seeing the movie) rundown of the events in the film is up at The Hot Button (via this (spoiler-filled) HTF thread). There are a few other Matrix articles up on the same site, all linked to at the bottom of that Hot Button page. It’s worth reading them all.

This is good for a giggle.

Salon’s review is excellent (both a positive review of the film, and a well-written review).

A transcript of the conversation between Neo and the Architect can be found here.

Dad sent me this article from Beliefnet exploring some of the religious symbolism in the Matrix films.

Local Seattle alternative paper reviews: The Stranger and the Seattle Weekly.

Another nice point to the movie: when Trinity has some hacking to do, instead of flashy 3D “movie style” graphic displays, she calls up a command line and uses the real-world nmap utility! I noticed this and grinned while I was watching the film, and other people are picking up on it too. The Register has an article about it, too.

The New Yorker’s pan of The Matrix: Reloaded, and The Hot Button’s rebuttal (snide, but has some good points).

A good analysis of religious symbolism here.

Something amusing: MatrixXP. ;)

Thanks to Kirsten for this Salon article: The Matrix way of Knowledge.

Not In Our Name wants you to take the red pill.

Abstract Dynamics points out possible political undertones.

The teaser for The Matrix: Revolutions has hit the ‘net.