Table of Contents:

General News

• The Meaning Of Life
• The Role Of Music In My Life
• Asia SF
• Homeland Security Roundup
• After The Diagnosis

Computer Industry News

• Craig Reynolds' Technobriefs

Web Site of the Week

• Hoaxes

Humor

• The Top 16 Favorite Movies of Animals
• The Top 14 Courses at Evil Overlord University

Movies

• Space Station 3D

Letters

• Dan Grobstein Finds Dumb Test, Daniel Dern Finds Dumb Marketing, The Space Pen Urban Legend

General News

The Meaning of Life

No, not the Monty Python film (one of their best, by the way), but thoughts on the subject. First, from a novel my mother is reading:

Well, yes it does! Reminds me of Douglas Adams, who used to say that humanity clearly had lost its owners manual, and that if only we hadn't thrown it in a drawer and forgotten where it was, things would have been so much clearer, simpler and more obvious. Yes, I know, some people think the bible/torah/koran is the owner's manual, but if it is, it's been transliterated from another language, and has entirely too much "tab a in slot b" and not enough practical advice.

The Role Of Music In My Life

This column, of course, is supposed to be about... well... me. My life, my family, my political opinions, my opinions about movies, my sense of humor. And it is, mostly.

But sometimes, the things that bring you the most pleasure are so quotidian that you forget to mention them. Or at least, don't mention them often enough.

Every Wednesday, almost without fail, for the last eight years, I have gone to the rehearsals of the Contra Costa Wind Symphony (CCWS), a brass band in which I play tenor saxophone. I love it. It is my most important extra-curricular activity, and if teachers' education gets in the way of it next year, I will be sad and bitter.

Although words are my business, it is difficult for me to describe the joy I feel when playing music as part of an ensemble. I feel no particular need to solo--solos make me nervous. As Steve Wood, the first tenor puts it, "I wouldn't mind if we never had a concert. I prefer rehearsals. Concerts are a pain!" To an extent he is right. It is not about sharing the music, although that is a pleasant fringe benefit and allows your family and friends to hear what you've been doing with all that time. It is about playing the music, for two hours every week, under the baton of a conductor who cares and is trying to help you improve. When I am playing, I am transported.

I would play even if I knew for certain that it was cutting my life short. But as it happens, there is statistical evidence that playing music wards off Alzheimer's and even the less severe ravages of old-age memory loss. As a brain exercise, playing music is almost as effective as working crossword puzzles. It also turns out that music extends your life. Factoring out booze and drugs (not particular problems for amateur musicians who aren't on the road all the time), musicians live longer. I am guessing it is because we have something beautiful to live for.

I still get up every morning, despite being "between positions," mostly because I am a husband and father and love my family. However, I can imagine getting up every day because I had music to play.

If you ever played a wind instrument, dust it off and find your local brass band. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I announced a concert Friday night for the Danville Band and played in one Saturday with the CCWS. I'll be playing on Moraga Commons at 2pm on the Fourth of July. I hope to see you there!

Asia SF

Female impersonator dancers are now known as "gender illusionists," at least at Asia SF, where they are all Asian, and all pretty good demonstrations of the plastic surgeon's art. Marlow looked at one of them and said, "I don't think normal breasts would hold that dress up."

On the recommendation of one of my nieces, we went to Asia SF for dinner and a show. We got both. They say their fusion cuisine is three-star; I'd give it two stars at best. But the entertainment is three-star, assuming your taste runs to men who have worked very hard to look like women and who lip sync sexy or double entendre songs while doing as much choreography as you can manage while dancing on top of a bar. The dancers are also your waiters, and they are so friendly. We went quite early (they open at 5, we went at 6), and our waitress advised us, several times, to come back later when the show gets raunchier. Actually, it was raunchy enough for us at 6.

Homeland Security Roundup

Astounding though it may seem, I actually spotted an interesting, under-reported news story, without help from my source in Washington, or Dern, or Reynolds or even Grobstein. I happened to be browsing the San Francisco Chronicle web site on Monday during my prep period while substituting, and one of their web-only columns caught my eye in a big way.

Funny the Chronicle chose not to run this in its paper editions. But then I think all the American media have been cowed into an odd sort of semi-silence, where they report the facts but shy away from pursuing them, lending them meaning, or even pounding on them until they can't be ignored. In short, in a stunning act of hypocrisy, the mainstream media refuse to "connect the dots," even as they pummel the government for not connecting the dots. Whew!

Elsewhere, from a front page article (June 1, 2002) in the New York Times titled "F.B.I. Report Found Agency Not Ready To Counter Terror" one finds the real story and only news in the last sentence (conveniently placed below the fold on page A10). Talk about a buried lede! "Meanwhile, officials said that after the Bush Administration came into office, top Justice Department officials did not initially see the urgent need to upgrade counterterrorism. In August, officials said, the bureau's acting director, Tom Pickard, met with Mr. Ashcroft on a supplemental financing request for counterterrorism, but was turned down."

The reader may recall that the reason/excuse offered for not following the early July FBI lead to flight schools was an alleged lack of money in the $4 billion per year or so already available to the FBI. At two (2) flight schools per agent per week day, some may note that the ten (10) agents who recently spent nine (9) months listening to a madam in New Orleans could have instead visited about 3,600 flight schools.

As for the Department of Homeland Security proposal: More knowledgeable Republicans usually refrain from re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. As a less knowledgeable Republican, his illegitimacy (whether this reflects more on Yale and Harvard (each of which conferred a degree on his illegitimacy) than the party which traded guns for drugs with a terrorist nation from about 1981-1986 is left as an exercise for the reader) chose to re-arrange the deck chairs (by calling for a Dept of Homeland Security) to seek protection (for himself and the self-declared paragon of national security experience and truth telling (especially about his medical condition) now hiding out in an undisclosed location) from their employers once they figure out what the doleful duo and co-conspirators were really doing from January 20, 2001 to September 10, 2001. After all, if the FBI (mis)Director is willing to admit (even before the first half-baked co-opted in advance investigation really gets rolling) that maybe the bureau just might have stopped the whole disaster, just imagine what he'll be willing to admit when they actually get some facts.

After The Diagnosis

Richard Dalton checks in with a find from the Stanford Medical School:

Computer Industry News

Craig Reynolds' Technobriefs

Craig checks in:

Web Site of the Week

NetComix, Hoaxes

Wow, there are a lot of Net comix! Try Penny Arcade, a strip about gamers that loathes Xbox, and so can't be all bad. This was a link off a page Craig Reynolds sent me to.

Kevin Sullivan found this on the Netsurfer Digest and noted,"This link was fun. I (being an ex-pseudo engineer) enjoyed the re-engineering of fast food for left handed people." I like the phrase ex-pseudo engineer; describes me as well. Here's what he found:

Humor

The Top 16 Favorite Movies of Animals

I came in at No. 10

The Top 14 Courses at Evil Overlord University

Big pileup at No. 7, but better to be part of a crowd than to be left off.

Movies

Space Station 3D

You want the facts? Go to the Internet Movie Database.

I have almost never turned this space over to an outside reviewer. When I got this from John Ruley his excitement was so palpable, and on a subject so close to my heart, that I felt I had to get the word out before I had a chance to see it myself. I might not get around to seeing this film. It is the penultimate week of the term, and I have 200 pages of reading, two finals and an eight-page paper to finish in the next 10 days.

Letters

Dan Grobstein Finds Dumb Test, Daniel Dern Finds Dumb Marketing, The Space Pen Urban Legend

Dan Grobstein found this little "can you believe it" item:

He also found an op-ed piece on the subject by Diane Ravitch, a historian of education at New York University, who is writing a book about censorship in the educational publishing industry. The New Yorker also had a lengthy piece ridiculing this practice, complete with specific examples.

For our next item about Tivo and "push" programming, Daniel Dern notes, " Sheesh. Don't let these guys build cars." Harry Shearer also noted this item with derision on his public radio program, Le Show.

A friend sent me the old story of the US developing an expensive space pen while the Russians simply used pencils. Turns out this is an urban legend and it isn't true. So, let's all stop spreading it. There is enough real stuff for which we should criticize the government; we don't need to make stuff up. Like the Department of Defense's $640 toilet seat and $436 hammer and the National Park Service's $797,400 outhouse, which you can find out about at Citizens Against Government Waste.

Dave Methvin's PC Pitstop