CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

Unfortunately for a film like The Break-Up, the marketing dweebs in Hollywood feel compelled to over-publicize the film and let many cats out of many bags. As such, many of the best parts of this film were reruns due to their placement in the vast number of trailers and commercials for this film. Even so, the film is *still* funny, Aniston and Vaughn have the actual chemistry of an actual couple (and I don’t mean that as a reference to their supposed involvment, I mean it from a script+acting+directing perspective), and the story is fresher than it has any right to be.

For those living under a rock, the story is that Aniston’s and Vaughn’s characters meet (cute), fall in love, buy a condo together, spend a few years together, then break up during a wicked fight about pent up resentments. However, neither will leave the condo, and thereby hangs the tale. This isn’t a film as dark as something like The War of the Roses, but it’s also not When Harry Met Sally or (insert title of any Hugh Grant film). My gut feeling is that anybody who has been both in and out of love will find something to relate to in this movie.

For example, there’s a scene where the couple prepare for having both their families over for dinner. Vaughn’s sole job was to bring home 12 lemons. He brings three. When Aniston asks why he didn’t bring the 12 lemons she asked for, he wonders why she would need 12 lemons. They were for a centerpiece, and when he realizes they were “show lemons” that nobody would eat, he cares even less that he got the wrong number and suggests practical (for a man) alternatives like making the centerpiece in something smaller, like a glass, or not having a centerpiece at all and instead putting the lemons on the chicken that he tasted, implying it needs a little something.

After the dinner party, he proceeds to crash on the couch playing video games while Aniston is left with the cleanup.

Most of this information has been related in trailers, clips, and commercials, so I don’t feel bad about repeating them here, and they present the crux of the ensuing argument that causes the eponymous break-up.

There is an interesting point to this film, as with almost all films about relationships, which is that the man’s viewpoint, due to its lack of emotional sensitivity, is “wrong” and must be changed, while the women’s is “right” and long suffering. This film doesn’t paint it quite that black-and-white, but in the end it does tend in that same direction. I’ve always disliked that viewpoint, as it discounts the thoughts and feelings of men out-of-hand.

For example, *his* job involves owning a business with his three brothers, while *her* job involves working in an art gallery selling art. Having been both a business-owner and an employee, I can tell you that owning a business is orders-of-magnitude more stressful, and at the end of the day when they’ve both worked 10 hours, *he* has every right to be more spent than she does. And that’s not about gender, that’s about responsibility, risk, and stress. Now, men generally tend to hold the more stressful positions, and one may see that as gender-bias in the workplace. One might also see that as women being smart enough to *not* sell their souls to a job, or being sensitive enough to let the job rank second to the family, or simply being the one that fate decided needed to bear the children for humanity.

Also in question is the need to cleanup right away after the party. *She* has the compulsion that doesn’t allow her to sleep with a dirty kitchen, and his offer to help in the morning is seen as work-dodging (which, honestly, it probably is, but that’s not true until the next morning when he tries to get out of helping!). Aniston’s character also rejects Vaughn’s suggestion of having a pool table in the house. It doesn’t matter that it’s been a dream of his his whole life, it just doesn’t fit with her idea of their house so, poof, no pool table.

In any case, it would be nice to see Hollywood take a more balanced view of male/female relationships, but I guess there isn’t a lot of comic fodder in a balanced viewpoint. Well, one notable exception to that is Billy Crystal’s film Forget Paris, which is a wonderful and funny film that doesn’t show just a courtship or a breakup, but shows a courtship, marriage, troubles, separation, reconciliation, and all the other stuff of life. Like The Break-Up it has some serious moments as well.

In any case, in spite of all of that, The Break-Up is a solid, funny, serious/funny film about relationships. Also notable are the supporting cast, with John Favreau and Jason Bateman as friends of the couple, Vincent D’Onofrio (nearly unrecognizable and uncredited) as one of Vaughn’s brothers, and Judy Davis as the scarifying owner of the art gallery where Aniston’s character works. The bottom line is that this film was far better, to me, than most of the reviews I have seen, which I attribute at least in part to the fact that the film has much more serious content than one would be led to expect by the trailers and commercials. For me, that was a good thing.

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Today the world derives the vast majority of its energy from non-renewable resources like oil, coal, and natural gas. There is a finite amount of these fuels, and at the current growth rate of usage they will all be used up within 100 years. That means that some of the young babies of today will live to see the end of the age of hydrocarbon fuels. What will they use to fulfill their energy needs?

There is a strong push to replace hydrocarbons with “green” energy sources, using so-called renewable resources such as sunlight, wind, or thermal energy. While I can see that these resources could be considered renewable given their current levels of usage, I fear the impact on our environment if we scale usage up to the point where they could provide most of the world’s energy needs.

Consider wind power, which today consists of a few wind farms in a few places, and which have no discernable impact on weather patterns (or the energy supply, for that matter). However, if you scale up wind power so that it is ubiquitous, and you remove all of that wind energy from the meteorological realm, what would be the resulting long-term impact? I have been unable to find any estimates of this, nor do I see a logical way to predict such an impact, even if one were to attempt to figure it out. Today we see huge, wild shifts in the world’s weather with each degree of temperature change — what would be the impact of reducing wind energy by one mile per hour around the globe?

The same with sunlight. Today people have solar cells or solar water heaters on the rooftops of their homes, and there are a few large-scale commercial solar energy farms, but again nothing noteworthy in relation to the overall world energy supply. And these few solar installations really have no impact on global weather, as they are so small as to be inconsequential. But, again, imaging scaling up the production of energy from sunlight, with vast farms of solar cells or solar water heaters absorbing energy from sunlight, energy that would previously have hit the ground and contributed to the natural forces of our biosphere. What if large-scale solar energy farms reduced the global temperature by one or two degrees?

The same can be said for geothermal energy, as well as other “renewables” such as biomass or flowing water. These may seem to be potentially endless reserves of energy, but when one uses one’s imagination to extrapolate usage up to providing any significant portion of the worlds energy needs it becomes much less clear as to the long-term effects and actual “renewability” of these resources. Keep in mind that if you take a long enough view of the world, oil is a renewable resource, we just have to wait a few geologic millenia for natural forces to replenish the oil supply naturally (just like it was created in the first place). An energy source is “renewable” only if it can be replenished faster than it is used, and no one can yet say that this is true for sunlight, wind, biomass, or thermal energy sources.

In my opinion there are two realistic, long-term energy resources available to mankind today. The first is nuclear energy, and the second is hydrogen energy, and they actually represent pretty much one energy source. You see, hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe and is also an efficient energy source. The trick is that it takes a great deal of energy to extract hydrogen from its primary sources, such as water. So we need nuclear plants in remote places producing hydrogen to be used everywhere else. And while both hydrogen and nuclear fuel are both finite resources, the known quantities would provide for mankind’s energy needs for an uncountable number of millenia.

We are at the end of the Hydrocarbon Age and at beginning of the Hydrogen Age. Let’s climb on board.

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“But The User Should Memorize their Training Booklet…”

I find in my life and professional career that there are two types of people:

• Those that live in the land of “should”
• Those that live in the land of “is”

I had a chat with a friend in college, and I asked the question whether or not health insurance companies should pay for preventive maintenance. “Of course they should!” she exclaimed. I countered by saying that insurance companies are essentially financial organizations, if preventive maintenance didn’t lower their costs, why should they do it? Her response was, “Well, well… just because it’s right!”

And that may be… it may be “right” (in the moral sense) to provide preventive care to people, but no company is going to do it just because it’s “right” — they’ll only do it if they’re losing customers because they don’t offer it, or if companies start to pay extra for health insurance in order to attract and retain their own employees. That’s how the free-market economy works. That’s reality.

So if you want to get your health insurance company to offer preventive maintenance, I would argue that the least effective thing you could do would be to tell your health insurance company that you need it. They don’t have really any big financial incentive to do it for one person whose health insurance is determined by their employer. A better idea would be to tell your employer you need it, and/or get other employees to join their voice to the chorus. Then maybe your employer (who actually has the power to change health insurance companies) will ask your health insurance provider for it. An even better idea is that if you’re the one who really needs it, pay for it yourself or go find an employer whose health insurance offers it.

Similar things are rampant at work. Lots of people get caught up in “should” and “it isn’t fair”. Things such as:

• There’s no need to put an intuitive “helper” text on an application form, because everyone should have received training on the app.
• I shouldn’t have to code a “back” button on a web site page, because the browser has a back button, and the user should know to use that instead.
• It isn’t fair that we have to help a customer who caused their own problem; the customer should just fix it themselves.

I find these types of arguments / whining very frustrating, because wanting people (especially customers) to act the way you think they “should” is really an exercise in futility. It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall — it might seem like a good idea, until you do it. And no sane person would think that they could actually break the wall with their skull.

The husband of a friend of mine once said (in response to something I was whining about), “Well, you might be right, but you won’t have any friends”. It was such a great truth I was immediately dumbstruck. He was right: what good was expecting people do X if it didn’t make for a harmonious relationship? What good is expecting users to use the back button if they aren’t web-savvy enough to know about the back button? What good is demanding a customer fix her own problem if it makes her so mad she takes her business elsewhere?

The Reaction Equation

This brings me to another corollary of this same philosophy:

E + R = O

or,

Events + your Reaction = Outcome

I can’t take credit for this one either; it’s from a seminar I attended for work many years ago. The concept is this: in this equation, the only thing you can tailor to affect the “O” is your “R”. The events are just gonna happen, so figure out what outcome you’d like to see and pick your reaction according. Again, this is so simple and logical and practical, yet it was a revelation to me.

Yes, a rainy / stormy day on your tropical vacation sucks. But if your desired Outcome is a fun and relaxing vacation, you can decide that your Reaction on that day is to get that all-day spa treatment you were thinking about: then you’ve tailored your reaction to still ensure that you get a good vacation. Or you can do whatever else you never get enough time to do during the week that would still equal “relaxing vacation” for you: playing chess, napping in the hammock, reading a trashy novel, cross-stitching.

Same thing goes for work: if a coworker slacks off and doesn’t do their job on your project, you can either:

1. Get irritated that the coworker “should” have done their job and refuse to do it yourself, or
2. Send the coworker a reminder email to do their tasks, or
3. Do it yourself to make sure it gets done and be really mad about it, or
4. Do it yourself to make sure it gets done, then address the issue appropriately later

Which one you pick depends on your desired outcome. If your primary desired outcome is to point out that your coworker isn’t doing their job, options #1 or #2 are for you, but they preclude or risk the outcome of successful project completion. If your desired outcome is that the project finish on time / successfully, then you have to pick #3 or #4, since you can’t really affect whether or not the coworker does their job. If you don’t want it to happen all the time, then maybe #4 is the right path.

So the equation doesn’t really mean there’s one right answer, but it does mean that you focus on what you want out of the situation and tailor your reaction. This can be especially helpful in interpersonal relationships that drive you crazy. If you have a friend who constantly whines about her various physical ailments and you wish she would stop, your main choices are that you can ignore it, listen and sympathize, or tell her flat-out that you’re not interested. Assuming you still want to maintain this friendship, #1 is probably your best option. #2 is going to get you more whining, and #3, telling her to stop, risks the friendship. It may seem “cold” to look at friendships this way, but it can actually be quite freeing — or at least, self-educational.

I was friends with a girl once who had gone through a terrible divorce. Initially I didn’t mind listening to her and being her friend, but eventually it became this horrible nightly parade of negativity, much of it heaped on me (long story, but she saw parallels between my life and that of her ex-husband). After a while when nothing I tried could dispel her endless venomous rantings, I quit being her friend. That was the only reaction I could come up with that got me to a good outcome — not having vitriol hurled at me.

Everyone Does What’s Easiest for Them

Now, none of this means you can’t vent if something irritates you. I mean, one of your outcomes is probably to make yourself feel better about a given situation, and if venting to a neutral third party helps, then it’s definitely a good reaction to have. But in general I find when people look at their “R”s, they all do what’s easiest for them. (This bit of wisdom is from my wonderful husband Engineerboy).

You probably know at least a couple friends who go visit relatives regularly, and a subset of those friends would probably prefer not to go visit at least some of the time, but they go anyway. This is because it’s easier for them to be considered a “good son/daughter/grandchild/cousin” than it is for them to disappoint their relatives. Their desired “O” is to be a good family member and not shirk obligations. For someone else, the equation may work out so that it’s easier for them to deal with disappointing their family members then have to leave home for a visit. Their “O” may be to not respond to guilt, or to simply be home more. So everyone does what’s easiest for them and their personal makeup / situation.

One last example: picture an office worker who routinely brings in fancy coffee to the office. She freely shares the coffee with the other team members, because it’s easier for her to pay for expensive coffee for everyone than it is for her to endure the crappy coffee that’s provided. Her desired Outcome is quality coffee every morning. If the company then decides to improve their coffee situation, it would be silly to demand that the company reimburse her for all the fancy coffee she bought in the past — after all, she was just doing what was easiest for her.

So?

Anyway, I just had to get this out of my system and now I feel better. I’ve tailored my reaction to certain people I interact with whose behaviors I don’t understand by driving toward my desired outcome: being able to feel better about it without actively being hostile to people I know. Plus, maybe there are a few of you out there that will find these truisms as much of a revelation as they were to me. And that’s the best Outcome of all.

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I have worked in technology for almost all of my professional career. Much of it has been in a consulting or contracting mode, where I would work at a customer company’s site instead of at my employer’s. So I’ve been able to observe dozens of different companies and approach process and change within their oranizations, specifically their IT organizations.

Contrast the following:

• I had a sales call at one international energy firm where they were interesting in really bleeding-edge integration of vendors that weren’t quite ready, and I was told the company’s approach was “if we’re not making mistakes, we’re not moving fast enough”. Wow, that’s like a blank check for a consultant!!
• I worked for three years at another international energy firm where the smallest change had to be submitted a week in advance and a change affecting multiple servers had to be in the system for a MONTH prior to actual implementation.

Which was the more successful firm? Depends on what you’re measuring — is it revenue, is it profit, or is it the company’s long-range investments in future technologies and revenue sources? Besides, the test of a successful energy firm is when prices are below $50 a barrel, so the answer may not appear for a while.

Another dichotomy:

• My first job after college was as a marketing analyst with leviathan insurance company. When I realized I had a knack for programming and systems development, I applied internally for a job posting for a server administrator. I mean, I’d taught myself to program pretty sophisticated stuff in less than a year, I’d be a great internal recruit, right? Cheap and willing to learn. However, HR couldn’t even let me post for the job because it was more than two analyst grades above my own in their job classification system. This is the same company that installed a cube wall in front of a floor-to-ceiling window because the employee sitting there wasn’t a Manager and only Managers got window cubes. Seriously.
• My third job after college was to move to national technology consulting firm, coming from a very small-potatoes tech consulting firm. I told the hiring manager what my salary expectations were… and when it came time for the offer, he actually offered me more (to ensure I was still happy after I started and realized that my ask price was below market). Pretty amazing.

Now, that hiring was during the heydays of the tech boom, I realize that, but (from my persective), “Leviathan Mutual” passed up on a great internal promotion opportunity because of hidebound process and procedure rules, while “Nimble Consulting” broke protocol to accomplish what they needed to accomplish.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I by no means advocate “shooting from the hip” for technical work. (Here is where people who know me in person will start to snicker). On the contrary, I am the Queen of Procedure Docs. (It has been a mostly peaceful reign). I write procedure docs to ensure two things:

(1) The Safety Blanket: The Customer feels reassured that we know what we’re doing.

(2) The Caffeine Factor: The technical team (myself absolutely included) can perform our middle-of-the-night tasks like upgrading servers without having to remember all the steps in our head.

In my mind, the above two reasons are very practical reasons for documentation. Even if you don’t agree with it, your customers will be happier if you show them what you’re doing. And it is simply a good idea to write down anything you plan to do at 3 in the morning. But you’ll notice I didn’t list

(3) Because I Said So: Make sure everyone else adheres to some process simply because the process exists.

But I find as my technical career progresses that process-slavishness doesn’t have to be company-wide. It can exist among people and departments, and I realize as I get older (and crankier, no doubt) that I am having less and less patience with it. I have no patience for those who live in the “World of Should” (e.g., “People should follow the process, because that’s the process”, regardless of the real-world situation). This is a jewel with many facets:

• There’s no need to put “helper” text on an application form, because everyone should have received training on the app.
• I shouldn’t have to code a “back” button on a web site page, because the browser has a back button, and the user should know to use that instead.
• We shouldn’t have to help a customer who caused their own problem, the customer should just fix it themselves.

My issue with all of the above reminds me of something a friend’s husband once said: “Well, you might be right, but you won’t have any friends”.

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So I had an experience yesterday that caused me to need to come here and vent. Mynagirl and I work for the same company in a downtown Houston office building, and our building has a cafeteria. It is a garden variety corporate cafeteria, with food that is neither really good nor really bad, and fairly reasonable prices. They typically have four or five general areas for food…a mexican line (tacos, burritos, taco salads, quesadillas, etc), traditional food line (chicken breast, meat loaf, fish, turkey, vegetables, etc), sandwich line (sandwiches), grill line (hamburgers, grilled chicken sandwiches, chicken fingers, fries, etc), and twice a week a pasta line where they make pasta to order.

There is also a salad bar, dessert area, frozen yogurt machine, Starbucks cofffee, fountain drinks, bottled drinks, and fresh fruit.

So, not bad for a corporate cafeteria.

But yesterday when Mynagirl and I sat down, there was a man and woman at a table not really that close, but close enough for us to have to endure the guy pontificating for 20 minutes. The subject of his sermon? He ranted and raved and railed about the fact that the cafeteria was “ripping me off” because they charged him for the extra cup of gravy that he asked for and for the cup of ice and water that he got.

Now, some of you are saying, “Yeah, brother, right on…fight the power!”, while the majority of you are saying, “Man, what a cheap bastard.” I fall squarely into the latter category, and find that as I get older I am beginning to have less and less patience for people who have an entitlement mentality. These are people who somehow expect the world to be “fair” and somehow perceive that large organizations like businesses and governments should somehow have bottomless pits of money that they should be used to make life easier for cheap bastards with a sense of entitlement.

In the specific example of the guy yesterday, here’s what happened from my perspective:

• Cheap Bastard (CB) orders chicken fingers which come with a little plastic cup of gravy. CB asks for a second little plastic cup of gravy, thereby taking more gravy than is built into the food costs. CB then is surprised and offended that the cafeteria wants to charge him $0.25 for this cup of gravy.
• CB comes into the cafeteria empty-handed, and has not bothered to purchase and schlep his own bottled water with him (which the cafeteria allows), nor has he filled his own cup with water from one of the many water fountains available all over the building. Instead he grabs a cup that the cafeteria provides, goes to the ice machine that the cafeteria bought and maintains and fills the cup with crushed ice from the crushed ice machine provided by the cafeteria, then moves to the push-button water-dispenser that was purchased and is maintained by the cafeteria and fills the cup (with water that the cafeteria pays for), then grabs a lid provided by the cafeteria, then grabs a straw provided by the cafeteria, then goes and sits at a table in an area provided by the cafeteria, finishes his water, throws the remaining water and ice, along with the cup, lid, and straw into a waste receptacle that the cafeteria maintains and pays to have emptied. And then CB complains that all of this convenience costs him another $0.25. He truly is a CB.

And I think that’s where the major disconnect is between the CB’s with a sense of entitlement and the rest of us. I truly don’t think that CB understands that his cup of gravy or that cup of ice with water are a very real, hard cost for that cafeteria business. And although he may not think it’s worth $0.25 to have the luxury of extra gravy or he doesn’t think that it’s worth another $0.25 for the convenience of having cups, lids, straws, crushed ice, and water available, he should realize that it is not the job of the cafeteria to give things away. The cafeteria is a business, not a charity, and so has every right to charge for these things, and it appears to me that they are charging very fairly. CB is free not to eat there and/or not to get extra gravy or a cup of ice water if he doesn’t want to pay for them. However, paying for them and then complaining that they are not worth it are just plain stupid. The fact that CB paid for them proves that they were worth it to him, unless he was forced through the line with a gun to his head, or something.

In yet another example which also happened in the last few days, I was traveling home from a business trip and was in the Seattle airport, and was going through a fast food line to get some nachos to nosh while waiting for departure. The couple in front of me got a taco plate, a salad plate, and two medium drinks (trust me, I remember exactly). After they ordered the wife went off in search of a table, while the husband kept tabs on the progress of their lunch order. The girl who was checking them out was obviously new, and rang up his total. She told him “$12.97, please!”, to which he responded, “No, that can’t be right” and directed his gaze to the menu. The girl double-checked her figures and claimed it was correct, but the guy insisted it was too high. He then ran through the pricing from his perspective. “First we have the taco plate meal, then we have the salad plate meal, and those include drinks so the total should be eleven fifty-something” he says.

At this point the new checkout girl was completely paralyzed by what to do, as you could tell she didn’t agree with him or his math, but wasn’t sure enough to say so. So she summoned a more senior lady from the back, who reviewed the tab and pronounced it correct. Mr. Man continued to dispute the charges, and pointed out to both of the ladies that there was a handwritten sign that said that the two dishes they had ordered were available as a meal for price X as opposed to the a la carte pricing where the drinks were added separately. The senior lady finally acknowledged that he was correct and rung him up for the displayed price.

Now, there are those of you out there who are again saying, “Yeah, brother…right on….fight the power!” while the rest of you are again saying, “What a cheap bastard!”. Again I am in the latter camp. I can hear all you CBs out there reading this and finding it incomprehensible that I can fault Mr. Man for fighting to get the correct price, but I do, with extreme prejudice. Because while Mr. Man argued with these oblivious cashiers, he made the rest of us poor, tired, huddled business travelers wait for 5 extra minutes (while our already-prepared food was cooling on their counter), all to save about $1.50. I was literally at the point of handing this schmuck $5 and asking him to get the hell out of everybody’s way, because enough was enough. The restaurant was obviously not purposely ripping him off, and the amount in question was trivial, but Mr. Man stood there making everybody wait to make his point. Now, I know that he had every *right* to do that, but it was still rude to everyone else in line, and Mr. Man should have said to himself “Close enough” and moved on.

Now, if Mr. Man had been buying a car and the price was off by $5,000? Go ahead and make a stink. If he paid for his groceries at the store with $100 bill, but only got change for a $50, stand your ground, and more power to you. But making a stink in a busy airport line making everybody else wait in order to make your point about $1.50? That’s just beyond the pale and begins to border on a disorder. Let it go, pal, you’ll get it back many times over in good karma (or the avoidance of bad karma), trust me.

I’ve known many CB’s personally, and one thing I’ve found is that most of them have never actually run a business themselves, or worked in a job where they were responsible for profit and loss. Either that, or they see money simply as a game that they must always win, not matter what the stakes. These are the same dorks that will drive across town to save $0.05/gallon on gas, burning up any cost savings with their meanderings but not caring, because they get to “win” with the lowest price.

When your imperitive is to maximize the bottom line, such as with your own business or running a product line within a larger business, you realize that you can’t afford to give things away, or to waste time making sure the accounts balance to the penny. The for-profit enterprises that do seem to give things away actually don’t, because they either charge you for them elsewhere and hide that cost, or know that they’ll get future sales/profits from you by investing in providing you with an incentive.

For example, that home security system that they install for free? It’s the minimum system and they know you’ll almost certainly add on additional sensors and things, plus they charge you a monthly recurring fee for monitoring the system, and that’s where they make the money. The restaurants that *do* give away extra gravy and cups of water? They’ve built those expenses into their food costs already, so you and me and everybody else there is paying for that “free” stuff.

Remeber, as it says in the abstract up there, TANSTAAFL, which means, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, and that is a truism that is very true indeed…steeped in truthiness, in fact.

Based on the little I know about CB from his rantings, I’ll bet he’s also a bad tipper (BT). And I find that BTs and CBs both have an entitlement mentality. The world owes them something. It owes them what they think they deserve, regardless of they they’ve actually earned it or lucked into it. Dammit, I just *know* I’m supposed to have a big, flat-screen TV to watch the Super Bowl on, and the fact that I don’t means either that my company isn’t paying me enough or that the companies making the TVs are charging too much for them. It couldn’t possibly be that I can’t afford one, because that’s just not right.

Don’t you know people like that?

Are *you* a person like that?

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After seeing this movie it became clear to me what low expectations I have from Hollywood films these days. This film was a solid, well written, well acted, intricately plotted action flick, and I realized I hadn’t seen anything like it since…well…since a very long time. It’s not quite as good as Die Hard, but it’s better than Collateral, to give you an idea of where I’d put it in this genre. It’s a bit unfair to compare anything to Die Hard, since that’s the film that both defined this genre and has ruled as the best intelligent action picture ever made ever since, IMHO.

However, Inside Man is right up there. First of all, it was astonishingly refreshing to see Denzel Washington not play Denzel Washington for the first time in a long time. Here he plays an NYPD hostage negotiator who gets pulled into a Dog-Day-Afternoon-like standoff at a bank robbery that isn’t what it appears to be. Denzel’s character is extremely competent, but he’s not a super-sleuth or a John McClane-like bad-ass. However, he uses a combination of his instincts, street-smarts, and determination as he attempts to unravel the mysteries with which he is presented.

Also refreshing to see is Jodie Foster, looking exactly her age, playing a character her age, showing wrinkles and laugh lines and looking spectacular doing it. Not only that, but she plays an amazingly amoral “consultant” who helps people’s problems go away. Her character can be summed up by noting that after she has blackmailed the Mayor of New York City into doing what she wants, he responds by saying “You, my dear, are a magnificent cunt.” And she is.

Clive Owen and Christopher Plummer also both shine in their roles, and the supporting cast is nearly perfect. All of this is directed with flair by Spike Lee, and also with a bit of Spike Lee-iness. There are some trademark shots and scenes that mark this as a Spike Lee Joint, but he has proven here that he can deliver the big-studio, big-budget, big-grossing ($66 million and counting) hit, while still making a great film. That skill seems to have escaped most directors today.

I’m curious if Spike was able to leverage his status as a premier director to keep control of his film and maintain the intricate and sometimes nearly opaque plotting. My take is that today’s studio execs fear films that challenge audiences to pay attention and think, and instead seem to reflexively add in slow-motion kung fu, slow-motion gunplay (with pistols held sideways in that “cool” way), techno-music-driven flash-cut montages in nightclubs run by the bad guys, any time they think a film is getting too cerebral.

In any case, I really liked this film, and if you’re a fan of action movies that challenge you to keep up and don’t mind that there’s not any kung fu or sex, then this might be a film you’ll enjoy.

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This is one of those rare instances where I read the book before seeing the movie, and the cliche holds true, the book was better. Much better. That’s not to say that the film was bad, but the pecking order is great book followed by slightly above average film. One of the best parts of the film is the performance of Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor. Nick is a lobbyist for Big Tobacco, and he hasn’t so much as sold his soul as he has failed to control his awesome power for convincing. He’s managed to convince himself that Big Tobacco is being unfairly treated and mis-characterized by the government and the press, and with his pure belief he is able to charm and sway just about anybody to open their minds, even if just a smidge, to consider the fact that Big Tobacco just may not be the incarnation of the Devil.

Now, if you’ve read much of this site you’ll know that I’m not pro-smoking (he understated), but intellectually I’ve also felt that the government is acting quite hypocritically with regards to tobacco. Since tobacco is legal, the constitutionalist in me says that it should be treated as such and not harassed and over-taxed. If we as a people say that tobacco is legal, let it be legal. Now, that’s not to say that I believe it should be ubiquitous, and in fact I would happily agree to having tobacco legal to smoke, but have it be illegal to inflict others with one’s effluvia. In other words, I won’t tell you you can’t smoke if you don’t tell me I have to inhale your blow-by gasses.

Parking high horse.

One of the things I like best about the film is that it doesn’t demonize Nick Naylor, and instead shows him to be a superstar, while also beginning to question if he’s playing for the right team. He has a young son, and the film plays up the fact that Nick is ambivalent about how to reconcile his desire to be a good dad with his desire to do a good job. This aspect of the film is what I think weakens the impact, as it attempts to humanize Nick without making him pick sides.

For example, there’s a scene where Nick’s bosses send him to visit an old, cancer-stricken former Marlboro man and take him a briefcase full of cash, no strings attached. No confidentiality agreement, nothing. Just, here, here’s some money from us to you. An implied guilt trip. And Nick not only delivers the money and the message, but he spins the interaction in such a way as to leave Mr. Dying Marlboro Man (played wonderfully by Sam Elliott, who in retrospect seems born to play a dying former Marlboro Man) with only one option – take the money (for his family after he’s gone) and keep his mouth shut (so that he won’t be a hypocrite by taking their money and then saying derogatory things about tobacco).

The kicker is that Nick has taken his son along with him on this visit. You see, his son accompanied him on this business trip to California so that he and his father could bond, and the son innocently backs his father into a corner about going along to make the payoff, because Nick admitting that he didn’t want his son along would be Nick admitting that what we was doing was “wrong”. And Nick doesn’t see himself as a wrongdoer. So Nick’s son gets to see what his dad does for a living. And, like all sons, absorbs it and learns from it.

There are other facets to the film, as well. Nick belongs to the M.O.D Squad, which stands for Merchants of Death. This group of three represent Tobacco, Alcohol, and Firearms, and meet once a week for lunch and spend time comparing yearly mortality rates for each of their respective masters and using that to gauge the toughness of their jobs.

There’s also a vacuous reporter, played by Katie Holmes, who does a little convincing of her own (if you know what I mean and I think you do) and gets Nick to open up to her about his job, and then writes a scorching expose of him and his cohorts. It was only afterwards that Mynagirl told me that the reporter was Katie Holmes, and I have to say she did a singularly unimpressive job, and sort of faded into the background, in my opinion. And got a little bit freaky before doing so, I might add.

The rest of the cast does a good job, with Robert Duvall as the personfication of Big Tobacco, William H. Macy as the prototypical anti-smoking (and Birkenstock wearing) liberal Congressperson, and Rob Lowe (whose porn name should be Raw Blow, if you ask me) as the stereotypically sociopathic and pseudo-spiritual Hollywood movie exec.

Put it all together and you have a fairly good film that could have been great with just a bit of tweaking and enough backbone to stay away from the Hollywood-esque ending. Still it was much more entertaining and different than the usual Hollywood drivel, and that makes it worth seeing.

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Oscar Arrives!

Argent de Poche

Strangely, pockets were a mini-theme this year… both Amy Adams and Sandra Bullock wore blossomy dresses with pockets, and both looked utterly relaxed. I guess a beautiful gown with pockets just makes you feel less stressed, like you’re just hanging out.

Amy Adams’s striped Carolina Herrera was gorgeous and elegant

Sandra chats calmly during the red carpet mixing

Pales in Comparison

It’s official, I will never like pale colors on the red carpet. Color, people, color!!

Naomi Watts was radiant as always, but that washed-out Givenchy did not do it for me… I actually liked the gauzy messiness of it all, but I just can’t stand that pale color on her!!

I had a really bad run-in with King Kong before the show

Naomi’s b.f. Nicole Kidman was similarly milk-toast in her ivory column.

Ice princess Nicole

Even Reese Witherspoon and Uma Thurman chose the pale look.

Reese paled it up as well

Uma… where’s Oprah?

Golden Girls

Going just one shade beyond pale were the gowns ranging from gold to goldenrod. Jessica Alba was radiant with beautiful hair and jewelry, even if her gown did make her look a titch naked at first glance. Michelle Williams’s mustardy dress wasn’t my favorite, especially with those cool, dark colors in her antique-y necklace.

Golden princess Jessica

Mustard princess Michelle

Even radiant Jennifer Garner chose an icy barely-gold sequined number.

Stunt princess Jennifer

And Bahar Soomekh of Crash is so beautiful, I was sorry she spent the night in yellow chiffon, even if it is Calvin Klein.

Persian princess Bahar

But it wasn’t just the young kids in shades of gold… Jane Seymour wore a pale gold gown that showed off her figure (perhaps a smidge too well).

I’m hoping to sub for Dolly Parton if possible

Back in Black

Of course, not everyone was brave enough to go for ivory or pale gold. Some had to get really brave and go with… black. Jennifer Anniston, Felicity Huffman, and Rachel Weisz all opted for black. Although Felicity’s Zac Posen look was a bit more daring than the other ladies.

I’m hoping to stand out as little as possible

Just in case you had any doubts from Transamerica

I think my pregnant belly leaves no doubt at all…

Charlize Theron also chose a blackish green gown whose puffy sleeve was almost matched by her hair-helmet hairstyle.

Well, I have a pillow to use if the telecast gets too boring

Color, although Not Very Much

The most colorful dress of the evening was Salma Hayek by far — in a radiant peacock blue. She was the only one in a bright, however. Keira Knightley was radiant, gorgeous, elegant, fabulous in a darker color — a knocked out burgundy Vera Wang.

Hello, Dahling

Precious, dahling

The Boys

Well, the men were into classic good looks, and hallelujah. The straight-tie look predominated, but there were enough bow ties to remind you that you really were at the Oscars.

Oscar-winner Clooney is charming and good-looking as ever

Matt Dillon is classic, showing up for his nomination for Crash

Eric Bana also shows the classic bow tie tux

Will and Steve both chose the charcoal / silver look for their ties

Giamatti sports the straight tie

Howard wears the straight tie as well as…a diamond brooch?

The documentarians from March of the Penguins showed the crowd how to really wear a tux

Of course, not all the men were classic. Some were against the trend, as with Gary Busey’s confused look and all-black tux. Oh, and Tim Burton was definitely Tim Burton.

Why am I here?

C’mon, Helena, you’re entirely too polished to be my date

Nominees and Winners for 78th Annual Academy Awards

Leading Actor

• Philip Seymour Hoffman, in Capote
• Terrence Howard, in Hustle & Flow
• Heath Ledger, in Brokeback Mountain
• Joaquin Phoenix, in Walk the Line
• David Straithairn, in Good Night, and Good Luck

Leading Actress

• Judi Dench, in Mrs. Henderson Presents
• Felicity Huffman, in Transamerica
• Keira Knightley, in Pride & Prejudice
• Charlize Theron, in North Country
• Reese Witherspoon, in Walk the Line

Supporting Actor

• George Clooney, in Syriana
• Matt Dillon, in Crash
• Paul Giamatti, in Cinderella Man
• Jake Gyllenhaal, in Brokeback Mountain
• William Hurt, in History of Violence

Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams, in Junebug
• Catherine Keener, in Capote
• Frances McDormand, in North Country
• Rachel Weisz, in The Constant Gardener
• Michelle Williams, in Brokeback Mountain

Best Director

• Ang Lee, for Brokeback Mountain
• Bennett Miller, for Capote
• Paul Haggis, for Crash
• George Clooney, for Good Night, and Good Luck
• Steven Spielberg, for Munich

Best Picture

• Brokeback Mountain
• Capote
• Crash
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• Munich

Best Cinematography

• Batman Begins
• Brokeback Mountain
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• The New World

Best Original Song

• In The Deep, from Crash
• It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp, from Hustle & Flow
• Travelin’ Thru, from Transamerica

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So, I really like Seinfeld. On average I probably watch 5-7 episodes each week. The more I watch it the more I appreciate it…you have to watch it for several years to *get* the intricate weave of characters and storylines over the years. It was self-referential without being self-conscious, and it was funny. FUNNY. Sure, there are some episodes or plotlines that I don’t particularly care for, but overall the show is classic.

And I’ve watched with some interest as the former cast members have moved on and tried to go solo, with limited success. Until now.

In The New Adventures of Old Christine, I think Julia Louis-Dreyfus has hit paydirt. I TiVo’ed it out of respect for Elaine Benes, and figured I had to give Julia the benefit of the doubt and at least give her show a chance. I’m glad that I did. Mynagirl and I have watched all of the episodes so far (four, I think), and they have been pretty damn funny. Sure, there are rough spots and some hackneyed sitcom staples (precocious kid, slacker brother, sassy black friend, etc), but it seems to be working.

When I first heard the title I mentally rolled my eyes and figured the show would have to suck, given such a trite title. But after the first episode I got the story behind the title, which is that Christine (Louis-Dreyfus) is divorced, and her ex has started dating a younger girl. Her name is also Christine, and she gets referred to as “the new Christine”, hence the show’s title. In a wonderful rejection of low-hanging sitcom fruit, the new Christine seems really nice and is not scheming, evil, superior, or rude.

And Louis-Dreyfus really seems comfortable in the role and embodies the old Christine quite fully. I watched a bit of her other show (where she was a singer…I forget the title…it really sucked) and she just didn’t seem like she felt at home with the character. This character is older, wiser, and a bit more jaded than Elaine Benes, and with an ex-husband and kid to boot, but still allows flashes of Elaine to show through, which makes me think that they are flashes of Louis-Dreyfus and they just happened to flash through both for Elaine and Christine.

The rest of the cast also seem to fit comfortably into their roles, although I’m not sure yet if the character of her son is cute or annoying, although the kid playing the role does a great job.

And now I’ve actually started looking forward to new episodes, and that’s rare for me. I hope they keep up the good work on the show, because I want it to be good. It would be nice to see a former Seinfeldian do good.

Note to the producers of TNAOOC: if you ever have an episode where Louis-Dreyfus plays both Christine and Christine’s sister Elaine Benes, then your show will have jumped the shark. Just wanted to let you know in case it started to sound like a good idea.

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Ingredients

• Portabella mushrooms, chopped
• Red Onion, chopped
• Montreal Chicken Seasoning (contains no chicken)
• Canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• Cooked brown rice
• butter (can substitute olive oil)
• ginger sesame marinade (optional)

Directions

• Pre-heat a cast-iron skillet, frying pan, or wok on medium heat.
• When wok is hot, add butter, and portabellas and red onion. Add a dash of Montreal seasoning.
• Stir-fry until onions are carmelized.
• Then add chickpeas, drained, and more butter. Add another dash of seasoning.
• Stir-fry until chickpeas are browned.
• Then add more butter and the cooked brown rice (cold from the fridge is ok). Add another dash of seasoning.
• Stir-fry for another 5 – 8 minutes (add a Tbsp or so of ginger marinade if desired) until everything is nice and sizzling hot.

Editor’s note: When I first posted this recipe, I commented that I usually pair this dish with cheese to get some protein. But my great friend Darla clued me in the wonder food that is chickpeas: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=58. Check out the amount of protein in these bad boys, not to mention iron and fiber. How cool is that?

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