Negative
On things for which my opinion was net unfavorable.
Jim Beam Red Stag Cough Syrup
On a recent evening UAL flight I asked for a Jack on the rocks, as I sometimes am wont to do. The FA returned sadly with a little square bottle: the shape was familiar but the label wasn’t. “This is all we have,” she said apologetically. I gamely gave it a try.
It turns out it was Jim Beam’s new Red Stag Black Cherry Bourbon. It tasted a lot like cough syrup to me, sickly sweet and alcoholic. I’m not a big fan of Jim Beam to begin with, but it is tolerable straight or on ice. This concoction was not. I returned the unconsumed portion.
I’m not a sweet liqueur person to begin with, and this even less so. UAL very kindly assures me (from the Catering Manager) that Jack is supposed to be on all flights so this was, fortunately, an anomaly.
Ford Escape
After the while OJ thing tainted Ford with the low speed Bronco chase, they dropped the Bronco from their line and replaced it with something to help shed the whole fleeing fugitive image: the Escape.
Rumor has it there will be an Arrested Development movie!
It’s a pretty mediocre SUV. Squishy, soft, fairly comfortable. It’s a little loud inside. These small SUV’s seem to combine the disadvantages of a truck (noisy, gas consumptive, big, slow) with the disadvantages of a car (fragile, not off-road worthy). This one was even two wheel drive only, what’s the point of that?
Achelo Syrah
Excellent, rich, full of flavor and fruit.
Sync Outlook and Google
UPDATE: GOOGLE SYNC IS FAIL!
Google sync just stopped working. I tried all the suggestions including multiple removal and reinstall and even installing the Gears Calendar (why not) to no avail. Then I tried Mobile Sync and I am happy again.
I’ve used Funambol’s outlook client to sync Outlook on one computer with Mulberry’s Calendar on another as part of a complex web of synchronization involving GCal, ScheduleWorld, Funambol, and GCalDaemon, which pretty much worked.
But I just discovered Google Calendar Sync and just in time as Funambol 7.0.7 did not seem to work with outlook 2007 reliably (probably wacky corporate calendar entries, but whatever). So I switched to Google Calendar Sync. It obviates ScheduleWorld and intermediates directly between Outlook and GCal. On the minus side, it only syncs to your primary calendar and my old system would sync to my calendar of choice thanks to ScheduleWorld’s cleverness. But it does work and it is very fast. It is odd that it doesn’t support multiple calendars though, everything else does.
What the Beep?
The movie What the bleep do we know is a pseudo-scientific exploration of using quantum mechanics to justify a human potential-like pseudo-religious concept. I have an undergraduate degree in physics from MIT, and so I recognized a lot of the arguments as absurd immediately, but I reached the limits of my depth, particularly on the history of QM in this argument. Most, but not all of the concepts could be easily refuted from an undergraduate understanding such as mine, some seem to require more depth. But the practicing physicists I reviewed my answers with seemed to think they had nothing useful to add to the discussion, in part I suspect out of the still-somewhat-in-vogue idea that the best way to confront anti-scientific ideas is to ignore them, viz the debate over intelligent design (which I think, personally, the flying spaghetti monster settled.)
Chevy Uplander LT
Toyota Land Cruiser
I got a Toyota Land Cruiser as a rental car for the first time. It was kind of absurd as a rental. Oversized and a bit mushy, but otherwise it was a perfectly competent car. I still don’t get the “luxury 4WD” concept. I understand luxury cars – they are about comfort. But I don’t get a vehicle that’s premise is to be durable and tough yet coddles it’s occupants as if they’re eggs. You should be able to climb into a 4WD vehicle covered in mud and not think twice about the interior.
Trailblazer LT review
A Pervert’s Guide To Cinema
A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema is not as promising as the title would suggest. It is a wonderful collection of clips of various movies that are far more effectively tied to together cinematically than they are philosophically. Slavoj Zizek narrates a discussion of his apparent discomfort with sex, shame at being male, and hatred of his parents as if they were universal neurosis somehow illuminated by cinema. I found his critiques and comments on the films and directors generally interesting and compelling. His generalizations about the motivations for sex, arousal, libido, etc were pretty silly. Comparing the marx brothers to the Id, the Ego, and the Superego… hmm… I found Bataille’s Erotism: Death And Sensuality better thought out, if equally inapplicable to people not plagued with some serious issues.
(Friday, Aug 29 2008 Telluride Film Festival)