When laziness pays off

Even though I'm a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki's films (which, if you haven't seen, you're a colossal wanker), I still haven't bought my own copy of Spirited Away, which is (so far) his masterpiece. (I say "so far" because his newest film, Howl's Moving Castle, is still in the offing.)

Well, this week sees the release of three more Studio Ghibli films on DVD: Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, Porco Rosso, and The Cat Returns. I expect that they'll all be available fairly cheaply at Target, so I'll be heading there after work on Tuesday. But the best news is the promotional offer that Buena Vista Home Video is offering:

According to Nausicaa.net, if you buy all three new DVDs, you'll be able to send in your proofs-of-purchase along with your receipt from the purchase for a free DVD, by mail, of either Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, or Kiki's Delivery Service. So if all goes according to plan, I shall get a free copy of Spirited Away at some point. It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.

(Eagle-eyed readers may note that The Cat Returns replaces My Neighbor Totoro on Tuesday's release. Also according to Nausicaa.net, there were problems with Totoro's DVD transfer, so that film has been delayed until an unspecified time.)

O for ten gallons of Aloe-vera....

I got a haircut today.

No, not a dramatic slashing of the locks; perish the thought! Just a little trimming of the ends to tame some splits and dead ends and whatnot, and some trimming of those goofy little tendrils of hair that after I go long enough without having them tamed stick out about two inches from behind my ears, which are highly annoying (as well as looking pretty stupid).

I also had the back of my neck trimmed. That's always my least favorite part of the process, because until tomorrow the back of my neck will be alternating between two sensations: "Unimaginably Itchy" and "On Freaking Fire".

(I think I may have to rethink my idea that using Firefox as my new browser would lead to more insightful content around these parts....)

PhyrePhoxx

I must report that so far I like the Firefox browser quite a bit. This thing seems to have taken all the things I really dug about Mozilla and, well, refined them and made them better. I really like the separate "search" tool, up in the toolbar. (For you Mozilla users, you know how you can use the URL Address window as a way to send search terms to Google? Well, Firefox has an entirely separate text window for that purpose, next to the URL Address window, and what's more, it comes with several engines installed, which means that you can search not only Google but Amazon, eBay, and others without going to those respective pages. And you can even add engines to the thing!)

One other Mozilla problem I was having is that the program didn't appear to be storing graphics for wab pages locally, so every time I visited my own blog, the entire thing had to reload. That's not just when loading the blog after launching the browser, but also whenever I returned to the blog after navigating to another one. I'm suspecting that this might have cause my recent brushes with Monthly Data Transfer Bandwidth Limit Doom.

And I still haven't dug into any extensions, although I plan to do so this week. Firefox is one slick item.

(For those curious, I didn't get the Thunderbird e-mail program, because I'm perfectly happy with Earthlink's and AOL's e-mail clients for now.)

"Too many notes"

AC Douglas has a brief complaint about how a work of Mozart's is treated in the film Amadeus:

I'm somewhat ashamed to confess I first became aware of the existence of this work courtesy of the film version of Amadeus wherein was heard part of the meltingly beautiful third-movement Adagio (at the point in the film when we first meet Mozart as musician) which, in the film, came to such a horrific, jarringly wrong close musically that I simply couldn't believe Mozart actually wrote it that way; ergo, my acquisition of the CD of the full seven-movement Serenade.

Turns out, of course, that Mozart didn't write it that way. What Sir Neville Marriner (Amadeus's music director) did for the film was to take the close of the seventh movement Molto Allegro Finale of the Serenade, and tack it onto the third-movement Adagio to form its close. Whatever possessed him to perpetrate such an idiot and grotesque edit is simply beyond my meager capacity to imagine, but, to quote the film's Emperor Joseph II, "There it is."

I may be wrong here, as it's been a while since I've seen the film (too long, actually, since I think that it's a great, great film), but I think that the musical edit here isn't intended to change the music itself at all. Rather, it is necessitated by the film itself. All that happens is that the film simply cuts from the middle of the work (that sublime movement that Salieri describes vividly) to the end, so we can get on with the business of Mozart being chewed out by the Archbishop (if my memory of the scene is correct). I don't think that Sir Neville Marriner meant to imply that the brisk conclusion of the Serenade's finale occurs in the same movement as that wondrous Adagio: he is telling us, "OK, we're at the very end of that same concert now."

A similar cut from one part of one work to another, later on the same performance, happens later during the premiere performance of Le Nozze di Figaro, when we go from one moment in the opera to another moment later on (when the Emperor starts getting fidgetty and yawning). That's all that's happening here: the film jumps from one point to another. Thus the musically "jarring" edit, which is probably jarring by design: Marriner very likely needed to make sure that it was blatantly clear to the film's audiences that cuts like these had taken place.

(By the way, I count the soundtrack to Amadeus as an exception to my rule of never recommending that people buy "classical sampler" albums consisting of single movements of various multi-movement works. The Amadeus soundtrack, on two CDs, is a very-well considered product, so if you've just gotta buy a "Mozart Sampler", this is the one to get. And the only one to get. Otherwise, buckle down and listen to complete symphonies, concertos, operas, and so on.)

There's only one more month of winter?!

Congrats to Jennifer, who had an article of her own appear in The Buffalo News. It's about, as you might expect from a Buffalonian, the cold months of winter -- but not in the way you might expect from a Buffalonian.

Who'da thunk it!

According to this Gallup poll, Americans my age (33 or thereabouts -- born during the Nixon Administration) are lucky enough to have lived under six of our nation's fourteen greatest Presidents.

Politics aside, I fail to see how either Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton beat out FDR, Lincoln, and George Washington. I stunningly fail to see how George W. Bush places ahead of George Washington. I fail to see how Jimmy Carter seems to have consistently outperformed Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George Bush the Elder, Thomas Jefferson, or Dwight Eisenhower.

There seems to be no explanation at all for results like this -- unless Americans don't actually know that much about their Presidents or their history. But nah, that couldn't be it!

Actually, I blame the poll's methodology, which seems to consist of asking people to name the greatest President. This method appears more suited to formulating results for an episode of Family Feud than yielding any concrete information about what Americans believe about their Presidents.

(link via Oliver Willis)

Behold...FireFox! (Or is it Firefox? Or fireFox? or PhirePhox?)

I am now using Mozilla Firefox on a "trial" basis. So far I like it, but I have to play around a bit more. It was certainly a fast download and install, I'll grant: on my dialup connection, it took all of fifteen minutes from the time I clicked "Free Download" on the Mozilla site to the time I was launching Firefox for the first time. I haven't started dinking around with these "Extension" things yet.

I also note that my theory that Mozilla was the source of my problems with Blogger seems to be false. Blogger is just being buggy, and "they're on it". It would have been nice if they'd posted that message to status.blogger.com a day or two ago -- heck, it would be nice if these kinds of status messages, pertaining as they do to the overall functionality of Blogger itself, were stuck prominently right on the Blogger Dashboard page so I wouldn't go to the trouble of writing a long post and then seeing it vanish (and then reappear again a few minutes later on, which is why I've had a problem with double-posts appearing here this week).

And of course, I will expect that using PfierPfocks will pack this blog with even more pentrating content. Look out, world!

Great Love Dialogue, #5

Broadcast News used to be one of my favorite movies. I say "used to" because I haven't seen it in well over eight years, and maybe more than ten. I'm not sure why that is, but sometimes things we greatly admire (or people) slip through the cracks in our lives, until many years later we think, "Hey, I used to really like that...."

Anyhow, Broadcast News is about a love triangle that takes place in the Washington news bureau of some unnamed TV network. The woman, Jane (Holly Hunter), is the news director (I think); her best friend is Aaron (Albert Brooks), a reporter who is long on journalistic integrity but not long on telegenic quality (as becomes apparent in a hilarious scene detailing his disastrous turn at anchoring the evening newscast). These two are not just friends, but comrades-in-arms: both are resisting the constant trend toward "dumbing down" the news.

But then along comes Tom (William Hurt), who is basically a big dumb lug who is also the smoothest, most natural TV news anchor ever. This is a guy who knows nothing about the issues, nothing about the news, nothing really about journalism -- but who has the uncanny ability to process words being fed through his earpiece during a Special Report into coherent anchoring. He's the type of person whose career flourishes while better journalists find their jobs threatened in the face of economic cutback.

So, obviously, Jane falls in love with Tom, even though he represents values she has been working against her entire professional life; and unbeknownst to her, Aaron is in love with Jane, because she is in a way his "Platonic Ideal" of a journalist.

All this comes to a head in a finely honed scene late in the film, when Jane goes to Aaron's apartment after his horrible stint as news anchor. Jane tells Aaron that she is in love with Tom, and after an angry knee-jerk reaction, Aaron calms down and tries to talk through his feelings:

JANE
This is important to me.

AARON
Yeah. Well...I think it is
important for you too. Sit down.

She sits. He walks to a desk and looks at her briefly... Silence.

JANE
What?

AARON
(looking at her)
Let me think a second. It's
tough.

A remarkably long silence -- her mind wanders, she takes stock...
it is evident that he is straining to get it right, reaching
into himself.

AARON
Aaach...Jane...
(glancing at note)
Let's take the part that has
nothing to do with me. Let's let
me be your most trusted friend,
the one that gets to say awful
things to you. You know?

JANE
(testy and wary
but fair)
Yes, I guess. Yes.

AARON
You can't end up with Tom because
it goes totally against everything
you're about.

JANE
Yeah -- being a basket case.

AARON
I know you care about him. I've
never seen you like this about
anyone, so please don't take it
wrong when I tell you that I believe
that Tom, while a very nice guy, is
the Devil.

JANE
(quickly)
This isn't friendship.

AARON
What do you think the Devil is going
to look like if he's around? Nobody
is going to be taken in if he has a
long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm
semi-serious here. He will look
attractive and he will be nice and
helpful and he will get a job where
he influences a great God-fearing
nation and he will never do an evil
thing...he will just bit by little bit
lower standards where they are important.
Just coax along flash over substance...
Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about
all of us really being salesmen.
(seeing he's not
reaching her)
And he'll get all the great women.

She is getting pissed.

JANE
I think you're the Devil.

AARON
No. You know that I'm not.

JANE
How?

AARON
Because we have the kind of
relationship where if I were the
Devil, you'd be the only one I
told.

She's briefly impressed. He has a point.

JANE
You were quick enough to get
Tom's help when...

AARON
Yes, yes. I know. Right. And
if it had gone well for me tonight,
maybe I'd be keeping quiet about all
this...I grant you everything but
give me this...he does personify
everything you've been fighting
against...And I'm in love with you.
(realizing)
How do you like that? -- I buried
the lead.

He pauses to catch his breath -- breathing deeply through his
nose.

AARON
(an aside)
I've got to not say that aloud;
it takes too much out of me.

JANE
(thawing)
Sit down, stop.

Aaron slumps down -- it's been a long round.

AARON
I've never fought for anyone before.
Does anybody win one of these things?

I love that last aside -- "Does anybody win one of these things?" -- because it tells us that Aaron already knows that he's doomed here. It can't possibly break in his favor. All he can do is stand his ground, make his points, jeopardize a friendship, and watch Jane go off to be in a relationship that is just as doomed as his love for Jane already is.

But the best line in the whole scene, for me, is the perfect summation of what love is all about -- at least, for Aaron:

We have the kind of relationship where if I were the Devil, you'd be the only one I would tell.

And that, really, is probably when Aaron realizes that his love for Jane is doomed to remain unrequited: because he has to spell this out for her.

Broadcast News isn't a perfect film, by any means. But I feel like I should track down a copy.

Ugh!

I didn't mean to take two days off from posting entirely; I've had a lot of problems lately with publishing the blog, for which I was blaming Blogger. However, I am posting this using my AOL account, and since AOL's browser is powered by Internet Explorer, I suspect that I have a browser issue. The fact that I had a big problem with Mozilla the other day (dumped bookmarks) reinforces this.

It looks like this weekend I will be downloading Firefox. Returning to regular use of IE is not in my future, if I can help it.

Peach Fuzz

The Unsinkable Mr. Jones reports that he has been experimenting with his beard. As in, actually growing one. I knew he'd weaken one day! Now if we can just get him to let that hair of his grow beyond 1/8 inch. What is it with guys and freakishly short hair these days?!

(Of course, Matt was always better looking than me in school, and he's substantially more successful, from the financial standpoint. So any fashion advice from me probably shouldn't be taken terribly seriously.)

Three years....

Three years ago today I published the first post at Byzantium's Shores. At the time I was working a telesales desk job, living with my one kid and three cats in a suburb of Buffalo. Since then, I have lost that telesales desk job, spent more than a year unemployed, seen two of those cats pass away and another enter the household, moved to Syracuse, moved back to the Buffalo area, sold some books on eBay, bought way more books, discovered new composers and new authors and new blogs, voted for the losing Presidential candidate...and watched The Wife give birth to a second child. Oh, and I've posted a lot of stuff here, much of it meaningless blather, and (bopefully) at least a small portion of it non-meaningless blather.

Thanks, all, for reading. Will I make it another three years here? There's only one way to find out. Stay tuned. Go Bills!

I don't wanna know....

Byzantium's Shores is Number Three on this search.

Of course, whenever I place very near, but not quite at, the top of any strange-sounding search, I have to check out the site that beat me out for Number One. And here it is. Wow.

(Not safe for work, I suspect. And I have to note that I have never understood the, shall we say, attraction some have for the human foot.)

Something good from France!

There's been an awful lot of attitude lately that France basically has nothing good to offer the world, so I found this news article fairly heartening: a French surgeon has developed a technique to reverse the effects of female genital mutilation (if you don't know what that involves, go here, but be warned: it is a stunningly nasty thing to do to a person).

And he performs his operations for no charge.

(via MeFi)

Blogging the Next Generation

Kellie has some good news to share. Best wishes to her, and all hopes that it goes the way it's supposed to go.

My new criterion for political outrage

I've decided that I just don't have time to get into all the various weird political things of the day. I'm talking about that professor from some obscure college who apparently holds some views that put him slightly to the left of Chairman Mao, and I'm talking about the weird way in which some guy apparently went to Kinko's and printed up some press credentials with which he was then granted a place in the White House Press Room, and the salacious details of his life. Sure, I spend a little time reading about it, and if it's a plus for my side I cheer the good guys and if it's a plus for the other side I hiss the bad guys, but my new rule for if I intend to comment on it here is this:

If the scandal or issue in question seems like one that will occupy less than a single page in one of the 900-plus page tomes about the Bush Years that will hit the bookstores in 2010 or thereabouts, it probably doesn't warrant my weighing in upon it.

Not that this has even been much of a political blog since the election, but I just have so little energy these days for tallying the outrages of the week. There's always another week, and always another outrage. So I'm going to be picking my outrages carefully.

Lynn's still Lost

Lynn Sislo on Lost:

...there have been little hints of something now and then, but it seems like I just keep waiting for something to happen and it's not the good, nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat kind of waiting; it's more the hurry-up-and-do-something-interesting-i'm-getting-bored kind of waiting.

That's pretty much my take, only I actually got bored and stopped watching the show. Or rather, I didn't so much as get bored as I saw the boredom coming on, and allowed the show to fall off my rotation of things to watch. It's hard to keep a show based on unexplained weirdness going for long. There's a reason why The X-Files didn't focus on the Mulder's sister/Smoking Man/Smallpox vaccinations/Bees genetically engineered for nefarious purposes/Alien Bounty Hunter/Alex Krycek mytharc in every single episode; the series would have collapsed under its own weight very quickly had it attempted to do so. (Instead, it took nearly eight years before the show collapsed under its own weight -- a bit of a pity, that, since the show actually ran for nine full years, but still.)

All Lost has is a bunch of people on a very weird island. Sure, some of those characters are very interesting indeed (when is someone going to realize that Terry O'Quinn can probably carry an entire series on his own?!), but the only way the show can continually invent new circumstances for them is to keep ratcheting up the way in which their island interacts with them in really weird ways. And the problem with that is very simple: sooner or later, some kind of convincing answer as to why the island is such a weird place has to be forthcoming. If not, then there's no reason for any of the stuff that happens on the show, and a drama in which things happen for no reason is no drama, and viewers will feel cheated, and rightly so.

But then, there's the other problem: once the island is explained, why should people continue to tune in? Presumably, to watch the characters try to deal with island/defeat it/escape it/bend it to their own purposes, et cetera. Maybe Lost will get there eventually, but it's not there yet, and I'm not interested in waiting.

(Caveat, though: Lost seems almost tailor-made for its inevitable incarnation on DVD.)

Betrayer Most Foul!

For reasons known only to it, Mozilla decided that it needed sustenance. So it ate my bookmarks. Seriously. Every bookmark I had is now gone, gone, gone. I can reconstruct a lot of it from history or from memory (combined with Google), but there are things that I'm sure I bookmarked for future reference that are now gone, gone, gone. This, sadly, includes a few blogs that I had just started reading on a sporadic basis, at least a couple of which I was planning on linking. I don't know if I'll find all those again. Hopefully I will.

This is the first major "episode" I've had with Mozilla.

IMAGES OF THE WEEK

Time for a bit of brazen bandwidth theft, courtesy the United States Government!

Red Saturn:

Blue Saturn:

I hope that wherever Carl Sagan is, he's looking at images like this.

Testing Flickr

clutter
Originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

(I'm testing my new Flickr account by posting this: my primary work and reading area, which is currently a repository for an immense amount of crap. This is the main front in my War On Clutter -- the moral equivalent of Tora Bora in my apartment.)

Sunday Burst of Weirdness

You know how everyone is always wondering just how Lois Lane never finds it odd that Clark Kent is never around when Superman shows up? or how nobody ever puts two-and-two together about the fact that Peter Parker is the only one who gets such awesome photos of Spiderman?

Well, here's a similar theory about Barry Manilow....