January 2007

Several people have praised this movie to me, yet they added the postscript: What is the movie about?? Without giving anything away, let me point you to the Will Durant quote that opens the movie:

“A great Civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”

Some movies give it all up in the title; I’m thinking ‘Snakes on a Plane’ and ‘Free Willie’ for starters. You know there are snakes on an aircraft and you know Willie will go free. Oops. I hope I didn’t spoil that classic movie for you by giving you the ending. And yet there was enough doubt about the outcome to engender a “Free Willie 2″ and “Free Willie: the Revenge” : )

So let’s go back to the name of the movie: Apocalypto. This brings up all sorts of end-of-the-world images and references the book of the Apocalypse in the Bible (also known as the Book of Revelations) which recounts all sorts of bloody battles and the final match between Good and Evil in the history of humanity. So you know something cataclysmic will take place, and also that established cultures will meet and clash. That’s all I’m saying before I head into the spoilers that follow……

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I had a thought the other day that sort of blew my mind somewhat. When I talk to people about whether or not they believe in aliens they tend to fall into 3 categories. The first camp says “absolutely not, we are the only living things in the universe”. The next says “Yes! And they routinely visit!”. The last says “I think it’s possible that something is out there somewhere but I think the chances of anyone finding us is so small that it doesn’t really matter if they exist or not”.

I tend to fall into the third group. Given what I know about the size of the universe (as humans perceive it) and what I know about probability I will confidently say that there is some non-zero chance that there is life of some sort elsewhere in the universe. The second half of group three’s argument is essentially based on the fact that there is a lot of space in space. The probability of two races finding each other by pure random chance in something as large as the universe are so close to zero that you could safely believe that we would never make contact with extra-terrestrials and the whole discussion is moot.

But what if it’s not driven by pure random chance? Since taking a recent position as a satellite designer I have been introduced to just how many people in the world are actively looking for “habitable” planets around other stars. Scientists claim to actually have discovered almost 200 planets so far and there are several missions either recently launched or currently in design which expect to find dozens of planets that may be capable of holding life. For the sake of argument, lets assume that those scientists are really smart guys and know what they are talking about. So, if they tell me that a planet 1 parsec away has an atmosphere capable of sustaining life, I will believe them.

Given what I know about technology and how fast it tends to advance, I think I can safely assume that as time goes by we will be able to see any discovered planets with increasingly better resolution. Also, our ability to measure a planets mass, chemical makeup, and atmosphere content will only get better with time.

Now lets fast-forward in time to the day we have the technology to build a ship capable of inter-stellar travel. Where do you suppose we would go? I can only imagine that the first destination on the list would be the planet that we have rated as the most likely to contain some form of life on it. That would eliminate all the random chance from the equation. We would have detected what we think might be life and then set out on a mission to go check it out. If we didn’t find anything we could keep bouncing around to the next place we think there might be life… and so on.

Granted, this would not happen any time in the near future… but the universe is a very old place. What if something else out there detected us a few (hundred?) thousand years ago and are already on there way… or have already been here?

For Christmas this year, I treated myself to a longtime object of my technolust: the Sandisk Sansa e280 flash memory MP3 player. Part of the e200 series, the e280 is the 8GB version. I paid $185 at Amazon (no blogger bribes here!). All e200 players have many features to thrash those precious iPod Nanos:

• Plays MP3, WMA, and secure WMA (see below)
• 1.8″ color LCD screen
• Image viewer
• Video player
• Voice recorder
• Data storage
• FM tuner, with record capability
• microSD expansion slot
• User replaceable, rechargeable Lithium Ion battery with 20 hours of play time (average)

That’s what everybody gets. The real kicker is if you have Windows XP [1] and a subscription service like Rhapsody-To-Go, Napster, or Yahoo! Music. This is a Plays For Sure player, so you can take subscription content with you. As long as I am a subscriber, I can transfer any track in my library, even though I didn’t buy it. Since I just got a great deal on Rhapsody-To-Go [2] I expect to subscribe indefinitely. That gives me any of Rhapsody’s 3 million+ tracks anywhere I want. It is the awesome.

That’s quite a feature list, in a very compact package. Here are the highs and lows.

Highs

• Screen is sharp, photos and videos look good.
• Sound quality is quite good, both for WMA (160K) and FM stereo
• Using Rhapsody’s jukebox software, transferring music is quite easy. You either drag and drop files, or synchronize with your Rhapsody Library. If you needed to, you could pick and choose from your Library instead of copying the whole thing. Personally, mine is a giant “best of” collection, so it’s very convenient for me to connect it to my PC have it automatically sync up. Right now I’ve got around 600 tracks that I’ve chosen over the last year, and it takes up about 2.7GB.
• The design is very nice. It’s shiny! And black. It’s not quite as compact or beautiful as the iPod, but… duh. As far as I can tell, Apple has kidnapped the best designers on the planet (minus Agent Hulagun), so nobody else can have such elegant-looking products. It’s the modern day equivalent of Ivan the Terrible poking out the eyes of Postnik Yakovlev after he built St. Basil’s Cathedral.
• New batteries are only $20 from Sandisk, compared to $60 for iPods.

Lows

• Like just about every other MP3 player I’ve read reviews on, the earbuds kinda suck. Sound quality is decent, they’re just these big round discs that don’t feel like they were designed to go in your ears. They’re too big for your ear canal (I think they’re more bellybutton sized), and I haven’t figure out a way to place them so they don’t feel like they’re about to fall out. I’m looking for a replacement, and have my eye on the Sennheiser PMX60 headphones. I’m pretty sure the larger drivers will drain the batteries faster, but at least they’ll be comfortable without messing up my incredible hair.
• The voice recorder seems to record a high-pitched whine along with your voice. It’s annoying, so don’t expect to make any podcasts from it. And you have to speak into the mic, so I don’t think you can use it to record lectures. Of course, the mic hole is about 2mm in diameter, so it’s a wonder it works at all. At least you can pause and continue the recording.
• When using the thumbwheel, your thumb rests on the left side of the wheel, which is not optimal. You scroll down, you’re turning counterclockwise, and the screen scrolls up. This is really an artifact of using a very compact device, and I don’t see a solution - that’s just where your thumb naturally rests. To make this more ergonomic you’d need to make it bigger, which nobody wants. I’m sure most compact MP3 players have this issue.
• When connecting to my PC for transfer, the Rhapsody software needs to scan the device for tracks. This takes several minutes, and I only have about 600 tracks (”only” meaning it’s only 1/3 full). In “mass storage” mode, you can’t transfer subscription content, only drag and drop files. So it doesn’t scan your tracks when you connect, but when you disconnect it essentially reboots and does this “Refresh Database” thing that also takes a couple minutes. You can’t win.
• The only way to recharge the battery is by hooking the device up to a USB port via the included cable. Not an issue - unless you want to travel with it. Luckily, there are many 3rd party Sansa accessories that solve this, and they’re even blessed by Sandisk. This includes USB charging ports for your car’s cigarette lighter, as well as wall chargers.
• The LCD stays on when the device is connected to a PC. Since you connect to charge the battery, it seems dumb to be draining it by lighting up the screen.
• Photos and videos can’t be placed on the microSD card.

I’m nitpicking a bit with the lows, but I’d rather be thorough in case one of them is a deal-breaker for you. Overall, I think the highs far outweigh them, and I’m quite happy with my purchase!

[1] And presumably Vista, but don’t hold me to that. I think it just needs Windows Media Player 10 or better.

[2] I’m afraid it’s gone now, but during the holidays they offered the to-go service for $8 month. I’d been paying $10/month for the Unlimited service, which doesn’t allow you to transfer to MP3 players, and the upgrade price was $15/month! I created another account, hoping to merge the two, but the best customer support could do was cancel the old one. I downloaded the entire library from my original account and then imported it from the new one, so I was able to save just about everything. After spending a year carefully selecting 600 tracks (out of several thousand), you don’t want to have to find them again!

In response to criticism (such as the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated) the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theater Owners are working to make their process more transparent. That’s good. They’re also going to offer a new warning to parents that some R-rated movies are unsuitable for children, even when accompanied by an adult. That’s utterly worthless, and the coward’s way out. See, the parents that bring children to movies loaded with violent and pornographic content aren’t clueless about the movie they’re about to see.

They’re just horrible parents.

I’m not talking about the parent that brings his 15 year old to The Last Kiss to find out there’s several sex scenes that the trailer didn’t even hint at. I’m talking about the mother who brings her 5 year olds to see The Cell. The parents who bring their pre-teens to Blade II. And the parents who complain because the theatre won’t let their 3 year old in for free to see The Exorcist! By the way, these are all real examples I’ve witnessed firsthand here in southern California. It happens all the time.

Roger Ebert has said about two films, “If this movie doesn’t get an NC-17 for violence, no movie ever will.” The films where Hannibal and The Passion of the Christ, and after seeing both I heartily agree. And yet they initially gave an NC-17 to Clerks for language! The MPAA just wants to soothe their aching conscience. These people live in the area of the country that I do, so they can’t be blind to their contributions to the delinquency of minors. I’m not for eschewing parental responsibility. But if we can do something, even a small gesture, to lessen the psychological damage these selfish parents will inflict on their children, shouldn’t we?

I’m preparing to make my annual top 10 film list, and there are a number I still haven’t seen yet. I am choosing from the Academy’s list of eligible films. From that list, I’ve selected a number of films that I haven’t seen, but have a shot at my personal top 10. Maybe. If you’ve seen any of these, please leave a helpful comment like, “dude, I can’t believe you haven’t seen this you must be retarded or something but seriously, it is awesome and totally hardcore!!!”. Or “d00d this is sux0rs and if you like it you are totally of the ghey and retarded”. I anxiously await your insight!

All The King’s Men
Apocalypto
Babel
Blood Diamond
Bobby
Breaking and Entering
Curse of the Golden Flower
Deja Vu
Dreamgirls
Factory Girl
For Your Consideration
The Fountain
The Good German
The History Boys
The Holiday
Idiocracy
The Illusionist
Lady in the Water
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Children
Marie Antoinette
Monster House
Night at the Museum
Notes on a Scandal
Pursuit of Happyness
The Queen
Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
Tristan + Isolde
United 93
World Trade Center

2006 hasn’t been a great year for movies. About halfway through I was asked about some standouts, and could only name a couple. And I’m having some trouble putting together a solid top 10. But moreover, there have been some horrible movies put out this year, as judged by the fine folks at the IMDb. In fact, in their Bottom 100, no less than 11 films are from 2006, and they compose half of the bottom 10! I haven’t seen any of these, but I’m still glad to see Turistas and Little Man made the list.

Here they are, from worst to worse (yes, they technically get “better” as you continue):

1. Crossover
2. Araf
6. Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj
8. Unaccompanied Minors
10. Zoom
16. Phat Girlz
18. Material Girls
48. Doogal
51. Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector
66. Turistas
84. Little Man

A very annoying and potentially frustrating thing happened to me at the US post office. I recently purchased a new canon digital camera and lens (which I am trying to finish the review on… so watch out for future posts) due to a huge rebate that Canon was offering. The rebate for each item was a great value but (thanks to intelligence sources outside The Crack Team) I found out that if you purchased two eligible items that canon would double your rebate. This brought my total rebate value to $700. Not an unimpressive number in my opinion and certainly worth something to someone. The way you actually claim your rebate is to clip out the UPC codes from the boxes the items came in and mail them to Canon. Enter the USPS and its bizarre definition of the word value.

Canon, or the company that Canon contracts to do its rebates, has been known to royally screw up the rebate process making things agonizing for their customers. Armed with this knowledge I wanted to do everything I could to ensure that I not only had proof that Canon received my letter containing the UPC codes but that should the USPS lose it that I would be insured and would still be able to claim my $700. When I asked to insure the letter they asked me what was inside. Assuming they just wanted to make sure that I was not mailing anything illegal or dangerous I told them that I was mailing 2 pieces of cardboard for a rebate. “We cant insure that” says the lady at the counter. When I asked why they couldn’t insure the letter she said “we can only insure things that have value”. Such a statement did not compute; at that point all my agent training was lost and I found myself dumbstruck and confused behind enemy lines.

To the casual observer I suppose that two poorly cut out pieces of cardboard with little black stripes and some numbers on them are, in fact, worthless. I mean, it did look like I plucked them from the garbage can on the way into the post office. However, if you give said pieces of cardboard to the right people they will give you back $700, so doesn’t this imply that they have a value of $700? I was under the assumption that things (like gold, cars, baseball cards, etc) only had value because someone else would give you something for them. Even silly things like beads are worthless to some people but there are other people who would sell you islands like Manhattan in exchange for them.

If the USPS loses my letter then I lose $700, which was the point of me asking for insurance. All they could offer me was to have the mail certified, which would prove that I mailed the letter but would not prove to Canon that it actually contained any UPC codes. I could also have sent it registered mail but that wasn’t really what I was looking for either. All I wanted was some way to know that should the USPS lose my mail that I would be able to somehow get my $700 if Canon decided not to believe that I ever owned the UPC symbols.

In my entire life I haven’t had a letter lost in the mail so I am not terribly worried about it. However, two days ago I could have said the same thing about a flat tire (I didn’t have the insurance on that either). Since the universe seems against me lately I thought insurance was warranted. I have copies of the UPC symbols so I hope that they are acceptable to Canon should my uninsured letter get lost in the mail. I think next time I will choose either FedEx or UPS.

Flat iron steak is a new cut of beef that was invented just a few years ago. I had no idea you could invent a steak, but researchers at the University of Nebraska and University of Florida they did just that. Basically, they were studying the cheap meats you normally don’t consider, and discovered that the “top blade” roast could be made into some damn good steaks if you removed the part that resembled shoe leather. The one I bought was about 12″ x 5″ x 1″ thick, and weighed 1.3 lbs. Of course, size isn’t everything.

I first heard about flat iron while reading about restaurants in Orange County that serve Kobe beef (aka Wagyu). Then I caught Stephen Raichlen expounding on it on Barbecue University (definitely worth watching if you’re a griller like me; his books are great, too). As Raichlen explains, the flat iron is second only to filet mignon in tenderness! And it’s cheap - I paid a little only $4/lb! And yes, it tastes good.

The one I bought was about 12″ x 5″ x 1″ thick, and weighed 1.3 lbs. Of course, size isn’t everything. I grilled it with just coarse Kosher salt, ground black pepper, and olive oil. I was shooting for medium rare, but it swelled up and came out closer to rare. Some steaks are tough if not cooked enough, but like a tenderloin or ribeye, this was still tender. And the flavor was decent, too. Filet mignon is known for not being very flavorful, which is why they serve it in sizzling herb butter at Ruth’s Chris, or wrap it in bacon, or wrap it in puff pastry with foie gras and truffles (Beef Wellington). And all of those fantastic recipes are why flat iron cannot replace tenderloin in the world of fine cuisine.

I don’t think flat iron is as tasty as ribeye, but boneless ribeye is 2-3 times more expensive and obscenely fatty. Granted, that’s why it’s so tasty, but it’s horrible for you unless you’re on some ultra-low-carb diet. And even then, it should be eaten sparingly.

I also like strip steak, skirt steak, and tri-tip, but when you factor in price and fat content, it’s hard to justify any other steak over flat iron for regular eating.

Edit: I recommend cutting the steak into 2-3 smaller steaks to speed cooking. I did a whole one (almost two pounds) and it easily doubled the cooking time.

The topic of the Pasadena Rose Parade is far afield from the fare on the CrackTeam (CT) website. But I think there are enough mitigating circumstances to include the Parade in our website this year: George Lucas is the Grand Marshall, Star Wars floats on the road, 501st Stormtrooper garrison marching, CT members working just a couple of blocks from the parade route, Pasadena JPL and its role in the birth of CT, etc. etc.

I have to address one of the cruelest moments in the parade. No, it was not the disgraceful sight of Darth Vader ambling down the street waving at the crowds. Embarrassing. The Lord of the Sith should have more comtempt for the crowds; perhaps he could have pelted them with LucasFilm (TM) merchandise and completed the spectacle.

No, the cruelest moment was the comment made by Bob Eubanks while the U.S. Marine Mounted Color Guard was parading for the cameras. He mentioned that the horses are periodically retired, much like “aging commentators on TV.” He was of course referring to the absence of Stephanie Edwards from the coverage this year. Stephanie is a victim of the ol’ double standard: guys age gracefully and look more distinguished, gals just age. She was probably also experiencing the Star Trek Maxim: a new series (TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise) comes up every few years because the more established actors get paid lots more and expect the salaries to keep on going up every year with a successful series. Stephanie and Bob are probably very expensive to keep, and that’s the first place you cut (according to management).
But this is a prime example of management “not having a clue.”  In TV-Land you are supposed to extract as much viewer interest as you can, for the money you are spending. I would have done a couple of “Farewell” type broadcasts and engaged the audience in that way. Having Stephanie say her goodbyes last year in the pouring rain was just NOT the way to do it. And the bad blood between KTLA and the viewers is not a good thing.

But perhaps Bob was referring to the fact that his option is coming due soon, and that perhaps he would also be let go. That would be a shame. He and Stephanie were a fixture on New Years Day morning and should be accorded some respect. But I’m sure he’ll get the Fond Farewell option (accompanying harp strings and wavering video effects, please).

One final note to KTLA management: if you want to bring the viewers in, please feel free to manipulate us. A “Final Farewell” broadcast with the old commentators would be a ratings hit. And I’d be the first dupe watching. For now, I recommend the ABC local broadcast feed; it’s the best HD feed after the KTLA offering.

I hope all agents and friends of The Crack Team had a safe holiday (a belated Happy Christmas, Merry Kwanza, and Joyous Hanuka to you all) with minimal casualties, and all mission targets saved and/or destroyed as needed. And if Santa brought you got a game console, may you enjoy it without throwing the controller through your television set.