RENT!

We went to see the movie of the great musical Rent Friday. It was great! I love the musical and Eric and I know the whole thing by heart since we have listened to it hundreds of times. It was very true to the musical with most of the cast being original members of the first broadway cast. I think that they did a great job with the movie and it was cool to see the musical set in the real NYC and not just the abstract set that the musical usually uses. Rosario Dawson and Taye Diggs were the two newbies for the movie and they did great. I did not know that either of them could sing. Rosario Dawson was a sexy bitch as Mimi. She has her whole stripper scene that she does really well and Eric enjoyed her ass hanging out of the little g-string shorts she was wearing. Jesse L. Martin from Law and Order kicked ass. I did not know he could sing and act like that. He was from the original cast and plays Tom Collins really well.

I think that everyone should see the musical but if they can't then they should at least see the movie. It is a great story about love, real life, living with AIDS and how much better your life is with just a few great friends that would do anything for you.

I also applaud the makers of the film for putting shots of the twin towers in. Rent is set in 1989-1990 so you can't really get away with not showing it. I am sick of movie creators and such treating America like children. If we see shots of the towers we will not crumble. You must face the past and deal with your problems dead on. Not showing it would be disgraceful to the memory of the towers, to the people that lived with it in their lives for so long and to those that perished with in it. It is a part of our history and I am sick of people taking it from pictures and movies.

Some things

I have not blogged in a while so I thought I would write about some things I have been meaning to. First I would like to congratulate Paul on being a successful new part of our blogging team. Yeah! I really enjoyed reading his entries.

Eric, D, and I all went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last Friday! It ruled! It is the best movie by far and I believe it is the best book. If you have any interest in the series at all you have to see the movie. The kids have grown so much and they act really well in this one. I loved everything in the movie but they still kept Dumbledore's gay hat from the last one. Every book clearly states that he wears a tall wizard's hat and the first two movies had that. I do not know why the new director decided to keep the last director's change on that one.

I am also reading a great book right now called "A million little pieces" by James Frey. I will tell you why it appealed to me. The first part of the book is this:

I wake to the drone of an airplane engine and the feeling of something warm dripping down my chin. I lift my hand to feel my face. My front four teeth are gone, I have a hole in my cheek, my nose is broken and my eyes are swollen nearly shut. I open them and I look around and I'm in the back of a plane and there's no one near me. I look at my clothes and my clothes are covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit, and blood. I reach for the call button and I find it and I push it and I wait and thirty seconds later an Attendant arrives.
How can I help you?
Where am I going?
You don't know?
No.
You're going to Chicago, sir.
How did I get here?
A doctor and two men brought you on.
They say anything?
They talked to the Captain, sir. We were told to let you sleep.

For more see Amazon.com for the rest of the excerpt. The book is about the authors addiction to pretty much every drug and alcohol and his time in rehab. His favorite drug was crack and he loved alcohol, but he did everything he could get a hold of and he was a dealer at one time. He writes in a nontraditional way and he writes everything as it happened at the time by using the journals he kept and by getting copies of his files of his time in rehab since he couldn't remember some things during detox. I also like it because he tells it like it is and does not make rehab a flower picking good time. Rehab was tough for him and he totally wrecked all of his internal organs. He went through hell during rehab and that is how he tells it. It is a great read. If you enjoy good books you will enjoy this.

This I believe…. (pt 1)

Okay because Eric is obsessed with this whole higher power/god thing and loves hearing about other people's beliefs on God, here goes. If anyone besides him finds this interesting, so much the better.

For the record I'm technically Catholic [I was confirmed Paul Istvan Luke (because he was the only apostle in Star Wars) Mikowski] and technically hell-bound (many unconfessed sins, up to and including the dreaded premarital sex).

However, my recent wedding was not religious in the slightest and I've hovered for a while between agnostic and atheist, depending on how bitter or confident I am at that moment. I was ferociously atheist in early adolesence and I can remember the moment I stopped believing. I was in Sunday school (on tuesday afternoons, go figure) and I had a nutball for a teacher. He would go on about 666 being written on the inside of every computer a bunch of times, how we were going to have a credit card chip in our hands soon and this was predicted as Satanic in Revelations, and such.

What really cheesed me off however, was that I was a hard scientist and he started going after evolution. He said that if an evolutionist astronaut found a watch on the moon, he'd say that it evolved a glass face to protect itself and a watchband to move around, while a Catholic would have the simpler (and presumably correct) conclusion that God put it there. This blew my young mind and I soon decided that even if I didn't know how the world worked, this guy *definitely* didn't.

I guess at some level I also pitied those who were unable to face the harsh reality of an uncaring cosmos and that we are just dust in the wind (gotta love that song), saw them as deluded fools. Maybe I was jealous too, of not having the comfort of having someone besides me looking after me.

I've softened in my views considerably since. I believe that faith is an admirable, necessary quality to see us through hard times (even if it can be overused). I believe that there is a higher power, although it might just be our ability to create a version of heaven on Earth through our goodness, compassion and, dare I say it, love. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Utopian idealist (bit of a hippie, though), but I do believe in doing kindness as often as you are able in order to make your local world a bit better. At the same time, I understand that kindness is easier when your life and current situation isn't too shitty, after all, I am a psychologist....

It's a big deal though, I hope there's a heaven (and one liberal enough to let me in for good behavior, despite my non-beliefs). If not, I'll take solace in the fact that it doesn't matter if there's no heaven and, if there's a hell, in all likelihood Gandhi will be there burning with me. I think that little Indian guy would make eternal pain a whole lot more bearable.

If you read this far, you probably have no life (go WoW!), but I appreciate you sharing you lack of life with me.

"go forth and do my bidding! Uh hang on, I'm sure I'll come up with some bidding soon...."

And now, put your hands together for special guest blogger – (Dr.) Paul!!!

Hey party ppl, much love and props to y’all. There’s a new kid in town and he’s rip raring to blog on this previously Wilson-centric blog! A big thanks to my boy Eric (and my girl Sue W.) for giving me this permission.

Me even trying another person’s blog means my narcissism finally outdid my laziness (no small feat to anyone out there who’s seen my laziness – it’s vicious). Okay, that’s the introduction. Now onto the real meat, some content as inspired by Eric. Stay tuned….

(notice Lucas style 4 period ellipsis, now that’s style….)

More on Iraq

I got a very nice flame war to start with my last post on Iraq, so I think this calls for another! (Sue and I measure success of a post by how many comments we get. So if you are reading our posts and not commenting, then know that you are directly contributing to making us feel like losers).

From the comments, it's obvious that I need to clarify something here before continuing my discussion. At least for me, when I say "we", as in "we need to stay in Iraq", I mean we as a country, or as in the soldiers that are executing public policy as set forth by my democratically elected representatives. I'm not saying we should all move to Iraq and build Wal-Marts and turn all of Saddam's old palaces into really great band camps (with all the ensuing sex-ed and braces and that chick that played Willow on Buffy being naug...er...you get the idea).

Not speaking for anyone else, but I would be willing to tell any war-widow or war-mother out there that their husbands/sons were fighting and dying for a greater good. Invading Iraq was possibly a mistake. Let's not make it worse by running away from the mistake we made in invading. To imply that we cannot win because everyone in Iraq is a religious/cultural nut job is like saying every Republican is a religious/cultural nut job. It's just not true. I really believe that the majority of people just want to make a living and go about their lives and make life easier for their children, just like everyone in this country. Call me crazy, but I still believe most folks are rational. Rational people will look at the situtation and agree that if the current Iraqi government can provide security, then they will support it. If not, then they will support whom ever can. Democracy is great, but security is always a higher concern for man. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs for example places "safety" as the highest consideration of man after physiological needs (food, drink, air).

See, this is why history is important. Iraq is unfolding exactly like nearly every insurrection. The rebels take the tried and true strategy of hiding in the population, lashing out at high profile targets, and then trying to melt back into the population. Their goals are to try to:

(1) force the occupation to take shots at civilians in hopes of turning public support to their cause
(2) create a general feeling of "unsafety" ( woo hoo, my very own word! ) by damaging high profile targets in hopes of convincing people that the occupation cannot establish safety.

If they can achieve either goal, then the rebellion has a shot at getting the population on their side, and hence winning both politically and militarily. (1) has not occurred because the US army has show remarkable restraint with this war. It appears the US military actually took some lessons from Vietnam:

• kill zones = bad
• winning without local support is impossible
• In an insurrection, the military can only buy you time for a political solution
• building schools and roads is far more effective than dropping yet another 500 lbs bomb

(2) has occurred to an extent, but because the military has shown restraint and has done a relatively good job with their own security (not withstanding the 2000+ dead soldiers), the insurgents have resorted to more and more attacks against civilians. This is both good and bad for them. While it does further the goal of making people feel unsafe, it has the negative effect that people generally will not support those who are killing their neighbor.

I guess what all this talk boils down to is that when anyone says we should just withdrawal immediately from Iraq, what they are really saying is that the war on the ground is now unwinnable. I'm not convinced that Iraq is unwinnable. But it is a war that requires patience and persistence. If the US can prevent the insurgents from executing any really large scale attacks and keep the political process moving, I still think Iraq is winnable.

Congrats!

To Paul Mikowski, you may now call him Dr. Paul Mikowski!!!! He just successfully defended his thesis for his PhD in psychology. We knew you could do it! Now you shall be able to play more WoW....Excellent...

It has a nice ring to it!

This Guy is an Idiot

This blog represents the opinions of Eric only.

Hawkish Democrat Calls for Iraq Pullout

John Murtha is a complete boob. There... I said it. I feel a lot better.

Look, you can argue that Iraq was a mistake, that the occupation made one mistake after another, that we were lied to, whatever. But arguing that the Iraqi people would be better off if the only force for order they have just walked away is about as close to legally insane as you can get. From the article:

"Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi
people or the Persian Gulf region."

Lets just look at that statemnet.

Our military is suffering... I'm afraid I don't see how. Are some people unhappy they had to be dragged to the middle of the desert? You bet. But that's the deal. You sign up for the military, there is a chance you will go to war. That's why we pay for all that training and free college and all that other jazz.

...The future of our country is at risk. ??? Uh, how exactly?

We cannot continue on the present course. We can and we must in my mind.

It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America... See Reagan's decision to abandon Afghanistan in the 80's for an example of why that statement is ignorant.

...the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region Iraq would become Afghanistan in the late 80s and 90s. Warlords, chaos, and perfect place for terrorists to hang out and recruit. If you think Iraq is a rallying call now, just wait and see what would happen if we walked away and let it all head to shit.

Programming Languages

DISCLAIMER: If you are not a software developer, this post is not going to make any sense to you. Sorry in advance.

R's post about compilers got me thinking about just how many different programming languages I know or used to know and which ones I liked and disliked. Lets run the list:

Basic: Ah...my very first programming language. The original IBM PCs would boot to a Basic compiler if you did not insert a disk. I learned to program from a 500 sheet print out of my grandfather's custom business software. I wrote some truly hideous code on this bad boy.

• Good memories: Learned to type. Building everything with "if" and "goto".


• Bad memories: Building everything with "if" and "goto". Having to update the line numbers and goto statements of 20 lines of code because each line was numbered and you ran out space between while tweaking something.

C++ : My first programming classes in college all used C++ as the teaching language.

• Good memories: Learning object oriented programming (sort of). Learning how computers and memory actually work on a PC. The joy of discovering emacs.



• Bad memories: Being awake at 3:00am trying to figure out which F#$*ING pointer I forgot to check for null. Using "cout" as the debugger. Using vi before I found emacs.

C: I always found it a little odd that I learned C++ before C in college. It was a lot like math where you learn how to do stuff before you ever get around to the why. C was part of our computer hardware course, because decompiling C is WAY easier than decompiling C++. C sucks by the way. Unless you are writing device drivers or some other bare metal stuff, skip this one.

• Good memories: Realizing that printf is your friend.
  
• Bad memories: Realizing you don't have <stl>.

SPARC and MIPS assembly: The most useless languages I ever learned. Again, for our computer hardware course. I loved assembly, but SPARC and MIPS? x86 would be useful. Maybe even some DSP loven. But SPARC and MIPS? All this knowledge is completely gone.

• Good memories: Realizing that I thought I knew how computers work, but that I really had no idea. Getting to use the branch delay slot for something!


• Bad memories: Trying to write a decompiler for this stuff. Realizing that this stuff is useless.

x86 assembly: I learned this for my last job. x86 is the most fucked up assembly you will ever find on God's green earth. 30 years of patching in new instructions combined with the smallest register file around combined with having 18 ways to do the same thing mean I seriously wonder how in the world this platform ever took off like it did. That being said, I was actually pretty good with it for a short while. I could even do that thing from the Matrix where they look at a bunch of hex and see something useful (I was reading x86 stacks frames for waaaaaaay too long).

• Good memories: Being able to figure out why the hell things like COM work the way they do. Figuring out stack traces. Figuring out calling conventions.


• Bad memories: The pain of 4 registers.

HTML and Javascript: I know its not really a programming language, but I know a little bit of Javascript. Most of it has long and been replaced with useless knowledge about pop culture, but I keep a little around just in case.

LISP: All I remember of LISP is lots and lots of parentheses.

Prolog: All I remember about Prolog is that you can't build anything useful with Prolog.

Visual Basic: I know everyone mocks Visual Basic. I mock Visual Basic in public, but deep down I really liked it. The first real event driven, rapid development language I ever saw, VB rocked for building simple applications. VB also freed you from memory management, something it took most other languages years to figure out. If only it wasn't the most verbose language on the face of the earth.

C#: C# is fantastic. Any language that looks like C++, but frees me from having to thinking about pointers or memory is ok in my book.

The Wilson's take Manhattan!

This past weekend Eric and I flew out to NYC to see our good friends Paul and Sue. We had a lot of fun. Thursday we flew into LaGuardia airport separately since Eric was in Ft. Walton Beach, FL for work. The flight into LaGuardia is very cool. You circle the city over the Hudson so you see the whole city and you get to wave at lady liberty. It was about 3 in the afternoon when I flew in so I could see the city really well. After that we drove through Queens and the Bronx to get near where our friends live. On the way to their apt we stopped at what was the greatest mall ever! Inside there was every restaurant you could think of, TGIFridays, Cheeburger, Cheeburger, Qdoba, etc, a blockbuster, Home Depot, 3 level Bed bath and beyond, etc., then all of the clothing stores like GAP, and Limited etc, plus an ice rink and Ferris wheel. It was huge and awesome. Usually you have to drive to 10 separate stores for all of this stuff but there you could just walk to the stores inside. Then we went back to their place in Peekskill and played some Super munchkin and drank a lot of wine.

Friday we tried to go see Paul Van Dyk, the kick ass DJ. Paul and Sue bought tickets early and we thought we were set. We parked in Chelsea Piers in lower West Manhattan about 12:30 pm since he was going to spin from 1-6 am. It was about a 5 minute walk to the club. We stood in line and we were about to get in at 1:15 am when the fire Marshall arrived and stopped letting people in. DAMN IT! Then we stood in line for another hour thinking we would get in once the Fire Marshall left but no, then the cops arrive and tell the club that they cannot let anyone else in even though they were not at capacity. Damn NYPD! This was there official statement. They even made Van Dyk stop spinning while they did their inspection. So at about 2:45, frozen and shivering, we went back to our car and drove back to Peekskill to their apt. Eric and I have a Van Dyk curse. This is the third time we have tried to see him with bad luck. The first time emergency surgery for Van Dyk, he rescheduled on a day Eric had to go out of town for work and then this. We need to stop. At least we got our money backt his time:)

Saturday after lunch we got on the commuter train to head to NYC (Grand Central station) to try to get tickets to a Broadway show. Usually you can go the day of and get cheap tix from tkts in Times Square or at the box office. We got there and were disappointed. Most of the good shows have a 6-9 month waiting list. So we walked around Times Square for a while. By the Avenue Q box office we saw a guy that stole a cab stopped by the police. The guy in the cab got out and ran down the street and the cops chased him. Fun. I guess Eric saw some guy get roughed up outside Grand Central station after he tried to pick two Italian guys pockets. You gotta love NYC!

So Saturday after we lucked out of tickets we got on the subway, which is huge and so useful, and we headed down to Greenwich village to find a place to eat and to find a cool bar to hang out in. We walked around trying to find the square and while we were doing so we passed a fire station with a wall of memory with pictures of the guys they lost and Golden fire boots set up in a shrine that said "We will always remember". It made me stop and think for a moment and it was very real for once, not something I saw on tv.

We found a cool Italian cafe, Cafe' Riggs, there that was small and had a great ambiance. They had a sign that said it was in Zaggat's food guide. It was a coffee bar but they had great paninni's and great Milkshakes! Mmmm. Then we walked around some cool shops. We found a bar and restaurant called the Red Lion with live music so we went in to check it out. It was fun. The first guy that played was Morgan Clamp. He was cool. He had an acoustic guitar with a pick up and he had a pedal device that allowed him to record bars of music that he would set up. He would strum a little, the record himself hitting the acoustic like a drum and then once he had his back up he would play the guitar with it. He sounded like a whole band. He played a lot of covers. He played quite a bit of Radiohead (I love Radiohead!) "Fake plastic trees" from "the Bends" and "Creep" from "Pable Honey" two of the best songs! He also played some U2 and some older songs. I cannot remember all that he played since I got drunk ;) He also played some of his songs which were cool and so we bought his album. He made me happy. Plus he was pretty nice to look at... The next band was a rock band which I cannot remember since by the time they came on I was really, really drunk. They played rock songs and they rocked hard. They had a chick bass player that was hot. They also played Radiohead and other fun songs. I love NYC! It is really expensive to get drunk there. $3.00 for a beer special (Miller lite's) and $6.00 for liquor special drinks. They had a drink called a hot apple cider that had hot apple cider and Captain Morgan's in it. So good! I love cider and Captain's!!! About 1:00 am we walked drunkenly out of the bar to find a cab. We hailed a cab and took it to Grand Central. Cab rides are fun drunk... When we got outside of Grand Central Eric and Paul bought a pretzel from a vendor and it was one of the best fucking pretzels I have ever had!!! Sue and I had to wait in line for the women's rest room so we bonded with some city girl's. It was fun. Then we rode the train back to the Peekskill area and went back to their apt and crashed.

Sunday we slept late, played a long game of Munchkin blender with Munchkin bites and Super Munchkin combined which was lots of fun until we had to go to the airport for our 7 pm flight.

We had a great weekend in the end even with the mishaps :) I love NYC! I wouldn't mind living near the city one day. I just have to convince Eric...

Every man's dream

My buddy Paul mentioned this story to me, but if I had not found this story on sportsillustrated.cnn.com there is no way I would have believed that I live in a world where this could actually happen in anything other than porn:

Panthers cheerleaders arrested in bar sex incident

The story is that two cheerleaders with the Carolina Panthers were having sex in the bathroom of a bar with each other. Go ahead. Take a minute and enjoy that thought. I'll wait. That's all of the story that I really managed to read. After that it is all a blur. I do recall something about a patron complaining the girls were too loud and taking too long. Lets all take another minute and enjoy that thought.

Update: Gave props to my initial source for this story.
Update 2: Removed spelling, punctuation, and various other annoying errors.

A weekend in Hotlanta...

This past weekend Eric and I went to visit my best friend from high school, Mo, and her husband, Tim, near Atlanta. We had a great weekend and saw a lot of great things.

Friday night we got into Lagrange, GA, near where they live, and we all decided to go to a movie. We went and saw Jarhead. It was really good. It was directed by Sam Mendes the same guy that did American Beauty. Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx starred in it. It was a good marine film that was about the actual life of a soldier without battle scenes. It is about a soldiers life through training and being deployed to the first gulf war in the 90's . It shows how his life is affected by being a marine and how the lives of the other people in his life are affected. It was really funny and the story line was well written. We all thoroughly enjoyed it! The movie is actually based off of the memoir of Marine Anthony Swofford. Now I really want to read his book to see what was not in the movie. We saw the preview for the new movie "Walk the line" about Johnny Cash's life which looks really good. You gotta love Johnny Cash.

Saturday night we all went to see Angie Aparo. I had never heard of him before but my best friend from high school loves his music and invited us to join her and her husband to go to his concert. We listened to some of his music Saturday during the day and on our way to Atlanta to the show. He is pretty cool. His music is progressive rock. It is a different sound that I enjoy. He also does some covers of some cool songs. He does a great version of Champagne Supernova by Oasis which is a great song to begin with. He talked a lot in between the songs he played and he was pretty funny. There was also some audience participation involved which made it more fun. The theater, Earthlink Live, was cool. The ambiance was a new-age, hippy type, rave chill room feel. It was a great little venue. One of my favorite songs he sings is called "Hush" and you can listen to it on his web site as well as other songs he sings. I am definitely going to get some of his discs.

There were two very talented, hot chicks that opened for Angie Aparo. The first was Heather Luttrell. She is a got red head with an amazing voice. Eric and I wondered after the first song she sang why she did not have a big music contract. She was amazing. She plays acoustic guitar and has a band of men to back her up. This was the only sample I could find and it is not that long and does not do her justice. If you have I-tunes you can sample her new disc "Grits n pulp". It is very good. She is hard to describe but she is a little like Sheryl Crow, Fiona Apple, Sarah Mclaughlin and Faith Hill with a pinch of DMB mixed to make this unique great sound. I was very impressed by her. I will also be buying this CD. My fave song on this CD is "Anything but me".

The second chick that opened for Angie Aparo was Plumb. She has a few CD's out. She will have a new album, "Chaotic Resolve" out this February and it will be a good album. She sang some of the songs from it at the show. Her website has some samples of her cds and the new CD that is coming out. Amazon also has some samples of her older discs. She was more of a rocker chick with a great voice. I thoroughly enjoyed her too! I cannot wait for her new disc. The song "Better" has a great sound and it plays on her website. She sings with such emotion and when she performs you can really see her putting all of that emotion into the songs she sings.

I was so glad to see that there are still some original, very talented musicians out there. We were delightfully surprised to find all three of these artists this past Saturday.

After the concert we went to Buckhead in Atlanta to find some good bars. We tried to avoid all of the "hip hop" clubs and found a bar that had a live band. The band was awesome and the bar served until 3 am! Woot! I cannot remember the name of the band. They played a lot of good covers including "Sweet home Alabama" and "The devil went down to Georgia". That is all I can remember. They did play a lot of good rock tunes too. We later found out that this was the Angie Aparo after party. What luck! Buckhead has changed quite a bit. We have not been there in about 2 years and the area is a little more rough and a lot of the clus and bars have changed. It was interesting but at least we had a kick ass, cool ride to arrive in. Tim owns a Dodge SRT-4. Mmmm, Susie likes and wants... 2.4-liter turbocharged 16-valve double overhead camshaft (DOHC) engine, 230 horsepower, 250 lb-ft of torque, Zero to 60 in under 6 seconds. Oh how I loved riding in this car. He could really drive it too. We hit totally beat a Mustang ont he freeway in a little drag since the Mustang driver was being a dick. The Mustang did not stand a chance. The SRT-4 handles so well and when that turbo kicks in, it kicks ass! I must learn how to drive a manual! Why didn't my family teach me this skill!?!?!

Freakiest Optical Illusion

http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

This is one of the freakiest optical illusions I have ever seen. Perhaps there really are Dancing Machine Elves creating all of reality.

Week in review

Fuck this week so far:

1) First, I flew to Tucson on Sunday. Well, actually, I was supposed to fly to Tucson on Sunday, but my plane to Dallas was three hours late. So I had to sit in Huntsville airport for three hours making small talk with my customer, with whom we are currently fighting with...Can you say "awkward"? I knew you could.

2) I literally got to watch the plane I was supposed to be leaving Dallas on taxi away from the terminal while we waited for a crew to be assigned to pull us in.

3) Amazingly, when an airline is required to give you a free hotel room, they don't exactly spring for a Four Seasons type stay.

4) Got up at 5am, flew to Phoenix, and drove to Tucson. By the time I got there, I might as well have just flown in that morning. I would have gotten there about the same time. Damn American Airlines.

5) After all of that, a quick round of testing confirmed that the fix I had e-mailed before coming out there worked perfectly. Man, this job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers.

6) And finally, just to make this the worst week in quite a while, I lost my wedding band on the way home from Tucson. GOD DAMN IT!!!! CAN THIS WEEK GET ANY WORSE?

Wait, don't answer that. Of course it can.