Year: 2008

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The Riches: Slums of Bayou Hills

Wow! I tried to think of a polite way to say it, but I just can’t. The shit really hit the fan this week on The Riches… and I’m not sure how the Malloys will be able to hold it together this time.

Last week’s episode ended with Dahlia confessing her parole violations to a sympathetic parole officer she learned about at Nina’s AA meeting\drug buy. Dahlia walks into the parole officer’s office, thinking that he’ll accept her story at face value… only she couldn’t be more wrong. He cuffs her and yells at her. In a surprising burst of naivety, Dahlia actually seems… shocked that the officer doesn’t believe her story (when we, the home viewers, can easily see how it could be the same line of crap that the parole officer has heard a million times). The officer then cuts her some slack, giving her 24 hours to get a place to live and a job. In yet another incredible display of naivety, Dahlia seems shocked that no one wants to hire her – not even coffee shops and dive bars. Maybe Dahlia’s never actually looked for a real job before… I dunno. But she ends up getting a job at a seafood restaurant and renting an “apartment” in what appears to be a boarding house.

Dahlia repeatedly tried to ask Wayne for help, but this guy… whew… Wayne has his own problems! The Bayou Hills development in now in motion, and some of the investors are coming in for a meeting about it. The only problem is that one of the investor’s attorneys – Barry Stone, played by Curtis Armstrong (Booger!) – went to law school with Doug Rich. The attorney is visibly confused when he sees “Doug Rich”, but doesn’t say anything… especially after Sam (looking through Doug’s papers at home) finds some dirt on Barry, which keeps him quiet. Barry quietly manages to get word to his boss – Felix Minkov – that “Doug” is a con-man. After the meeting, Felix violently confronts Wayne, and tells him that he knows that Wayne is not Doug, is not a lawyer, and that they (Felix and Wayne) will set Hugh up and take all the money for themselves:

the_riches_s2_e04_01

Lest you think that’s the only thing going on with Wayne, he was also busted during the meeting by his long-suffering assistant, Aubrey. She sat quietly during the meeting, sending Wayne instant messages about legal terms he didn’t know. When Hugh and Felix announce that they’re going to screw the poor people out of the deal (Bayou Hills is to be built on what used to be public land; the government is selling it to Panco on the condition that they set aside some of the housing for poor Hurricane Katrina victims), Aubrey becomes furious with everyone, but especially Wayne. She threatens to bust him, but Wayne somehow manages to convince her not to. He says that he agreed to the plan to “evict” the poor people just to get Bayou Hills built in the first place, and that they (Wayne and Aubrey) will figure out a way to get the homes built for the poor people.

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And that’s still not all. Dale’s still around, and towards the end of the episode he’s seen calling someone (we don’t know who) on behalf of Eamon and giving them information about Panco. We also see Eamon and Ginny having a conversation about education at the Traveler’s Camp (about James Joyce, of all people)… Oh, and a guy named Chet Landry is now calling “Doug” at Panco looking for Pete! Frankly, I’m surprised that Wayne’s head didn’t explode at the end of this episode. As I said, shit is hitting the fan left and right for the Malloy family, and I just don’t see how they’re going to wiggle their way out of it – especially with only three episodes left in this (strike-shortened) season.

And lastly… Cael and Didi. As we all know, Cael hates life at Eden Falls, but Didi likes it. Most of the time anyway. Didi comes home from school in the middle of all this, and finds Cael (who didn’t go to school at all). The two have a series of heartfelt conversations. Cael suggests that they go to the mall and pull off some scams to get money; Didi refuses, not wanting to be a con artist anymore. He eventually talks her in to “pulling a Molly Branigan” (which is “traveler talk” for acting like street performers). At the mall, Didi sees some of her classmates, and is genuinely embarrassed to be seen busking with Cael. Didi breaks down and admits that she just “can’t do this anymore”. She wants things to be like they were, but she’s changed. She likes life at Eden Falls. The two have a teary “goodbye”, and Didi goes home to work on an English paper.

One last thing: Dahlia was having a really bad day… and once again, Wayne ignored her troubles to get her to help him with his troubles. This echoes the first season… and I hope Dahlia doesn’t fall off the wagon again!

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Geography Fun!

I know what you’re thinking… “geography isn’t fun!” And I’d actually agree with you on that. It’s interesting, sure… but fun? Yes! Geography can, in fact, be fun. Check out these bizarre geographic anomalies in the United States:

Kentucky Bend, Kentucky: Kentucky Bend is a tiny enclave of the state of Kentucky caused by a hairpin bend in the Mississippi River. It’s surrounded by Tennessee to the south and the Mississippi River (and Missouri) on the remaining three sides. Interestingly, the bend was caused by earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, and Tennessee claimed the region until 1848:

Kentucky Bend

The Northwest Angle: A tiny sliver of Minnesota extends above the 49th parallel (in fact, the Northwest Angle is the only part of the US above the 49th parallel, not counting Alaska). The Northwest Angle came to pass due to the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War. The treaty stated that the boundary between the U.S. and what would eventually become Canada would run “…through the Lake of the Woods to the most northwesternmost point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi…” The only problem was that the map the treatymakers were using was wrong. In time, the error was noticed, but not “corrected”. Amusingly, any time the Angle’s residents get angry with the United States, talk of annexation by Canada comes up, although nothing serious have ever come of such talk. The Angle is shown here in purple:

Northwest Angle

Elm Point, Minnesota: Another enclave on Lake of the Woods, Elm Point is located southwest of the Northwest Angle.

Point Roberts, Washington: Yet another enclave, Point Roberts is located on the southernmost tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula. By all rights, Point Roberts should be part of British Columbia, Canada. But the Oregon Treaty of 1818 (which attempted to settle long-standing border disputes between the US and the UK), defined the border as being the 49th parallel (except for Vancouver Island, which was retained by the British). Someone, somewhere eventually noticed that a tiny sliver of the peninsula existed south of the parallel, and thus, Point Roberts became part of the United States. As in the Northwest Angle and Elm Point, you can only get to Point Roberts by ferry or by driving through Canada:

Point Roberts, Washington

Estcourt Station, Maine: this tiny town (population: 4) is located directly on the border between Maine and Quebec. Many of the (now abandoned) homes were built in Estcourt Station before the border between the US and Canada was finalized, leading to some interesting situations (your house is in the US; your neighbor across the street lives in Canada). Interestingly, there are no public roads that connect Estcourt Station with the rest of Maine – just privately-owned logging roads. The closest public road is Rue Frontière, a street on the Québec side of the border. Although part of the United States, Estcourt Station uses Quebec’s 418 area code, and relies on Hydro-Québec for electricity and the nearby Canadian town of Pohenegamook for water and other municipal services. Estcourt Station was the site of an “international incident” back in October of 2002: because the area is so sparsely populated, border agents there only work part-time. Michel Jalbert, a Canadian citizen and Pohénégamook resident, was imprisoned for three months in the U.S. after purchasing gas at Estcourt Station’s (now closed) gas station outside of normal operating hours for the U.S. Customs Service. American Border Patrol agents stated that Mr. Jalbert was a convicted felon (he was convicted of minor vandalism at age 19) and in illegal possession of a firearm; he was reportedly preparing for the local deer hunting season and had a rifle in his truck.

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Hotel Babylon (Series 3, Episode 8)

Series 3 of Hotel Babylon comes to a close, and I’m torn about the show.

First of all, I found this episode in particular to be almost offensive. There were many references to how “God” is dying out in the UK and how “modern temples” like Hotel Babylon now serve the same purpose that churches used to. While I don’t doubt that is true, the way that Babylon seemed to enjoy wallowing in the decadent delights of the hotel while ridiculing religion just rubbed me the wrong way.

And, of course, I have some issues with the series in general. As I’ve stated many times, the series began as a clever, “behind the scenes” look at the world of luxury hotels. It was based on the book Hotel Babylon, in which a fictional narrator takes us through a fictional day in the life on a London hotel, all the while regaling us with real-life anecdotes from “Anonymous” (the veteran of the hotel industry that author Imogen Edwards-Jones used as a source). In time, the show ran out of anecdotes based on the book, and so it became more of a soap opera based in a hotel. With the departure of Charlie (Max Beesley) and Jackie (Natalie Mendoza), the characters don’t interact with each other anymore (except as people who work together would). Early in the series, for example, Charlie and Jackie were sleeping together, and for a brief time there was a bit of love triangle between Charlie, Jackie, and Anna (Emma Pierson), before Jackie dumped Charlie for good and Charlie and Anna started dating. But now that the Charlie and Jackie have gone, people just act like… well, fellow employees. So there’s not even much of a “soap opera” aspect any more. Which you think would be good, right? But no. Out of anecdotes from the book, and without the more conventional aspects of a soap opera, the writers are veering into “unbelievable” territory. Russian gangsters now invade the hotel, along with faith healers, hostage takers, over the top Hollywood caricatures and “timely” topics. And so the whole thing has just become rather silly.

So why even watch it? Two words: Emma Pierson.

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I don’t know why, but this girl really does it for me. Her accent is a big part of it, of course, and her body’s tighter than a snare drum. Too bad her character will apparently never find happiness:

A faith healer (Jonah Slaughter, played by Nicholas Rowe), shows up at Babylon. He’s quickly becoming famous throughout Britain, you see, and Emily is certain that he’ll be “playing” to huge crowds at arenas throughout London in the very near future… so it only makes sense for Babylon to “get in on the ground floor” with Slaughter, so to speak. However, two “problem clients” seem to be following Slaughter. One, Caroline (Samantha Cheecks) checks herself in and heads straight to the bar. The other, Martin, sweats like a pig and appears nervous as hell as he asks Jack to hold an urn (which contains his son’s ashes) for safekeeping. But the hotel safe is full, and Jack simply can’t bear to keep the urn in his office, so he passes it off to James.

Meanwhile, Anna’s been getting some annoying calls from a guest. He’s called down to the front desk numerous times with bizarrre (and impossible) requests. And he always asks for Anna. After a while, she just can’t take it any more, so he goes upstairs to give him a piece of her mind… only to find her boyfriend, Ned, in the room waiting for her. Ned, it seems, was pulling pranks on her, trying to intice her up to his room… so he could ask her to marry him!

But before she can reply, a shot rings out. Slaughter’s assistant (Nathan, played by Adam Kotz) has brought Caroline up to Slaughter’s room. She initially appears to be quite angry with Slaughter, saying that he took £30,000 from her dying mother (yada, yada, yada – “insert other rants against TV evangelists here”). As the heated discussion continues, there’s a knock at the door… and Martin enters the room… with a gun! Caroline gets confused by Martin’s ranting and then admits that she was an actress hired by Nathan to endear him to Slaughter. She also says that Martin has “gone in and out of character”, “changed his accent several times”, and that she “knows a prop gun when she sees one”. This enrages Martin – who is there because his son died from cancer after he decided to abandon traditional medicine for one of Slaughter’s faith healing sessions. Martin then fires his gun into the ceiling to let everyone know that he means business (this is te shot that Anna heard).

Anna runs from Ned’s room and tries to rally the troops, but Jack doesn’t believe her. Tony does, and he assembles the crew for a “rescue mission”. Jack, unable to find Emily but not believing the sound was a gun, goes to Slaughter’s room… only to be wacked in the head by Martin. This knocks Jack out.

Meanwhile, the gang decides to send Anna up the ductwork to spy on Slaughter’s room, Die Hard-style:

hotel_babylon_s03_e07_02

While crawling through the (mysteriously spotless) ductwork, Anna passes Ned’s room, and overhears him talking to his mother on the phone. He talks about Anna as if she were a piece of meat… or a possible bride in a Jane Austin novel. It breaks Anna heart, but there’s no time for that now. She eventually reaches Slaughter’s room, where she spies Emily and Jack, along with Slaughter, Nathan, Caroline and Martin… and his gun! The crew rush the room – James from the door to the adjacent room and Tony using a housekeeping cart to smash the door in. Martin accidentally fires the gun… and the bullet hits the urn containing his son’s ashes (which is flying through the air because James, for some reason put on the cart). The main storyline then ends with ashes and dust everywhere and Martin crying. Classy. For some reason, no one decides to press any charges against Martin, and the hotel staff clean up the ashes and find a clear plastic container to put them in. At the very end, Tony (Dexter Fletcher) is talking about how the hotel is like family, just as Anna walks in (crying) to what was supposed to be a celebration of her engagement.

One last thing: am I the only one that thinks that the writers have completely forgotten about “customer service”? During the entire series, we’ve heard about how Hotel Babylon is supposed to have “world-class” service, yet this series we’ve seen Babylon staff acts like jerks to guests on a regular basis. I mention this because this episode in particular had some glaring anti-customer service moments. An older gentlemen, for example, has cleared his schedule so thay he could read Catch-22 at the Babylon in peace. He decides to read the book in the bar, only to be kicked out by Gino, who’s angry because the man’s laughter and appearance are scaring away customers. The man then goes up to his room to read, only to have the book ripped by by James when the guest (rightly) complains about the intrusion. This is after an earlier incident, where Jack and James loudly discuss the urn\ashes in front of guests in the restaurant. I mean… come on! Jack is the hotel manager. He’s supposedly worked in 5-star hotels all over the world. We’ve seen him kiss-ass on an unbelievable scale when he really needed to… and now he’s going to argue (loudly) in the restaurant over an urn? HELLO? WRITERS?

The BBC’s website says that the show is coming back in 2009. I dunno if I’ll be there or not. Seriously. But until then, enjoy one last shot of Anna:

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MS Launch: Random Thoughts

I’ve been to lots of Microsoft product launches in my day… and yesterday’s launch of Windows Server 2008 – Visual Studio 2008 – SQL Server 2008 was no exception. Some random thoughts about the event:

The presenter was good. Yesterday’s presenter was young(ish), bald, energetic, slightly goofy, and easy to understand. Which was a huge plus, since Charlotte usually has some English guy that mumbles and stammers (ever seen The Simpsons or Family Guy do an impression of Hugh Grant? He’s just like that.)

The material was pretty good. I don’t know if Microsoft considers Charlotte to be a second- or third-tier market, but most MS events in this area work this way: some guy (and it’s usually a guy) that might (or might not) have good public speaking skills is picked to host an event. He then picks his favorite 800 new features in [product]. He then sets up virtual machine demos for each of those 800 new features. At the presentation, he begins by giving an overview of the new features in [product], then starts the demos. By demo 4, he’s figured out that he can’t possibly do all 796 remaining demos in the time alloted… but instead of choosing his 10 favorite (or the “most important”) features from the remaining demos and carrying them to completion, he’ll try to blast his way through the remaining 796 demos, barely getting 3 steps into some 19 step process. So after demo 4, most of the rest of his demos are like this: “OK, the next cool new feature of Windows Vista is “Previous Versions”… I have a demo here and… OK, here’s what we do… we open a Word document… and delete all the text in it [audience gasps]… we then save the document [audience gasps louder]… OK, so your user has now accidentally overwritten the document, right? Well, we just right-click the document… and click the “Previous Version” tab… and you can see the document’s history… I’m going to pick the version I saved last night… annnnnnddd… annndddd… you’ll have to forgive me, folks, I’ve got 5 virtual machines running on this laptop… Hmmmm.. well, if we had the time, you’d see the same document as before, instantly restored. OK, so on to User Access Control!” It’s annoying – thankfully, yesterday’s event had none of that.

The schwag was… Attendees received copies of Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and the CTP of SQL Server 2008 (with the option to get the full version when released). This is nothing to sneeze at, of course… it’s several thousand dollars worth of free software. But there were no t-shirts, no pens, no notepads. Heck, I was even expecting to get a bunch of ads and “special offers” from the “launch partners” in a plastic bag along with the software. But no – all I got was the software, held in place by a rubber band:

MS Schwag

That is exactly what was handed to me. Man, is MS getting cheap or what? They also sprang for “breakfast”, which was a paper bag with a blueberry muffin, orange, apple, granola bar and “fun size” Baby Ruth and Milky Way bars. People in larger cities reported that they got their breakfast in “nifty insulated plastic lunch bags” (like this). I just got a damn paper bag!

The Server 2008 license is interesting. The Windows Server 2008 license is technically valid for only 1 year. It is not timebombed in any way, and our presenter said that Microsoft has no problem with anyone using this software for as long as they want, provided that they don’t use it on a production machine. So why the “1 year EULA limit”? It’s apparently because if they gave away shrink-wrapped copies, they’d have to have everyone fill out a 1099 form and pay tax on it. This way, MS can claim that it’s a “demo version” and the value is therefore zero. What’s surprising is that our presenter told us all this straight-up. MS is basically thumbing their noses at the Treasury Department, and is plainly, out in the open, telling everyone that this is a tax dodge!

The Charlotte Convention Center is weird. Charlotte’s new light rail system has a line running directly through the Convention Center. The smoking decks are right next to the rail lines… as in, I could have spit on a passing train if I wanted to. The trains run on electricity, and there are some high-voltage tracks out there… so there are signs out in the smoking areas warning people to NOT jump the rail in case of fire, but instead of go back inside the building and exit on 2nd Street. I know this sounds snarky, but I’ve always heard that the last thing you want to do in case of fire is go back inside a burning building. Hmmmm.

The Westin is funny! When you take the College Street exit from I-277, you’re dumped onto College, which is a one-way street. I normally pass the Westin Hotel’s parking deck to park at a lot directly across from the Convention Center. This time, I opted to park at the Westin (which turned out to be a good move, as the lot I would have parked in was full, and it’s giant pain in the ass to get back to the Westin deck). Anyway, as I stood waiting for the elevator in the Westin parking deck, I noticed some business cards in a holder mounted just above the call button. The cards said “You are parked on level…”. Westin has cards with the parking level printed on them, so you can remember where you parked when it’s time to leave. It’s a nice touch… only the name of my parking level was…

Westin Parking

Sweet! Westin named their parking deck after a bowel movement!

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Quote of the Day: Bourdain

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.”

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BSG: The countdown begins…

StarbuckWoo-hoo! Battlestar Galactica returns tonight for its final season. I’m pumped – are you pumped?

I can’t wait to see what happened to Starbuck… and that frakin’ hawt collarbone of hers… seriously, have you looked at Katee Sackhoff’s collarbone? It’s freakin’ perfect. Starbuck can punch me in the face any time.. especially if she’s all sweaty and wearing that sports bra thing, and…

Wait – what? Oh yeah. I can’t wait to see what the Adamas are up to as well. I can’t wait to see what the whole damn crew is up to, actually. Will they find Earth? Will Starbuck be their doom (as predicted in Razor)? Who is the last Cylon? Will it be one of the Adamas? Will it be Starbuck (please say it ain’t so). How about Laura Roslin or Gaius Baltar?

Man, I can’t wait for tonight… although watching BSG on “regular TV” will probably drive me nuts. I wasn’t a BSG fan until last fall, when I downloaded the entire series. I watched all of seasons 1-3 in around 2 weeks, sometimes watching 4-5 episodes per day. Watching one episode per week will probably make me break out in hives… or something.

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Friday Fun: Wind Chimes

Syntrillium Software was a company formed in the early 1990s by former Microsoft employees Robert Ellison and David Johnston. Their most popular product was Cool Edit, a sound editing program. The company was purchased by Adobe in May 2003, and Cool Edit henceforth became known as Adobe Audition.

Sadly, it seems that Adobe has killed off Syntrillium’s other products, which included the popular Snoqualmie screen saver and Wind Chimes, a silly (but much loved) program that imitated wind chimes on your computer. Wind Chimes not only imitated traditional wind chimes, it could also do piano improvisations and imitate several Asian types of wind chimes. You could even “roll your own” chimes by choosing the number of chimes, the base note, the music scale… even the wind speed!

Many people loved Wind Chimes… so much, in fact, that it developed its own little cult following. Since I seem to be the “last hope” for certain software programs, I decided to add Wind Chimes to my collection of ancient downloadable apps:

Wind Chimes (163kb)

The program will run without installation (just unzip and run the chimes.exe file). You cannot register the program any more, and you’ll get an occasional “nag screen” that stops the chimes and reminds you to register (although you can find ways around this if you know where to look… wink-wink!).

If you are the owner of this software and you’d like for me to remove it from this site, please check out the Contact Me page to get in touch with me!

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Another Sign of Doom

The Rev. Bryan Owen found this following ad in the latest issue of Episcopal Life:

THE ANGLICAN USE SOCIETY in America in communion with the Holy See of Rome offers to Clergy, Religious and Laity of the Anglican Tradition an information booklet explaining THE PASTORAL PROVISION, the canonical instrument that has made possible their reconciliation with the Holy See as units of common identity which preserve their Anglican heritage of liturgy, hymnody and spirituality.

As he notes, this amounts to “an official publication of the Episcopal Church includ[ing] an advertisement from an official Roman Catholic organization that invites Episcopal congregations to leave the Episcopal Church and become Roman Catholic”. Additionally, “Episcopal priests of those congregations will be ordained as Roman Catholic priests, even if they are married. Those congregations and clergy will also be allowed to ‘retain certain liturgical elements proper to the Anglican tradition’.”

Wow. Read all about it here.

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BREAKING: Court Sides With Parishes!

From various sources:

A Fairfax circuit judge has awarded a favorable judgment to a group of 11 Anglican churches that were taken to court last fall after breaking away from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in late 2006.

In an 83-page opinion released late last night, Judge Randy Bellows ruled that Virginia’s Civil War-era “division statute” granting property to departing congregations applies to the Northern Virginia congregations, which are now part of the Nigerian-administered Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

“The court finds that a division has occurred in the diocese,” the judge wrote. “Over 7 percent of the churches in the diocese, 11 percent of its baptized membership and 18 percent of the diocesan average attendance of 32,000 [per Sunday] have left in the past two years.”

The lawsuit, which is the largest property case to date in the history of the Episcopal Church, involves millions of dollars of real estate and assets. With the finding that a division has occurred, the congregations get to keep the property under Virginia law.

Because the diocese and the national Episcopal Church are expected to challenge the constitutionality of Virginia’s division statute, the judge has already scheduled arguments for that trial for May 28.

The 11 parishes, which include some of Virginia’s most historic churches such as Truro Episcopal in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church, voted in December 2006 to leave the Episcopal Church over longstanding disputes on biblical authority and human sexuality, most specifically the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

The Episcopal Church has been called to repent the Robinson consecration by much of the rest of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and its standing as the U.S. representative of Anglicanism is in question over the issue.

Thanks to Stand Firm and Baby Blue for keeping us updated!

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Get well, Jen!

I’ve known Jennifer King (Dunn) for… almost 17 years now. She’s my second oldest friend in the entire world, and it makes me feel old to think that in my life I’ve known her longer than I haven’t known her. I also think that it’s kind of sad that I’ve lived in Charlotte for 5 years now and I’ve probably seen her less in that time than when I lived in Atlanta. People change, though, and when Jen got married she “adopted” her husband’s friends. I’m not gonna knock her for that; I know that it “just happens” with people. Hell, my “Duluth High School crowd” were freakishly close until everyone started to hit their 30s, and then folks started moving away, or having children, or what have you. Where once 50 of us would get together to celebrate someone’s birthday, you’re now lucky to even get a tiny handful for almost any reason.

My point behind all this is that even though Jen and I aren’t nearly as close as we once were, I still care about the girl an awful lot. And if you’re one of the “Charlotte gang”, you probably know what happened to her this week. It’s depressing and it’s pointless… and I sincerely hope that she gets better ASAP.

I love you, you damn weirdo! Get well, and soon!  🙂