If you don’t know, it doesn’t matter. More fanny packs than Disney World. Geeks galore and one wannabe. When TechTV star Leo Laporte showed up at the pre-conference party, I morphed into a 13 year old girl who finds herself on an elevator with the ‘N-Sync boys. A few minutes later Leo drags Megan Marrone (another TechTV star) over to meet one of her fans. You could see her mentally composing the restraining order.
“I’m just here to regulate funkyness.”
Winston Baldry (James Gandolfini), The Mexican.
This American Life
For months my wife has been talking about a radio program called This American Life (produced by WBEZ in Chicago). I finally heard the show last week and must say it was pretty damned good. It was about a group of inmates at a high-security prison outside St. Louis that has been performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet for fellow inmates and outside visitors. Due to prison logistics they can’t stage the whole four-hour play at once, so they’ve been performing it serially, one act every six months. In the show I heard, they follow the cast for half a year, as they rehearse and stage the last and bloodiest act: Act V. This is good radio and worth a contribution.
Road Trip (2002)
Spent about 18 hours behind the wheel last week (Jefferson City, MO…Des Moines, IA…Indianapols, IN…Jefferson City). Such a journey would once have been a butt-numbing drag. Having 100 channels of news, music, talk and comedy made the hours fly by. I can tell that folks are getting a little tired of hearing me rave about XM but it’s hard not to talk about this. Most common question is: How often do you lose the signal? Uh, never. Sure, if I stop under an overpass the signal goes away but that’s pretty easy to avoid. And the quality is just amazing. Like blogging, XM is just one of those things that has to be experienced. PS: The Indiana State Fair turned out to be all work and no play. PPS: Back to Des Moines on Thursday for Gnomedex.
Two-Lane Blacktop
“Two men live for only one thing: racing their car, which has been stripped down to its barest essentials in order to give it maximum speed. Things like heaters and rear seats have been removed… steel has been replaced with fiberglass. And as they have done with their car, they have stripped away all “extraneous” elements from their lives, and from their very selves.”
I’m not a car guy either but I loved this movie. And, as far as I can determine, the only movie with James Taylor and Dennis Wilson (playing characters other than themselves).