Snapshots from a Chaotic Mind

2004-05-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

My web site has moved to doughyatt.org.

2003-09-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

Random: The Ads at the Top of the Page

Wow, what a neat idea. Do a search on stuff in the blog and show relevant ads. Ingenious, really. You guys don't get to see it like I do, as I am reloading blog after every entry and different crap is appearing at the top. It's really cool =) I was going to upgrade to premium blogspot stuff, but now I think I'll keep the basic.

2003-09-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Writing: Story Analysis Stuff

I am working on my analysis of "A Poetics for Bullies". Each Monday (starting tomorrow), I am going to blog about a different story. As for my previous comment about my blog not continuing to be a rambling, incoherent mess... "Oh well".

At least I will keep my movie/TV opinions short and simple.

2003-09-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

Movie: Underworld

The acting in this movie was absolutely horrible. The dialogue was *almost*, but not quite, as bad as the acting. The basic plot was ok, even interesting. Too bad the main human character (Michael Corvin) was as flat as a board, totally undeveloped, and completely uninteresting to watch. Mindless action sequence followed mindless action sequence, with a laughably bad final shot (I won't spoil it; it's so bad it's hilarious). Not completely unentertaining, but really not a good movie. 2/5

2003-09-21T22:02:00.000-07:00

Sports: Crooked Boxing Judges

My friends Pete and Russell got me interested in boxing. I'd never really watched it much before, but once I saw a few bouts when they came over to watch, I was hooked. Boxing is a lot like chess or tennis, one person against one person, celebrity against celebrity. I've always liked these sorts of contests, be they mental or physical.

Last night, I watched the replay of the Oscar Delahoya-Sugar Shane Moseley fight, followed by the Chris Byrd-Fres Oquendo fight (live). Delahoya clearly won the first fight, Oquendo clearly won the second. Now, I don't consider myself to be an expert on boxing, but:

1. I can read Compubox numbers that show punches landed. Yes, I know Compubox isn't everything, but when someone is dominant in all categories, it's really telling.

2. The losing fighters' demeanors in both fights suggested that they clearly suspected/knew they were losing. Moseley went all out in the final 4 rounds of his fight. And Chris Byrd, a totally defensive boxer, started getting really aggressive and going for Oquendo at the end of his fight.

So, as it turned out, Moseley won a unanimous decision over Delahoya, and Byrd won a unanimous decision over Oquendo. This can only mean one of two things:

1. The boxing judges for these contests were utterly and completely retarded OR

2. The judges had been bribed and the fights were both fixed.

It is truly sad that I have to conclude that #2 is the case. Boxing has always had a reputation as a sleazy sport, but never before have I seen bribery and corruption so obviously rear its head. These fights were just plain fixed. As long as the fight went to a decision, the losing fighters just stood no chance.

This all begs the question: what do we need judges for anyway? Why not just fight till one guy knocks the other guy out? At the very least, fight 15 rounds. So someone will get killed occasionally in the ring. Shit happens. That's the nature of the sport. Right now, the state of boxing is even worse than the state of chess. It's a miserable failure of a sport with only a few bright shining moments (like Gotti-Ward and Lewis-Klitschko).

What I don't understand is why boxers and boxing fans don't get more outraged. They just shrug their shoulders, say "I thought I won", and go about their business. Part of this is just due to money... the Bernard Hoppkins philosophy (who cares, just pay me)... where boxers just care about the fat paycheck and not about the title.

I don't know if I feel like watching any more boxing any time soon. Last night was the lowest I've ever seen the sport sink (in my limited experience with it).

2003-09-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

Politics: Wesley Clark in 2004?

Well, a while ago I blogged about my excitement in first seeing General Wesley Clark speak on Meet the Press. Now it turns out he will in fact be running for president. I haven't been this excited about a candidate since Paul Tsongas in 1992. He seems really intelligent and I like what I've heard him say about the war in Iraq. He has declared as a Democrat, though, so I'll have to wait and see what his economic policies are. I'm more of a Republican when it comes to paying taxes. More on the General as things develop!

2003-09-21T19:41:00.000-07:00

Movie: Once Upon a Time in Mexico

I saw Once Upon a Time in Mexico and really liked it. Richard Rodriguez is such a brilliant filmmaker. The movie isn't about plot, or characters (except in the case of Depp, who rocks), or story... but all about the beauty of filmmaking itself. Rodriguez shot, edited, and even scored the film himself. There are many wonderful shots and sequences. Lots of great visuals and great music. Mickey Rourke with a chihuaha, Depp as the sleazy CIA agent, Ruben Blaydes as the noble ex-FBI guy. Just a totally cheesy, utterly unrealistic, yet somehow incredibly fun romp. 4/5

2003-09-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

TV Show: Carnivale

I caught the second episode of Carnivale on HBO tonight. Totally bizarre, but it sucked me in pretty quickly with quirky characters, numerous mysteries, and Matrix-like prophetic statements ("He is the one!", "You are the one", etc.) The series is strongly reminiscent of Twin Peaks, my favorite TV show of all time, as well as of The Matrix. It even has the midget from the red room in Twin Peaks. Entertaining stuff. Highly recommended.

2003-09-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

A New Start

Well, after two months of silence, I'm ready to start blogging again. Instead of a rambling incoherent mess that touches on a bizarre range of topics, the new blog will focus primarily on my 'writing odyssey'. No, I'm not going to post my stories on here, so don't ask (what self-respecting aspiring professional would do that?) I will, however, share insights and anecdotes as I move towards the ultimate goal of publication.

Many people have asked me what sorts of stuff I want to write (and what stuff I read). "Surreal fiction" is my usual response. But given the looks of incomprehension people throw me when I say that, more recently I've just been mumbling "sci-fi, fantasy". "Ah", they nod, understanding the easily digestible tidbit I've thrown them. Well, now that I am blogging about my writing, I would like to talk a lot more about the stories I like to read, the authors who have touched me, and the quirky surreal sequences that I have found so interesting. Towards that end, I am going to try to analyze one story a week, take it apart like a watch, and figure out what makes it tick. Maybe some of you will read this blog, go out and find the stories I recommend, and get the same level of "wow" that I got when I first encountered them. That would be pretty cool.

It is my hope that the names of Borges, Poe, DeMaupassant, Calvino, Elkin, Barth, Marquez, Ellison, Bradbury, LeGuin, and many more, will soon become intimately familiar to you the way they are to me... and the next time I see you, and start babbling something about surrealist fiction, you may actually have some idea what I am talking about.

So, sit back, enjoy the new blog and new look, and get ready for the first story, Stanley Elkin's "A Poetics for Bullies".

2003-07-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

Hepburn and Hackett dead

Katherine Hepburn and Buddy Hackett died this week. =( Much sadder news than the departure of a Force of Darkness (see previous blog entry). Both, along with Gregory Peck, will be sorely missed.

2003-06-27T17:42:00.000-07:00

The World Is Now a Better Place

I am in a very good mood today because Strom Thurmond finally croaked. In an amusing thread on a message board I read regularly, people made comments like "be sure to cut off the head and bury it in a separate grave... and stake the corpse." Anything to make sure he doesn't come back. Now if only Jesse Helms, Judges Scalia and Rehnquist, and Clarence Thomas would suddenly have heart attacks. Oh, well. Can't get everything you wish for in one day, I guess...

2003-06-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

Martin Who??

I watched a lot of the French Open last week and the week before. There were many exciting matches, but the big story of the tournament for me, still, is the amazing Martin Verkerk. The 6'6" Dutchman with a huge serve and an awesome backhand just came out of nowhere (where nowhere = #46 in the world and no previous wins at slam events) and blazed a trail into the finals. His match with another up-and-coming player, Guillermo Coria of Argentina, was my favorite of the entire weekend.

The most entertaining thing about Verkerk (besides his humility and great sense of humor) are his utterly bizarre facial expressions. My favorite Verkerk quote from an article I read (which pretty much sums it up):


 French newspapers on Wednesday carried a sampling of 

the facial elasticity Verkerk demonstrated after winning 

shots in his Tuesday quarterfinal against No. 4 Carlos 

Moya: the fully elongated mouth; a fist pump accented 

with arched eyebrows and a crunched-up nose.



"It's ugly," said Verkerk, who faces No. 7 Guillermo Coria in 

the semis. "But I'm not here to be beautiful. I mean, I'm 

here to win."

Hopefully he'll do well at Wimbledon and make lots more funny faces.

2003-05-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

What am I missing About Bruce?

Why is Bruce Almighty only 48% on Rotten Tomatoes? What am I missing? It made $86M in its opening weekend. BY FAR, the funniest moments in the movie WERE NOT shown in the preview. People in the theater were just rolling... it was almost (but not quite) There's Something About Mary level hysteria in places. The critics must be too busy smoking crack and watching Solaris (or, as I like to call it, so-lare-ASS) on DVD to get this one right. If a comedy makes me laugh, it's done its job. This one had a packed theater dying of laughter pretty much throughout the whole movie. I don't see how Liar, Liar could be a 78% and this one 48%. If anything, Bruce was funnier than Shadyac's previous film with Carrey. If you're reading this and waffling about going, go. I had more fun at this film than I did at The Matrix Reloaded.

Incidentally, I've seen some really really terrible awful movies on HBO/Starz over Memorial Day weekend. Do NOT, unless you want to experience great pain, subject yourself to the horror that is Jennifer Lopez in Enough. It gets 1 1/2 stars only because Jennifer Lopez is hot. Next we move on to Resident Evil, another movie which gets 1 1/2 stars, and only because Milla Jovovic (from The Fifth Element, a fantastic film, go see it if you haven't) is also hot. My favorite scene in this movie is when they find dried blood on the floor... and they say "this blood... it's ... it's... coagulated! But blood doesn't do that until you're dead!" OMG LOLOLOL. Finally, I saw the worst of all of them, at a mere 1/2 star, Reign of Fire, because the only thing hot in this movie were the dragons. You know it's bad when you start rooting for the firebreathing monstrosities and laughing whenever someone gets fried. Anyway, the premise for this movie had me rolling. I had thought The Core was bad, but listen to this: Apparently, hundreds of years ago, dragons wiped out the dinosaurs (no, I am not making this up) by burning them to death. Now, the dragons have come back and have Freedom-Fried humanity... only, get this: the dragons are beginning to starve, because they've killed so many humans! Hmmm, lessee, so what did they eat for the millions of years between exterminating the dinosaurs and 2020 when they awake to take on Mankind? Uhhh, never mind, please don't tell me. This is an absolutely ABYSMAL movie, but at least it has what I like to call the Antitrust Factor. You enjoy it a lot just because it sucks in such gigantic, entertaining fashion.

Antitrust, to this day, is one of the most entertaining bad movies I've ever seen. To this day, I cannot think of "Wait, I know how his mind works" or "The secret isn't in the box, it's in the band" without bursting into uproarious laughter. Tim Robbins as the evil Bill Gates... the Asian American actor who plays Teddy to doomed perfection (you know he is going to die like 5 minutes into the movie)... Ryan Phillipe as the young hotshot programmer... it is all too much. Mystery Science Theater couldn't even do anything to this movie; it already exists in such a perfect state of self-parodying splendor.

At least I didn't have to sit through Baby Geniuses again.

2003-05-27T04:35:00.000-07:00

Because of Me....

All the Citysearch.com and Match.com spam letters now have clear instructions about how to unsubscribe right at the beginning of the emails! I guess my complaint with the BBB and angry letter to their legal department paid off. Ah, well, I know I can't defeat the Spammer Nation, but it still makes me feel good to reclaim a bit of territory from the evil empire of direct marketers. I have unsubscribed to their hated newsletters, so we'll see if it works.... with any luck, the battle has ended in my favor.

Oh, by the way, if you spam people for a living, I hope one day your testicles are chewed off by the rats from Willard. That is all.

2003-05-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

The Whole Click Thing and Retraining

Heh, I should further add that I never knew you could select the URL text in IE by single clicking it. I must have double clicked it the first time I tried it, and I've been doing that ever since. Funny how you do something one way (which isn't even the normal way), but you just assume it is because the software is letting you do it. Now I am sitting here in IE playing around with single clicking URL texts and amusing myself. Retraining is very difficult =) Once you've done something thousands of times a certain way, it's hard to learn to do it differently. I double click by default before I even realize it... and in Mozilla, it was stranding me inside the URL bar. Actually, I realized what annoyed me wasn't so much the single vs. double click, but the fact clicking to the right of the URL text doesn't select it (in Mozilla... does in IE).

2003-05-27T04:10:00.000-07:00

Mozilla Stuff

Well, re: the four complaints in my previous Mozilla blog entry... my brother has blogged about them, so thought I should respond.

He writes:

And finally, to answer your question, triple-click will select the entire URL bar text even if the cursor is inside the URL bar..

This is acceptable, and now I can use Mozilla. I really would not have used it had this not been available. Triple click requires a little more work, but I can handle that. I still don't really understand the rationale behind this design though. In IE, I put my mouse to the right of the URL text and I double click. Here is what is really annoying: You single click to the right of the URL in IE and it selects the text, but if you do the same thing in Mozilla, nothing, nada. So here is a case where even the supposed 'single click' functionality doesn't work. Even after realizing I could select the text with single click, I still got annoyed because I typically (just out of habit, no particular reason) in IE would select the URL text by double clicking to the right of the URL text.

All I know is: I am Joe User, and I like my IE. I run my web browser exactly the way my brother once described that novice web users do, maximized and without any bells and whistles. If I'm going to switch to Mozilla, I have to have, at a minimum, the same capabilities as whatever I do in IE. When I discover things done better, that's a nice bonus and makes me go "Cool, Mozilla goood." But the URL selection was a case where the first thing I tried (double click to right of URL text to select all) just didn't work... which led to instant annoyance. My suggestion to Mozilla folks would be to make it so at least single click to right of URL text selects it all (as it does in IE).

Re: the download manager, Dave writes:

Anyway, if you don't like the download manager, you can go to your Preferences and under Navigator/Downloads you can tell it to open individual progress dialogs (just like WinIE) instead of using the download manager. You can even set the progress dialogs to auto-close when done.

I have done this in IE, so these windows spawn but go away automatically. My problem isn't with the windows spawning; it's with the fact they don't close. So why isn't there an option to use the download manager but have it close automatically when the download completes? Also, I should point out this is the #1 Mozilla complaint among my friends; people (at least people I know) hate this extra window with a passion. I will tell you why... because in X-Windows, you cannot ignore this extra window. It spawns in a different place than the browser window, often obscuring some xterm you had open. You can't just ignore the window; you have to do something about it before you can proceed. In my novice maximized Windows Mozilla, it doesn't bug me as much. Under X, this extra window had me frothing.

As far as being able to adjust settings to do what you want, the sad truth about software is that a lot of people don't try options, and, if they do, they don't like spending a lot of time looking around for the right ones. Much software gets judged by the way it acts by default, even if, unfortunately, it can actually perform the way you want it to if you just knew how to adjust the settings. So why not make the default behavior the least intrusive?

Actually, I did try Mozilla like a year ago (or longer, I don't really remember). I got ridiculously annoyed at not being able to find how to block popup windows. Finally, after like 10 minutes of staring at the preferences, I wound up in who-knows-where (scripts and proxies or something) and found the 'allow script to open unrequested windows' or something. I forget because Mozilla has since made popup blocking much easier to find, which is a very sensible change. Again, I don't understand why blocking popups isn't the default (see previous paragraph). What you have is a browser that, by default, still produces popups, doesn't emulate certain (imo superior) behaviors of IE, and spawns an annoying download window you have to close manually. (To be fair, I think it is also the default behavior in IE not to close its download dialog windows).

I still think the mail program is wonderful and vastly superior to Outlook Express.

2003-05-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

Bruce Almighty

I have seen It, and It is good. Funniest movie of the year by far. Not quite up there with My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the phenomenal About a Boy from last year, but stilll extremely funny. I had read reviews that claimed the movie degenerated into cheesiness at the end, but I didn't see any evidence of that... film stayed tongue-in-cheek through to the end, imo. Solid 4 star (out of 5) flick.

2003-05-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

Mozilla Gripes

So I finally decided to try Mozilla seriously. Ironically, it wasn't anything bad about IE that made me switch (only real issue with that browser is the popups, which you can block with 3rd party software), but the horror that is Outlook Express. I could fill blog entries with all the bad behaviors of this program, but I don't really feel like ranting at the moment.

So, Mozilla email seems very nice. The web browser, however, has quite a few annoying 'features':

1. You can't select the URL text up top by double clicking it. This is the BEST feature of IE and the FASTEST way that I have found to hop to a new web site. Double click, type new URL, hit return. In Mozilla, they decided to use a single click. The only problem with this is that if your cursor is ALREADY INSIDE the URL text, you have no way to select all the text (other than right click the mouse and pick select all... or click somewhere totally outside the URL bar and single click back in, which is a pain). This is a case where the IE UI people really knew what they were doing. I don't understand the rationale behind opting for a different (and inferior) behavior in Mozilla.

2. The download manager. Effectively, in a browser which boasts about blocking popups, this is a BROWSER-SPAWNED popup window! I mean, like, WTF!?! This has got to be the single most annoying 'feature' in all of Mozilla. I mean, it's one thing to spawn this stupid window, but at least close it when the program is done downloading. Creating windows you have to close manually = one of the reasons people left IE in the first place. Helllooooo... McFlyyyyy....

3. Flash. Why isn't is packaged with Mozilla? Downloading and installing this puppy is a pain. It doesn't always work right. For example, I went to the Fires of Heaven site, clicked on 'Download Plugin', and got directed to a page to download a Windows 3.1 version of Flash. UGH! Awful! Once I finally got it set up, it also clearly runs slower under Mozilla than IE. It also trashed my internet somehow and I had to reboot my computer, but I dunno whose fault that was, so I won't blame it on Mozilla.

4. Too many mistakes in pages. Now, I know enough to know a lot of this probably isn't Mozilla's fault. But I am sitting here typing this blog entry in a scrollbox that only fills half the allotted area. To the right of this box is an enormous empty blue field. This is probably Blogger's fault, but, still, I've seen problems in 3 of the first 10 or so pages I've visited.

Ah, well. I love the Mozilla email program at first glance (haven't used it much yet, though). The browser is really annoying, though. Single click to select and download manager are yuk, bleh, icky, you get the idea.

2003-05-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

Scourge!

I attended the Scourge (the new Magic:the Gathering card set) prerelease tournament in Nashville Saturday. My deck was nothing amazing, but I managed to go +4 -1 for a tie for 2nd and 12 packs. Michael Beeler, another Knoxvillian, also scored +4 -1 and took home some packs. The set rounds out Onslaught/Legions block nicely and adds lots of interesting ideas to this draft set. I was really disappointed in Onslaught, but once again, having waited to see the complete block, I have to give WotC credit where credit is due.

Just thinking back to all the disappointments in various mmorpg computer games like Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, and Asheron's Call 1/2, it really makes me respect the job that Wizards of the Coast has done in continually, year after year, putting out top notch products. Their overhaul of D&D (re: rescue of TSR) was simply fantastic. Yes, 3rd edition has many problems, but it is still a lot more interesting and fun than 2nd edition ever was. Their Magic products have just been stellar. I look back over every Magic set since Tempest, and I am just awestruck at what an amazing job the card designers have done set after set after set.

This is the most fun game in the world, the most fun game ever created, even with its faults like "mana screw" and the fact it's a luck-based game to a certain extent. It's just hugely fun and looks like it will continue to be so for as long as WotC decides to put out more product. Now, of course, chess is the greatest game in the world =-), but chess isn't always fun, now, is it? :-/

2003-05-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

Matrix Reloaded!

I saw it last Friday. It was visually amazing, every shot like a painting. I love that the filmmakers don't just choreograph amazing fights, but that they actually think about how everything on the screen looks while the fight is going on: the colors and shapes in the background, the form and movement of the actors, the pacing/speed/slowing down/speeding up of the moves. It's really something to see. Once again, it's a totally mediocre hack science fiction plot with dimestore philosophy. The first half of the movie is slow and actually boring. The movie really made no sense at all and lacked the cohesion of the first movie. I didn't LIKE the stupid concept of the first movie, but at least I never went "Huh? What the hell is going on?" Characters are introduced and thrown away, weird concepts/ideas are introduced, poorly elucidated, and thrown into a big mess of stupidity and nonsense. As a video game, however, with exquisitely beautiful visual effects and cinematography, this is one cool ride. Overall, like X2, it winds up at 4 stars on DougScale. I am still waiting to see a really good movie this year. Haven't seen many, but The Good Thief (4.25 stars) is leading the pack at the moment. Nothing else has been remotely as good.

2003-05-15T02:36:00.000-07:00

Evil Company of the Week: citysearch.com

The winner of my 1st "Evil Company of the Week" award is citysearch.com (not linking to give them the benefit). I have been getting spam from this company in the form of newsletters despite never having signed up for anything. The insidious thing about these newsletters is that they have an 'unsubscribe' link that, when you click it, takes you to a "membership signup page" where you have to sign up in order to set your "newsletter preferences". Even after doing that and clicking unsubscribe everywhere possible, I am still receiving their garbage in my mailbox. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in LA, and today I sent them the following email, after receiving yet another spam email from them:


Dear citysearch.com,



I have already filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau concerning

your company (citysearch.com) for its spamming and misrepresentation

policies (i.e. providing 'unsubscribe' buttons that require you to 'sign in'

first and don't work once you do).  Despite numerous efforts to click

unsubscribe, and emailing the 'contactus' email, I am still receiving spam

emails from citysearch.com.  I do not know what to do to make them stop.



Please remove me from your list (a very simple request) or I will contact a

lawyer and pursue my legal options.  Continuing to send newsletters/ads

despite my unsubscription attempts and numerous requests to stop will mean

you agree to purchase room in my mailbox; the price of sending such an

unwanted email is hereby set at $100,000.  If I receive another email

advertisement/newsletter from your company, it will be implicitly understood

by all parties that you agree to this price.  I will then contact a lawyer

and pursue this amount in court.



All this can be avoided by just taking me off all your lists.  I don't think

my request is unreasonable, considering all my previous efforts to stop the

spam madness.



I am also copying this email to two witnesses in case I need to pursue

further legal action.



Sincerely,

Doug Hyatt

Not that I expect to win or anything, but you have to fight the good fight.

2003-05-14T23:36:00.000-07:00

American Idol Finalists

My top two, Ruben and Clay, made it to the finals. I watched the results who earlier tonight. All I have to say is, wow, Tamyra Gray is just amazing. Her performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was better than anything I've heard all season in this year's competition. Granted, she's probably had more time to practice and prepare, but still... her rendition was pretty damn good. She is miles above Kimberley Locke. Justin Guarini also sang; I'm just not that impressed with his voice. Clay and Ruben both sing better. My opinion, anyway.

2003-05-12T15:08:00.000-07:00

Movable Type is Not the Solution

Well, Movable Type is only downloadable in .tar.gz format, so that cuts out 99+% of Windows users (who won't be able to figure out how to get the files extracted). I did, found a bunch of Perl modules and CGI scripts and promptly went "Oh, hell." This is clearly not a solution to anything. I'm going to browse the web for some Windows/web-based blogging utilities. If I don't find any, then hmmmmmm, there may be a real market niche here. Right now, there may not be any "blogging software for the masses" (is Blogger really the best there is, with its shitty broken archives and pisspoor interface?). Movable Type is geekware and the average blogger won't be able to use it. Blogger has a ridiculous number of flaws, none of which are being corrected (because it has no competition?) There needs to be something that's nothing but point/click/type/go, something someone with no technical skills can use. More later, after I see what else I can find.

2003-05-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

My Book, TV, and Movie Update

Well, my brother has posted his pop culture update, so I suppose it's my turn to do the same (and help keep this struggling animal that is my blog alive).

First, a little side rant as to why I haven't been blogging so much lately. Well, it's basically because I don't have the software to do it. Having to cut and paste links into my blog is just too time-consuming. Having to figure out how to make the blog look good and have archives work is just too time-consuming. I suppose I should really check out Movable Type and see if it does what I want. If not, I don't see much point in doing something that just requires too much effort.

Movies first. I subscribed to Netflix a couple of months ago, and I've been renting movies like crazy. The best movie by far from the ones I've seen is Lawrence of Arabia. I'd heard the film was good, but, damn, I had no idea it was THAT good. One of the best movies I've ever seen, and the restoration is breathtaking. I also saw The Bridge on the River Kwai for the first time. Thought it was good, but not spectacular. As far as movies in the theater go, I have to rant a bit about X2. This movie has garnered a lot of praise and gotten good reviews. I enjoyed it, much in the same way I enjoyed The Matrix and Signs. This one also clocks in at 4/5 stars on the Dougscale. Like those other two movies, however, it just has colossally stupid flaws (it also has Colossus, but that's beside the point). Skip on down to the next paragraph if you don't want to read spoilers. First of all, government soldiers invade the X compound. Despite the fact they haven't killed anyone, Wolverine immediately starts shredding them with his claws. Here is a perfect example of why this is not a good movie. Violence has been reduced to the level of a video game. This movie is just a big video game. And that, truly, is unfortunate, because whenever movies just become video games, you lose any real connection with the characters and just don't treat it like it means anything or has any relevance whatsoever. Chris Claremont, the author of the X-Men was always careful to make sure violence had real and definite consequences. Wolverine wasn't just a wanton killer. He was the most likely of the X-Men to kill someone, and later, as Larry Hama's character, he turned into the Punisher with claws, but under Claremont's reign, he didn't kill except in self-defense, or for some other very good reason. Regardless of where you stand on the gruff-but-not-a-killer Wolverine vs. the savage-predator Wolverine, the violence in the movie just doesn't work. Not a shred of thought is given to the soldiers that get impaled one after the other. You don't see their faces. Although these were probably good guys (U.S. servicemen being told by their bosses they were fighting a great evil mutant menace), they are just mowed down as though they were evil and deserved to die. Am I being overly analytical by actually thinking about these guys as real people? In the movie, they are just "Red Shirts" to be slain and quickly forgotten. I HATE this approach to story and moviemaking. It is sloppy and unforgivable. We see it again in another absolutely terrible scene, in which Pyro unleashes a bunch of fireballs on the unsuspecting police. Now, you could argue that he is angry, he has just seen Wolverine shot in the head (another idiotic sequence... yes, among all police there is someone weak-willed and stupid who will inevitably fire his pistol without any provocation.. oh please, give me a break), and he is finally releasing his emotions. Yeah, but fireballs at things with gas tanks?? Anyone remember the A-Team?? Yeah, that's right, tons of things exploding and flipping over... and NO ONE GETS KILLED. GAH! Terrible! Add to that that Logan should have at least been more pissed at Pyro than he was instead of giving him a "aw gee kid that was bad" look. Video game. The whole movie is a video game. Explain to me how Nightcrawler avoids all those bullets, as though porting a bunch would save him from walking into one of them. Explain to me how Professor X can stop time in the blink of an eye for hundreds of people but can't stop one from entrapping him stupidly. Explain to me why you can't just make tinier iron balls out of the iron in a person's blood and escape from your prison if you're Magneto... oh gee you need ELEVATED levels of iron to make even bigger metal balls. Even though all these scenes are done with style, great acting, great pacing, and in ways that make you go "wow, cool", you still leave the theater going, "man, that was just silly." It bothers me that you have to say that about X-Men movies, as it's something you would never say about the well-drawn, well-realized characters in the original comic book. Obviously, I'm not a complete killjoy. I enjoyed the movie. Silly. But fun. Spider-Man, by contrast, is a much better screenplay in the TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT (the only two deaths in the movie that I can recall have real, serious plot consequences), although some of the visuals/physics (bad jumping) aren't as good... and it just isn't as fun a movie, I guess.

One last movie I should mention: Identity. Even though I had a lot of this movie figured out, I was totally floored by the ending (which in retrospect should have been obvious, but I just overlooked the key detail). I really liked it. A very solid 4 star picture. Highly recommended for anyone who liked The Ring, a far creepier movie. I read BecBlog regarding this movie (too much pain to link specifically to that blog entry, see my previous rant about deficiencies in blogging technology), and I have to agree. This movie weirded me out totally. For me, the image that will always stick in my head is that of hair face down over someone's face. For some reason, that is just really creepy to me, as though someone had turned their head inside out. There were many images in this movie that I just laughed at, however. When the horse jumped off the boat, I was dying laughing. Some things just didn't work for me. Even so, I still really enjoyed it. Identity doesn't evoke the same creepy atmosphere, except in its final moments.

As far as TV goes, I watched the last two Survivor episodes without having seen any of the others and was highly entertained. Rob definitely outwitted, but he just wasn't up to the "outlast" part (he wins that immunity challenge, he at least has a decent shot). I think immunity challenges get overlooked again and again. People talk about the "thinking" aspect of the game. I agree that that is important, but you can't overlook the physical aspect either. As far as American Idol goes, I have seen every episode and Ruben and Clay are still the ones to beat. I was floored when Trenyce went instead of Josh (who just totally sucked that week, but I guess the war-brainwashed America kept him around). I've thought Six Feet Under has just been totally bizarre this season and not in a good way. The show has gone way downhill from last season, with very erratic episodes and far too much sexual weirdness (Alan Ball, the creator, just likes this stuff, but mainstream America doesn't... you can get away with it some of the time, but too much of it and most people, myself included, start changing the channel).

On the book front, I read a very good fantasy: The Briar King, by J. Gregory Keyes. I hadn't read any of his stuff before, but this one was really entertaining. I tried to read S.M. Stirling's Conquistador, about an alternative history where a guy in WWII finds a gateway to an alternative reality where the Europeans never discovered the New World. Although the characters are interesting and the story is competently told, it just hasn't been that interesting to me and I haven't been able to finish it. I read Jude Fisher's Sorcery Rising, another excellent debut to a fantasy series. Very entertaining characters, and almost all the action in the book takes place in the same locale, which I still find astonishing. Raymond Feist has a new book out called Talon of the Silver Hawk, another "first book in a series". I have fond memories of his other books, but this one just seemed simplistic and shabby. I devoured it in a couple nights, nonetheless, but I really found his characters to be poorly constructed, the writing style plain and uninteresting. He even called a wizard in his universe a "magic-user", which was just way too D&D for my tastes...who would ever use that word in a novel? BLEH! I can't really recommend this book, unless you're just bored and want some fun pulp fantasy. I also read Prey, Michael Crichton's new book about a nanotech plague run amok. This book was well-researched and highly entertaining, filled with interesting ideas. My only problem with Crichton is his characters are so dull. His main characters are always having domestic problems, and his scientists are always uninteresting archetypes. The ideas are so interesting, though, and the pace so quick and lively, that I didn't really care. As usual, a fun book that makes you think. Right now, I am reading Gene Wolfe's Soldier books from the 1980's, which have just been reprinted in one volume called Latro in the Mist. I loved these books when I first read them in college ten years ago, and they're just as good now. I don't know if Memento got its idea from these books... but the premise is that a Roman soldier, while fighting for the Persians in a battle in Greece, receives a head wound that wipes out his long term memory. He can only remember what happens the last day.. in exchange, he can see all the Greek gods, goddesses, demigods, etc., who visit him frequently throughout the story. He journeys around the lands of ancient Greece trying to discover his identity. The story is fascinating as it hops from place to place, and each chapter often begins in media res in an entirely different location from the previous one. These books are VERY confusing, which is probably why they went out of print. But the universe of ancient Greece that Wolfe creates is evocative and beautiful. This story is a real pleasure, one of my favorites of Wolfe, along with his Book of the New Sun (which means that it's one of my favorites from any author). Wolfe cites as one of his major influences Jorge Luis Borges, the man who has influenced more good writers than I can even think of (Harlan Ellison being one of them). Borges is also one of MY favorite writers, for the record.

That's about it for now. More as I investigate Movable Type.

2003-03-23T22:35:00.000-08:00

Blogs are Hard

It's hard to keep these things updated. You get busy with work or what not and next thing you know, a month has gone by. I guess the war has me kind of bummed out. I have been watching Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO since its premiere. I've always liked Bill Maher. HBO is the perfect forum for him. He had an interesting show last Friday. Tim Robbins was on. Robbins is really against the war. Maher is about 60/40 against/for, he said... and admitted he went back and forth on the subject. One of the more interesting questions Maher asked was "When is it the right time to oppose a war?", i.e. now that it's going on, should we just shut up about it and hope for the best? Robbins said no, absolutely not, and I agree with him 100%. Yes, you support the troops. Yes, you hope for a good outcome. But, no, you don't refrain from protesting. As Robbins pointed out, how absurd would it have been for Vietnam War protesters to stop protesting just because the "action" had started? Obviously, ridiculous.

Anyway, I can pretty much sum up my position on the war with a few points. I find myself somewhere in between Maher and Robbins. First, I believe, as almost everyone does, that we should support our troops and hope they come back safe and sound. Second, I hope for a favorable outcome in Iraq, although I think it unlikely in the long term. As Maher said, though, "Don't you have to hope it works at this point, regardless of what you thought before?" And, well, yes, I hope it works. But that won't stop my criticism of the administration that got us here. Third, I do not believe there is any link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, or at least not any substantial one. The administration has played a game of smoke and mirrors. People keep telling me "they have more information than us". Well, duh. But don't you think that if they had something (beyond the flimsy stuff Powell laid out in his presentation) that they would have presented it to the U.N.?

Yes, Saddam probably has WMD. Yes, he is in violation of 1441. The problem is, we have struck at a target PREEMPTIVELY, on the off-chance that they might one day do us harm. This is an extremely dangerous precedent to set. I truly believe that Bush thinks the threat is imminent... else he would not have acted. It doesn't change my basic opinion, though, that this war is "jumping the gun". I hope it ends quickly and ends well. How the U.S. and its allies plan to deal with the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis post-takeover, I have no idea. It will be a mess.

On a more lighter note, I've been reading my brother and Rebecca's blogs (too lazy to link... I would talk about why the blog is essentially a waste for the non-technical user until some software is provided that can auto-link for you... or, put another way, Blogger sucks ass) about American Idol and I agree... Ruben and Clay are in a category by themselves... although I would also throw Tennessee girl Trenyce in that category as well. She is easily the best female performer in the bunch, great voice (not quite as good as Ruben's and Clay's, but close), great stage presence. I think the last three will be Ruben, Clay, and Trenyce. The Marine, Josh, is pretty good. Corey and Ricky are both very good when they're good and very bad when they're bad. Kimberley Caldwell is merely adequate; I don't know why the judges love her so much. I've never been that impressed with her. Carmen is just awful... although each week I look forward to Simon lying out his ass about "how good his wild card pick was". Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Simon... and have some Vanilla Coke while you're at it.

Haven't been watching much TV besides CNN and FoxNews. Wes Clark has been on CNN. Still stand by my previous blog entry. This guy is the real deal.

2003-02-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

Don't Like Waiting for the Movie?

As someone who goes to a lot of movies, I am as annoyed as the person in this article at all the commercials and previews. Around Christmas, movies didn't start for a good 15 minutes after the advertised time. I like previews, but I hate having to watch commercials in movie theaters. Maybe this will get the industry's attention, but I doubt it.

2003-02-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

The Bushes Suck; Wes in 2004!

First, the last straw, specifically this passage:

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"The reading is the latest offshoot of a movement that began with a canceled White House poetry symposium. One of the poets invited to that event, Copper Canyon Press publisher Sam Hamill, sent an open letter of protest to first lady Laura Bush.
Hamill's missive, e-mailed to a handful of friends across the country, led to other poets taking up the cause. Even U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins has said he opposes war with Iraq and is finding it difficult to keep politics out of his work.
The first lady subsequently canceled the symposium, saying she "did not believe poetry should be used for political purposes."

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Of all the actions I have ever seen one of the Bushes take (while in office), this is the most disturbing. Freedom of speech is one of our most basic rights. Along with that comes the freedom to dissent, to protest. But to say "poetry should [not] be used for political purposes"... that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what art, ANY ART, is all about.

And, seeing as how the arts are what I hold nearest and dearest to my heart, any respect I once had for these two people is now gone. And now we're marching forward to an unjustified war, led by a megalomaniac bent on ruining America's reputation in the international community. It's sad. We're committed now. Our rhetoric and our troop movements all point to an attack on Iraq... and we can't back down without losing credibility. So, at this point, sadly, I understand why we have to go to war, but I have come off my fence-sitting position and am now firmly against it.

I guess I became opposed to the war after I saw General Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO, on Meet the Press last Sunday. He was extremely impressive... clearly highly intelligent, clearly possessing a lot more information than Joe Q Public, eloquent, and very persuasive. As he laid it all out, I found myself slowly but surely agreeing with almost everything he said. If Clark were to run for president in 2004, I would definitely vote for him. To sum up his basic position... we should be going after Al Qaeda first and foremost, we should be more focused on Iran and Syria than on Iraq (it was clear he knew of hard evidence linking AQ to those two countries; you could just tell by the way he spoke about it). He also agreed that now he would support war because of the credibility issue. What impressed me the most, however, was his incredible respect for Europe. Of course, he was Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, so he knows Europe... and NATO proved very effective in handling the Kosovo conflict (once they finally stepped in). In fact, so little has been said about it since old Slobodan was put on trial that I realized (I had just never thought about it before) just how successfully that whole situation was handled. Clark said that we should indict Bin Laden as a war criminal, which opens a lot more avenues for international pursuit... and would draw easy support from most of the U.N. (it is hard to buy a country being bad, easier to buy criminals being bad). Clark RESPECTS the other nations in the world. The Bush administration and most of the American public clearly don't. But, come on, people, when you see that many people protesting worldwide, shouldn't it kind of clue you in? Europe is INTEGRAL to the success of this venture.

After Meet the Press was over, I just kind of sat there like "Wow". It's been a long time since I can remember watching a potential presidential candidate on TV and saying "Wow". He just didn't sound like a hawk/military type to me. I looked him up on the web... Rhodes Scholar, degrees in philosophy, political science, and economics from Oxford. So I wasn't just bamboozled. The guy clearly has a brain. I am really hoping he makes a go of it in 2004... but I fear that after the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqis are labeled "a success" by the current administration, that Colin Powell will be ushered into the White House by a public too clouded by hate to realize the Arab people as a whole are not our enemy. Don't get me wrong. I think Powell is a decent, solid, intelligent individual... but as Randy says on American Idol, "I didn't see any sparks."

Well, on Sunday, I did, as Clark went through point by point, dismantling the administration's current policy, pointing out each and every flaw. By the time he was done, it was all black and white to me again, for the first time in a good long while. Wow.

2003-02-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Night TV

My comments on the big 3 shows of the week (all on Tuesday night!):

American Idol: I voted for Vanessa and George. My top 3 were 1. Vanessa, 2. George, 3. Ricky. I really didn't think Hercules was all that impressive compared to the other two. Simon was just mean... not to mention hypocritical. Tells Ruben he's what this competition is all about then tells Vanessa she needs to lose a few pounds. He's just a dick.

24: This episode really sucked. The plot holes get larger and larger. First, division doesn't know George is sick? Come on. He should have been removed by now. Second, what is the motivation for taking the bomb out of play at the last possible moment? This makes ZERO SENSE. If they just want to drum up support for their cause, getting the bomb right after it made it into the country would be fine. Third, the character of Marie Warner is completely unbelievable. And, finally, why is Kim even on the show? Come on, she runs away from the police, stumbles into a wildcat, a poacher trap, and then a militant loner who just happens to keep a bomb shelter in his basement? Oh, PLEASE. What's next? Lassie will come bounding up to Kiefer. "What's that, girl? Kim's in trouble? Well, lead on!" As for Sherry, how or why would she ever have the kind of power she is displaying? Totally, utterly, completely, implausible. I only watch this show because of its excellent pacing and suspense. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of The Matrix. The action, timing, and pacing of the show are just flawless, just as in the suspense scenes in The Matrix. But The Matrix, too, was just sloppy and half-assed in its concepts. Yet both are still extremely entertaining cause they both have a lot of style... both get the adrenaline goin'.

The Shield: I saved the best for last. This is hands down the best drama on television (or at least the best one I am watching... I don't watch all that much TV, except on Tuesdays). Powerful, gripping, and realistic. It has the energy and adrenaline of 24 mixed with the realism of NYPD Blue. Chiklis is amazing, as is Cch Pounder (so good to see her in a big role again). It's so interesting to see how you can take a great concept show like NYPD Blue, give the characters much more interesting Shakespearian flaws (political ambition, violence, lecherousness, racism, sexual self-denial), and employ much more talented writers... What you get is a cop show for the modern age. I'll say it again: this is the best drama on television... and it's on F/X, of all places. Who would ever have expected that? Why isn't this show on FOX?

2003-02-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

Joe Millionaire Deceives Its Viewers

Pertinent to my previous angry blog, I found this article on CNN. Seems I wasn't the only one upset about the tease.

2003-02-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

The Shield and Other Tidbits

A few weeks ago, I succumbed to the hype and began watching The Shield, a cop show on F/X. I would never have started watching it if it hadn't won so many awards (Chiklis winning the Emmy and Golden Globe for best Actor and the show winning Golden Globe for best drama). I'm glad I did, though. This is the best cop show I've ever seen; it leaves NYPD Blue and Hill Street Blues in the dust (although it clearly has learned and borrowed a lot from NYPD Blue). Law and Order is still better in my book, although I don't really consider it a cop show (it's more an anthology show; plots seldom carry over from episode to episode). 24 and The Shield pack an incredible 1-2 punch on Tuesday nights.

I don't watch any sitcoms at all. I just feel like I'm wasting my time whenever I'm watching one that's on. In the post-Cheers, post-Seinfeld era, they just all seem kind of lame. If I had to pick one show that was the most consistently funny, it would be The Daily Show on Comedy Central, with Late Night with Conan O'Brien a close second. That both those shows manage the level of humor they do on a near-daily basis is just incredible to me. Satire will always be my favorite form of humor. The Daily Show is like a television version of SatireWire or The Onion, which is just great to see.

I've also been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns on F/X, and I have to agree with my brother... this is one of the greatest TV shows of all time, right up there with Law and Order in my book. I can't remember any show like Buffy ever being on the air before it... a basically serious show but with a lot of camp/humor and self-parody. I mean, there was Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, which had humor like Buffy's (only less funny) but without any of the seriousness... and there have been serious shows like Babylon 5 or Deep Space Nine which lacked the humor... but I'm having trouble remembering any show that combined serious concepts and great comedy before Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the airwaves. An absolutely phenomenal series.

That's pretty much it on the TV front. I'll have to do an Oscar update pretty soon. Getting to be about that time.

2003-02-11T22:52:00.000-08:00

My American Idol Picks

My top 3 from last week:

1. Julia

2. Kimberley

3. Charles

My opinion echoed America's, as these were the top three. Charles and Julia were the top 2 and went on to the next round.

For this week, my top three were:

1. Ruben

2. Clay

3. Hadas

I know the judges liked Kimberley Locke, but I just didn't like the fact she keeps singing the same song ("Somewhere Over the Rainbow") over and over again. So, sorry, didn't vote for ya, although I'm guessing the rest of America did. We'll see tomorrow.

2003-02-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

Totally Lame

I wasted an hour of my life tonight watching Joe Millionaire. The show began with the final two women... and ended with the final two women. All it did was recap what had gone before, in a mind-numbingly boring display of inept programming and utter lameness. Boo, Joe Millionaire, and boo, Fox.

2003-02-10T00:32:00.000-08:00

Hyatt-Cronin, Southeastern Open Round 3, October 2002

This game was played in the third round of the Southeastern Open. Dakota Cronin is an A-player (1954) from North Carolina. Yet another French Defense, but this time my opponent didn't understand the positional aspects of the defense (i.e. once you trade dark-squared bishops, endings are mostly bad).

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Bd3 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ngf3 f6 This isn't really played too often. The main line is Qb6, with the idea of accepting the pawn sacrifice after 8.O-O or playing 8...g6!?, as in Hyatt-Andrews, Asheville 2003. 8.exf6 Nxf6 9.O-O cxd4 10.cxd4 Bd6 11.Nb3 O-O 12.Bg5 White follows the standard plan of trading dark-squared bishops with Bg5-h4-g3, after which, if successful, black will have weaknesses on the dark squares. Black must play vigorously to combat this plan, working to achieve e5 under favorable circumstances or to get his light-squared bishop into the game somehow. The game Hyatt-Garrison, World Open, 2001, saw the dubious novelty 12...e5?!, after which white could have gotten a decent edge with 13.dxe5 Nxe5 14.Nxe5 Bxe5 15.Re1 (instead white played 14.Be2!?, black equalized, and even went on to win the game after further errors). 12...Qe8 13.Bh4 Bd7?! This is the novelty in my database. I think there are two better moves. 13...Qh5 (much more forcing than Bd7) 14.Bg3 Bxg3 15.fxg3 Ng4 has been played in a few grandmaster games, with white following up with either 16.Qd2 or 16.Qe2. Hellers-Wheeler, 1988, continued 16.Qe2 e5 17.dxe5 Ncxe5 18.h3 and white had an edge. The strongest move, in my opinion, was played by GM de la Villa Garcia in Dmitrov-de la Villa Garcia, Moscow, 1994. Black equalized after 13...Nh5! 14.Re1 (this may not be best) Nf4 15.Bg3 Qe7. 14.Bg3 Bxg3 15.hxg3 More usual in these types of positions, and probably better here as well, is 15.fxg3, but that is often because it is forced due to threats of Ng4/Rxf3 (which after fxg3 can be met by Qe2/gxf3, and the queen covers h2 mates). Either capture (fx or hx) leads to a white edge, as black can't play e5 favorably (he has not gotten Qh5/Ng4 in, supporting this break further tactically). Now 15...e5 is met simply by 16.dxe5 Nxe5 17.Re1, and if 17...Nxf3+ 18.gxf3, black just has an isolated pawn. Black could try 15...Qh5 against fxg3, but white is effectively a tempo up on the Hellers-Wheeler game mentioned above, as black has wasted time with Bd7; indeed, white could even continue with 16.Nc5 b6 17.Nxd7 Nxd7 18.Rc1 Rac8 19.Qa4 Ndb8 20.Bb5 Qe8, and white has a big initiative. In the game continuation, after 15.hxg3, white doesn't have as free a hand and must guard against mating ideas; for that reason, 15.fxg3 would have been better. 15...Qh5 16.Ne5 Risky is 16.Re1 Ng4 17.Be2 Rxf3! 18.Bxf3 Nce5! 19.Rxe5 Qh2+ 20.Kf1 Bb5+ 21.Ke1 Nxe5 22.dxe5 Qg1+ 23.Kd2 Qxf2+ 24.Be2, as black gets a lot of pawns for his piece. 16...Qg5? Black should jump on the chance to bring a pawn to e5. After 16...Qxd1 17.Raxd1 Nxe5 18.dxe5, white has a slight pull, but black should be able to hold the ending. 17.Qc1? White should prefer 17.f4 or 17.Re1, to avoid the idea mentioned in the last note. 17...Qh5? Again, 17...Qxc1 18.Raxc1 Nxe5 19.dxe5 is black's best bet; without the pressure down the e-file, white will find it difficult to win. 18.Re1 White spots the idea at last, and now black must struggle to create some kind of counterplay. 18...Rac8 19.Qd1 Qxd1 19...Be8 is an idea to get the bishop into play, although white can play Qxh5, Nxc6, and Nc5, with advantage. 20.Raxd1 White has a distinct advantage due to the backward pawn on e6, the potential to create a backward pawn on c6, the weakness of the squares c5 and e5, and black's inactive light-squared bishop. 20...Rce8? The losing move. After 20...Nxe5 21.Rxe5 b6, black could keep white's knight out of c5 and prepare to double on the c-file. He can then gain counterplay down the file and against the weak d4-pawn in some lines. The bishop on d7 has chances to come to life once the knight on c6 is gone also. Also possible are 20...Be8 or 20...Rfe8. By moving the c-rook to e8, black winds up being unable to defend both his c-file and e-file in time. 21.Nc5! Bc8? Going down fast. The only idea to try to save the position is 21...Nxe5 22.dxe5 b6 23.Nb3 Ng4 24.f3 Nh6 25.Rc1 Rc8 26.Ba6 White seizes control of the c-file, which looks really strong for white. He will invade with Rc7 followed by Nd4, winning the a-pawn in lots of lines. 22.Nxc6? White wins instantly with 22.Bb5 (as my friend Pete would say, "pinning and winning"). White may still be winning (in the long run) after the move played, but he has to work much harder for the point. 22...bxc6 23.f3 I can find no instant win of material; black seems to be able to defend all his weaknesses. Bc2-a4, Rc1, Nd3-e5 can be guarded against with pin tricks (Rf7-c7, Bd7, Kf7-e7). Re2/Rde1 is held together with Kf7. The move played is as good as any other, as black can't free himself. 23...Re7 24.Re2 Rfe8 25.Rde1 g6 Maybe not best, as in many lines, it gives white the h7 pawn as a target, and it prevents the bishop coming out via e8. 25...h6 will give white the idea g4-g5 anyway, as would leaving the pawns back on g7/h7. 26.b4?? After this terrible move, I don't believe the win is possible. Black's key idea in every line now is to play a5, attacking this pawn and gaining counterplay. White should leave the pawn back on b3. Black can play Rb4 in some lines, attacking the d-pawn, but white can move his king to e3 to guard it and steadily improve his position. The key difference between a3/b4 and a2/b3 is that the white bishop can guard the pawn on b3 and prevent active counterplay, e.g. in lines with Rb8/Rb6/Bd7/a5-a4, white can play Bc2. 26...Kf7 27.Kf2 Initially I thought 27.Bc2 was superior, so as to meet 27...Nd7 with 28.Nd3. Although black's bishop would find a home on a6, e.g. 28...Kf6 29.Ne5 Nxe5 30.Rxe5 Ba6 and thus block the a-pawn, he could subsequently play Bc4 and then a5, with the same counterplay as in the game. This whole idea of a5 seems to be able to hold the game in all lines for black. 27...Nd7 28.Nxd7 Bxd7 Now black has been helped into playing Rb8 as well as a5, giving him counterplay. 29.f4 Preventing e5 for good, allowing the rooks to move about the board. If white does not play this move, he must reckon with the combined threats of queenside counterplay with the e5 push. 29.g4, trying to play 30.g5, clamping down on the h-pawn, is another try. g4 is a less irrevocable move than f4; once f4 is played, g4-g5 can't be played without black having counterplay against the f4 pawn. 29...Rb8! A good move, preparing queenside counterplay, although 29...Ra8 was also possible. 30.Rb1 Be8 30...a5! 31.bxa5 Ra8 32.a6 Bc8 33.Rb6 Rea7 34.Rxc6 Bxa6 should be drawn, as white's a2 and d4 pawn are constantly weak. That being said, a5 will still be there for one more move. 31.a3 Reb7? Missing his last chance to play a5. After 31...a5! 32.bxa5 Rxb1 33.Bxb1 Ra7, black is active enough to hold. 32.Rbe1 Simpler is 32.Rh1! Black can't play Kg7 due to Rxe6, so he must go in for 32...h5 33.g4!, which looks very strong for white. 33...hxg4 34.Ba6 Re7 (Rb6 doesn't work because of Rh7+ and Rxa7) 35.Re5 or 35.Kg3 and black has no counterplay. 33...a5 34.gxh5 is good for white. 33...Kf6 34.gxh5 gxh5 35.g4! and white crashes through. The move played holds up a5, but doesn't do anything else constructive.32...Bd7 33.Rc2 Again, 33. g4 is a better idea as 33...a5 34.bxa5 Ra7 35.a6 Bc8 36.Rh1 Kg7 37.Rh3! Bxa6 38.Bxa6 Rxa6 39.Rxe6 looks like a very good rook ending for white, and g4 is a more constructive move than Rc2. 33...Kf6 33...a5 34.bxa5 Ra8 35.Rc5 Rba7 36.a6 Bc8 37.Rh1! looks good for white. 34.Rc5 Black's a5 idea is now squashed. The game now enters a long maneuvering phase where white tries to win the queenside by direct force. Black can defend without problems, however, and white, realizing this, soon turns his attention to the kingside. 34...Ra8 35.Rb1 Rab8 36.Rbc1 Rb6 37.R1c3 Ke7 38.Ra5 Rb7 39.Kf3 Rf8 40.Ra6 Rfb8 41.Rc5 Rc8 42.Bc2 Rbc7 43.Rca5 Ra8 44.Rc5 Rb8 45.g4! White realizes he has to do something on the kingside. Now he untangles all his pieces and repositions them to new posts. 45...Rb6 46.Bd3 Rb8 47.Rc1 Rf8 48.Kg3 Rb7 49.Rh1 Rf7 50.Ra5 Kd6 51.Rc5 Be8 52.Re1 Bd7 53.Re5 Rf8 54.Rc1!? On this and subsequent moves, black can equalize with 54...a5! I wanted to try something to win, however, as my opponent seemed to be trying to just play passive defense. 54...Rf7 55.Rh1 Rb8 56.Rh6 Setting up f5. This idea only works if black walks into it. 56...a5!, as has been discussed in numerous previous notes, would lead to an equal position. 56...Rbf8 56...a5 again is possible. 57.f5 exf5 Black misses his last chance to play 57...a5. 58.gxf5 Bxf5? 58...Kc7 59.fxg6 hxg6 60.Rxg6 Rf4 and the game remains complicated, as black will win the pawn on d4. This would have suited me fine, however, as at least the position has some life in it in this line. 59.Bxf5 Rxf5 60.Rxf5 Rxf5 61.Rxh7 And now we arrive by force in a lively R+P endgame. This ending should be drawn with best play, but white has good practical chances. 61...Rg5+? Black loses time now, due to the threat of g4, trapping the rook. After 61...Rf1!, black should be able to hold, i.e. 62.Rxa7 Rd1 63.Rg7 Rd3+! 64.Kh4 Rxa3 65.Rxg6+ Kd7, and the ending should eventually draw, as white's remaining queenside pawns are weak, though he does have some practical winning chances. 62.Kh3 a6?? Essential was 62...Rf5 63.Rxa7 Rf4 64.Rg7 Rxd4 65.Rxg6+ Kd7, although white retains good winning chances. 63.g4! Black's poor rook is trapped. 1-0

2003-02-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

Hyatt-Dennis, Southeastern Open Round 2, October 2002

This game was played in the second round of the Southeastern Open in Rock Hill, SC last year. Ronald Dennis is an A-player (1937). This is a very frustrating game to annotate. I gained a winning advantage early on and maintained it throughout the game, albeit with a huge number of inaccuracies in my play that made life more difficult. Finally, in a moment of extreme fatigue, I hung a rook. I've never done this before in a tournament game, ever. I'm still not sure what to make of it. In my most recent tournament, I also made a move that just hung an exchange in 1 move. I don't usually make blunders like these. Ironically, my play in my last three tournaments has been quite improved, with horrid blunders (that could have been prevented by a few seconds of blunder-checking) turning what could have been great results into merely good results. At any rate, the game is an interesting display of poor technique, from which a lot can be learned.

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 The Tarrasch Defense, whose results haven't been so hot. Nonetheless, this hasn't been due to the opening, and I still like the positions I've gotten. White doesn't give black the traditional French targets in a lot of lines, and seems to have a quiet positional pull in many positions. 3...b6 A somewhat unusual move that has been played by the American GM Boris Gulko a few times. The idea is to play a variation of the Rubinstein but delay the capture on e4 (and if white plays e5, to get a decent version of the Advance where white has played Nd2). 4. c3 I like this move because it prevents the 4...Ba6 idea (the usual idea behind b6) due to Qa4+. Black can play 4...dxe4 or 4...Bb7 (idea dxe4), after which white can try to hold the center with Bd3 or accept an advance variation structure with e5. White could also play simple developing moves like 4.Ngf3, since 4...Ba6 5.Bxa6 Nxa6 6.c3 forces the anemic 6...Nb8, and, in fact, Ngf3 is the most commonly played move in this position (with a 63% score in my database for white). 4...Qd7? But this move is horrible. Black is still trying to play Ba6, but this idea only has merit in an advance variation structure (with the pawn on e5). White can use simple tactics to refute black's whole opening. 5.Ngf3! Now we see why Qd7 was a lemon. White hasn't pushed his pawn to e5, which means he can play a knight there instead with gain of time. 5...Ba6 is refuted by 6.Ne5, so black's b6 and Qd7 are simply wasted moves. White has a big edge. 5...c5 Black returns to playing 'normal' French moves, but his slow mixing of ideas allows white a nice edge. 6.Ne5 Qd8?? After this retreat, black is lost, due to the pressure exerted by a pinning bishop on b5. He should have played Qc7, although white is still much better. 7.Bb5+ Bd7 8.Nxd7 Nxd7 A critical moment in the game. White can win a pawn with the simple exd5 and Bc6, but black gets a little compensation in the resulting position. White can also just castle (as played in the game), where black can't really avoid losing the pawn anyway, since he gets demolished if he starts opening the center with moves like cd and de. However, as Lasker once said, if you see a good move, look for a better one. It is not too difficult to spot the win of an exchange with 9.Nf3!. White threatens Ne5, and Nf6 Bg5 doesn't really help matters. Black's best line is probably 9...a6 10.Bc6 Rc8 11.Ne5 Rxc6 12.Nxc6 Qh4, but white is just up a clean exchange in this position. 9.O-O!? Be7 White's 9th is tricky, and not at all bad. Black can't really take time out to play cd and de, as white just steamrolls him in the center. 9...cxd4 is met by 10.exd5, 9...dxe4 10.Nxe4 cxd4 11.Qxd4 is winning for white. 9...Nf6 is playable, but 10.exd5 Nxd5 11.Nc4 is winning. 10.exd5 exd5 11.Bc6?! Not the best move, even though it wins a pawn. White should still play 11.Nf3 with big threats, or 11.dxc5 to avoid being saddled with an isolated pawn. 11...Rc8 12.Bxd5 Ngf6 13.Bb3 cxd4 14.cxd4 O-O 15.Nf3 Bd6 So both sides have developed their pieces. White has a winning position due to his extra pawn; even though his inaccuracies have made it an isolated pawn, the fact it's extra should be good enough to win. 16.Qd3?! A positionally good move that eyes the f5 square, but tactically suspect. After 16...Nc5 and 17...Nxb3, white will have a doubled pawn on the queenside, and, although still much better, will have a lot of work to do to win. White should prefer the simpler 16.Re1. 16...Qc7? As mentioned in the previous note, black should play 16...Nc5! 17.h3 Not really necessary, but it does no harm. 17...Bf4 18.Bd2 Qd6 19.Rad1 h6 This move will fatally weaken the g6 square, but the alternative is to allow Ng5 at some point anyway, so it is hard to criticize it. White's advantage is of a static nature, and all black can really do is shuffle his pieces around and wait for white to do something stupid. 20.Rfe1 Rfe8 21.Bxf4 Qxf4 22.g3 Qd6 23.a3?! Pointless. I was only looking at Qf5-->Ne5 ideas and wanted to rule out black's counterplay with Qb4. Had I looked at the position with fresh eyes, I might have found 23.Qg6!, a powerful idea which is present for many moves in this game. The idea behind the move is to play Nh4-f5, where black must hang f7 in order to defend h6. 23...Re7? Black should play Nd5 or Nf8 to stop the Qg6 idea, although his light squares all across the board are still terminally ill. White has numerous ways to worm in, with ideas like Qf5 or Nf5 or Qa6, etc. 24.Rxe7 Qxe7 25.Re1 Qd6? Black had to play Qf8, although white can still play Nh4 with a great position. 26.Qf5? 26.Qg6! with idea Nh4-f5 wins material. 26...Rf8? 27.Re3!? 27.Qg6 and 27.Ne5 should also be good, but this idea, which prepares Ne5 and lifts the rook is also quite good. 27...a6? Not best, but black is dead lost anyway. 28.Qd3? Terrible. With time pressure beginning, I freaked out and backed off my original idea (28.Ne5). But, in fact, this is the strongest move. 28.Ne5! Qxd4 (I just couldn't bring myself to give my pawn back, but this is a classic case of turning your extra material into a positional advantage... and, in this case, it leads to forced material win anyway.) Now 29.Ng6 Qxb2 seemed unclear to me, and I just didn't analyze 29.Nxf7! After 29...Nc5 30.Nxh6+ Kh8 31.Nf7+ Kg8 32.Ng5+ Nxb3 33.Qe6+, white is just up two pawns. And 29...Rxf7 30.Qe6 is crushing. As it turns out, even my original intent of 29.Ng6 Qxb2 should win; it's only a pawn for the exchange, and with Qd3, white can hold the a-pawn due to Bxf7+ ideas. Somehow I convinced myself black was winning my a-pawn too and backed off of playing a good move and played a stupid retreat instead. As I blogged several months ago, this is a chess weakness of mine I have clearly identified and am working to correct. 28...b5 29.Ne5 Nd5! It became clear to me that my chances for an early knockout were gone, and this game would be a long, grueling grind if I wanted the full point. 30.Rf3 N7f6 31.Bc2 Qc7 32.Ng4! 32.Rxf6? is insufficient after 32...Nxf6 33.Ng4 Rd8 34.Nxf6+ gxf6 35.Qh7+ Kf8 36.Qxh6+ Ke7. White has compensation, but there's no reason to go in for this line. 32...Rc8 33.Nxf6+ 33.Rxf6 leads to similar positions to the previous note. White has play, but I don't see a win. 33...Nxf6 34.Bb3! White uses tactics to keep his material. 34...Qc1+ 35.Kg2 Qc6 The point of white's play is that 35...Qxb2 loses to 36.Rxf6 gxf6 37.Qg6+ with a mating attack. Now, both sides maneuver for a bit. 36.Kh2 Rd8 37.Qc3 Qe4 38.Rf4 Qe7 39.Kg2 g5? Needlessly weakening the kingside. 40.Rf5 Rd6 41.Qc8+ Kg7 42.Re5 Qd7? Black should play Qa7 instead, since the ending is easily won for white. 43.Qxd7 Rxd7 44.d5 Now we reach a critical point in the game. For any professional chess player, this ending would be an easy technical conversion. Unfortunately, I don't always play the endgame so well. I spent a few hours analyzing this ending at home, and have learned a lot about rook and bishop vs. rook and knight endgames. This ending, despite white's isolated pawn, is easily winning, because of numerous advantages, which include: (1) an extra white center pawn constricting black's mobility, (2) the weakness of the square c5, due to the fact the black b-pawn can no longer cover this square, (3) the weakness of the queenside pawns (in many lines, white can walk over and win them), (4) black's king being cut off by white's rook, and (5) the least important factor, but relevant in a few lines, the weakness of black's kingside from having played h6/g5. We can make the following statements about this endgame. (1) If white's king gets to c5, he is winning. (2) If white can trade his d-pawn for another of black's pawns, while retaining bishop vs. knight, he is probably winning. Black cannot hold this endgame, but he CAN set considerable problems before his opponent. I threw this endgame on Fritz and practiced winning it. I was surprised by how much resistance (in the form of tactical tricks) black can put up. Nonetheless, as I analyzed back and forth, it became clear that black cannot stop one of two plans: white moves his king to c5 and advances the d-pawn or wins the queenside, OR white plays his king to e4 and wins with a rook penetration on the c-file. Black can try 44...Ng8 to get his king active, as 45.Kf3 Ne7 pins white's rook down. I have found no way to win this position for white, despite a lot of analysis, as Kd4 is rendered impossible due to Nc6+. Best, however, is 44...Ng8 45.Re2! Ne7 46.Rd2, and black's active king is illusory. 46...Kf6 47.f4!, and black's king never gets to e5. White then sets about winning the position with Ke4 and Rc2-->somewhere on the c-file. Another try is 44...Kf8, looking to play Re7 and get the king over into the center where white would have problems winning. 45.Kf3 Re7 sets white a problem to solve. 46.Rxe7? would be a mistake, as it gives black what he wants, but 46.Re3! is the way to go, where 46...Ke8? 47.d6! Rxe3 48.Kxe3 executes the winning plan of trading the d-pawn for the f-pawn and reaching a bishop vs. knight ending. The final option is to play passive defense, as black tries in the game, with 44...Rd6. 44...Rd6 45.Kf3 Nd7 46.Ke3?? A colossal blunder which hangs the rook. I don't really know how this happened. After the correct 46.Re2 Kf6 47.Ba2 (a necessary prelude to Ke4, which loses to Nc5+ with the B still on b3), and white will win with Ke4-->Kc5 or Ke4--->Rc2. I leave this to the reader to analyze, as it is an interesting position on which to practice your technique. 46...Nxe5 0-1

2003-02-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

Mouzon-Hyatt, Southeastern Open Round 1, October 2002

This game was played in the first round of the Southeastern Open in Rock Hill, SC. Harold Mouzon is a master from North Carolina.

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 The Taimanov Sicilian, which I have been playing recently. I had been getting bad positions in the Rauzer. I always liked the Scheveningen, but hated playing against the Keres attack. The Taimanov is an interesting alternative, although it is not without its own set of problems. 5.Nc3 a6 6.g3 Qc7 7.Bg2 Nf6 8.O-O d6 Black plays a Scheveningen setup. This was the first time I had ever faced g3 in a tournament game, and I decided just to play a setup I was familiar with from the black side. 8...Be7 is an interesting alternative to the text, delaying moving the d-pawn. 9.a4 Be7 More usual is 9.Re1, with the idea of Nxc6 followed by e5, after which white gains a slight advantage. Black's best move is probably 9...Rb8, so as to meet 10.Nxc6 bxc6 11.e5 with 11...dxe5 12.Rxe5 Bd6 (not 12...Qxe5? 13.Bf4 and 14.Bxb8) 13.Re1 O-O and black, by playing c5 and Bb7 gets enough activity to hold the balance. White can also try 11.Na4 (idea c4) Nd7 12.c4 c5 13.b3 Be7 14.Bb2 O-O with a solid position for black, although white probably has a slight edge. 10.Nb3 b6 Played to prevent white's a5, although this may not be so bad: 10...O-O 11.a5 Ne5 with a reasonable position still. 11.f4 Bb7 After consulting the database, it seems that 11...O-O is a better move for black, as it allows him some more options. After 11...O-O 12.Be3 Rb8, black has the idea of playing b5. A game played by one of my new heroes (Chuchelov) continued 13.Qe2 Re8 14.g4 Nd7 15.g5 Bf8 16.Qf2 b5 and black had nice counterplay. 12.Be3 O-O 13.g4 Nd7 14.g5 Rac8!? The first new move. Ironically, when I searched the position after 14.g5 in Chessbase, it produced 4 games, 2 of which were with white to move!! In one, black played Qb6 and retreated to Qc7 on Nb3. In another, black played Bc5 and wound up retreating it to e7 after Nb3. In the two games where black was to move, he played Nb4 and Rfe8, respectively. In both games, white pursued the attack with the plan Rf3-h3 and got a good position. 15.Rc1?! There is no real reason to guard this pawn until it is necessary. If black plays Nb4, Rc1 may have a point. But if he never plays it, the move just looks silly. In the absence of concrete threats on the queenside, white should pursue his attack. But how? One idea is to lift the rook with 15.Rf3 Rfe8 16.Rh3 Nf8. Black has guarded h7 successfully. White can now either turn his attention to the queenside by putting his queen on f2, or he can try to play for f5 with Qg4. I like putting the queen on f2, since it may support both goals. After 17.Qd2 Nb4 (logical, black's pieces are all placed on the c-file) 18.Qf2 Nd7 (or Bd8!?). White can try a5, or move a rook to the d-file, or go kamikaze with f5, but black's defensive chances look reasonable to me. Often f5 can be met by d5 or simply by exf5 and an exchange of light-squared bishops on the long diagonal. Black just has to take care not to get squashed by f5-f6. Alternatively, white can just play Qd2 and wait to see what defensive posture black adopts. 15...Rfe8 16.Qd2 Nc5 17.Qf2 Nb4 Black is clearly more active than in the line where white lifted his rook and brought black's d7 knight to f8. In this line, instead of Nf8, he has played the effective Nc5, threatening exchanges. 18.Nxc5? This exchange is the first real mistake of the game, as it creates a favorable pawn structure for black. White should ignore black's threat of Nxb3/Nd3 and press his own attack with 18.f5! Now 18...Nxb3 19.fxe6 fxe6 20.Qf7+ Kh8 21.cxb3 gives white a strong initiative (with Qxe6 or Qh5-->g6). Black should delay Nxb3 and play instead 18...d5 or 18...exf5, with counterchances. 18...d5 19.fxe6 fxe6 20.exd5 Nxd5 21.Qf7+ Kh8 is a mess. 18...bxc5 19.Qh4 Obvious, but not clearly best. White should consider restraining black's d-pawn with Rc(or f)d1, or alternatively consider pursuing the attack with pawns with f5 (although black can play Bf8 followed by d5 in this case with a good position). 19...f5? A misstep. Black should strike immediately with 19...d5!, since white has to play the anemic Bd2 (attacking moves just aren't sufficient here). 20.Bd2 d4 21.Nd1 (Ne2 Nxc2-->d3) and black is better. 20.Rf3? White is only thinking about mating threats, but instead he should either restrain black's d-pawn with Rcd1 or alternatively pressure f5/e6 with Bh3 or Qh3. Once a rook moves to h3, he loses this option, and d5 will arrive with force. 20...g6 Again, d5 suggests itself. This was an abbreviated first round, however, (G/75) and time is beginning to play a factor. 21.Rh3 Bf8 22.Bd2 d5 At last. Black is better. 23.e5 d4 24.Ne2 White might also consider Nd1 (before or after Ne2), since in some lines blockading d3 is relevant (via f2). 24...Bxg2 25.Kxg2 Nd5 26.Kg1 Rb8 27.b3 Red8? Since the kingside locked up, both sides have played natural moves. It is clear that black is better, although whether or not his advantage is sufficient to win is unclear. In this critical position, black blunders and allows white to trade his dark-squared bishop for his knight (as Ba5 forces Nb6). The best plan appears to be Rb7, Reb8, followed by c4 (meeting Nxd4 in this line by Bc5). White can't really do much except play passive defense in this position. The question is... can he stop the simple threat of Rb7, Reb8, c4, cxb3? His best line is probably Rd1 (shoring up the d4 knight in lines with c4 Nxd4) followed by Qf2, overprotecting the d4 point. As long as d4 is adequately guarded, c4 will be a double-edged move. Black has a few other ideas for his rook placement (d8, c8), but I can't see a way to break through other than a Bg7xe5 sacrifice, which seems dubious. So I believe white's resources are adequate to hold the position together. 28.Ba5 Nb6 29.Rd1 Rd7 30.Qf2 Qc6 31.Bxb6 Qxb6 32.Nc1 Qc6 33.Qe2 Qe4!? The position has little life left in it, with white having prevented for good black's c4 maneuver and having solidly blockaded his pawns. Black opts for a tactical melee in mutual time pressure, just to see what falls out. From an objective standpoint, this would be a bad move, but since my opponent had 1 minute or so left to my 3, I thought it worth a whirl. 34.Qxa6 Qxf4 35.Qxe6+ Rf7 36.Rxh7!? Probably only best because of my opponent's time situation, else he might have considered 36.Rg3!, where white can play for a win. 36...Qe3+ 37.Kf1 Kxh7 38.Qxf7+ Bg7 39.Nd3 Qf3+?? Throwing the game away, although my opponent had no time left. The perpetual is on h3 and e3 here; correct is Qh3+. 40.Ke1?? Difficult to criticize, since he very well might have lost if he played 40.Nf2! (the correct move) and tried to win with no time left on his clock. 40...Rf8 41.Qd7 Qe3+ 42.Kf1 Qh3+ 43.Ke1 Qxh2! A good move to try to win the game; unfortunately, by this point, I also had no time left. 44.e6?? White's pawn rushes to queen, but this move should have lost, since black mates before white queens. Correct is 44.Qd5 f4 45.Qf3, or 44.Rd2 Qg1+ 45.Ke2 f4 46.Qh3+, holding in either case. 44...Qg1+?? 44...f4! wins, with a simple mate threatened. White can't stop the pawn to f3 maneuver and can't check on h3 cause he blocked the line with his pawn. At this point, we both just wanted the draw, since neither of us had any time. 45.Ke2 Qe3+ 46.Kf1 Qh3+ 1/2-1/2

2003-02-02T21:30:00.000-08:00

2003 Land of the Sky Tournament

I played in Land of the Sky this weekend in Asheville, NC. As usual, the tournament ran smoothly and the playing facilities were excellent. I won the U2100 prize ($490) outright with a score of 3.0/5.0 in the Open section. I lost two tough games to FM Todd Andrews (2310) and FM Miles Ardaman (2368), but won my other three over an 1850, a 1964, and FM Rodion Rubenchik (2318). Three points out of a tournament where I played three FIDE Masters is a very good result indeed. I hope to provide some annotations and analysis if I can ever figure out how to get some diagrams working. My friend Pete also went to the tournament and scored 3/5 in the Open section.

2003-01-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

Joe Millionaire; Man versus Beast; Bridezillas???

I've been entranced by the extremely stupid Fox reality show Joe Millionaire. I started watching it just because I liked the idea of deceiving a bunch of women into thinking they're marrying a millionaire (then telling them "oops, sorry, he only makes $19,000 a year"). However, I've come to enjoy the show in its own right, and just as a "who gets the guy" kind of show. Kind of sad. Fox continues to come up with increasingly stupid... I mean, uhhh, innovative... ways to snag viewers. Recently, they aired a Man versus Beast show which featured a guy racing a giraffe, 50 midgets in a pulling contest versus an elephant (pulling a plane or something), and, my personal favorite, a sumo wrestler in a tug o' war contest with an orangutan. The orangutan won. Now I am seeing ads for something called Bridezillas. I'm not even sure what this latest show is going to be about, but I can speculate. I would chastise Fox for pandering to the lowest common denominator... if I weren't watching their shows. And, yes, I will probably tune in to American Idol tonight (I did not watch the first one) just to see some guy tell contestants that they totally suck. Fox may have found a winning strategy with "mean streak TV". Whatever works, I guess.

2003-01-21T13:53:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on Wijk an Zee

One of the most interesting chess tournaments each year is the Wijk an Zee tournament, sponsored by Corus. Chess coverage on the net just gets better and better. Coruschess features a snazzy live viewer that is very easy to use (I love any viewer that supports left-arrow/right-arrow to go back and forth through the moves). The "A" tournament has been a rather strange affair, with the local hopeful Loek van Wely doing extremely well. "King Loek", as he's called on the Internet Chess Club, usually performs HORRIBLY at Wijk an Zee. His inability to win a game there has become a running joke. And yet, can this be? Who are you and what have you done with Loek van Wely? The Dutchman, seems to have been studying chess this time instead of watching his legendary collection of videos (no, they don't have anything to do with chess; no, I'm not going to explain it any further). He's won an astonishing *3* games and would be in sole first place if not for his loss to Karpov. After nine rounds, Vishy Anand is in sole first place with 6 points. His play has been undramatic but solid. Who will win this tournament is anyone's guess. Vladimir Kramnik has looked rather anemic. Perhaps only being able to draw his Man vs. Machine match with Deep Fritz has left him feeling a bit lethargic.

The real sensation of Wijk an Zee, however, is the leader of the "B" tournament, the rising Chinese star, and my new chess hero (sorry, Tiviakov) Zhang Zhong. I have no idea how to pronounce his name, but I've been extremely impressed with his aggressive style of play. He's just gone for it in so many games, sacrificing material to get to wildly imbalanced positions where he has chances to outplay his opponent. I was very impressed with his white win in the 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ line, as he seemed to almost effortlessly drift to a position where he had a wonderful attacking position, culminating in a stellar exchange sacrifice (beginning with Rxf7!). I didn't even know what was going on in his last white win (an exchange Ruy Lopez with a pawns for a piece situation). I didn't think he was necessarily winning, but then, following a flurry of tactics, black's back rank proved fatally weak, and white won with some beautiful moves. It makes you wonder... will Zhong join club 2700 as a result of this tournament? His performance has to be in the 28/2900 range (8 out of 9, 7 wins, 2 draws, amaaaazing). Still a few rounds to go. We'll see.

2003-01-15T15:11:00.000-08:00

Bush on Affirmative Action

In an interesting announcement, Bush stated his opposition to the University of Michigan's affirmative action program. If you've been reading my rather scathing rants against Trent Lott, you might think I'm going to jump all over Bush for this move. But, no, I'm not. In this case, I actually agree with him. Affirmative action is an attempt to solve very serious social problems, but it's been a huge failure. Do we need something to promote diversity? Yes, absolutely. Should straight-up academic strength be the only criterion for letting people in to a good school? Absolutely not. But the situation right now is laughable. Minority students that REALLY SUCK get admitted to good schools over white students that are really good. If the academic caliber of the two students being compared was close, I could see picking the minority student to improve diversity. At Yale, there were numerous minority students that were just... well.. very very average in intelligence (ironically, rich alumni's kids, e.g. Bush himself, also fell into this category). They would not have been accepted had they been white.

Even more disturbing is that University of Michigan is a state school. At least with a private institution, one could argue that the college has the right to formulate its own admission policies. But a state university has an obligation to provide equal opportunity to all. Affirmative action, quotas, etc. are nothing more than "reverse discrimination".

All that having been said, I believe the government needs to do A LOT more to solve the problems of racial inequality in this country. A recent study showed that you have a better chance of getting a job if you have a white name. Truly, truly scary. How would I solve the problem, if not with affirmative action? Pour money into the problem at its source--creating equal opportunities for education for YOUNG CHILDREN. By the time you're talking about college admissions, it's already too late. There is a huge gap between blacks/Hispanics and whites at the college level... not because of difference in intelligence but because of difference in quality of education. Privileged white students just have a much easier time of it... their schools have computers... they don't have to worry about getting shot... You could argue this is a function of economics and not of race. To a certain extent, you would be right. But ask yourself why such a huge economic gap and why so many minorities in the inner cities?

It's a huge problem. But trying to fix it at the downstream end (college) instead of at the upstream end (k-6) is ridiculous. Affirmative action is a quick solution that makes it look like someone's doing something... The much more difficult problem is to create an equality of learning environment for every child, regardless of economic status, race, religion, etc. Easier said than done... I have no ideas how to implement such a vast social change across America... .

2003-01-10T23:04:00.000-08:00

King's Island Game Analysis

As promised in a previous blog, thought I would share my analysis of the game Hyatt-O'Donnell from the King's Island Open. My comments are available in the Java applet. The applet does not feature the actual game, but instead the 'fantasy variation' which could have followed had I had the guts to sacrifice my bishop. Enjoy!

Fantasy Variation from Hyatt-O'Donnell, King's Island Open, 11/2002

2003-01-10T22:02:00.000-08:00

Belated Victory Cry

Well, the blog arrives too late to be topical, but, nonetheless, I was glad to see Trent Lott resign from his position as Senate majority leader. I'll keep my comments brief. Boycott on Republican party lifted. I can now allow myself to vote for a Republican again (should the need arise). For those who don't think he should have resigned, you can place your orders for Confederate Flags here.

2003-01-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

Hyatt's Top 10 Movies of 2002 (so far)

1. Adaptation (5/5)
2. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (5/5)
3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (5/5)
4. Insomnia (4.75/5)
5. Read My Lips (4.5/5)
6. Catch Me If You Can (4.5/5)
7. Punch-Drunk Love (4.5/5)
8. The Count of Monte Christo (4.5/5)
9. About a Boy (4.25/5)
10. The Rookie (4/5)

2002 was an amazing year for movies, the best I can recall since 1994. And I haven't even seen quite a few of the movies that are supposed to be good yet. I'll keep updating the list as I catch more flicks.

I recently saw Adaptation, by far the smartest movie I have seen this year, and the only one to REALLY make me think. Also recently added to the list is Catch Me If You Can. I was really surprised at how much I liked this movie. It was just supremely... fun. I also finally caught My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This could have made my top 10 if the second half (third?) of the movie hadn't been so weak. The first hour of the movie is just wonderful, but then the movie loses any sense of conflict or direction, the wedding occurs almost as an afterthought, and you leave the theater feeling cheated out of what could have been a phenomenal movie. I still think it's a good movie (4/5), but not a great one. Finally, I saw Two Weeks Notice, a rather predictable romantic comedy. Thoroughly average movie (2.5/5), watch it on HBO or something.

2003-01-10T21:44:00.000-08:00

ADAPTATION

by Doug Hyatt

He goes to the movie. He sits down. There's a guy in front of him. Tall guy. Annoying. Why couldn't it be showing in a theater with stadium seating? He contemplates moving over a seat. Decides against it. Tall guy's head only obscures part of the screen. Should be ok.

The movie starts. It's got Nicolas Cage. Should be pretty good. Hear it's kind of experimental and metafictional. Maybe it will be like Being John Malkovich. Good flick. Never saw it in the theater, caught it on cable though. Was that a run-on? Do I care? Maybe I should go back and fix it. Hmmm, is my protagonist thinking too much? I think maybe he's thinking too much. Damn voice-overs. That's what this is, a voice-over. Are people going to get this? Should I bother continuing? They might not have seen the movie. Never mind. Don't worry about it.

Hey, it's about twins. Twin screenwriters. That's pretty cool. My protagonist is a twin, too. He isn't fat or bald, though. Tall and skinny, full head of hair, more like it. Can't have it all be the same, you know. Your characters have to change. Mine will be thin and have hair. This story is giving me a headache. Hard to follow. There's the orchid thief, then there's the book about the orchid thief, then there's the screenplay about the book about the orchid thief, then there's the movie about the screenplay about the book about the orchid thief, and then there's the guy who's watching the movie about the screenplay about the book about the orchid thief... and then there's the guy who's writing about the guy who watched the movie about the screenplay about the book about the orchid thief.

It's all very confusing. Who's real and who's made up? I thought the guy was real, you know, but then you have to see the ending (I won't spoil it) cause then you don't know what's real and maybe the screenwriter was just fucking with you, but wait a second, is it the screenwriter screenwriter or the movie screenwriter. You know what I mean, is it Charlie Kaufman or the Charlie who wrote about Charlie? And then there's Nicolas Cage, well, like who is that, cause he isn't Charlie Kaufman, but, well, he's kind of Charlie Kaufman, and...

He's beginning to ramble. He remembers experiencing something funny, something profound. He wants his characters to change, like McKee said. You have to make them learn. They have to grow. Even if this means getting shot or eaten by crocodiles or thrown from a car. Even if it means drugs and sex and car chases. But come on, quiet normal characters turning into croc food. A little much. Such an ending can never work. Can it? What if the whole point of the ending is absurdism, what if it's all about how change itself is ridiculous? Who thought that? Is that what the screenwriters intended or is that just what the guy who saw the movie thought? Maybe the truth is that adaptation is impossible. Maybe we can't change. Maybe we can change. Is the guy who saw the movie the same person he was before he saw the movie? Did you make an impact, Mr. Kaufman?

Wonders about orchids. Wonders about crocs in the Everglades. Wonders why the crocodiles didn't keep chewing on what's-his-name. Wonders about the first part of the movie, about finding reasons for things, about that whole bit about needing to find something to be passionate about. Wonders about the second part of the movie, where it all disintegrated into chaos. Is adaptation always a good thing? What's growing all about, anyway? Do we really want what we think we want? Wonders was there any point to it all, should I take anything away from that rambling mess, wonders if Donald wrote any of that script or was it all Charlie. Thinks about taking one of McKee's seminars. Laughs because he actually owns the McKee book they kept showing in the movie. Blogs, endlessly blogs, in a dervish of prose and wonders if those who read his blog will blog about his blog and wonders if maybe he's taking the joke a little too far and is it time to end?

Fuck fish.

2003-01-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

IS BEING A DUMB SHIT A PREREQUISITE FOR OWNING A MAC???

I think it must be, because all of you keep sending me email. I am not, nor have ever been (except for a brief shared existence as an egg), David Hyatt. If one more of you retards sends me email about Safari, the flamethrower of my wit will spew forth vast gouts of flames in your general dumbass direction. Got it? *hugs* Good, now leave me alone.

2002-12-16T23:43:00.000-08:00

As McEnroe Might Say...

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS.

My favorite quote: "We believe that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema's actions are in fact hate speech. The movie is intentionally being named The Two Towers in order to capitalize on the tragedy of September 11. Clearly, you cannot deny the fact that this falls under hate speech. We believe that if they will not willingly change the name, the government should step in to stop the movie's production or to force a name change."

Errr, right. Go buy a clue, morons.

2002-12-16T23:38:00.000-08:00

The Cross Burning Case

Very interesting arguments in the cross burning case. You can read some of what the Supreme Court Justices said in this article from CNN. I pretty much agree with a lot of what they said. O'Connor asked if you burned a cross in, say, a theater production, should that be banned? Clearly not, in my book. Laws cannot therefore target the specific act of burning the cross without being unconstitutional.
That having been said, I agree with Justice Thomas that cross burning used in an intimidating fashion (i.e. on someone's lawn) should be illegal and prosecuted under a generic "intimidating speech" law. An interesting case to watch.

2002-12-16T23:30:00.000-08:00

Despair.com's Demotivators

I was very amused at despair.com's Demotivators collection, which makes fun of cheesy inspirational work posters (of which I was actually given one once as a gift, laff.) Below are a couple of my favorites:

Funny stuff. May have to order some for my office.

2002-12-16T23:26:00.000-08:00

Even More Pathetic...

Even more pathetic than his blatant racism are his shameless attempts to backpedal. Yes, I'm talking about Trent Lott's ridiculous interview on BET. You know, I almost just wish he'd say "Shucks, you caught me. I'm a racist." The problem with this apology... how can we possibly accept it as sincere? A politician who is caught doing something detrimental (indeed suicidal) to his career will say anything to avoid the guillotine. I can only hope the Republican leadership has sense enough to ask Lott to step down from his Leadership position. As long as he remains Senate majority leader, I will not vote for a Republican. The principle of social equality just stands too high in my book... moreso than my own personal preferences for Republican fiscal policies. The party reaps what the party sows.

2002-12-14T20:17:00.000-08:00

The End of an Era

After 3 1/2 years (the longest I've ever played a single computer game), I've decided to retire from the highly addictive world of Everquest. The game just sucks up too much of your free time. As one of my friends put it, "it takes highly intelligent people who can contribute much to society and turns them into mindless automatons". Very true. He also described it as "reverse Darwinism", in that it targets people who should be more adept at helping society and instead wind up being turned into vegetables by the repetitive silliness that is EQ. Is the game a great evil? Were the thousands of hours spent playing it a waste of time? No... not quite. You can have real experiences in a virtual world. And I did have many fun times. But it's time to move on and pursue real life aspirations and dreams. Ironically, the game is now at its peak. I'm having more fun playing it than I ever have. But that's the danger of it, the allure... it never ends, really, and it's always there waiting. Time to put my 3 accounts to rest and focus on social things, as well as writing, programming, and chess.... and this blog, of course.

Goodbye, Everquest. I wish you well.

2002-12-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

Right-Wing Racist Nutjob of the Week

This week's Right-Wing Racist Nutjob award goes to Trent Lott, whose remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party have landed him in a whole world of trouble. I hope Lott is forced to resign. But I don't have much hope, considering Thurmond himself was allowed to stay in Congress for so many years. (I guess the predominant political party in South Carolina is the Moron Party.) I just got done watching a Daily Show episode where Jon Stewart poked wonderful fun at Thurmond and Lott. The segment was labeled "Racists Have Birthdays, Too!" Since Lott made his comments in 1980 and now again in 2002, Stewart described him as the "Haley's Comet of Bigotry". It was very funny. :) At least President Bush did the right thing, in my opinion, in rebuking Trent Lott for his horrible racist remarks.

One has to wonder, though. With all the backpedaling that ultra-right-wing nutjobs keep having to do (Falwell, Robertson, and now Lott), does the Republican party have any credibility left? It is hard for me to imagine that they're not ALL secretly a bunch of fundamentalist fanatic racist idiots. I know they can't ALL be bad...but good God, look at Ashcroft trying to cover up statues... look at Bush mangling the English language. I know Clinton had his moral foibles, but I'd much rather have someone boinking his interns than putting on a Klansman's robe and burning crosses on the White House lawn.

Has the Republican party fallen so far? Or was it always this suckass? Too young to know, here...have to ask my parents.

2002-12-11T09:06:00.000-08:00

Kim's Story and Moral Dilemmas

So anyone who has watched 24 probably feels as I do... that Kim's story sucks. She just so happens to become a nanny for the one family in L.A. with a homicidal maniac for the dad. OK, so we laugh, sit back, and enjoy the ride. Now, however, her story has gotten really interesting, because she is the only one trying to LEAVE Los Angeles to get away from the nuclear bomb that may or may not go off today.

Well, now I like this story. Why? Because of the cool moral ambiguity it introduces. Suppose you know that your home town is going to blow up today. You start heading out, but you get pulled over by a policeman for speeding (as happened in the last episode to Kim). Now suppose you have a body in your trunk, not put there by you (as happened to Kim). Now suppose the policeman wants to toss you in jail for the day.

Question: are you morally just if you kill the police officer to evade capture (assuming this is the only possible way out)?

My answer: yes, you are, and wow, isn't that cool. I love moral ambiguities like this, but here's my take. You are either of the school of moral absolutism (see my article below on the ACLU), where you think "killing is always wrong". Or, you follow the more flexible moral path: "this officer is going to die anyway... if he takes me back, we all die... if I kill him and keep going, then at least I get to live..." In the latter scenario, MORE GOOD is done than in any other situation, i.e. more people live. I know this is a rather utilitarian way to look at the puzzle (by counting who lives and who dies), but there you have it.

You could argue that the most moral solution would be to tell the police officer about the bomb, also, but he either won't believe you or it will cause a mass panic... and then, if the bomb didn't go off, your action would have been morally reprehensible, leading to the deaths of thousands (most likely). This just goes to show how morality is not a simple thing. You can't just say things like "it's wrong to kill" or "it's right to tell the truth". Everything depends on the situation. Adaptive morality... Not only does it have to be flexible, though, but, as in the above case, you have to base your decisions on probabilities sometimes... without having all the information. Kim doesn't KNOW for sure whether or not the bomb will go off... in hindsight, an action that would be morally just if the bomb went off would become horribly morally unjust if the bomb did not go off. Or would it? Is the decision to kill the police officer still morally sound even if the bomb doesn't go off? Gee, that's a hard one. I would still say YES, because the morality of a decision has to be based on the "most likely probability", which is that the bomb would go off. So here you could have a situation where (a) Kim kills a cop and (b) the bomb doesn't go off, and I would argue she was still morally justified in doing so!!! (Although she would then be taken away to jail... law != morality). Is your head hurting yet?

I think 24 is going to barrage us with more of these moral dilemmas... The show's unflinching take on morality (it is not afraid to show us a Machiavellian take on things) is one of the main reasons it is just so damn interesting to watch. I predict that Kim is going to be thwarted from leaving the city, and she will have to take more and more shocking actions to get herself, her boyfriend, and Megan, out of the blast radius. And she will be "morally right" in doing so. (Incidentally, the policeman trying to take Kim in is also operating from a position of moral soundness, which shows how two people can be at odds trying to kill each other and yet both may be doing the "right" thing... fascinating, eh?) Can't wait to see the next twist...

2002-12-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

Why I Won't Ever Join the ACLU

OK, I bashed the right a bit in a previous blog. Now it's time to highlight some of the left's ridiculousness. Another interesting case is coming before the Supreme Court, one that centers around the right to burn the cross. In this particular case, in an extreme departure from common sense, the conviction of a few teenagers who tried (and failed) to burn a cross in a family's front yard was overturned by the state courts. The problem? The teenagers were prosecuted under a law that specifically named cross burning as a hate crime. While it just seems incredible to me that they can't throw someone in jail for burning a cross on SOMEONE ELSE'S PROPERTY, I actually understand the legal issue that led to this conviction being thrown out. The ACLU says that cross burning itself is a protected form of speech, and, while I think it is not, I would agree that a law that specifically targeted cross burning is unconstitutional. Since that time, the state of Virginia has changed its laws to be more broad, banning "intimidating speech".

Well, now they're on the right track.... and I don't think the new law would be found unconstitutional if challenged. Unfortunately, the ACLU seems to think "anything goes". Their position is like a broken record--always the same. But where does it end? Suppose they attached pictures of a family's children to that cross and burned it? Suppose they wrote your name on it? At what point is the burning cross no longer an expression of free speech and instead a direct threat? This, in my mind, is the key principle to hate speech. Can it be reasonably interpreted as a threat?

Now, let's exercise a little freaking common sense, please. If someone burns a cross on your front lawn, it is clearly a direct threat. Any targeted family would interpret that action as harassment, as a threat of imminent violence, and they would be correct in doing so. This speech (burning a cross on someone's lawn) should not be protected under any circumstances. The only reason the above case was thrown out was because Virgina tried to write a law that specifically banned the act of burning the cross. The problem with this is that burning a cross doesn't always mean the same thing (suppose I'm just burning a cross inside my home... a hate crime? obviously not)--it allows the courts no latitude to decide whether the action is meant as intimidation or not. And, finally, it makes no distinction for where you burn it. If the Klan rallies on their own property and burns the cross, let's face it--we may not like it but it's protected. "I don't agree with what you say but I'll defend to your death the right to say it".

So what's my big problem with the ACLU? They are paying for the legal representation of this racist scum. And that is why they will never get my membership or cash. I do not want to pay my hard-earned dollars to help a fanatical (although often right) organization defend useless pieces of crap. Why exactly does the ACLU feel the need to test this law? Do they think they HAVE to weigh in on every law they deem to be unconstitutional? Doubtless, they would answer yes, and try to stand on some lofty idealistic principle. But, the truth of the matter is, they follow a path of unswerving moral absolutism, unwilling to allow flexibility in their practices and policy.

Flexibility is the key to everything. As soon as you say, "this is always right" or "this is always wrong", you fall into the trap of NOT USING YOUR BRAIN. Everything depends on the circumstances and situation. Sometimes it is right to do things that normally might be considered wrong. So we cannot say "I have the right to say whatever I want". We must instead say "in general, I should have the right to say whatever I want, but sometimes...."

The ACLU would say "but that's a slippery slope..." I call it free thinking.

2002-12-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

Russia Victorious in Davis Cup

Not that many Americans care about tennis, but the story of Russia's first Davis Cup win was exciting nonetheless. They subbed a young guy in over former #1 Yevgeniy Kafelnikov and he won a gripping 5-set match (coming back from two sets down, no less). Congratulations to Russia on a well-earned victory!

2002-12-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

I'll Ride With Bill Maher

I've always been a fan of Bill Maher and his now defunct show Politically Incorrect. So I am pleased to see that things are still going well for him. As can be seen in this article, he has a new book (When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden) coming out and a new talk show on HBO in the works. As usual, the good ones tend to wind up on HBO. Yet another reason this network will comprise 50% of my television viewing.

2002-12-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

A Million People Without Electricity??

Big storm on the way. Looks like it will just miss us. *fingers crossed*.

2002-12-04T04:29:00.000-08:00

The Chains that Bind...

Who do you blog for? A key question, and one which determines the direction your writing takes. If you're blogging for yourself, you just write anything you want, unfettered, and let your heart pour out onto the page. If you're blogging for your friends and family, you write about things you've done, things you've seen, innocent things... Most blogs fall into this category. They're almost like those letters some people send out en masse to their friends and family to keep them updated about everything that's been going on. People "play it safe". Oh, I did this today. I saw this movie. I read this book. It was good. It was bad. Blah blah blah. But what's lurking underneath? What do the real writers keep chained in the dark recesses of their minds? What are they afraid to say... things that might alienate them, or might be... improper? Surely there must be something more interesting... controversial opinions... things that might not... go over... so well with people you know... things that someone you know will come up to you at some gathering and say "I can't believe you said THAT in your blog." Surely there must be something else to talk about besides the comforting drone of the pop culture machine...

There is... but a lot of it delves into religion... and politics... where the doors you open with your words aren't so easily closed. But let's begin with the case Lawrence v. Texas, which is now coming before the Supreme Court. I guess it would have been easy not to blog about this case and just to let it pass by. But I can't. That this is even an "issue" at all is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. That two gay men could be arrested in the privacy of their own home is simply unbelievable. That a court in the 1980s could actually uphold these obsolete redneck sodomy laws is astonishing. That this case even needs to be a case at all is reprehensible. I'm ashamed of Texas and the 12 other states which haven't yet joined the 20th century, let alone the 21st. There is only one correct decision here. Either you are an idiot (re: one who wants to make gay sex in the privacy of someone's home illegal) or you are sensible (re: one who thinks what happens in the privacy of one's home between two consenting adults is their own business). I'm sorry, but there's no getting around this basic fact. Either you are a dumbass, or you are evil, or you are just one of those religiously brainwashed idiots who think AIDS is God's punishment to the gay community (never mind that the predominant transmission of the disease is now heterosexual). Well, then stop reading my blog, Jerry Falwell, and go get a doctor to surgically remove the stick from your extremely tight ass.

This is one of the most important court cases in recent years, in my opinion. The civil rights movement has made extraordinary progress in the last fifty years, but, for whatever reason, gay rights have lagged far behind. Should gay couples be allowed to adopt children? My personal opinion is "Yes", but I can at least understand some of the arguments against (mostly having to do with a community's stupid prejudices, not with the quality of the parenting itself). Should gays be allowed to serve in the military? Again, my personal opinion is "Yes", but I can at least identify with arguments talking about the threats to morale and security (although my response would be "get over it"). But here is the most ludicrous issue of all, should gay people have the right to... be gay?? That's really what this court case is about... not should governments sanction gay marriage or allow gay couples to adopt or anything else.. this is simply about nothing more or less than the very right even to be a homosexual. Now, some of you might say, so what?

Here's the "so what": this country was founded on the principle of equality. Idiotic, old men on the Supreme Court had to be convinced it wasn't a crime to be born black. What seems to be common sense to us now wasn't common sense back then. Amazingly. Some would say it isn't even common sense now (although I really do believe most people do not consciously practice racism... subconscious is another matter). Well, now we have to convince them it isn't a crime to be born gay. I am at the point where this seems like "common sense" to me... but amazingly, to many others, the vast brainwashed masses, they still suffer from the misconception that there is "something wrong" with being gay. Time for a landmark decision... time for a changing of the guard... or time to put your head in your hands and bemoan the incomprehensible ignorance of our nation's highest judicial leaders.

And no, I'm not gay, so calm down. I just care passionately about this issue because the government should NEVER be able to tell two consenting adults what they should be able to do in the privacy of their own home. EVER. The question before the court now is: are we living in the Dark Ages.... or not? To quote from the ACLU page: "Laws like these are repellent to the most basic principles of freedom established in the U.S. Constitution. We hope the Justices use this case to strike them down." Amen.

2002-12-04T03:55:00.000-08:00

Hyatt's Top 10 Movies of 2002 (so far)

1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (5/5)
2. Insomnia (4.75/5)
3. Read My Lips (4.5/5)
4. Punch-Drunk Love (4.5/5)
5. The Count of Monte Christo (4.5/5)
6. About a Boy (4.25/5)
7. The Rookie (4/5)
8. Spider Man (4/5)
9. 8 Mile (4/5)
10. Changing Lanes (4/5)

Updated as I see more movies and change my mind about old ones:)

2002-12-04T03:49:00.000-08:00

Dark Age of Camelot

After stumbling onto Stuart Parmenter's blog of Nov 25, 2002 about DAoC, I began to wonder what this game might be like. I've played the wildly successful Everquest since its launch in May, 1999, and have never really checked out any of the competition. The screenshots from the new DAoC expansion looked way better than anything EQ has produced. I had the same thoughts when I saw the screenshots from Asheron's Call 2 (Microsoft's big mmorpg). Makes me wonder if EQ's days are numbered. It still has the largest and most vibrant community of any of the games, which is probably why it remains in the #1 spot in the Western world. (Ironically, a game called Lineage, played fanatically in Korea, is the biggest massive online roleplaying game in the world).

I had also thought about checking out the new Sim Online game after reading an interesting article on it in Time. In this world, you create a character who simply... well... lives real life. Sounds boring? Well, maybe. But, unlike most mmogs, you will actually be able to contribute/change the world significantly. You can open a restaurant, or sell cars, or do whatever you want. It will make for a very interesting social experiment.

2002-12-04T03:28:00.000-08:00

The TV and Movie Update

Well, people tend to devote large portions of their blogspace to movies and TV shows that they've seen recently. Although I've tried to think of more "substantial" things to write about, inevitably I find myself coming back to this somewhat worn out subject. So, let's just give you the quick run-down of my opinions and move on to something more interesting.

Solaris (0.5/5): Not only the worst movie I have seen this year, but one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Comedies that don't make me laugh EVEN ONCE are extremely rare (Nurse Betty is the last one I can remember loathing). Action films with piss-poor dialogue that numb the mind with blistering explosion after blistering explosion... well, these are at least minimally tolerable. But dramas... dramas that do nothing... that aspire to nothing... that are simply bbbbbooooorrrrrriiiiiiinnnnggg... these are the worst movies of all. Rushmore (Hell, maybe this one was supposed to be a comedy, I dunno), The Royal Tenenbaums, and Indecent Proposal all fit into this category. And now... enter Solaris. Where to begin? With the fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes perhaps? At least 65% of the nation's critics must operate on an entirely different wavelength from me... cause I didn't get this movie AT ALL. It started slow, was well shot, well acted, and I thought it might evolve into something tangible... but it never did. Just stayed the same, dull, slow, pompous piece of crap that it began as. I don't know who Natasha McElhone (the lead actress) is, but I don't really have any desire to see her in anything else (unless she's cast as a villainess). She's just so cold, sterile, unconvincing, crazy, and unsympathetic that we can't identify with her. We don't LIKE her character (or I didn't like her anyway), so how can we give a rat's ass what happens to her in the movie? Then there's the terrible performance of Jeremy Davies (Saving Private Ryan, in which he was very good), which is so affected that I wanted to slap him every time he said "Yeeeeaaah". Finally, there are the critics who said this movie was "mindbending" and "thought-provoking". Which movie did you watch? I didn't see anything mindbending beyond the single interesting concept of a person created solely from your own perceptions of them. Unfortunately, this idea is never followed up on, and the movie ends without really raising any questions or answering them. I could have saved my readers several paragraphs of diatribe simply by saying "it sucked; it was boring". Worst movie of the year.

Punch-Drunk Love (4.5/5): Another fantastic picture from P.T. Anderson. Here's another writer/director you either love or you hate. I happen to love his work, from the stellar Boogie Nights to the over-ambitious failure (imo) Magnolia. Adam Sandler really does amaze with this performance. I would never have thought that Sandler would be anywhere near a Best Actor nomination... but think again, because he's just that good. The only thing that kept this from being a perfect movie is the flat character of Emily Watson, a very talented actress who could have given so much more to this role (if Anderson had given her more to work with.) We do get a few flashes of characterization, but, for the most part, she's the typical goddess-figure worshiped by the Romantic male in the movie... and this is really its only flaw. Philip Seymour Hoffman is wonderful as the sleazy Utah mattress store owner. One of the year's best films.

24: I tend to agree with Joe Hewitt's musings on 24. The show has fallen into the trap of being "predictable" to its long-time fans. For example, on tonight's episode (stop reading if you don't want a spoiler), we learn that the Middle Eastern guy is NOT the terrorist and that Kate Warner's father is actually the bad guy. NostraHyatt predicted this in the VERY FIRST EPISODE. Yet this show continues to be one of the most entertaining hours of television around. Warts and all, the show just has a rhythm that draws you in. Even when it's being absurd or over-the-top, you find yourself drawn along by its brisk pacing and nonstop action. Some of my favorite scenes in 24 are the confrontations it creates between its characters. I loved the scenes with Palmer and his wife from the 1st season. They were just wonderfully done, and they really made you admire and respect David Palmer. Now we see similar scenes from Kate and her sister, from Jack and George, from Palmer and his staff. Good stuff. Everyone seems to be blogging about this show, too, so we can hope its ratings have gotten better. Or maybe people are too busy watching C.S.I., a really really badly written show, the appeal of which I can't begin to fathom.

The Sopranos: This season has been all over the place. Show has really gone downhill. I still like it, but this bit of bringing characters on then having them disappear is annoying. Or starting plot threads then just abandoning them. What is Chris doing in rehab? What's up with Artie? Are Furio and Carmela ever gonna do anything? Where the heck has Meadow been all season? Why is A.J. such a little bastard now? Where is this business with Tony's sister and Bobby going? I don't really know what to think about this show anymore. The season with Big Pussy (the 2nd? the 3rd? can't remember which) was the last one that felt like it had a coherent structure to it. Despite the critical acclaim, The Sopranos really hasn't been all that good in its last two seasons. Six Feet Under surpassed it in quality last season, and I have no doubt it will do so again in its upcoming season.

Whew. Got that out of my system. Oh, except for the Bond movie. What can I say about that? Explosions. Action. Megalomaniac villain trying to take over the world. It was a Bond movie. Too long and too mindless, but whatever. 3.5 out of 5. Time to come up with something else to blog about that has nothing to do with TV or movies.

2002-11-25T22:33:00.000-08:00

Bond Another Day; Harry Potter Reigns Supreme

Well, tried to get into the Bond movie this weekend, but it was sold out. I wound up going to see The Ring, a movie that alternates between being hilarious and extremely creepy. The plot is actually quite good, but the movie was marred by bad dialogue and a need to explain absolutely everything. Nice and twisty, though, with a big payoff of an ending. 3.5/5 on the Doug scale.

I also saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Easily my #1 movie of the year, demolishing all comers (as did the previous installment a year ago). People love to criticize these movies for being too faithful to the books. All I can think of is that these movies feel how Star Wars felt when I was a kid. We're really watching the heirs to Lucas's legacy in these films. It will not surprise me one bit, however, if, just like last year, The Lord of the Rings bumps Harry out of the #1 spot.

2002-11-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

A Moment of Chess Epiphany

Recently, I decided to get back into chess again. My goal: the National Master title. I've been an expert (one category below master) for years, with no discernible improvement and no real understanding of the reasons why. Instead of just playing tournaments as a kind of vacation, I wanted to focus on analyzing my games, looking for mistakes, and repairing holes in my game. My first tournament after an all-too-common long absence was the Southeastern Open in Rock Hill, SC. I broke even points-wise, despite numerous lapses (I hung a whole rook in game 2 in a winning position). My second tournament was the King's Island Open, played this last weekend in Cincinatti. Again, I made numerous ridiculous errors, but somehow still managed to break even pointswise. The implication to me was very clear: if I could just stop making these boneheaded moves in each game, I would become much stronger.

Well, ok, that's true of anyone. If you don't make mistakes, you won't lose a chess game. The question I had to ask myself, though, was what did my mistakes have in common? If even 50-75% of them shared some common trait that could be identified and eliminated, then I could make myself a much stronger player. I was resolved to play a tournament a month, analyzing my games in detail after each one, until I had found the mysterious "losing factor" and weeded it out. I expected this process to be a long and arduous one. Or, more realistically, I expected myself to make mistakes of so many varying kinds that any elimination of them would be slow and tedious, involving tons of study of specific endgames in which I was weak or of positions which I didn't understand.

After looking at my last 10 chess games, I realize this just isn't the case. Yes, I don't understand some endgames. Yes, I don't know how to play certain positions. That's true of anyone, though. What I found is that the mistakes I was making had nothing to do with my ability to calculate, my ability to formulate a plan, or my ability to assess positions accurately. In other words, my chess instincts are quite good. I've known they were good for a long time. That's why it is so frustrating to lose games to opponents who I know I should be able to beat. I know when a position is better or worse most of the time. I don't miss much in calculation when I actually bother to look at the relevant moves. The same can probably be said of many experts. It is not that they don't have the chess knowledge to know that a certain position is good or bad. It is not that they can't calculate a basic 3-move tactic. Often, it is simply a failure to CONSIDER a particular move or variation. I used to think such failures were related to chess ability, or fatigue, or lack of concentration. In my particular case, I discovered I was wrong.

The first clue was a quick glance at the opening pages of Alex Yermolinsky's The Road to Chess Improvement after the King's Island Tournament. He has a section where he discusses how emotions can affect a chessplayer's judgment and how you have to suppress your emotions and play based on objectivity and logic. It didn't really register as important at the time, but I filed it away. Now I can see that it is an extremely important observation (for me). The relationship between emotion and intellect, between creativity and calculation, is actually quite an interesting one. The most interesting art forms are blends of inspiration and mechanics. As a musician and a writer, I cannot help but observe that chess shares this same trait. For, make no mistake, chess IS an art. Just like music, just like writing, a chess game can be thought of as an expression represented by a particular language. In music, the language is notes and rhythms. In writing, words and sentences. In chess, moves and countermoves, played out in a geometric field of 64 squares. You can write out a chess game the same way you can write out a book. The creativity, the beauty, comes in use of motifs, familiar and unfamiliar, combined to create a picture that is pleasing to the eye or ear. Just like the creation of a movie or a symphony or a poem, a chess game represents the inspirations and aspirations of individuals. Only in chess, it is two COMPETING individuals. It is this aspect which makes chess unique. It is a duel between artists, each of whom must improvise his creation within a fixed time frame, according to a fixed set of constraints and rules that must be obeyed at all times. Just as in music and writing, an excess of emotion with no understanding of the mechanics leads only to problems (melodrama in writing, badly structured music, or indecisive moves in chess). You can see this in movies like Patch Adams and Pay It Forward, or in bad poems written by high school students with no grasp of basic scansion, or aspiring composers who think all they have to do is "feel" to write good music and wind up producing something with no structure or form to it.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Logic, intellect, understanding of mechanics, these are essential components of creating true art. In ANY discipline. Without knowing the rules of grammar and sentence structure, you can't write a good book. Without an understanding of meter and rhyme, you can't write a good poem, even a free verse one (for how can you know your poem is avoiding certain meters without knowing what those meters are?) Without an understanding of chords, harmonies, modes, and basic music theory, you can't write a good piece of music. Sure, there are geniuses who have internalized a lot of the mechanics, but they are few and far between. In 99.9% of the cases, people internalize these mechanics, make them second nature, through hours, hours, hours, hours of blood, sweat, tears, and work. An understanding of the "building blocks" of an art form is absolutely essential to creating a real piece of art. That having been said, without the inspiration and the creativity, one doesn't know how to stray from the preset forms, to be original, to innovate, to do something unexpected that delights the senses because of its unusual-ness. It is the combination of the two factors, passion and logic, emotion and intellect, that leads to perfection. Wordsworth once wrote that "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of emotion recollected in tranquility". I started thinking about how this quote really applies not only to writing, but also to chess. Yes, you can feel a strong emotion. Yes, you want to CREATE a strong emotion perhaps, i.e. you may want to write a scene for a TV show where someone dies, and you want it to be powerful and moving. But you don't WRITE the scene in such a state. You compose it in a state of cold calculation. You pick and choose your words for maximum effect. You use all your intellectual powers to construct a forceful scene from your library of basic building blocks. Chess is no different. It has mechanics. It has rules. It has certain basic tactical, strategic, and positional concepts which can be assembled to create the desired emotional effect. But you have to do so in a tranquil state. You can't let yourself be swept up in excitement when you launch an attack. You can't quake in fear when your opponents' pieces storm your kingside. You can't succumb to ego and assume your opponent's moves are irrelevant. In this sense, chess is very difficult, because, unlike music and writing, it is also a sport, and it shares that most basic attribute with other sports: YOU DON'T WANT TO LOSE.

After that long digression, we come back to a couple of days ago, when I was analyzing my game against Zhe Quan (a master) with my friend Russell Linnemann (an expert). The game was rather dull, and eventually we reached a major piece endgame where each of us had a queen and a rook and numerous weak pawns. I had an option to start munching his pawns. In turn, he would munch mine, and a draw would be the probable end result. Instead, I decided to play aggressively and keep material on the board. I played a move Qd6!?, very aggressive and very interesting, attacking my opponent's rook and so preventing his queen (which was guarding his rook) from snatching my pawns. My opponent responded with a move that got his rook out of take and attacked another of my pawns. At this point, my heart sank, as I realized two of my pawns were under attack. At this point in the game, Linnemann suggested the strong move Rb1!, with the idea of playing the rook to the back rank and going after Zhe Quan's king. It was a very good move. Not only was it a good move, but it was the CONSISTENT move with Qd6!? Instead, I succumbed to fear and despair, and I played a passive move which gave up one of my pawns and tried to grovel into a slightly worse ending which I had some hopes of drawing. At the time, I just figured "well, ok, that was just a mistake, I just suck". But more on that later...

Finally, the revelation hit when I was analyzing my game against Robert O'Donnell (2165) from the 3rd round of the King's Island tournament. I organized all of my pieces into a massive force aimed against his king. And then, at the critical moment, I lacked the nerve to sacrifice a piece for two pawns. Not only was this move winning, but it was ESSENTIAL. One of the very standard concepts of attack in chess is that attack is not only good, but it is NECESSARY. If you build up a strong position on one side of the board while your opponent builds up a strong one on the other, you cannot then fail to seize your opportunity to strike. This sacrifice could have ended brilliantly. Instead, not only did I not play it, but I failed even to play the most basic prophylactic move to stop my opponent from trading an important pair of bishops. After this exchange, my position was worse, and my growing fatigue and frustration eventually led to poor defense and ultimately, defeat.

What I realized, as I analyzed this sacrifice out to a forced win (as soon as I figure out how to get diagrams in this blog, I'll post it, as it's fascinating), was exactly what was wrong with my chess play. And... at that moment, I had an epiphany, as I realized the common thread that bound so many of my mistakes together. I thought back to what Yermolinsky had written, about emotions influencing one's chess play. I thought back to my analysis with Linnemann of the Quan game, where he demonstrated how simply continuing in aggressive fashion would have solved my problems. It all came flooding into my head then, losses from years past, and in an instant games from the last 5 years flashed through my brain, with the same motif repeated over and over and over. Random retreats, impatient lashing out, simplifying exchanges of pieces at odd times... and all due to the same... damn... weakness. And, in that moment, I knew exactly what it was. My principal chess weakness was (and is) INDECISION, or LACK OF BALANCE, caused by TOO MUCH EMOTION. I looked back over my last 10 games, and, in most of the games, I made a mistake of this kind. Southeastern Open, Game 1 against the master Mouzon: I failed to play the logical and probably winning ...d5!, not because of any failure to calculate, but because I got AFRAID and NERVOUS after he moved his queen to attack my kingside. Game 2, against Ronald Dennis, I played wonderfully to put all my pieces into an aggressive attacking position. Finally, I was ready to play the strong Ne5!, with a winning kingside attack, but I let my emotions get the better of me, again nervousness and worry, and I retreated a piece instead. This was the first clue. I often, when I reach these "moments of panic", retreat a piece... making the position that much worse as not only am I not advancing aggressively when given the chance, but I am even backpedaling. Game 5, against Scott Baldwin, I had an opportunity to play the strong advance f5!, which would have given me a wonderful attacking game. Instead, at precisely that moment, I made an exchange that simplified the position, as nerves got the better of me. In both rounds 2 and 3 of the King's Island tournament, as has been previously discussed, I made mistakes of this kind. The game against O'Donnell was particular illuminating, though, because it showed the TWO sides of the spectrum. My ego makes me not make prophylactic moves, while my nerves make me not play aggressive moves. In this game, not only did I not play the aggressive Bxh6 because I was afraid, but I did not play the move a4! because I was cocky. Finally, in game 4, in overexuberance I missed a simple move that could have squelched all my opponent's counterplay (Bd6!), once again failing to think 'preventively'. In numerous other games of the past five years, I can see the exact same moments.

So, in conclusion, I have come to realize that I often initiate aggressive plans but then continue them passively. Or, I begin passive defense, but then get impatient and lash out and try to play aggressively. This is why I call this newly identified weakness a LACK OF BALANCE. I am indecisive. I set things up then don't follow through. Frequently, 99% of the time, when I reach such a moment, I not only do not play the best move, I play some hastily looked at lemon, usually bizarre in appearance (Ree1 against O'Donnell, Rd2 against Quan, Qd3 against Dennis, f5 against Mouzon) that does nothing to improve my position. NONE of these chances were missed because of a failure to calculate, because of a failure to consider the correct move, because of lack of chess instincts (my intuition said the piece sac was sound, that d5 must be the right move, that Ne5 must work). They were caused purely by emotions getting the better of me.

Finally, I sat in the early hours of the morning, asking myself "why do I play chess?" Is it to win? Forget winning. It's to "go for it". It's to create art... to have that moment where you make something you can show to your friends later... the moment where you played an attack like Tal, or conducted an endgame like Fischer, or squeezed an opponent in the merciless manner of Karpov. Here I had an opportunity, as Eminem would say, "my one shot", and I didn't take it. I let it slip through my fingers... Forget winning? Absolutely. For therein lies the true path to winning. By forgetting about the fact that a given move may lose, you throw the emotional component out the window... and find the road to victory.

Well, now I know about the problem, but what can I do to solve it? That will be a question for future tournaments... and future blog entries...

2002-10-23T00:46:00.000-07:00

The Amazing Kariakin

OK, so not exactly new news, but Sergei Kariakin has become the youngest chess grandmaster at the age of 12 years and 7 months. This breaks the record of Bu Xiangzhi of China (13 years, 10 months, 13 days). Before that, Teimour Radjabov had the record at 14+, and the chain goes back with Ruslan Ponomariov, Peter Leko, Judit Polgar, and the inimitable Bobby Fischer. Still, 12 years old. Really amazing. Add to that Kariakin served as Ponomariov's second in the FIDE World Championship, and you can see a promising future for the young prodigy... Which brings me to yet another subject. What is up with last names that begin with K? First, the domination of Anatoly Karpov. Then the brilliant attacking play of Garry Kasparov. And now the most recent world champion, the 'Berlin wall' himself, Vladimir Kramnik. Considering Kariakin begins with a K, I am already prepared to declare him the next world champion! (Well, maybe after Peter Leko... he does have a 'k' in his name, even if it's not at the beginning...)

2002-10-14T01:58:00.000-07:00

Kiln People

I recently finished Kiln People, the latest novel from David Brin. Wow. What can I say? I haven't been able to get into Brin's stuff much recently. The last thing I tried to read of his was Earth, which was just too big/boring for me to get through. Not so with Kiln People, the best science fiction book from 2002 that I've read so far... and the best science fiction book I've read since Vernor Vinge's two masterpieces (Fire Upon the Deep and Deepness in the Sky). I won't bore you with plot details (the book is about a future where you can create clay copies of yourself that last for a day... and a private investigator who uses his copies to solve crimes). If you're interested, go check the book out Amazon.

2002-10-14T01:52:00.000-07:00

The Worst Movie I've Seen This Year

I saw Knockaround Guys this weekend. Wow. Where do I start? This was not only the worst movie I have seen this year, but one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Having read one good review by Roger "I must have been smoking crack on this one" Ebert, I went to the movie expecting good things. The acting was terrible. The story was miserable. The movie was godawful and utterly boring. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to get up and leave the theater. What is weird about all this is... I have seen movies with worse dialogue. I have seen movies with bad action sequences. I've seen movies with poor editing... comedies that weren't funny. I don't know why or how it all came together in this particular movie to produce such a sour effect, but, somehow, inexplicably, it did. Not being able to sympathize with the characters, I wasn't interested in their problems/motivations/actions. The only character I felt any connection with was Vin Diesel's, mainly because, well, he's Vin Diesel. He's a good actor, capable of drawing you into his situation and making you care about his character. Barry Pepper was awful, Malkovich was amazingly terrible... Seth Green did all right, but he had almost nothing to work with. The script had a few moments that made me chuckle, but the rest was a painfully written morass of bad cliches taken from The Sopranos and Tarantino movies. An ill-conceived, poorly executed ripoff of a movie that never deserved to make it anywhere near the screen. Because it made me chuckle twice or maybe three times, this putrescent asspile of a movie huffs and puffs its way up to a measly 1 star out of 5 on the Doug Scale.

I also saw The Transporter, which had great action sequences and a horrible dialogue/plot. The movie moved well though, and it was never boring... as a kung fu flick, it was entertaining. 3.5/5.

Still have not seen Red Dragon, but I will soon.

2002-10-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Sniper

I was in Rockville, MD, last Thursday, and all anyone was talking about were the shootings. We were visiting the Red Cross building, which had been locked down. Schools had also been locked down. A guy I was with saw a white van get pulled over and two cops charge it with rifles drawn (I was inside the building so didn't see it). Turned out it wasn't the sniper, of course, and they let him go... but shows how on edge the whole town was. We all figured they'd have the guy by that night. Here we are, a week later, and police are still searching. Reading about this nutjob, I can't help but wonder how anyone can actually be opposed to the death penalty for cases like this. If they catch this guy, I hope they make his death slow and painful. Maybe a single shot to the gut...

2002-10-02T08:01:00.000-07:00

Ground Zero

I ran over a skunk two days ago. Pray this never happens to you. The stench is awful. It is one thing to know on an intellectual level that skunk spray smells bad. It is quite another to experience firsthand every time you come near your car. I have been told that spraying hydrogen peroxide will make the smell go away, but I haven't tried it yet...

2002-10-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

Typhoon Higos

Sometimes we pay so much attention to hurricanes in the Atlantic that we get little or no news coverage of major weather events on the other side of the world. If Higos hits Tokyo with its current wind speed, it would be one of the most powerful storms to hit Japan since World War II.

2002-10-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Two Towers Trailer

There is a new Two Towers trailer available at lordoftherings.net. An absolutely incredible piece of work. One of the things you notice now about movie trailers is that they flash images in front of you very quickly, while relying on audio to provide you with information about what's going on in the images. Movie trailers didn't used to function like this. You hear Gandalf's voice saying "the power of Sauron is growing blah blah"; at the same time, you get like 5 different shots of armies, orcs, etc etc. Or Aragorn saying "War is coming whether you like it or not blah blah" and again a whole bunch of quick shots. It works very well in this trailer, as you wind up seeing an enormous amount of material from the movie. Gollum, a sneaky shot of an ent, Helm's Deep, Wormtongue (see him standing next to Saruman in one shot?), Gandalf the White, his horse and charge, Rohan, Eowyn, Elrond, even the whole love story between Aragorn and Arwyn. It's really an incredible couple of minutes of footage. Based solely on this trailer, I'm already ready to proclaim The Two Towers the best movie of the year. Not that it will win best picture when you have a narrowminded academy who actually thinks A Beautiful Mind is better than Fellowship.

2002-09-30T15:00:00.000-07:00

This is kind of bizarre.

2002-09-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

Nice to see us actually come to life in the second half... still, I think Tennessee was expected to win by a much larger margin in its win over Rutgers yesterday. I might have considered ordering the game on PPV, if I thought it would work. Comcast is absolutely the worst company I have ever had dealings with EVER in my entire 30 years of existence. Gonna look seriously into getting Direct TV in my apartment (if it's possible) and ADSL (if possible) so I can entirely divorce myself from the Great Evil that is ComcASSt.

2002-09-29T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Good Girl

Saw The Good Girl last night. Jennifer Aniston has gotten rave reviews for her performance. It really was quite a good performance. The movie was pretty dull, though. Like Boys Don't Cry, The Good Girl is a movie about losers. I just couldn't care about any of the white trash characters paraded in front of me. I was amused by some of the lines and situations, though, so, overall, I'd give it 3 stars out of 5. Aniston's performance is the best I've seen from any actress this year. I would agree with the critics who say this role really makes you stop thinking of her as just "Rachel from Friends".

2002-09-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

A Couple of Good Books

Read a couple of good fantasies recently. One is A Sorcerer's Treason by Sarah Zeitel. Zeitel is more traditionally known for her science fiction books. This book is her first foray into fantasy. It was pretty good. I really liked the references to myth and folklore. Kinda reminded me of Jack Vance's Lyonesse books. The characters were a bit underdeveloped, but they interacted with each other in interesting ways. Overall, it's worth a read. The other book is Sorcery Rising by Jude Fisher. This was an excellent book filled with very interesting characters. Amazingly, like the whole first 300 pages of the book takes place at this one festival/fair-type thingie. It reminded me of the opening act of The Godfather, which spends a whopping 45 minutes of the movie at the initial wedding. Sorcery Rising is the first in a series that promises to be very good. Speaking of very good series, when is the next George Martin book due out???

2002-09-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

BecBlog > DaveBlog!

My brother's blog: blah blah blah mozilla blah blah XUL blah blah phoenix blah blah ...

His wife's blog: cool stuff clever witticism interesting stuff funny stuff picture cool stuff another picture 'nother clever witticism ...

Dave needs to get to work and write something interesting!

2002-09-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

The Missing Nirvana Tune

I don't pretend to be a huge Nirvana fan, but I think they're pretty good. So I admit to being a bit interested in hearing the newly disclosed Nirvana song recorded just 3 months before Kurt Cobain died. Hard to imagine it's been nine years since the song was recorded... makes me feel even older than I already do that Nirvana is 'classic rock' now.

2002-09-27T01:16:00.000-07:00

Because I like making lists....

Hyatt's Top 10 Movies of 2002 (so far)

1. Insomnia (4.75/5)
2. Read My Lips (4.5/5)
3. The Count of Monte Christo (4.5/5)
4. About a Boy (4.25/5)
5. The Rookie (4/5)
6. Spider Man (4/5)
7. Changing Lanes (4/5)
8. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (4/5)
9. The Bourne Identity (4/5)
10. Minority Report (3.75/5)

The year has been decidedly devoid of any good comedies. About a Boy really stands out as the best comedy of the year so far, especially as it's not really a straightforward comedy per se. Signs and Road to Perdition were both disappointing (as I've blogged previously about). So far, the year has not been particularly impressive. The worst movie I have seen this year is probably Frailty, a movie which critics liked... why, I have no idea.

2002-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Saw two pretty mediocre movies on cable: Life as a House and The Bodyguard, neither of which I'd seen before. I'd give both movies 2 out of 5 stars. Both of 'em were pretty generic. In Life as a House, it is just hard to care about either Hayden Christensen or Kevin Kline's characters. Hayden is a sulky punk, just like in Star Wars Episode II. His character is completely unsympathetic. Kline plays the "doomed" terminally ill father. The movie was just cheesy, predictable, and lame. The only thing that kind of salvaged it for me were a few nonstandard, interesting characters, including Kristin Scott Thomas's husband (dunno the actor's name) and the mother/daughter played by Mary Steenbergen and Jenna Malone. The Bodyguard had a lot of high quality scenes, but ultimately you know who the bad guy is... as he's the only semi-creepy character in the whole film. Of course, Kostner's character takes a bullet for Houston's. Yawn. Only two months until Harry Potter and The Two Towers.

2002-09-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

I've moved my blog from U.T. to blogspot.com. Just liked the idea of having my own URL, I guess. More to come as I tweak the options...