This Just In...
Republican blabbermouths are out bashing
Canada on Fox and CNN. Ann Coulter?!
Yecch! Rabid bitch.
For his part, Tucker Carlson
went so far that Wolf Blitzer even jumped in to cover his ass, saying that Tucker was speaking
with tongue in cheek... Tucker deflected the comment.
Wondering about the text on that web page? It's Icelandic. No, I can't read
it either.
Thanks, Penny!
Eerie Statistic
Guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott was gunned down 24 years to the day after John Lennon was shot to death in front of the Dakota. I am recalling the names of other musicians who were shot, or shot themselves, to death: Marvin Gaye, Roger and Larry Troutman, Sam Cooke, Kurt Kobain, Junior Braithwaite and Peter Tosh of the Wailers, Tupac, Selena, Biggie Smalls, Jam Master Jay, Wendy O. Williams... I wonder if a disproportionate number of musicians lose their lives to guns.
I finished reading through Eric Meyer on CSS last week, and I'm excited about
the prospect of using CSS for more than basic text formatting. While the book
makes it clear that there are still bugs to be worked around in many versions
of popular browsers, the workarounds are available. Given the current installed
base of browsers, it seems there is much more that works about CSS than is
broken. My next site is in design now, and I plan to use a lot more CSS and
a lot fewer tables.
The book is project-based, like Zeldman's Designing
with Web Standards, but
it's more practical, and less pep-rally than Zeldman. On the other hand, I
think Zeldman is quicker to point out browser bugs and work-arounds than
Meyer, so the two work very well together.
More
Eric Meyer on CSS has come out, and I think I'll be reading that soon.
:::
Mothra's Next Show
Ms. Stewart gets out of jail in March, then has to wear an ankle bracelet
under house arrest for 5 months. Come August, 2005, she's a free woman.
She can't conduct
business
while
she's in jail, but once she's home she can work 48 hours/week.
That hasn't stopped folks in her company from working full-time for her.
"I cannot wait until she gets out of jail and we can start to work together." –
Jeff Zucker
In her circles, she's hardly a tainted woman.
:::
Meanwhile...
Oh, yeah... heard anything new about corporate corruption? I guess Major-league
baseball is more important. No, wait... maybe that *is* a form of corporate
corruption... Or is it just protecting the franchise?
:::
Encounters
I met Dick Martin (of Laugh-In fame).
I couldn't believe it at first. Sad to say, I wasn't so sure he was even alive.
Even though I'd looked
him up on IMDB
sometime in the last year, I'd forgotten. But there he was, live and in living
color. He looked like himself, and as I began to hear snippets of his conversations,
he sounded
like
him.
I walked
over to
him
and
patted
him on the back, saying
“Are you really who I think you are?”
He smiled, and
made a quip about seeing him on something like TV Land or the Hollywood
Squares, and quickly said
“But I'm not the reason you're here tonight.”
He
wasn't.
I was there to check out the work of artist Barnaby
Ruhe and witness a miniature
version of one of his portrait painting marathons. Barnaby called me
an Atman (a Buddhist term for the true individual self — I'd call that
a high
complement).
I smiled, and said “Yes, but you're the icing on the cake.”
I thanked him
for his work, for the laughs, and for the political awareness he'd helped
to awaken in me, though most of those words didn't come out of my mouth.
Still, he heard my thanks, and said
“That sounds like a holiday greeting. You can't say 'Christmas' anymore.”
I agreed that popular etiquette seemed to dictate so. “Fuck
that!,” he said.
Last night, I was in a conversation with a classmate at an ICP course. She
acknowledged that she supports Bush and believes that he's doing the right
thing. She also called herself “a rootin' - tootin' - Texan.” She
started to speak in terms of “the liberals” and called me a pacifist.
The label didn't quite land like an insult, but there was just a
hint
of
divissiveness
in
her
tone. I
commented
that
the president of the U.S. works for US, and she said “No, he works for
his constituency.” Not exactly an inclusive kind of philosophy.
:::
News from Michael Moore
"Fahrenheit 9/11" has been nominated by the People's Choice Awards
as the American public's "Favorite Film of the Year." The five nominees
were chosen from a poll of thousands of Americans in mid-to-late November.
The other nominees for best film are "Spiderman 2," "The Incredibles," "Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (with Jim Carrey), and "Shrek 2." It
is the first time ever a documentary has been nominated for best film by
the People's Choice Awards.
The People's Choice Awards are considered, among all the awards shows, to
be the one which most accurately reflects the "mainstream" public
opinion in the United States.
OK, now, here's the best part: YOU get to vote! Online. Now. Just go to http://www.pcavote.com/voting/film/f01.shtml,
click on the little circle next to "Fahrenheit 9/11" in the "Favorite
Movie" category and press the "vote" button. Voting is going
on now and continues only through this coming Monday, December 13, at 3:00pm
ET, so send an e-mail to your friends and let them know they can vote, too.
Winners will accept their awards live on CBS on January 9.
Now, normally I wouldn't make a very big deal out of something like this.
It's nice and I'm honored, but it's not exactly the number one priority on
any of
our minds these days. In fact, when we found out we were nominated over a week
ago, I didn't even think to tell you about it or put it up on our website.
But then a group of top Republicans took out a full page ad in USA Today
(and placed a similar one in the Hollywood trade magazine, Variety) proclaiming
that "An election is over, but a war of ideas continues." The point
of the ad was to say that while they, as right wing conservatives, were proud
of getting rid of Kerry, there was still one more nuisance running around loose
they had to deal with -- me! They also issued a not-so-subtle threat to the
Academy Awards voters that, in essence, said don't even THINK about nominating "Fahrenheit
9/11" for Best Picture. And Bill O'Reilly recently bellowed that if
the Oscars recognize my work this year, Middle America will boycott Hollywood.
...
I promise, if we win, to give a nice and polite speech.
