The New Road

Two Month Vacation

The Iraqi congress has decided to take a two week vacation in July and August. Yeah, so part of the whole 'surge gives the Iraqi leaders breathing time' thing, will be spent on vacation. Lovely. Not unexpected, I suppose. Given that I am always cynical about this war.

Carl Levin notes another sad quote:

And incredibly, Hasan Suneid, a lawmaker and adviser to Prime Minister Maliki, was quoted in the paper the other day as saying that “time is irrelevant.” Well time is plenty relevant to us, our troops and their families.

If you are surprised by that attitude you lack a basic understanding of what's underlying this whole war. That's ok though, big brains like Bill Krystol don't understand it either. They don't see the two thousand year civil war that has been raging between Sunni and Shia. Bill, in fact, called talk of such a thing 'pop psychology' in the run-up to the war. (Which begs the question; why does he still have a job when his is wrong about everything).

Yes, it's sad, time is irrelevant when you are trying to resolve conflicts that have raged for generations. And two months, in the grand scheme of two thousand years, yeah, not such a big deal.

Unless your us, who are stuck there, waiting for these guys to work it out... Which they won't... By the way.

But then again, Bush is playing a waiting game as well. Hoping to string out his remaining support just long enough to saddle the next administration with the withdrawal. He thinks that will save his legacy. Whatever the hell that means. I'm not really sure how adding another 2,000 U.S. soldiers to the body count will raise him up from his inevitable spot as "worst president in history".

Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?

Do you really want to hurt me?

Hmmm.... Yes.

Gotta say, the picture from this story... Wow. He never looked good before but, wow... This is a new low.

In other news, the guy the administration chose to tell the world to practice abstinence says that hiring hookers was as easy as ordering pizza. Wow, there is a Papa John's for that?

Seriously though, how dare the man demean ordering pizza? Pizza delivery is America's gift to itself and hopefully the world. Nowhere else I have been has ordering pizza been so easy. Twenty four hours a day, no matter where you live, no matter how stoned you are, if you have $15 you can get a big pizza covered in meat delivered to your door in less than thirty minutes. How great is that? The list of things America has forgotten how to do, like manufacture stuff, is long. But we can still deliver pizza. And that's what counts.

BTW, Papa John's... little slices of heaven. Lori and I have been making pizza for more than a decade because pizza delivery was so bad. But Papa John's, they give us a run for the money.

Chipmunks in the White House

The Chipmunks clip from Saturday Night Live is a hoot.

Buying The War

Bill Moyers has an excellent new show called Buying The War. It lambasts the press for abdicating it's responsibility to double check the claims coming out the of administration. In this case the false pretext built for the Iraq war. Interestingly to me, while he does mention the Fox Noise Channel it's only in passing. Everyone knows the only thing that comes out of there is spin. He spends almost all of his time showing how the rest of the media got it wrong. With the exception of two guys working at Knight Ridder.

I actually believed Saddam had WMDs. But I was not convinced he was working with terrorists. Nor did I consider disarming him as urgent as completing the job we had started in Afghanistan. A job that's still not completed after all these year.

It's coming up on the sixth anniversery of September 11th, and we still haven't caught or killed Osama Bin Laden. What a joke.

Five Years Of Blogging

It seems like just yesterday when I set up this blog, but Lori reminded me with a nice card that it's been five years. And actually a little longer than that because I was blogging on the Wiki for a while before that.

To celebrate I offer this not safe for work video; the Gilbert and Sullivan version of "Baby Got Back"

Frontline: Gangs of Iraq

As usual Frontline is doing some amazing work reporting in Iraq. This most recent one, "Gangs of Iraq" is excellent.

If you don't want to watch the whole thing I recommend just watching part six. In it you see our soldiers treating the trained Iraqi militia like idiots. While all the while the militia guys are talking behind their backs. In one scene they find a weapons cache and blow it up. But the Iraqis are caught on film talking about how it's just a small cache and that they know where bigger ones are, and they don't tell us.

Part five is also great. It shows Iraqi politicians talking about how torture isn't bad and it's done all around the world.

We are being played. Right wingers like to talk about how they are 'liberals who were mugged by reality'. Who are the ones getting mugged by reality right now? Iraq was never going to be anything other than what it is. The insane idea that we could turn it into a free market utopia should be clearly crushed by now.

From what I can see the left has always had a very clear idea about exactly what the reality was in Iraq, and what the consequences were and are. And they are right now when they say that the war is lost and that we need to get out of there.

Pictures From Palm Desert Tri

Here are some pictures from the triathlon:

And some pictures from Palm Springs the day beforehand:

Finished the Toyota Triathlon

I finished the Toyota Desert Springs triathlon in 1:27 today. I took the sprint option and had a lot of fun with it. I finished pretty strong. The run was somewhat tough, but the bike ride was great. I put my head down and made up some great time. There was a light wind and that seemed to slow folks down, but I train in the wind all the time, so it felt great to me.

Pictures tomorrow.

Palm Springs, where the triathlon was, is beautiful. Gorgeous scenery, nice restaurants, friendly people. Very nice.

Jolie Super Freak

Wow, Angelina Jolie is a super freakin' freak. Choice bits include:

She said in an interview with Britain's OK! magazine: "I was a member of a group called the Kissy Girls. I was very sexual in kindergarten. I created a game where I would kiss the boys and give them cooties.

"Then we would make out and we would take our clothes off. I got in a lot of trouble!"

Kindergarten? Wo, nellie! And it doesn't stop there:

"I had started having sex with my boyfriend and the sex and the emotions didn't feel enough. I was no longer a little girl. In a moment of wanting to feel closer to my boyfriend I grabbed a knife and cut him. He cut me back."

Uh, right.

One kinda wonders how these revelations came up? What questions were asked that this was possibly said in response to?

Well, anyway, I think Angelina has just reset that bar in super-freaky.

Bringing Back The Draft

Actions have consequences. Certainly the 2004 and 2006 elections proved that. And now we are starting to see how Bush's Iraq war decisions, or lack thereof, really, are having their consequences as well. Casualties are way up. Up to invasion levels, in fact. And recruiting is down. So that means... bringing back the draft.

This statement from a former senior Pentagon official:

“If the United States is going to have a significant component of its ground forces in Iraq over the next five, 10, 15 or 30 years, then the responsible course is for the president and those supporting this open-ended and escalated presence in Iraq to call for reinstating the draft.”

And all the actions of the administration (not the words so much) lead us to believe that they have a much longer term mindset about Iraq.

Despite Fox News' rosy talk, things are not going well over there. There are mass Iraqi casualties every day. As I say, our troops are getting killed at numbers that equal those from the opening days of the offensive. And the politicians in Iraq are squandering the precious breathing room Rice begged the American populace for with the usual pie in the sky shenanigans.

The bellicose rhetoric from the right is sounding more shrill and less connected with reality than ever. The nonsense about fighting them over there is as hollow as ever. And Bush doesn't have the bully pulpit he thinks he does when it comes to war funding. He may actually lose this fight against congress.

Fortunately the American people are waking up to the fact that we are in another quagmire and will likely make the right choice in 2008 to get us out of there.

Will Ferrell vs Landlord

This movie is clearly what the Internet was designed for:

I laughed so hard I was crying. Awesome. Awesome.

Teaching Megan Movie Reviews

Megan and I had a day on Sunday to pal around. We went bowling and had a lot of fun. Then we talked movies on the way to the grocery store. I taught her thumbs up and thumbs down. She gives Beauty And The Beast a thumbs up (a major shocker) and Happy Feet a strong thumbs down. Love it.

FAT: What no one is telling you

KQED, one of our local PBS stations is running a show called FAT: What Nobody Is Telling You. I had a chance to watch it, and the round table session of doctors that followed the show, last night. I found it insightful and well balanced. That's not easy to achieve with such a sensitive subject. I highly recommend catching it if it's on in your area.

One of the things I found particularly interesting was a comment by a panelist after the show. She said that one of the people in the show was working out three hours a day to lose weight and to maintain a lower weight. And that this amounted to a second job. Another panelist agreed and said that we should look at exercise exactly like a second job. Plan around it, take it seriously, block out time, and so on. Just as we would with an actual job.

That approach is something that I didn't learn the first time around. I lost a lot of weight, kept it off for a while, then fell off the train when I figured I could sacrifice my workouts for more time at my primary job. Really quickly less time at the gym became no time at the gym, and all of the weight, and a little more, came back. This time I look at it with a longer eyed view, and having this second job concept in mind will really help with that. I now realize that I have a disease, called obesity, which just happens to be in remission at the moment. But will only stay that way with constant vigilence, for the rest of my life.

For another take on obesity you can also check out Penn & Teller. They take on the Body Mass Index (BMI), which I totally agree with debunking. I've never felt better in my life and I am still obese by BMI standards. I've always had a problem with the BMI. I don't think fat calipers make sense either. The best way I have seen to gauge fitness is to have the person perform some aerobic exercise that brings up their heart rate, then have then stop and see how long it takes for them to recover. That gauges the health of your heart and lungs, which is really what matters.

Thinking About They Olypmic Distance

The reaction to going for the sprint distance as opposed to the olympic distance for the triathlon kinda surprised me. I expected Dan and Joe to agree, but both are trying to convince me to do the olympic. And I was fully expecting Lori to be fine with it, which she is, but she is also encouraging me to do the longer distance. So now I'm reconsidering...

Especially since I just went for a lunchtime run and did a very solid five mile run around Pac Bell park and vicinity. Since the olympic is only a six mile run, that make me feel a lot better about it. I'll gauge where I am Friday of next week before I make the final decision. A lot may depend on the weather down there as well. If it's killer hot then I will definitely be going for the shorter race.

I think there are two big parts to my running a little easier. The first is new shoes and orthotics which support my non-existent arches. The second is that I'm running slower, a lot slower, than I usually do. And that seems to have helped a lot. I get passed a lot. But who cares, I'm running healthier and easier than before. That's what counts.

Japanese TV... Awesome

Japanese TV is so original. I love it. We talk about the golden era of TV experimentation that's supposedly happening right now in the states. We have no clue. Check this "SMAP SMAP" TV show from Japan where they wine and dine Nicholas Cage (episode 1, episode 2, episode 3). Nicholas also holds himself well through all this, which is nice to see.

Seriously though, what an awesome idea for a show. It's like a fusion of Oprah and Iron Chef. I love it. I want to see it here.

Palm Springs Triathlon

I'm going to wimp out and go for the sprint version of the triathlon in Palm Springs. Here is my reasoning:

• My goal this year was to do a sprint triathlon, not an olympic triathlon. The olympic was next year. And that was to give myself adequate time to prepare fully to run the race to a good time and do it standing up without hurting myself.
• My swim is strong, my biking is very, very strong, but my running still really sucks. I can do 5K no problem, but 10K hurts a lot and does actual physical damage even when I do it on a treadmill. I'm not ready for a 10K.
• From the email I just got from the race coordinator it doesn't look like the event will be 'well supported'. Meaning there likely won't be water, medical services, and people around to help if I get into trouble.
• I ran the numbers on my current best times for the swim and the bike and it looks like I would be getting into the run around 10AM and running into the noon day sun, in the desert heat, a feat for which I am woefully unprepared. I can't run a 10K indoors with AC, I certainly can't run it without killing myself in the noon day desert heat after already biking and swimming for two hours.
• The last time I ran a 10K that I wasn't prepared for I was out of commission for a week. I'd rather not do that to myself this time. Particularly when I'm down in L.A., far from home and needing to get back for work and life.

So all in all, I think I'm going to take the sprint option if I can, even if it means losing $40 on the registration fee. My health and safety are worth far more to me than that. I'd rather finish a good strong sprint triathlon than stagger over the finish line in an olympic triathlon that I was woefully unprepared for.

As for the running, I'm working on it. I got some new shoes that I'm slowly wearing in. And I've installed orthotics into them which seem to help. Plus I just bought a book on running which has some good suggestions. All of which will really help in the coming months, but likely won't help the situation in the the two weeks that I have before the race.

Anyway, wow, 62 miles (100K) on the bike this weekend, what a blast! I felt really really strong. Certainly strong enough to do another 100K soon and perhaps work my way up to 75 miles on the way to a 100 mile bike. I could certainly do 100 miles if there were long food breaks in it. The 62 mile that I did this weekend I did continuous, which is 3+ hours in the saddle, which hurts pretty much however you do it.

Poker

The weekly poker game started up again a couple of months ago with Joe coming into town. Now that Mel is here we can play pretty regularly again. I've been doing pretty well so far. For the last five games I have come away ahead, often with twice the buy-in or more. Last night was amazing. At one point I had quadruple the buy in, but I started to fade around ten o'clock and lost a buy in, so I was only tripled up by the end. Aww...

Take this for what you will, my strategy, what little there is of it, has four parts.

• Don't play every hand - It's draining on your money and you want to be able to get as much money into the pot as possible when you have a good hand. Blinds and antes will eventually exact a toll and leave you short stacked if you pay for every piece of junk.
• Slow play top hands - Know what the nut hand is from the cards on the flop, and if you have it, bet it very slowly.
• Play weak hands strong - If you have mid or low pair try to knock everyone who hasn't made anything out of the hand early so that you don't get beat on fourth or fifth street.
• Lose your ego - Losing in poker isn't losing in life. Don't let your ego rule over your strategic sense. Brave players who throw themselves into every pot regardless of the odds are easy prey for those who wait for a good hand and take all their money.

Knowing what the nut hand is, and what the basic odds are is critical. Always check for straights, check for flushes, and beware of quads, sets or full houses when there is a pair on the table. If you find yourself saying; "I didn't think he could have that" when you are beaten, you need to watch more poker on TV and take note of the little percentage numbers next to each hand. Far better to say to yourself; "I knew he could have that, but I didn't think he had it, and I was wrong."

The Good Shepherd

Spoilers Ahead

I was able to make it through the Matt Damon CIA epic last night, incredibly. Lori came along for the ride as well, though she played backgammon through most of it. While it was well produced, I didn't think it was a very good movie. Matt Damon's character was so dry, and talked so little, that it was hard to feel anything about him at all. And Anjolie Jolie was both underused and miscast. She is way too smoking a hottie to be treated like Matt does. In the movie he only marries her because he gets her pregnant. Yeah, right.

The movie is very long, but doesn't actually do much. We don't learn much about the characters because they are all wooden. And we don't learn much we didn't already know about the CIA. Most of the time is spent on ambience and entry/exit scenes. Most of which could have been left on the cutting room floor. Plus, all in all, it's not that interesting of a story. Don't believe the hype when they say it's about the birth of the CIA. That's just a couple of lines of dialogue here and there. It's mainly about Matt and his story. His dry, wooden, pointless story.

Old movies are paced slower, yes, I get that. But they also covered more ground. This one was just slow to be slow. Yeah, some people get killed, and that's mildly interesting. But only just slightly. There isn't even any suspense that I can think of.

Then there were the strange elements of the movie. After watching Matt Damon nude mud wrestle in a Skull & Bones initiation rite I asked Lori if she thought the movie was vaguely homo-erotic. With her eyebrows raised she said, "vaguely?" And that was in the beginning of the movie. There was no more nudity, but there was a hell of a lot of implied man-on-man action going on.

Another strange thing was Matt Damon's son who was played out as a simpering whinger by an actor with a face only a mother could love and a mouth like a bass. Every time he came on screen I just felt compelled to hit fast forward.

I did like that it demanded my attention to detail as I was watching it because most of the time the characters are talking in code, or talking about code. But that can only take you so far.

If there was a target audience for this it would be Lori and I. Both political people who have close relations that were in the CIA. We both came away with a 'meh' response.

So sad, it was a great cast and an awesome subject completely spoiled by a bad script and stilted performances.

I also tried to struggle through Will Smth's Happyness movie and found it ceaselessly depressing.

Co-Worker Joins A Cult

Or does he? See for yourself at Ron Kurti's home page. It was posted on April Fool's day after all.

Update: It was an April Fool's Day joke. Turns out his parents didn't get it though. Whoops.

Ajaxian'ed

In the Web 2.0 world one of the best sites to get noticed by is Ajaxian. This morning I had my first mention there for an article that I wrote for Developworks on Ajax Anti-Patterns. Thank you for the plug Dion!

He also mentions having read Code Generation In Action. It's funny how that very slow seller ends up getting mentioned here and there by really cool folks. It's like it has this long tail double life as a mildly successful little work that ends up influencing the big movers.

Triathlon Prep

I did a 50K bide ride this morning, then went to breakfast, and followed that up with a 10K run. That's the two primary components of the April triathlon, so that a good place to be. The bike ride was solid, since I did 50 miles last week and that made 50K feel easy. But the run was tough and the blisters came back after 5K. So I'm off the run for a couple of days. And I'll probably concentrate on another long bike ride next week. Perhaps a 100K bike ride, which is 62 miles. Just 12 longer than two weeks ago. If I could do that then I would feel awesome about the bike portion of the race.

I actually had a good bit of energy left after the run. But that's drained now after baking a cake for Lori's mom's club, and doing some more yard work on the sprinkler system. And we have the Matt Damon CIA movie on a one day rental, and while I heard it's excellent I also heard it's long and dry. I'll probably have trouble staying awake.