Stop Frame

I was browsing old documents and found this gem. Wise Words From a Cop, About Cops: Watch out for the CSI effect. There is no machine that we can drop an eyelash into and come up with the DNA profile, fingerprints and mug shot of the owner in 2 minutes. When you see an emergency vehicle behind you with its lights and sirens on, pull to the RIGHT, and stop. We are usually required to pass cars on the left. When you're driving in the fast lane and you see a cop behind you, don't go 5 mph under the speed limit. We are not impressed by how safe a driver you can be. We're trying to go help someone (or catch that guy in the SUV that just cut you off). Safely move over and let us pass by you, please. If you get a warning instead of a ticket from a motorcycle cop, go buy a lottery ticket, because you've already beaten the odds. When you see an officer conducting a traffic stop, or with a suspect in handcuffs, it is generally not a good idea to approach him/her and ask for di...

I am not alone ! As far as Gone With the Wind goes, I'm in the deep minority in not caring too much for it. It's beautiful at times, and the first two hours it's tolerable if not particularly engaging, but by the time the last few hours roll around, I always felt as if the film was more intent on inflicting misery than portraying it. Anyway, it's nice to know I'm not the only one . Arguably the most over-rated movie in the history of the industry. Now I know there are at least two people in the world who agree with me.

It's been fun watching the iPod versus Zune fight from the outside. I don't own a digital audio player (DAP) -- sorry, a digital media player (DMP). I am vaguely interested in getting one, though, because my car doesn't have a CD player, and the CD player in the motorcycle is on the fritz and I don't want to fix it. Easier by far to get a DMP player, a cassette adapter, and voila, huge mobile song collection on the (relative) cheap. (As a bonus, I can then have the CD changer ripped out of the motorcycle and gain luggage space. w00t!) What's entertaining about all this is the flame wars that all the fanboi's are engaging in. Not having a dog in this race, I have a few observations. First, the iPod pretty much (but not entirely) created the market, but when it first came out there were lots of cries of, "Oh how this or that sucks!" It's easy now to look at an established empire and go, "Oooh, pretty!" but it wasn't always so. For e...

May your stuffing be tasty, may your turkey be plump. May your potatoes 'n gravy have nary a lump. May your yams be delivious, May your pies take the prize, May your Thanksgiving dinner Stay off of your thighs! Happy Thanksgiving! And for your amusement...

They say : "There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. As the article then points out: Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, said he will propose the measure early next year. What the article doesn't point out is that Rangel introduces the legislation... then votes against it . He is, in other words, making political hay. He is, to put it politely, full of shit. Radicals want a draft because they know their history. They know that the anti-Vietnam war movement was driven primarily by a hatred for the draft. When the draft ended, so did the vast majority of anti-war protests....

Appalling : An elderly man who killed 10 people and injured more than 70 others when he drove through an outdoor farmers market was sentenced Monday to probation by a judge who said he believed the crime deserved imprisonment but the defendant was too ill. Yes, law must be tempered with compassion and mercy, but... He killed 10 people. He injured more than 70 others. There are hundreds of families ruined because of this man. The judge, in this "sentencing", shows amazing "compassion" for the victims and their families. I've seen diagrams of this "accident" scene and the jaw goes slack, the mind boggles. The judge's reasoning for his sentence is, to put it ever so politely, unpersuasive. The evidence showed that George Russell Weller maintained sufficient awareness of what he was doing to avoid hitting cars. Instead, he aimed at people. (Softer targets, I guess, spare the paint on his own car, lower his insurance liability.) The jury did...

Thwack! I started with that word because, to my amusement, the spellchecker in Microsoft Word 2007 says I spelled it correctly. How many word processors or spellcheckers are you aware of that can spell "thwack"? Games aside, and I haven't been playing much of them lately, I justify owning a computer by writing. Just because it's been 20 years since I sold anything doesn't deny me the claim. So I'm always looking at what the latest writing software is like. When I leapt from my Smith-Corona to computers, I used an Atari running LJK Letter Perfect. Not a hint of WYSIWYG in that program, but it was fast, pretty easy, and the standard for real Atari-based writing. When I dabbled with Apples, I discovered WordPerfect, and when I migrated to MS-DOS machines, WP was there waiting. At the same time, though, dark forces hovered in the shadows, softly whispering a dreaded curse word. That word being, uh, "Word." I have long hated Word. It has taken me years t...

The heading makes it obvious, I went and saw Casino Royale on opening night. I've been thinking about it since and have come to the simple conclusion that it's the best Bond film ever, period, end of story, the end. This is an origins film. As in: See ...how Bond earns his Double-Oh status. See ...why he likes Aston Martins. See ...what he likes to drink. See ...why it's a Vesper martini. See ...why Bond is a cold, calculating killer, a blunt instrument in service to the Crown. Daniel Craig simply is Ian Fleming's James Bond. He's utterly believeable from Frame #1. This is made more so by the way one of his early opponents just prances about a construction site, while Bond heaves and grunts in pursuit. I loved it how after a fight, Bond looked bruised, his knuckles and face cut. Even when he reappeared all "cleaned" up, there were signs of the fracas. And Craig just tosses 'em off (with a grunt and a little whince) and pushes on. Excellent. Now, ...

I like James Bond. I'm a fan. Not a great fan, mind you. I don't have every nuance memorized. For a while, though, I couldn't wait to see every film at the theatre on opening day. That lasted until Pierce Brosnan took over. Ugh. I waited for cable -- not even video and/or DVD -- and I've never bothered to see the last two films. The previews put me to sleep. He sucked in major, big-time ways. He was tolerable in Goldeneye , but that movie also showcased who should have been Bond, i.e., Sean Bean . After that brief glimpse of promise, Brosnan should have been recycled. So, I was intrigued when I saw that they had cast Daniel Craig as Blonde, James Blonde, The New Bond for Casino Royale . And I actually got excited when I saw this trailer . And now there's this review ... Bond is back, baby. Boy howdy is he back. And he’s going to be the most divisive Bond ever. When they set out to reinvent the series and went back to the well of the original text, man oh man d...

Saw Stranger Than Fiction last night and was amazed by how much I liked it. I am not a Will Ferrell fan, though I've liked most everything I've seen Emma Thompson in. It seemed an odd pairing and the previews looked too cute for words. Too cute by half, since the previews make the film look like a straight comedy, which it is and isn't. It isn't in the sense of rolling on the laughing, but it is in the classical sense, and I leave it to you to figure out what I mean. Also in the cast is Maggie Gyllenhaal , and she's casually delightful as always. And surprise, Queen Latifah is perfect in a minor but nonetheless key role. I should probably also mention Dustin Hoffman , but why? He's little more than "okay". The plot is simple: Ferrell is an IRS agent who begins hearing Thompson's voice as it narrates his life, in all its dull, repetitive details. At first he thinks he's going crazy, but becomes panic stricken when the narration casually ...

And from Iraq .... An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced Saddam Hussein to the gallows for crimes against humanity, convicting the former dictator and six subordinates for one nearly quarter-century-old case of violent suppression in this land of long memories, deep grudges and sectarian slaughter. Shiites and Kurds, who had been tormented and killed in the tens of thousands under Saddam's iron rule, erupted in celebration — but looked ahead fearfully for a potential backlash from the Sunni insurgency that some believe could be a final shove into all-out civil war. Saddam trembled and shouted "God is great" when the hawk-faced chief judge, Raouf Abdul-Rahman, declared the former leader guilty and sentenced him to hang. Saddam, described by many a moonbat as a "securlar leader", said, "God is great." Wow, who knew that he and I could ever agree on anything.

National Novel Writing Month ( NaNoWriMo ) 2006 is underway. Couldn't get in last night, so had to post my count this evening. See me here . Maybe I can finish this sucker by the end of the month, maybe not. Either way, I'll have a running start. Yeehah!