June 2004

I am now the owner of a beautiful little female kitten.

But she has no name.

So I’m looking for good names. Geeky names. Like “Jakarta“, “Nibble“, or maybe even a recursive cat acronym. Feed me some ideas…

Update: I’ve posted a small album of photos of the Kitten-That-Hath-No-Name

Last night I went to see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.

Its a good thing Laura took me out for pizza & beer afterwards to cool me off.

I have serious issues with the style of Michael Moore’s “documentaries” (yes, I’ve also seen Bowling for Columbine) . For one, I don’t think they even come close to qualifying as documentaries. They’re more like two-hour long Michael Moore opinion columns.

Here’s his modus operandi:

1. Present a few well known “facts” (many of which have not even been proven true), things that have been highlighted in the major news media for weeks or months or years
2. Make some very tenuous connections between his “facts”, using mainly rumor or conjecture
3. Before the viewers have the chance to come to their own conclusions about what they’ve just seen, bombard them with hyper-emotional imagery in an attempt to make them automatically come to the same conclusions Moore has come to himself.

And that’s how he continues for the duration of the movie. Even worse, he has this coddling tone that makes it sound like he’s talking to a child. If you’re trying to make a documentary meant for self-thinking, intelligent adults, you don’t talk down to them like they were infants.

So suffice to say I didn’t buy into his ruse. The imagery he used was very powerful. He showed a lot of film that many people would feel shouldn’t be shown, including a lot of bloody pictures of civilian casualties and even the Fallujah killings of the civilian security contractors. Personally I feel that in another context they shouldn’t have been shown. But Moore’s goal was to be controversial and edgy, and he succeeded.

But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Just after my last Gmail posting, Google opened up so many new invites that now just about everyone that wants one can get one. So much for selling them on eBay…

So if you want one, email me and I’ll hook you up.

Update: Alright already! You can stop sending me requests for invites. I’m out now. :) Didn’t quite anticipate the demand… Update: No seriously. I’m out. Stop asking.

I just got a few more invites to Google Mail and I’ve decided to give one of them away to a lucky visitor.

Leave a comment explaining why I should give you an invite. The best comment posted in the next week wins the invite.

Update: GMail accounts are selling for $50 or more on eBay. You’ll have to make it obvious you’re not going to sell it. I’ll expect a prompt email from your new GMail account. However, if nobody claims it, I’m selling it and taking the money to the bar. Update: Its now a week later and the only people to comment already have GMail accounts (I’ve already sent them invites). Sad, very sad. Update: I have no more invites. So stop asking.

I’ve started a page in my wiki where I’ll be posting all the coffe shops and similar establishments I find around downtown San Jose that have free wireless internet access.

After spending 4 years in Ann Arbor where there are 3 coffee shops per corner and they all have free wireless, it was a bit of a shock to find out the rest of the world wasn’t the same. This is Silicon Valley… I expected there to be free WiFi on every corner!