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My young co-worker just called my other young co-worker to his desk with the words “Come check out this screen saver!” When the second co-worker got there he said: “Awesome!! Flying toasters!”

Welcome to the 1980s, only this time it’s in OpenGL running on slackware. Irony.

At work having just finished helping three different clients on one night. Not too shabby.

Saw Ep III tonight. It was better than 1 and 2, but I still don’t think it had the magic. Maybe I am just too old now.

From: Tqkcptu@clubinter.net
Subject: Re: acknowledgment Assure Mucous Membrane

I believe I’ve put this off just about as long as I possibly can. I went with my brother to see the Hitchhiker’s movie last Saturday afternoon. I went having read the reviews, both positive and negative, of fans and critics alike. I felt I was prepared for whatever might come my way,… I would either like it or hate it. What I was not prepared for was the sense of disappointment with which I left the theater that afternoon.

I was practically raised on British comedy, from the Goons all the way through Mil Millington, but Douglas Adams was really the one who made me love being half english. His sensibility so matched my own, and he was able to express it in such a deliciously guffaw inducing way. There’ve been a good number of people pass on in the last few years who I felt had been a part of my upbringing, but Douglas’ death hit me the hardest, I think. I just sort of came out of nowhere. Maybe it’s fitting that the movie couldn’t quite reach its full potential, since Douglas had so much more to give as well. Anyway, when I first heard that the movie project was definitely on this time it lifted my spirits considerably. I eagerly read every piece of news I could get about the production, and tried to envision what those carefully crafted lines would sound and look like on the screen. Unfortunately, as has been made excrutiatingly clear in many other comments across the net, many of those lines never made it onto the screen, at least not in their lovingly crafted, complete form. But you can read about that anywhere you want.

What I really want to discuss is the sense of unrealized potential that pervaded the whole movie. There were some bits that really were wonderful, including most of the Guide entries. They stuck to the established material and tone while updating the mechanics of the way the Guide worked in as near a perfect way as I can imagine. Sadly, much of the actual story and action in the movie just didn’t come anywhere near what it could have been. For example, if you can show Ford and Arthur as sofas in the receiving area of the Heart of Gold, why can’t you show them as a penguin and a guy with very long arms? Why can’t you show the seafront at South End with the sea staying steady as a rock and the buildings washing up and down? Why bother changing something that is so uproariously hilarious? Why does Ford offer Arthur a hug when Arthur should be saying he doesn’t know what his mother used to say because he didn’t listen? They got the look and function of the Babel fish right, but made no mention at all of the dentrassi. I was very happy with Slartibartfast and the journey to the magrathean factory floor. I expect that would have scared the willies out of me as well, but what was up with Trillian? It’s a good thing they never mentioned her degrees in Maths and Astrophysics since she sounded as if the real reason she shortened her name was because it was such a terrible bit of mental calisthenics for her to get it spelled properly the old way.

I could go on and on, but as it turns out I have a swamp cooler in one of the apartments I manage that is leaking rain water into the apartment. Bleh. Time to get up on the roof in a rain storm and see if I can stop the water from coming into a gaping hole in the roof which is designed to house an appliance whose job it is to maintain a pool of water poised to inundate an otherwise perfectly suitable living area. I wonder if Douglas ever worked on swamp coolers, the irony would have thrilled him,… probably not, but I expect Marvin likely did.

Loew’s Theaters Publishing Note

So Loews is going to start publishing that movies actually begin 10-15 minutes later than the indicated start time, so that people don’t get so annoyed at having to sit through 15 minutes of ads before the movie starts. Gosh, um, that’s gonna help a lot. I’ll make sure my wife and I always arrive about 15 minutes late so we can get there right for the beginning of the flick and sit six rows away from each other next to large, sweaty men with giant buckets of popcorn to spill on us.