Coming in really late, but I've got my October predictions up on goddOS.

Now I just need to finish that damn Soulcalibur review.

Register. To. Vote.

I'm going to assume that the vast majority of my friends are already registered, but rather than leave it to chance, here's my reminder.

This is important not just because of the presidential race. That IS important, because the US is such a dominating global force, the person we vote in is arguably the most powerful person on the planet, with the ability to affect the lives of more than six billion people. However, less than 300 million have a say.

But moreso, register for your state and local elections. Those are the people who will make the changes that affect you most directly, and they're often completely overshadowed by the media and money of the presidential race.

You can find a list of registration deadlines here. Note that for a number of states, the deadline is this weekend.

Also note that a number of states have early voting, which you can do right now. You may find a list of those that have this here.

Or don't.

I've been giving a lot of thought to the bailout today. This morning I felt sick to my stomach at the thought. This isn't too suprising, because $700,000,000,000 (or more) is a lot of money. I have a hobby of examining insanely big numbers in the theatrical movie industry. This is a couple orders of magnitude greater. It's a bit greater than I can comprehend and the thought of it being used badly really gets to me.

After it failed, I felt relief. All that I've been reading indicates that this is a bad plan, and it'd likely cripple the US Gov't for a number of years while those who caused the problem would get away so they could do it all again.

And now, hours later after I've had more time to think I'm starting to feel anger, possibly bordering on rage. This isn't just a bad plan, it's a terrible plan. The money would be controlled by a few individuals, the oversight is beyond ridiculous, and the limitations imposed on the companies and individuals who caused the mess is beyond pathetic.

Yes, it's a terrible problem, a financial crisis that's bigger than any that most of us have seen in our lives. However, it's a crisis that will go away and can be solved by reasoned, considered thinking. This or any kneejerk bill isn't going to help, and could make it all worse.

My understanding isn't absolute, but I'm going to try and break down what I have gleamed and then make alternative suggestions.

Let's start with the ideological stuff. This isn't anything that would make or break the bank in either direction, but it matters a hell of a lot from a message standpoint. In the general public we understand that there are a relatively small group of people who can be held responsible due to their influence as executives in the companies who are facing problems.

There are two provisions in the bill which seek to limit what these people can get. The first is in direct pay (essentially penalizing companies who pay execs more than $500k) and the second is in the 'golden parachutes'. I'm all in favor of limiting exec pay. Except half a million is ridiculously high. In fact, I'd guess that it's going to be higher than some of these people already get. Plus, they're penalized, but not prohibited from giving higher pay. If I'm to understand how that'll work, company that's in the shitter will sell off a bunch of bad loans to the federal government and then... have to cover some additional fine if they pay their execs too much, thereby giving some miniscule amount of that money back? Seems kinda weak.

And as far as the parachutes, the limitations (unknown to me what those are at this time) only apply to new contracts. Any existing employment agreements already apply. That means if an exec is due $10m or whatever if he's fired... he still gets the $10m.

So how would I correct that? Two provisions: first, execs cannot be paid more than the median household income in the United States. That's a hard limit. Currently it's about $50k a year. They won't be significantly disadvantaged, since they can still reap the stock options the company may give. And that way their financial solvency is tied to how well they do their jobs: i.e. making sure the companies get out of the shitter and back on track.

Second, All existing parachutes are suspended. Any future ones are limited to the equivilant of one year of the exec's salary. Harsh, I know. It'd be bloody difficult for me to find a new job after getting a $50k severance package. I don't know what I'd do.

Next is who gets to decide how the funds are disbursed and how oversight into this happens. As the bill was proposed, the treasury secretary (Paulson, in this case), is given complete authority to do with the money as he sees fit. Oversight consists of five people, one of whom is Paulson.

Umm... right. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to give an appointed individual the keys to the kingdom. In fact, I'm not even sure I'd trust it to elected officials. I'd much prefer a system that can run itself automatically. Instead of having the judgement left to those who are giving the money, I'll leave it to those who are taking it.

Let the companies who have the bad loans decide if they want to sell them to the government. If they decide to do so, they MUST comply with a number of regulations, including those listed above. Said regulations would apply to any company acquired by or that acquires any company that chooses to comply (so they don't have a loophole of shuffling the companies around after the money's been given. Once they buy in, they must play by the rules.)

This gives the companies the choice: They can try to deal with the problem by themselves, or they can take the easy money. I'm really quite curious what those execs would choose between the strong personal financial stance in a company saddled with debt and shitty stock or one where they need to take a massive pay cut but that'll be doing much better. Risk reward system, and all.

And finally, we need to understand how the debt will be recovered. Under the current plan, this is... apparently magical. There's some hope that at some point things will be better and the government can recoup the debt. And after five years, congress can give suggestions on how to do that.

That's really kinda weak, really. So instead, all stock transactions get taxed .25%. I'm led to believe that this will generate about $150bn a year. Second, any company that chooses to receive the disbursement will be taxed an additional .25%. This latter would be removed once the debt is paid off. Effectively, this would throw the entire cost of the recovery in the hands of those who engaged in the problem and those of us who don't engage in stock trading (which is separate from stock owning) wouldn't be inconvenienced. The long term investments such as retirement accounts and so forth should be fine, since unless there's a catastrophic crash, the market will recover and they'll be good... and if there is such a crash it won't matter regardless.

And that's it, really. Writing this up (and making dinner in the middle) used up a lot of anger. I doubt it's an entirely useful plan, but it seems a damn sight better than anything that's been brought up so far.

I believe josienutter was the first I saw do this one today.

* take a picture of yourself right now.
* don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
* post that picture with NO editing.
* post these instructions with your picture.

karenhealey, theonlymegumegu, and ohsochewy also got to it before me.

( Photo! )

My predictions for September are up here on goddOS.

Also, my eyes are itching.

I got another comment on my post dissing on C&C. This one isn't nearly as awesome as the first, and my response is kinda dry, but with the Olympics and all, I'm a bit strapped for blog ideas.

For the whole event.

My July Movie Recap is up on goddOS.net. I'm surprised to find that my accuracy was relatively high for the month. I need to get started on my September preview.

I'm also back in Washington for a week, since it's my grandmother's 90th birthday party this weekend.

The weather is awesome.

SF's weather is not.

Over on goddOS.net, I've written a good 2000 words about the already massive run for The Dark Knight.

June was an awesome month for movies.

The comments were too beautiful to pass up, so I've made a post over at goddOS to answer them. Looky, looky!

I don't really expect many comments over at goddOS.net. Except when I link it from here, I'm not sure if anyone outside of a small group of friends actually reads it. Still, on occasion there's probably the chance that someone will run across it.

Apparently that happened with my Rock Band review, which I did back in January.

I'm not going to process the comments there, but they're too good to pass up entirely. So for anyone's viewing pleasure:

Ok... so, what I just read... was that a review? It seemed more like an attack. It also seems to me that you must spend a little too much time sitting at your computer or playing that beloved RB (it is awesome, I'll admit it). Coheed and Cambria are a hugely succesfull band, not just in album sales (over 1.5 million stateside alone) but as a live act as well, selling out venues of sizes ranging from mid-size clubs to arenas and amphitheaters. While I'm not the biggest fan of the band (I enjoy the music and story, even Claudio's vocals... just not a big punk/metal guy) I have to give credit and respect where it's due.

Now my question to you is exactly where the fuck do you get off bashing a band you've never listened to outside of one song on a video game and their comics, which you've never read. I imagine you to be a fat, slobby, loser of a guy. I would have been put off by reading this sort of review of anything. To keep it short, shut your fucking mouth if you don't know what you're talking about. Or just shut your fucking mouth... you'll catch flies. Arrogant piece of shit.

If that's not good enough, nine minutes later he submits ANOTHER comment:

Oh and p.s.... I just looked up the numbers... the first five issues of The Amory Wars (which I haven't read either, I'll be honest) have sold over 700,000 copies since their beginnings last year and have been released as a trade paperback graphic novel. The first issue of Volume II is due to come out this week and Hot Topic (that shitty little store in everyone's mall) has taken 138,000 pre-orders since June.

My point is... these guys are highly successful and talented, obviously. You blog about comics and movies. You talk about the self-injection story line or whatever you called it with such disdain as if you yourself were not suffering from some pretty serious delusions of grandure. Arrogant piece of shit.

Heh. I feel vindicated, somehow.

Edit: Because I'm curious about this, I checked into some numbers. I'll grant that there's a lot of problems in tracking comics sales, especially if it's showing up in a non-DM, non-bookstore location like Hot Topic, but I really doubt that the comics have topped 700k for the five issue first series. That would be pushing Big-Two Event Comics numbers. From what I can tell, the trade of the first series had a respectable (but not spectacular) 2500 in its first month. And the first issue of the second series had a respectable (but not spectacular) 10000 issues sold. Even if there's an untapped market that isn't tracked that way, I'd doubt you would even triple those numbers.

In any case, thank you... Brent C. for this amusing little moment before I go to bed.

Virgin America, a review written during flight. I'd live-blog it, but I don't live-blog, and there's no internet.

Upon entering the plane, I'm struck by the soft violet lights. It's got this very new, very futuristic feeling. They're piping in music which I can only describe as soft techno. It's slightly upbeat and engaging without being invasive.

Seats are all leather and recline nicely. Foot room isn't the best, but doesn't seem too far out of line from other airlines. The flashing of the seats is hard plastic and seems comparable to the covering of a MacBook. It's currently nice and white, but I wonder if it will hold up over time. Even so, the atmosphere is comforting. The brochure area in the seats are hard plastic pockets (with the standard elastic netting). I won't say they spared no expense, but for a coach class fare, this is among the best I've had the pleasure of experiencing.

The amenities include power and USB, so I'm not running off my laptop battery at the moment, instead getting the full functioning POWER of the plug. There's one for every seat, so I don't even need to share. Compare that to my Amtrak trip back in November, where I think there were two plugs in total for the lounge car, which basically had to serve everyone in coach class. It doesn't have internet, though, which is a bit of a shame. I'd like to see an airline provide wi-fi on all flights so people can get connected while they're travelling. For longer flights, it'd be awesome. I could even get work done.

Most impressive are the entertainment options, which are provided by the Red Interactive Environment. This is varied and comprehensive, if a bit rough around the edges. It is listed as beta, so that's to be expected. There's a selection of movies for sale, music to listen to, games to play, and various TV channels to watch. That much is expected, however there's also a rather interesting chat function which allows seat-to-seat, open chat-rooms, and chat rooms based on TV channel viewing.

Red runs on Linux, which seems neat and geeky. Given that the environment isn't the most responsive, it might not be the best choice, but at the moment I'm going to chalk that up to the beta nature rather than the underlying architecture.

The games reflect the environment, though, with a selection of clones of extremely old (i.e. Atari era) games, free standbys (like mahjong), flash variants, and (somewhat surprisingly) Doom.

My personal favored feature is the map, which runs on the increasingly ubiquitous Google Maps. Currently it shows that we are about 150 miles from Seattle, passing over Portland at a speed of 525 MPH. We're flying at 38000 feet and it's a balmy -67 farenheit. Well, I wouldn't want to be outside, but it is nicely sunny up here.

For services, they provide the standard drink fare, but snacks of any sort require a small fee. There's also a selection of alcoholic drinks and meals. Nothing there is spectacular, but the interactive environment has the food ordering system built in, along with credit card readers. Want something, you just order it to add to a shopping cart and then just scan to pay. Cash is not accepted, but it all seems very straightforward and easy to use.

The presentation for the airline really shines. The standard introduction was provided by a well-done and entertaining animated movie. It's not quite as good as the best attendant presentations I've had while flying Southwest, but it's still fresh. I hope they update it on occasion to make sure it doesn't get stale.

Check-in was a quick and easy endeavor, and I believe I got the nicest boarding pass ever done. The information on it is clear and it had a very bright red graphic, as if to declare 'Here is a person who is flying Virgin America, today. He is both hip and intelligent for making such a choice."

With that said, it's not quite got the entrenched position of other airlines. The check-in area (at least in San Francisco) could have been any fly-by-night airline. It's a new player, though, so I don't expect it to have all the built-in set-up that I've experienced otherwise.

The big question is whether it's worth it. As a low-cost airline, Virgin's good. It doesn't beat Southwest for price, except in the case of a sale, which is a tossup. At the lowest, I could get a Virgin flight between the Bay Area and Seattle for $69 and for $73 on Southwest. That's a Virgin SALE though. Standard flights are about $130 one-way. Still good, but about $50 more than the standard Southwest flights.

And for comfort, it doesn't quite match Horizon Air, which has free alcohol on all flights. (The one time I flew Horizon, I felt WONDERFUL by the time I landed.)

But it seems to be an airline that has very level flight prices even close to the date (I picked my ticket up less than two weeks ago.) At $130, that's not a bad deal.

I wrote most of this on the flight, just adding a bit at the end now.

I went to a baseball game on Saturday in Oakland. My friend Devon is an A's fan, while my friend Liz follows the Giants. Since the teams were playing each-other, it seemed an opportune time to go see a game on the cheap.

Tickets were $10. We certainly got our money's worth, if only because of the entirely entertaining crowd.

Oakland, despite a pedigree of baseball excellence that is nearly unparalleled in recent years, has a somewhat lackluster fanbase. San Francisco tends to have teams that suck, but they get headlines (for Barry Bonds), have a nice stadium, and are generally seen as a bit more upper crust. Mixing these two does not necessarily make for a happy time on either end. A's fans feel grumpy that everything is so much NICER for the Giants, while SF fans are pissed that their team sucks donkey balls.

Given that the teams only face each other a few times a year and have absolutely no effect on their respective standings otherwise, this is a rivalry that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. There isn't even the media-inspired animosity that you'd get in Chicago or New York. In truth, both teams have a much stronger rivalry with teams down south (the Dodgers and Angels) than they should have with each-other. But rivals they are. I suppose it all goes back to the Earthquake series in 1989.

I wasn't quite cognizant of this going into the game, so it was somewhat of a learning experience. Given the close proximity of the teams, both got the home crowd treatment such that whenever anything happened, you couldn't tell who it favored just by listening: the boos and cheers were in equal proportion throughout the stadium.

By some odd happenstance, we ended up in a powderkeg section. The disagreements between the two sides ranged from loudly boisterous (but somewhat good natured) to bordering on hostile. For a good half of the game, some of the more intoxicated elements chanted in support of their side. Given the lack of mental facilities of those involved, these chants were little more than 'Let's go Oakland!' followed by 'Let's got Giants!' Back and forth from about the fifth inning on. It takes a certain kind of dedication to do that.

Eventually, we got our own permanent security guard fixture, given that the tensions seemed just about ready to boil over. This was amusing, because despite the multitude of personalities and loyalties there was still a fair bit of fun conversation to be had. I believe I was the only Seattle fan, but it was too cold to properly display my loyalties.

As for the game itself, it was rather well-played. I appreciated the fairly strong pitchers duel. San Francisco won a 1-0 match, largely because they focused their action at one point. Oakland certainly out-hit them, but the scattered elements couldn't scare up a single run.

Of particular entertainment was Jack Cust, he of the Three True Outcomes. In essence, he is more likely to have one of three results when he comes to bat: a walk, a strikeout, or a home run. My particular amusement at Cust's ability to give the defenders nothing to do sparked off a conversation between Liz and Devon. The end result is the usericon courtesy of Liz.

In his four at bats, Cust did have two strikeouts. But he also had a flyout and an entirely improbable bunt single. The former is not entirely out of line, but the latter astounds me. The man has two skills: patience and power. Speed is not in the repertoire. Neither is defense, which is why he's a DH.

Somewhat impromptu, but I'm making a trip up to Washington for July 4th and so I can get some damn summer weather to enjoy. (It's absolute ass here in SF.)

I'm flying up on the 1st and back on the 16th. Will need to hang out with everyone at least once.

And now it's bedtime.

But this is made of awesome:

I've gone and looked at how my predictions stood up to the actual performance of all the films in May. Gritty details ahoy!

August predictions are up. There's some possibility for excitement, but I don't think we're going to see anything too far from the ordinary.

Next up I'll need to start doing post-month recaps.

The further out we are from the releases, the less sure I am of my predictions.

Of course, given how much I blew the Speed Racer prediction less than two weeks before the release, I'm not sure it really matters. (Good lord that was bad. It's not going to earn in total what I predicted for its opening weekend.)

Still, July is up here.

Also, the weather is absolutely spectacular at the moment. I'm wearing shorts!

I met up with loopychew yesterday. We chatted, ate dinner, and then wandered to the Metreon where we decided to go see Speed Racer on IMAX.

I can't call myself disappointed, much to my surprise.

Full review here.

June movie predictions.

I'm already behind the curve on Iron Man. I'm not feeling good about my Speed Racer prediction, either.

***

In other news, I tried out Camino as a new browser. It's nice, but unfortunatley it won't suffice. I was willing to try and learn to live without my CoLT plug-in or the ability to recover a closed tab at a keypress, but I found a deal-breaker. It won't remember the information I put into forms. Considering how much of my work is doing that, it's absolutely necessary for productivity.

I pondered trying Shiira, but it doesn't seem set up for what I'd require.

So I switched up to the Firefox 3 Beta. So far it's working out quite well. Seems to be a bit quicker and smoother than 2, and I like the new look. I lost the Tabs Mix Plus plug-in, but I found another that gives the the keypress recovery.

I should be looking into upgrading to Leopard one of these days, though.