Doves creep me out.

I recently got a phone call from The Dove Foundation. The first words out of his mouth were about trying to get my help in cleaning up today's movies. Gives me a good idea of Dove's real motives. I decided to google Dove Foundation.

They don't write reviews. Instead, they write how each movie fits the "Dove Worldview." As in Kicking & Screaming: "It is Dove’s policy to not award any film with the Dove Seal if it contains a curse such as "go to hell" or "damn you" because those statements are cursing a person to hell. A movie can have a "what the hell" or "damn" and still be approved because those statements are not curses but are obscenities. "

So I say to Dove: thanks for the distinction. Now go to hell and damn you for calling me at home and blocking your phone number from my caller ID. That is breaking into my home and screaming in it. And you kept talking over me with your creepily moralistic voice when I tried to answer you. Not only are you an uninvited guest, you are a rude uninvited guest.

I admit that a lot of the stuff in the violence ratings is accurate. When a guy's, uh, organ gets ripped off, as in Brokeback Mountain, that is not kid-friendly. But is "Girl pushes girl off a pier" in Aquamarine really worth a rating?

Here are a few more Dove ratings on certain categories. Enjoy. Or squirm in fear. (My comments are in parenthesis.)

SEX

The Shaggy Dog. Kissing between husband and wife. (Really. Do you tell your kids about the stork?)
The Family Stone. Homosexual male couple adopt baby. (They should have stuck this one under a "homophobia" category, which they don't have yet but should.)
March of the Penguins: While the actual act is not shown, it is obvious by the music playing in the background that two penguins are going to consummate their relationship. (They gave this porno a Dove Seal anyway.)

OCCULT
(I am not kidding, that is something Dove thinks needs to be rated.)

Aquamarine. Girls jokingly pray to the gods of love and later to the god of hurricanes.
The Shaggy Dog. The Buddhist meditation in the beginning. (Kooky AND bigoted! Congrats!)
Miracle at Sage Creek. Indian singing over boy for healing. Nothing major. (This is not as scary as a Buddhist?)
Bloodrayne. Vampires vs. Humans with no mention of God or Satan. (I guess vampires can't be atheists. Or Buddhists.)
Wolf Creek. Talk of UFO's. (Wrong category. That belongs under "stupid".)
Hoodwinked. Goat has been cast with a spell so that he must sing everything he says. (Demonic karaoke! Hide the kids!)
Bewitched. Throughout the film spells are cast; witch makes things appear and disappear; witch runs time backwards; woman puts a "hex" on a man. (Is it in Deuteronomy where the reader is told to whack witches? As in Tony Soprano whack.)
King Kong. Ancient tribe dances and seem (sic) to be in voodoo-like trance. (Give them a break, it was not even hip-hop.)
Fantastic Four: References by villian (sic) of being a god. (Read
my review on my writing page. The comic book Doom is the one who can take on the devil, not this yuppie movie Doom.)
Monster-in-Law. There was use of Horescopes (sic again, would you please use a spelling and grammar checker?) and tarot cards towards the beginning of the movie.

(Dove missed a big occult rating for Because Of Winn-Dixie. The only way a dog can smile that massively creepy smile is through demonic possession.)

OTHER
(the category where they stick whatever they don't stick elsewhere)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The film mocks religion through a zanny (sic, sic, sic!!!) "church service". There is talk about God and his mistakes. (OK, you explain malaria. I can't.)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Two effeminate men walk dogs; Loompas worship cocoa beans. (I told you they needed a "homophobia" category! Add the first one to that, and the second one to "occult". Dove, I offer my services as a tech writer to help you out, if you can meet my hourly rates.)

DAVE STROM'S RATING OF THE DOVE FOUNDATION

I will stick with Dove soap instead, since that will actually clean when used as directed.

I have nothing against rating a movie on kid-friendliness. That is a good idea. But Dove bases their ratings on their version of Christianity. Non-Christians have families also. Buddhists are not grown in test tubes.

P.S. I have seen a cleaned up version of the movie Repo Man, and replacing "fuck" with "flip" sucked 90 percent of the humor out of it. Mark Twain said it best: "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."

P.P.S. For those of you who say that Repo Man and its swearing-stuffed script is not steak, I quote Yukon Cornelius from Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer: "You eat what you like and I'll eat what I like!"

Cinequest is over.

Saw lots more movies.

God and Gays: Bridging the Gap. I liked this. It is an interview type movie, without the obligatory interview with homophobes. This is good for my blood pressure, although my imagination does not get a workout when I can dream of ways to skin homophobes alive and then pour salt on them, and laugh hysterically as they scream and dissolve. Anyhow. The most interesting, and most sympathetic character, is an older woman whose lesbian daughter had died, and the older woman had not reconciled before the death. The older woman is now heading a group to help gay Christians. She has lost a lot; most of her former friends will not speak to her now that she lost her homophobia. (Where's the salt?) My only nitpick: it needs titles to show the subject matter of the interviews. I suggested that to one of the filmmakers.

Sound Man. Great! Any movie with clips of Les Paul is going to be good. And the history of sound recording, with lots of interviews with musicians? Wonderful.

The Ape. Very good. One of the writers has written for Spongebob Squarepants, and I could see some of that humor here. But this is adult, and the ending is not happy. A great study of a would-be writer.

Hard Scrambled. A wonderful surprise, about a guy working at a diner who used to break legs for a living. Starring Kurtwood Smith (remember him from Robocop?), and he was excellent. His phone conversation at the start to a guy who wants to intimidate someone is perfect. An unexpected twist at the end. Great characters. And I just happened to see it because I happened to be around. Life is nice sometimes.

Little Athens. Interesting study of several loser kids. But an unhappy ending that is not necessary at all. Random bullets are almost always gratuitous.

Shorts Program 4: Animated Worlds.
Mysterious Geographical. Excellent. Fantastic imagery done with black cutout-type figures, and a very compelling story, and a grand sacrifice at the end.
The Flooded Playground. Bored me. If I want to see a baby's view of the world, I can watch Teletubbies, and that is a more interesting program anyhow.
The Boy Who Feeds Cats. Depressing. Don't need that. And I don't need to see someone die from mouse turds either. That's just gross.
Fumi and the Bad Luck Foot. EXCELLENT!!!! A great story of taking a weakness and turning it into a strength. The creator of this said he based it on a friend who seems to actually have a bad luck foot.
Maestro. A little tedious, and I guessed the ending easily, but still got a laugh from the audience and a smile from me.
John and Michael. Ok I guess, but dead brother stories are way common, and need to be exceptional, and this was not.
Message from the Boss. Pretty good. Really classy animation. But the song went on a bit long.
Legend of the Scarecrow. This story hooked me, and I did not think it would when it started. A fable about crows and scarecrows. Great story.

Shorts Program 6: Seens.
Wood Diary. Bored me a LOT, and I HATE closeups of drool. That is not something that needs to be blown up 20 feet high.
A Lineman's Cabin. Wonderful photography of green plains. I did not think I would go for longer silent scenes, but they worked perfectly here. And a twist at the end.
Life Ride. A Twilight Zone type story with a nastily great sense of humor.
Transaction. Did not care much for it when I saw it, but the memory improves as time passes. I bet I might like it better if I saw it again. A simple transaction between a prostitute and an older man, based on interviews with an actual prostitute.
The King Hunt. Got just a little irksome for a short time, but it had a great ending of a guy picking himself up and not letting a fall hurt him.
Hiro. Great characters, great story, great laughs, great ending, great visuals. What more could one ask?

Shorts Program 5: Cineverses.
Up on the Rope. Got in late, did not see it. Might try to find it online.
Against Nature. Ugh. Some vomit, and a snotty main character who gives writers a bad name. I wanted to set him on fire.
Phantom Limb. Phantom script. Another dead brother story. Makes babies look icky. Closed my eyes during the amputation and birth scenes. Not that I can't take that, but why in the hell should I? I don't have to clean my plate anymore, especially if the food turns rancid.
Uso Justo. Funny! Best satire of pretentious experimental film ever! I hope the creator gets the rights to the footage he used for this.
Five Minutes, Mr. Welles. Went on a little bit long. But a marvelous ending! And the actor playing Orson Welles was perfect.

I also liked the forums. Picked up some business cards (sure, I have an ulterior motive, maybe I can get a tech writing gig out of this). I really hope short videos take off online. I will be exploring that, both for my tech writing career and my video hobby. Very inspiring. Although it will be some time before I can afford an HD video camera. Since I can't process that on my Mac anyhow, it does not make a lot of difference now. Eventually, I will move up to HD. I am also inspired by the discussion of distribution of independent videos/movies (hobby and career inspired). This is gonna be great stuff.

OK, I will see about trying the video downloads on Cinequest.org, although I think I can't watch them on my Mac (lousy Windows protected media). I will find out. There is stuff out there I have not seen.

Cinequest post #1

I have just started going to Cinequest (the San Jose film festival). I went to the following:

Shorts Program 1: Hit the Ground Laughing
My faves:

• K-7: the ultimate tense job interview.
  
• The Racist Brick: short , funny, to the point.


• The Awesome Robots vs. Transformo: I do like a wacky comic book satire.


• Zombie-American does a neat take on those personal documentaries.


• Heck, I liked all of them.

Shorts Program: After Hours Mindbenders (and my mind did get kinda bent; this was from midnight to after 2am)
I liked:

• Chingaso the Clown, a bad-ass homage to clown vigilantes.


• Lucky, another short-and-to-the-point short, perfect length, perfect setup, perfect ending.


• Phone Sex Grandma: who would think that a grandma swearing a blue streak over the phone would be so funny?


• Home Delivery: pretty good, a tad long, good animation.

I did not like:

• A through M (there is a scene where a guy knows he is going to bite the big one, and he has a big rack of nasty surgical instruments within easy reach, and then the mope lets guards stomp up to him and beat him up as a prelude to killing him. Sabu from The Thief of Bagdad once said "If I am going to die, then I would dare anything!" Take a lesson, dude! You are SLOW.


• The Second Death: Night Gallery did this better, and did not use teddy bears as monsters, and did not put a guy in a dress for NO REASON AT ALL.


• Keep It Real, Dawg: Coulda been good if it was about 1/3 the length.


• The Marionette. I despise when the bad guys win. To slightly paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy): "There is enough misery in the universe already. Why make up more of it?"

And I don't remember the other mindbending shorts so well that I will document them, cuz it is after 4 in the morning now (arrived home after 3am, and had to blog).

The movies:
Chalk is a great take on teachers. I hope new teacher Nephew Eric sees this. Shown with Super Power Blues. With great power...

Looking forward to more of this. This stuff inspires me. I actually sent in a short I did, but it seems I am not up to their level yet. I will get there. (Helps my skill set also; I am learning video software, a booming market).

The problem with iPod Hi-Fi

No video out. And I thought Apple was getting into video with the video iPods.

I just got back from the Stanford Newton User Group. One of our wiser and very tech-savvy members pointed out that a lot of people have crappy speakers in their TVs. The iPod Hi-Fi will give great sound for iPod songs. This member said that one cheap vieo out jack it would have provided great video for iPod videos. And the iPod Hi-Fi already costs $350. What would a video out jack have cost? A couple of bucks?

This member also pointed out that since the iPod Hi-Fi can run on batteries, it might have been nice to be able to carry it without the iPod falling out of the dock on the top.

My comment? When people get enough videos on their iPods, they will want to see them on something other than the tiny iPod display. One lousy video jack woulda done that now.

Networking Mac OS 8.6 to OS 10.4.4...

...was a bit harder than it sounds. I was doing this for a friend of my barber, who needed his business moved to a G5 iMac (OS 10.4.4) from a beige PowerMacintosh G3 (OS 8.6). (The Intel iMacs do not run Classic applications; good thing he bought the G5.) I failed the first time, although I got everything else done, like fixing his DVD player and Sony Playstation setup, and installing Classic on his iMac G5. I found that the OS 8.6 Mac had no Firewire or USB; I needed an Ethernet crossover cable.

Also, I found a very helpful document referenced on the Apple discussion board on how to connect OS 9 to OS 10.3 with Ethernet. Minor changes to this for 8.6 and 10.4.4.

Also, on the OS 8.6 Mac, I had to make Ethernet show up in the TCP/IP and Appletalk Control Panels by turning on Apple Enet in Extensions Manager.

Also, OS 10.4.4 cannot see OS 8.6, but OS 8.6 can see OS 10.4.4. I made the connection from OS 8.6. (I turned on File Sharing in Extension Manager, and then turned on File Sharing, but since I was on OS 8.6 looking at 10.4.4, I bet that I did not need 8.6 File Sharing turned on.)

Also, the password on the iMac had to be 8 characters or less, since OS 8.6 did not understand a longer password. We had to shorten that.

Also, well, then I made the connection. It felt pretty good, considering that this is a connection few people make. It was not trivial.

I installed the Classic apps he wanted and moved all his data (I believe I got all his old email data moved; he now gets email on the iMac). He had a customized version of FileMaker; it ran fine under Classic. His Quicken files run OK under the Quicken supplied with OS 10.4. I must say that Apple did a good job on the PowerPC OS X Macs to get Classic apps to run.

One chunk of data remains: his Palm desktop. His Palm III has no USB. Looks like a job for special cables; I did this with a Palm III clone. I better hurry; the power button on his Palm III is badly cracked.

Another also: He had me reduce his iMac screen resolution to 800x600 (ugh), since he likes his old apps to look big. But I showed him how to increase his resolution again.

ALSO, he will now say nice stuff about me. That's always nice.

P.S. Now he does not have to have the SCSI hard drive on his OS 8.6 Mac yanked out. Yes, that is how some places transfer old apps and data.

Changes to my videos

I just hosted my Movie Trailer video using Flash 8. I like it. Flash video buffers well, I can control the size of the video, and the audience sees a little more information about the state of the video download.

My Quicktime videos have a problem. Firefox is not showing Quicktime video. I am checking into that. The problem seems to be on Firefox's end.

I saved my barber's Mac.

I am helping people more and more with their computers. Like when I got a phone call last Saturday from my barber, Lash.

"Dave, I was trying to throw some Google Earth in the trash and then empty it." OK, press Control and then click the Trash icon. "Yeah, I did that." Now click on Empty Trash. "Dave, I get a message that says I can't empty the trash because Safari is in use." Wait, how can that be? Unless Safari is in the trash... LASH, DON'T DO ANYTHING, I AM COMING OVER!!!

Turns out he had accidentally moved his Applications folder in the trash. I untrashed it. I still don't know how that happened. That was scary.

Moral lesson: Be careful when you empty the trash on your Mac. I guess.

P.S. I will see if I learn any lessons when I move info and apps from a Power Macintosh G3 to a G5 iMac over Ethernet (there is no Firewire or USB on the Power Macintosh). Will 8.6 apps run on a 10.4 iMac under Classic? Will the Ethernet connection work? Will Dave escape being slowly lowered into the pit of giant slavering razor-toothed slugs? I will find out Tuesday, when I try to help Lash's friend move his business to his shiny new iMac. (I don't think he has a slug pit in his basement, but I have not checked.)

Correction for my Christmas letter

I had mentioned that Cousin Ben was unable to build a new house due to regulations. Actually, it was due to the cost and time it was taking to do a custom modular house.

Something for me to keep in mind, if I ever try to get a modular house built for me. I should likely avoid custom.

The last of Sledge at St. Cecilia

I am in Slam Diego for a few days. The St. Cecilia building, where I have enjoyed Sledgehammer Theatre for years and years, is being torn down. I came for Sledge's last performances there. As part of the performance, they tore up the stage with jackhammers and sledgehammers.

Tomorrow I go to Disneyland for the first time since high school. Looking forward to that.

Went for a hike and took some video. The 50-year-old hiker.

Dave Strom's Nov 2005 vote endorsement (you know you want it!)

You have waited for this an entire year: my choices for the Nov. 2005 election! Read them. Use them. Reply to them. If I disagree with your reply, I might post something about that. But unlike Bill O'LIE-ly, I will be polite about it.

Here are links to my picks for the California Propositions.

• Proposition 73: NO on Dead Teenage Girls
• Proposition 74: NO on Dose Teachers Cannot Defy Dah Governator
• Proposition 75: NO on Shuddup, Unions; Keep Screaming, Big Business
• Proposition 76: NO on Da Teachers Don't Need Money
• Proposition 77: NO on DeLaying Our Voting Districts
• Proposition 78: NO on Discounts If Drug Companies Feel Like It; 79: YES to Help The Poor
• Proposition 80: YES on No More Enron

Here are links to my picks for the San Mateo issues.

• Measure A: San Mateo Community College District (another bond initiative)
• San Mateo County Community College District Members, Governing Board
• San Mateo Union High School, District Members, Governing Board
• San Mateo-Foster City School District Members, Governing Board
• City of San Mateo Members, City Council

Ok, now my blog shows the correct number of comments.

Guess it took a day or so to update. But I will leave my previous posting in place to show that I do not believe in hiding my mistakes (even if this was not much of a mistake). Maybe I can find ways to speed that process...

I am writing my endorsements. Propositions are fairly easy. The hard parts are local ballot measures, and local candidates. Time to hit the web.

P.S. Finished deciding on my votes (unless I change my mind), and wrote my first draft. So I will post soon. Found a new local nutcase on the ballot.

A little bug with Blogger.

I nuked another comment off my blog, since it was a comment that had nothing to do with what I said in my blog, and everything to do with trying to get people to look at some site about golf supplies. (Years ago, I kept getting spammed by a guy trying to sell me golf balls in bulk. A change from the usual porn or get-rich-quick spam, but still spam.)

My Sept. 14 post shows that it has one comment. But if you click on it, you'll see that I nuked the comment. As I was going up the stairs, I met a man who was not there. He was not there again today. I wish, I wish, he'd stay away!

How did my blog come to this? First, I deleted the comment, without clicking the "Remove comment forever?" checkbox. Then the post still said I had a comment. Then I went back and clicked that checkbox; comment count still 1. First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is.

I will be paying more attention to who is posting this blog spam in my blog. (I should look up the proper term for blog spam. And I need to set a time limit for when people can post comments.) I expect I will get some real comments when I post my picks for the election.

Nuked first comment, cooler lap, election endorsements soon

Just removed the first comment from my blog because it had a "hey, lookit my porn/gambling/piece-of-garbage link in it. This happened to my old blog also (deleted it from there also). Hey, you jerks trying to climb higher in Google searches. Stay off of my lawn!

I bought a new toy: a Laptop Desk and MouzPad. Bought it online from Staples (along with a USB 2.0 cable to get free shipping). Takes the heat off my lap. Now if I just line it with tinfoil, it will also ensure I can still have babies. (I receive no money from this post. Hmph, I can't give it away forever.)
link to the laptop desk

I wil post my endorsements for the 2005 election soon. Stay tuned: same Dave-Aye blog, same Dave-Aye channel! (Boy, does that ever date me.)

Random TV notes

I absolutely cannot believe that Ashley Simpson was on Saturday Night Live last night. I TiVoed it; it also had the star/creator of Napoleon Dynamite as the host. And Ashley? Maybe SNL's logic was that I might want to watch a train wreck. Saw most of Ashley's first set; a whiny song about her previous SNL appearance. And what's with the blonde hair (unless that's the original color, and if so, make up yer ditsy mind!)? Ashley, jump back in the oven, you ain't done yet. (The host was funny. He stumbled slightly on a line once, but he recovered immediately. He knew what "live" meant; Ashley doesn't.)

Richard Roeper gave a thumbs down to the new Wallace and Gromit flick. On rottentomatoes.com, 95% of movie critics give it a thumbs up. Cousin Ben never liked this guy. I am beginning to understand why. Siskel and Ebert knew/know that good critics don't hold themselves above the audience.

Dave Aye at the San Diego Film Festival

Brian and I have been going to the San Diego Film Festival this weekend. Best film so far: the short film "West Bank Story," a spoof of West Side Story showing a conflict between a Jewish fast food joint and an Arab one. Lots of dancing, lots of singing, lots of laughs. http://www.westbankstory.com/

Worst one, in my opinion: one with a rape scene where the guy knocks the girl down, gets on top of her, holds her hands down, does it to her, and says he loves her. Yeah, right. I have seen that type of scene a thousand times before, and it gets suckier every time. If you are gonna do a rape scene, bring something new to the table. (I am not bothering to find a URL for this one.)

Same thing if you have long silences in your film. Few directors could do that. Hitchcock was one (and he always was building to something with them). Can you think of any other such director right now? I can't. In this film fest, the best films were from directors who knew that you have only so much time in your film, so they delivered as much content as they could in the precious time they had. Unless you are a Hitchcock, silence is lazy. (Think about it: does a script with "Character stares into space for 3 minutes" sound interesting?)

Another wonderful comedy short: Day of the Grackle (http://www.gracklefilm.com/). A live action cartoon. Check it out. Well, check out the trailer.

I am gonna find out what it takes to enter a film short into such a film fest. I love film fests. I love comedy film shorts. I saw lots of good ones. And I am making my own. Check my video page for my Movie Trailer short (and more to come).

Saw a good film at the fest this evening: Trudell, about a Native American political activist/musician/poet/writer. http://www.trudellthemovie.com/ (Watch out; this web site likes to expand and take over your screen space.) Very good, except for the Q&A session. Some guy started talking about "sacred feminine." Since I have had to study The DaVinci Code for the book I am working on, I have read that phrase way too many times. If I see or hear it one more time, I am gonna puke.

My attempt to boogie-board on Thursday was a bust. Waves were too low. But the ocean is still beautiful.

OK, don't feel like writing anything else. So here it goes to posting.

Now my barber's Mac is the master.

It is now Darth Vader to my iBook's Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He had a wimpy G4 Powermac tower; 450 Mhz G4 CPU, 20 gig HD, 350 MB ram, DVD reader. He wanted to be able to burn DVDs.

We decided between upgrading this Mac or buying a new one. The decision: we took it to We Fix Macs, and did a BIG FAT UPGRADE.

Now my barber's Mac is Darth Vader to my iBook's Obi-Wan Kenobi.

He now has a Muscle Mac: 1.5 GHz G4 CPU, 120 gig HD, 850MB, Superdrive. (Well, a muscle mac compared to most other G4s.) And he took his 17 inch flat panel display from his home and plugged it into this one. Oh yeah, he also has OS 10.4 (Tiger) and iLife 05. This Mac is fast, fast, fast. I cannot believe how FAST it starts up. I know I will help him burn a few DVDs; bet it will be FAST about that also.

That beats my iBook: 800Mhz G4 CPU, 60 gig HD, 1.2 Gig MB ram, Superdrive. Good enough for me now, and for a year or more beyond. But not good enough to keep a twinge of envy out of my head when I see my barber's Mac. The master.

Maybe in a year or more, when I have to replace my iBook with a MacIntel laptop, I might want a Powerbook instead of an iBook. Maybe. I have a year or more to decide.

(My first rather autobiographical blog post. Whee.)

Ann Coulter really is a dumb blonde, after all.

And I have never known one. Really, how dumb do you have to be to put a line like this in your column:

"(T)he savages have declared war, and it's far preferable to fight them in the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York -- where the residents would immediately surrender."

What was she trying to say? "I upside-down-heart NY?"

Coulter canned

However, in the Arizona Daily Star, she is being replaced by Tony Snow. To quote from the TV show "I, Claudius," it is still the Lady Messalina (at that paper). Worse, it's the Lady Messalina with brains!

My new blog.

That's right, I decided to restart my blog. Nothing special to post right now. I just want a blog that is on a BIG FAT commercial type server, where it won't be attacked by little hacking weenies like the other server my Cousin Ben was running. (Sorry, Ben.) So let's see how this one works.