Category: Personal

So here’s the thing. I’m sitting in a talk about spam, and the guy giving the talk is running over various HTML tricks spammers use to get spam past mail filters. A guy stands up and says “So obviously the trick is to block all email with HTML in it!”

That’s just stupid. First off, it ignores reality. I don’t live in a world in which I can block all HTML email for all my users; neither do most sysadmins. Second, this is very clearly a talk for people who live in that world. If the context of the talk allowed for blocking all HTML email, then there would be an obvious solution and the talk would take about five minutes.

But you know. He got his cheap laughs, har har har.

Yeah, I pretty much want all of this. Thanks!

I kinda think I haven’t found the heart of Atlanta yet. I took MARTA up to the Buckhead station, and found a wasteland of shopping malls, alleviated only by a Borders with a stunningly friendly woman behind the counter. Midtown was nicer this morning — the Flying Biscuit is a short walk from the train station, and they do an awesome breakfast. Even if they only have turkey bacon. So maybe Midtown is the right place to be, but there weren’t all that many pedestrians. Hard to figure.

People are authentically nice. You can tell because they aren’t just nice to you; they act in a manner which expects niceness back. I was walking past Piedmont Park and a guy in his twenties said “Hey, excuse me?” He was in the middle of parking. He wanted help parallel parking so he wouldn’t ding the bumper of the car behind him. That’s pretty nice, and he assumed I’d be nice and help out, so I did.

(He had three feet in front of him. A Bostonian would have been embarassed to ask for help in a situation like that. There’s some kind of tradeoff here.)

In any case, I have the pleasure of having gone from this:

To this:

The latter is Grady High School’s football stadium, by the by. It is the alma mater of Earthwind Moreland, New England Patriot.

My pal Jamie’s doing a music exchange — burn a CD with your favorite songs of all time on it, send it to everyone on the list, you know the drill. In one of those fleeting moments of personal revelation I sometimes indulge in, here’s mine. (Yeah, that’s a pretty weak excuse for personal revelation.)

I’m going to be in Atlanta for LISA from November 13th to the 19th. Anyone else gonna be there? Dinner?

My schedule for the BFFF appears to be something like this:

Thursday, 10/14

Saw (9:30)

Good buzz on this. (Buzzsaw. Heh.) It’s a low budget horror flick starring Cary Elwes with a claustrophobic one-room setup — the gimmick is a serial killer who always convinces his victims to kill themselves. I was hoping this would drift through Boston sometime.

Friday, 10/15

Infernal Affairs (7:30)

The hot Hong Kong police thriller of the moment. The premise: both the mob and the cops planted an undercover agent in the opposite ranks. Fifteen years later, violence ensues. This series replaced the Young and Dangerous movies as the top Hong Kong action series, which is kind of unsurprising since they share the same director. I liked Young and Dangerous a lot and I’m gonna like this too. It’s currently being remade by Martin Scorsese with Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio; the remake is set in Boston and centers on the Irish mob rather than the triads. You can feel the Boston mob movie trend juggernaut gaining steam, can’t you?

Alive (9:30)

SF action flick from Ryuhei Kitamura. I have heard depressing word of mouth on this one, but his zombie samurai movie (Versus) was superb and I loved the trailers for his historical samurai movie, Azumi. So I may well see it anyhow.

Saturday, 10/16

Five Children and It (3:00)

The BBC thought this was hopelessly twee. But, you know, so was the book and I love it to pieces. Also, Eddie Izzard is not to be missed. So I could pretend that I don’t want to see this but I would be lying.

Appleseed (7:30)

I’m not a huge anime fan but I probably want to see this anyhow, in the interests of exposing myself to new goodness. Giant mecha fighting in the future? OK!

The Bottled Fool (9:30)

Yeah, I dunno. This sounds quite honestly like the kind of lengthy dragging Japanese psychological drama I don’t enjoy. But I’m curious. Film Threat liked it in a tentative way.

Perdita Durango (midnight)

Far as I can tell, nobody liked this. Oh well. Quasi-sequel to Wild At Heart, which is about the biggest weight on the “see it” side of the scales. My decision on this will be based on stamina.

Sunday, 10/17

Freeze Frame (7:30)

This hasn’t been anywhere on my radar — I kind of suspect it of being an average thriller that I wouldn’t care about if it were a Hollywood production. I like the idea of a man who films everything he does to provide an alibi for himself, though; it’s very David Brin and it might well be enough of a framework to hang a movie on.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (9:30)

I’m big-time excited about this. I did not so much like this director’s next movie, Old Boy, but hey — maybe it was the viewing conditions, maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood, and maybe Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance won’t be as much transgression for the sake of transgression. And Old Boy was certainly technically exceedingly proficient.

Monday, 10/18

A Tale of Two Sisters (7:45)

Not the incredibly awful looking Adam Rifkin movie. Rather, more Korean horror, influenced by Japanese post-millenial horror. Two girls return from a mental institution to their family home, where their father and cruel stepmother await. South Korea’s film industry is well worth investigation, so I’m looking forward to this.

Gozu is playing down at the Brattle tonight at midnight. Anyone in the mood to see one of the oddest movies of the last few years?

A couple of years ago, I linked to Dave Barry on this date. That suits again. Also this, which makes me sad every time I look at it, and today makes me cry.

In case anyone’s missing my vital GenCon posts and wants to know where they are, they’re over at The 20’ by 20’ Room as follows: Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. If you don’t care about gaming, don’t bother.