From a Kodak technical support page:
Among precautions that travelers can expect will be the increased use of new, high-intensity x-ray scanners for checked baggage and hand-carried baggage. Passengers should be aware that these high-intensity x-ray machines will fog and ruin all unprocessed film of any speed, whether exposed or not. Kodak recommends that air travelers do not carry unexposed or unprocessed motion picture film.
I wonder if computer hard drives will be affected as well.
Wipers box set released. Original 1981 cover art restored with credit given to which dig med tre'er ?
collateral (bird) damage
I thought we covered this at some point, but I can't find it now, and the Wheel just sent the story to me again, so, for all you debunking fans, here's the current wisdom on the "secret meaning" behind the Twelve Days of Christmas.
I decided to brave the holiday crowds and check out Lord of the Rings today. There is a lot of information, verbal and visual, blowing past you fairly quickly, but fortunately I had a teenager and his older sister sitting directly behind me, keeping a loud running commentary. In a scene where Sam comforts Frodo after a battle with the forces of darkness, the woman said, "Look at the little elf, huggin' his friend." After a furious limb-amputating fight between Aragorn and an Uruk-hai (half-man/half-Orc), the kid said "That shit was dope!" And at the end of the film, which leaves us with Sam and Frodo descending to the marshes on their fateful trip to Mordor, the woman announced to everyone within earshot. "This is so ghetto! I paid ten dollars to watch two hobbits walk down a hill!"

I enjoyed the movie, even though half of the dialogue sounds like it's coming from the gods of Asgard in Lee & Kirby's Mighty Thor comics. The monsters are great--real Ray Harryhausen stuff. The film actually does a better job of explaining the story's main hook: why Frodo must go to Mordor, and destroy the Ring, even with all these powerful men and supermen around. In the book, it seemed too obviously flattering to the adolescent reader to have the little guy be the center of the quest. In the movie, you're much more palpably aware of how corrupting the Ring is to men and even Wizards. Frodo's seeming genetic ability to resist makes the choice not just logical but inevitable.

Also, apropos of nothing, Orlando Bloom, who plays Legolas the Elf, could be the next Leonardo di Caprio, on the basis of matinee-idol looks alone. He was my personal favorite Quester (I know, I'm an arrested adolescent). In one scene he pulls several arrows in rapid succession from his quiver, firing them off so rapidly you can't figure out how he gets them in the bow. It isn't a special effects shot (could be a stunt double though); in any case, this human Gatling-gun routine has to be seen to be believed. (Maybe you already have seen it; I don't know if it's in the TV trailer or not).

Lance Loud, of An American Family fame, is dead.
Typical year-end list from the Post, but I was struck by this item:
GOOFIEST ITEM IN A DISH: Popcorn - actual popcorn - in $14.50 corn-and-lobster soup at the Carlyle Hotel restaurant. It's even less successful than it sounds.
AKA used popcorn (successfully, I thought) in a corn soup earlier this year. I thought it was novel, but I guess it was a trend. Or was it a ripoff? Or is there any difference in the food world? Inquiring minds want gossip, not gastronomy.
Thomas Frank (the Baffler) has a funny op-ed on John Walker in the NYT today. In reply to all the conservative scolding about Walker being a product of "liberal values," Frank argues that "born in the 1980's, John Walker grew up in a time when American conformity was the lamentation not of pampered professors but of Madison Avenue and the cutting-edge management gurus."

Frank continues: "It is from TV commercials for sneakers and S.U.V.'s that we learn of the horror of American sameness, and the freedom and personal authenticity that await us when we fire up a Macintosh or zoom away in a Honda CR-V. Extremism in the pursuit of intensity, the ad men tell us, is no vice. John Walker's generation was encouraged to use 'extreme' cordless drills, buy its Dodges from an extreme used car dealer and catch its trout with an extreme fishing rod. Just for them did ecstatic TV hipsters steer their sedans up Himalayan peaks in search of the phattest possible brand experience. Maybe the boy Talib is simply an attentive consumer, his ill-fated affair with extreme Islam merely a twisted continuation of his search for the weapons-grade authenticity promised him so many times by manufacturers of bell-bottom jeans and lemon-lime soda."

a tree grows...
Recounted Out
It is with the saddest heart that we must pass on the
following news.

Please join us in remembering a great icon of the
entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died
yesterday of a yeast infection and complications from
repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71. Doughboy was
buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of
celebrities turned out to pay their respects,
including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the
California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess
Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The gravesite was piled
high with flours. Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy
and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never
knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly
in show business, but his later life was filled with
turnovers. He was not considered a very "smart"
cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked
schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he
still, as a crusty old man, was considered a roll
model for millions. Doughboy is survived by his wife,
Play Dough; two children, John Dough and Jane Dough;
plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by
his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 Minutes.
pornado report : digitalmediatree make-over
Dangerous Dancing
"what would Baudrillard say ?" 9/27/01
ouch!
the first list of British IFAs, or Important Fungus Areas
5 wtc 360 cams
post-martha
megway sales soar!
Celebrity Chefs Dish Up Dinner Party Neurosis
The Daily Telegraph London
Richard Alleyne
December 14, 2001

THE great British tradition of the dinner party is coming under threat from an unlikely source: unrealistic cooking standards set by celebrity chefs, a survey shows.

Culinary experts such as Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Ainsley Harriot are undermining the public's confidence and giving rise to a phenomenon known as Kitchen Performance Anxiety.

The survey carried out by Prof David Warburton, of the University of Reading, showed that more than two thirds of the public had stopped giving dinner parties because of the pressures.

Most people still holding them said they were often more stressful than a first date or an interview. One in eight people felt such anxiety when entertaining friends that it made them physically ill.

Prof Warburton said: "Cooking for guests has always caused slight worry and some `butterflies' because it is natural to want to give guests the best one can.

"Unfortunately, my research shows that for many people it had moved beyond this and they had become tremendously stressed because they burdened themselves with irrational and unrealistic expectations of their cooking skills.

"For these people `butterflies' can become physical sickness and nervousness can become extreme irritation and impatience. They may even avoid giving dinners altogether."

More than a thousand people were interviewed in the survey, which was commissioned by Piat d'Or, the winemaker.

Prof Warburton defined Kitchen Performance Anxiety as the fear of one's cooking and entertainment being judged and evaluated negatively by other people, which would lead to feelings of embarrassment, inadequacy, humiliation and the avoidance of entertaining.

But there was some relief for the party-giver. Ninety per cent of those interviewed said good company and good wine were more important than good food.
The Work Dogs : 8:00 pm, Friday December 21 st. @ Max Fish on Ludlow st / new album release party and proformance.
Feedmymeter.com is a New Orleans project that sells advertising to raise money to feed expired parking meters. A flyer is left on the saved car explaining what was done. Included on the flyer are the ads, of course. Genius. Take that Rita.

A usually reliable on such matters friend of mine swears there was a court case in New York City which outlawed feeding a meter for someone else. Can anyone confirm that?
In feeble defense of A Night on Earth, I thought Roberto Begnini's segment was very funny and I loved the guys from Finland. Jarmusch was still (partway) in his "people staring into space for long stretches of time" mode when he made that. I like Dead Man and Ghost Dog much better.
I don't really have much to say in defense of Winona Ryder, as an actress or star. I think I share a lot of guys' taste that she's cute, but also ironic and a little bit "off" and therefore more appealing than the usual bimbo sex symbol. But that's totally subjective and has little to do with acting ability.
Could this be true?
Michael Moore was the keynote speaker at the convention of NJ Citizen Action which I attended this past Saturday. He told the assembled audience of 100+ people that his publisher HarperCollins had informed him that they will not be selling/distributing his new book "Stupid White Men and Other Excuses for the State of the Nation" --already printed -- because the content is offensive. He reported that the publisher also told him that he (Moore) is being "intellectually dishonest" not to state that GW Bush has done a good job in the last few months. Moore said that he has been told that the book will NOT be distributed as is, will be destroyed, and that if he will rewrite AND pay for the repinting of the book Harpercollins will publish the new version!!.
I know he's been accused of embellishing the facts before, but this sounds like it might have happened.
"what, its not free? but im a celebrity."