October 2004 Archives
In April of this year, I received an email from Netflix informing me that in June they would be raising their rates from $19.95 per month to $21.99 per month. In response, I fired off some hate mail and I'm sure I wasn't the only customer to respond negatively to this news.
Today I received another email from Netflix notifying me that they are subsequently lowering their rates now to $17.99 per month. That's great news, of course, but they still suck for lying to their customers. Because in the email they say:
Since our price increase in June, some of our members have expressed concerns about the new pricing. We've listened to this feedback and are pleased to inform you that we're lowering the price of your Netflix 3-at-a-time program from $21.99 per month to 17.99 per month.
What a load. The real reason they are lowering their prices is not all of the negative feedback they have been receiving since April, it's the fact that Blockbuster announced about a month ago that they would begin offering the exact same service, the exact same package, at the original rate of $19.95 per month, and Netflix customers were switching in droves!
Blockbuster's response to Netflix's announcement? To lower their rate to $17.49. God bless the free market.
The trailer for this movie just screams "chick flick" and I'm no fan of Jennifer Lopez, but thankfully, she doesn't have a major role. Between this one, You Got Served and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, I can't remember a year that saw this many dance movies released since 1984 and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo! I like dance movies, and I liked this one especially. It is a romantic movie, but the it isn't *about* romance -- there is a compelling story at the bottom of it about an average father (Richard Gere) who knows there is something missing from his life, but is embarrassed to tell his wife that he isn't as happy as he thinks he should be. The dancing is top notch and Lisa Ann Walter steals the show as Bobbie.
This one wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be -- your average episode of South Park has more biting satire. As expected, the music was hilarious (especially the Montage song), though probably not Oscar-caliber -- although I didn't believe "Blame Canada" was Oscar-caliber either, so who knows. The marionette work and the "special effects" were certainly intriguing, and it is obvious that an awful lot of work went into making this film, but in the end I found myself wishing that they had spent more time following their penchant for subtle intellectual humor, and less time on the crude locker-room humor. Note to Parker & Stone: curse words are a seasoning, and too much salt spoils the soup. I'll rank this one behind Baseketball, South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, and Cannibal: The Musical. It had its moments, but it just wasn't up to par.
Jimmy Fallon probably doesn't have what it takes to carry a movie. Chris Kattan has discovered this about himself as well, along with a long list of SNL alumni. Queen Latifah turns in a respectable, if unoriginal, performance. She is playing the same urban black woman to the white straight man that she played in Bringin' Down the House, although this movie doesn't rely as heavily on culture clash for laughs -- it delivers on other comedy fronts as well (Patton Oswalt's "Friendster" line is classic!). The action sequences are great, but overall, this movie is very average.
With the 2004 election season looming on the horizon, like a trip to the dentist's office that you simply cannot avoid, I've been thinking a lot lately about the subject of voting. The reality of voting is very different from the popular opinion of same. The perception is that exercising one's right to vote is the single most patriotic thing a person can do. That it is this sacred ritual that defines America and somehow sets her apart from every other nation on Earth. Unfortunately, the historical context of the struggle to bring the vote to the "common man" has bestowed a much greater significance upon voting than it truly deserves.
H.L. Mencken said, "Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." Truer words have never been spoken -- with the possible exception of Churchill when he said, "the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." It is clear from these quotes (and countless others attributed to the Founding Fathers of our nation) that respect for the notion of democracy is far from universal, and rightly so.
As if the Tonight Show's "Jaywalking" segments aren't enough anecdotal evidence to convince us of the collective stupidity of our nation's electorate, behold, scientific evidence of this fact abounds! From the quasi-scientific results of surveys that tell us seventy percent of Americans cannot name their senators or their congressman, to the exhaustively researched papers that assure us that 2.8 million people voted against Al Gore in 2000 because of drought or flooding in their home states.
So if one can manage to ignore that the outcome of any given election is largely decided by legions of morons, and still accept the result as legitimate, then one is forced to face the next truth about democracy: mob rule. Benjamin Franklin said, "democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." Don't let the humor of this statement obscure the deeper truth that it contains. To embrace democracy is to abandon the notion of basic human rights, since any action against another person or group can be legitimized if it is sanctioned by a majority of voters. Witness the practice of slavery in this country's early history. I realize that not every ballot issue represents a violation of human rights (although most do), but it is important for people to recognize that it is the mechanism of voting that makes these violations possible.
Most of the laws, regulations, and bureaucracies that govern our day-to-day lives are rarely, if ever, impacted by a referendum. One could argue that our elected representatives are accountable to the voters for the laws that they are involved in implementing, but there are two problems with relying on this alleged check on the power of legislators. First, the public has a notoriously short memory. The sponsor of an unpopular law may be able to mitigate or completely erase the wrath of his constituents over the period of his term of office. Second, even if his actions were egregious enough to bring about his ouster, the infamous law lives on.
All men are created equal (I will assume that this truth is self-evident). The logical extension of this is that no one has a right to rule over you. Most people would not find a reason to disagree with that statement. However, some will object to the next logical step: while you may delegate your right to rule yourself to someone else, you cannot delegate the right to rule other people to someone else because you yourself do not possess that right in the first place. Delegating the right to rule is a purely voluntary action, and participating in the election process is tacit agreement to the terms of being ruled by someone else. People say, "if you don't vote, you can't complain." However, the exact opposite is true. If you *do* vote, you can't complain because you have agreed to be bound by the results of the election. If you don't participate at all, you are not responsible for the outcome.
On November 2 this year millions of Americans will participate in the grand bit of theater known as an election. I will be interested to see, following all of the "get out the vote" hype, if participation is actually any greater this time than it was four years ago. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that it will be the same as 2000, if not less.
I would love to see the reaction of our politicians the morning after an election where voter turnout approached zero. Just imagine the spin doctors staying up all night trying to explain how their candidates *still* have a mandate to rule over us. How could a president who only received 10 votes legitimately lead this country?
A friend of mine reminded me today of the thing that fat chicks and mopeds have in common: they're both fun to ride until your friends see you. Well, that may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that this bad boy is *fun* to ride! And there's no shame in getting 50mpg on a vehicle that I don't have to pay license fees or insurance on! I figure this thing will pay for itself in about two years.
I ordered it from Extreme Scooters and they were kind enough to email me some simple startup instructions, which is good because the manual that comes with it reads like Chinese. Oh wait, that's because it *is* Chinese.
A word of warning: some assembly is required. I had a little bit of trouble putting the front wheel on this thing. I'm sure my neighbors had fun watching me try to put it together by myself. At one point I closed the garage door in embarrassment.
I looked at probably dozens of different scooters, and settled on this one for a number of reasons, but the main ones were price (roughly $1000+shipping), 4-stroke engine (no messing with mixing oil with the fuel), and disc brakes. It also has a lot of extras -- electric start, theft-deterrent system with remote, beaucoup storage under the seat (although it's still not big enough for *my* helmet -- my head's too big I guess).
If you are lucky enough to live within a couple of miles of work, and are looking for an inexpensive means for getting back and forth, the 50QT-9 is a great way to go.
