Left Coast Gone?

Um, does anyone know what happened to Left Coast Expat? It seems to have disappeared in the couple of weeks since I was able to read it regularly; now all I get is this blogspot error page. Matt, are you out there?

Posted 02:34 PM | Comments (2) | meta-blogging

Enter the Matrix

Posting may be blippy until I finish playing "Enter the Matrix." This is the first "modern" game I've ever played, and it's pretty damned addictive. My last real quality time w/any sort of console game was "Sonic the Hedgehog" on the Sega Genesis system. I think that was in about 1995 and it was a couple of years old then, so this is a major leap in game playing. What Do I Know had an amusing post a while back about how addictive these things can be; I thought he was kidding. Now it looks like I might have to do what he did and expel the thing from my house if I ever want to get anything done.

Of course, I think a big part of the appeal is just that this game is related to the Matrix franchise, which as you know, I'm obsessed with. You may have heard that the game features about an hour of new footage that wasn't in "Reloaded" but which is supposed to fill in holes and add detail to what is in the movie. Those are some of the best parts, and it's fun to play knowing that you might be rewarded w/more movie footage just around the next corner. Yes, some of it seems redundant and none if it thus far has been earth shattering, but two scenes stand out. In the first, a grizzled old man laughs maniacally at Niobe (played in the movie by Jada Pinkett-Smith and one of the main characters of "Enter the Matrix") just as she's about to jack out of the matrix. The man keeps repeating "72 hours," and when Niobe asks what he's talking about, all he'll say is "that's how long the last Zion lasted: 72 hours" (followed by more maniacal laughter). Is this important to the greater story arch of the three films? Maybe. Maybe not.

The other notable scene is a duplication of the scene from "Reloaded" when Persephone (the Merovingian's wife/girlfriend/lover) forces Neo to kiss her like he means it. In the game, Persephone forces Niobe to do the same thing. I guess the W Brothers figured gamers would dig some hot girl-on-girl action? But why duplicate scenes like this? (There's also a lot of similarities between a lot of the scenes w/the Keymaster in both the game on the movie, except in the game the characters interacting w/the Keymaster are Niobe and Ghost instead of Neo, Trinity, and Morpheous.)

Ok, so that's much more than you ever wanted to know about a video game, but in semi-related news, apparently Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) recently pulled jury duty. And in the same surreal vein, Egypt has banned "Reloaded". I guess they don't know the revolution will not be cinematized.

Posted 02:30 PM | Comments (13) | ai movies

Law School Nightmares

This gives me nightmares. I so do not want to have to write like that. I am not unwilling, nor am I unexcited about it; rather, I'm just not unreluctant.

Ick.

Posted 02:14 PM | Comments (1) | law school

Coming Soon

Hey Survivor fans: Jenna in the buff. She's making hay while the sun shines, I guess.

Posted 02:11 PM | life generally

Future Think

What am I going to use a JD for? Well, are all lobbyists evil? Say what you want about Ralph Nader's run for president in 2000 (I've said plenty myself), Public Citizen rocks my world.

Posted 02:10 PM | law general

Bullshit

U.N. Grants U.S. war crimes exemption. (At least it's only for a year, but the U.S. has a history of making sure things like this are permanent, even if it is on a yearly renewal basis.)

Posted 02:07 PM | general politics

Alive and Kicking

Hi. Sorry for the silence at ai. The trusty ai production iBook is now winging its way to Houston for repair -- most likely it will receive a new hard drive and return to me within a few days as good as new. Meanwhile, I'm getting by w/L's trusty Dell Inspiron, which is older than my iBook and is still working w/out problems, so chalk one up to the evil empire. ;-) (Note: When I first started using this machine to surf the web a week or so ago it was crashing 3-5 times/day. I downloaded the Mozilla Firebird browser and quit using Explorer and guess what? No more crashes. Chalk one up for open source!)

Andbutso, the lack of my very own dear computer has meant many things, one of which is no ai posts, though it appears the world has not stopped turning while I:

• Drove a 17-foot U-Haul tornado (which is what it sounded like from inside the cab) halfway -- ok, a third of the way -- across the country towing L's car and all our worldly belongings. L drove some, too. Scratch "truck driver" from the list of things I might possibly want to do for a living in my imaginary romantic future. Not fun.


• Unpacked (mostly).


• Learned that driving anywhere w/in the D.C. metro area takes at least one hour, usually three. Hooray for the Metro! Every time I ride the train I'm fascinated anew by the wonder of public transportation. It works so damn well it's almost a miracle!


• Saw "Gigantic," the huge documentary about They Might Be Giants. We saw it at the new AFI Silver Theatre, to which we happily live quite close. We'll be seeing lots of cool indie films here maybe. Yay!


• Saw Illegal Art, an exhibition of "art that uses copyrighted or trademarked material without permission." Check out the Visuals page for some samples. Don't miss the story of Kembrew McLeod, the University of Iowa professor who trademarked the phrase "Freedom of Expression" and is now apparently suing AT&T for using that phrase in its advertising. Ironies abound. Kieran Dwyer's "Consumer Whore" Starbucks satire is also notable, especially since Starbucks has gone to so much effort to make sure no one sees it. (More on that story here and at Dwyer's site.) Link to the anti-logo and tell all your friends! And hey, "Illegal Art" is heading to San Francisco soon, so if you're there, I recommend it.


• Saw one of Sam Shepard's many great American dramas, "A Lie of the Mind." We also saw "True West" at another DC theatre while visiting sometime last year, so seeing Shepard in DC is becoming something of a tradition.


• Played Texas Hold-Em w/L.'s sister and friends. Lots of lawyers and political activists in the mix, which made for interesting conversation, much of which I mostly stayed out of for fear of outing myself as the leftist radical I think I am. See, strategically I'm thinking I need to try to get along w/people who love Scalia and think the way Yubbledew was placed in office was fair and legitimate. I'm going to be working w/people like this for the foreseeable future, right? So I need to learn to find a way to do that, it seems, without constant battling and flaring tempers. But L. asked a great question after we left: "When does thinking strategically slip into selling out?" Ah yes, it's the question of law school, isn't it? Because law school is a strategic move for me -- it's an attempt to do something from within "the system," rather than from the fringes (academia) where it seemed all I'd ever be able to do was bitch and moan. (No offense to current academics -- that was just how I came to see my future and it has nothing to do w/what you're doing and going to do.) When does strategy become strategery?


• Saw "Coupling" Disc 1 via our brand new NetFlix subscription. Hilarious. The setups for the jokes are often long and layered, leading to huge, belly-laugh payoffs at the end of each episode.

So you see, it's really just all about the entertainment here in summerland. I should be getting a job or something, but, well, I'm well-fed and protected from the rain, so it's kind of hard to be bothered. Perhaps the motivation will strike soon. I moan that all the good jobs are unpaid, but I'm fully aware that's no excuse for sitting on my ass gorging myself on the copious produce of the various segments of the U.S. entertainment industries. I mean, if I'm not going to be getting paid for the next two months, I might as well see if I can help someone out in some way, right?

But until that happens, perhaps I'll just help Unbrand America to make up for some of my consumer guilt. And then, of course, there are all those books I was going to read. After reading Brush With the Law, it's pretty hard to fight the "screw it, I'll worry about it later" attitude w/regard to law school prep. Maybe I'll just ride my bike.

Posted 11:19 AM | Comments (3) | life generally