Our girl was not bright. She continued dancing for a few minutes, grateful for the impromtu solution, maybe even proud that it was something she thought of all on her own. But what was that part about the alcohol? She remember something alcohol and tender skin . . . it. . .burned! BURNED!

"Like a snippet out of a Hiaasen story," according to the comments. At No Code — Comfort Care Only, David shares the tale of a MacGyver-like improvisation gone wrong. Would call it a great story, if it weren't so painful.

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Turning Mysteries of E-Mail and Technology Into Theater
By George Gene Gustines
August 8, 2002

A new play, "In the Wire," aims both to entertain and to unravel the complexity of technology.

The New York Times presents a write-up of a play which attempts to deliver technical fact and drama while tracing the steps of an e-mail through the electronic ether.

"In the Wire" opens with a projection of a computer screen on which an office worker named Mary is writing — and rewriting — a message to a colleague. But the play does not begin in earnest until she hits Send and her e-mail is tracked through the Internet as it journeys to her co-worker, Bob. Along the way, the audience learns about things like packets (units of data), routers (data transfer devices) and hops (the trips the packets take). "Matthew and I wanted to keep it factually accurate," his brother said. "And Jessica said it needed to be dramatically interesting. Making sure both those things were true was a really big struggle."

...

While Matthew Peskay describes the play as "really experimental," the world it imagines recalls a brick-and-mortar reality. The packets encounter security pat-downs (the nation's airports), high-speed routers (a trendy nightclub) and, in one of the play's high points, an "I Love You" virus (picture a particularly needy friend).

The play will be presented as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. If you have a chance to see, do share your opinion. Sounds as intriguing as last year's presentation of Debbie Does Dallas.

Fellowship of the Ring and Cat People
When great movies make lousy DVDs, and vice versa.
By Bryan Curtis
August 15, 2002

Slate dissects two new DVDs and finds a curious trend: the releases of popular movies (even "great movies," i.e. Lord of the Rings) are packaged with so much advertising material that they in fact become ads for themselves, and maybe the sequel; the Lord of the Rings DVD comes bundled with "three documentaries and 11 short 'featurettes'" devoid of technical or aesthetic insight which only work as previews of the film on the very same disc. Marketing rules.

On the other hand, editions of less succesful films ("lousy movies," i.e. Cat People) get the lion's share of worthwhile extras. Even just a commentary track, if it provides fresh information on how the movie came to be, can throw a new light on its shortcomings and make it interesting.

Have only one bone to pick with Mr. Curtis article: regarding the plethora of trailers on the Lord of the Rings DVD, he comments:

The theatrical trailers on the DVD have the same problem. Fellowship includes nine of them—three from the theater, six from television. Why? With older films, like The Searchers, the trailers make interesting artifacts. But when the movie is only a few months out of theaters, who cares? Plus, as DVD extras, they seem out of place—imagine if before a theatrical screening of The Fellowship of the Ring you were treated to the trailer of … The Fellowship of the Ring.

But even if "the movie is only a few months out of theaters," buying a DVD is commiting it to future viewers who will may those trailers are... "interesting artifacts." They may even make for interesting analysis by marketing students (or just overactive movie buffs) by allowing them to study the differences between each of them.

Then again, if the DVD includes an ad for the upcoming "Extended Edition," it might not reach those future viewers after dumping "this denuded version into the trash."

Some other lousy movies with great extras I can recommend: Rollerball and Bubble Boy. No, really.

Google obsessive: A page from this log shows up in Google. As of this writing, it is the top result for a search on "Driver 8" and "blog."

Joy.

{Later...}

Checking the referrals log have found this page is also showing for a search on "When neighbors attack!" and "lindorff." How do you like that?