There's at least one good thing to be said of S1m0ne: It proves that it's director, Andrew Niccol, has a vision driving his films. Too bad that vision only extends as far as their shiny, faux Euro look. In S1m0ne (I'm only writing it that way instead of using the less pretentious Simone in hopes it will catch on with the kiddies; you know, the ones who spell "pr0n" instead of "porn"), Niccol's Hollywood looks more like an over-toned fax of Cinecittà with its always elegant, monotone clothed crowds, its sleek European cars, its eerily empty streets (specially in the scenes at the studio where Al Pacino's Victor Taransky works; shouldn't they be bustling with activity, or has the economy hit studios that hard?), the Bergman-manqué films starring synthespian Simone...

This kind of production design was an inspired touch back in Niccol's Gattaca, where he lifted Alphaville's look for a future of genetic predestination and interplanetary travel. But if S1m0ne was meant as commentary on Hollywood's factory of the ersatz, couldn't Niccol have set it in a world that didn't look so... artificial? After seeing this film, I think I should finally open that copy of Connie Willis' Remake I left lying around somewhere.

Over at Gnosis, Morgan declares SUVs a fad as ridiculous as cigars.

...Most people climbing into or out of an SUV look just as ridiculous as a man in a suit savoring a large burning phallus in his mouth, all the while thinking he looks cool.

Which made this personal joke jump to mind:

Freud Tobacco
Because sometimes a good cigar is just a good cigar

But I agree with everything else he said on SUVs.

Visiting my mirror at Nuzee today (you know, for grins and giggles), I've found that Scott Rosenberg and el Señor Farr made an impression on them:

Design and programming Copyright © 2000-2002 by Nuzee.com
The content (the actual words and pictures) is owned by the respective publishers; their copyright notice is presented when provided

Yes, they now disclose that they are not the owners of the content. Some things are still missing though:

• The weblogger's copyright is not displayed on the center of the page, right above Nuzee's. It is still shifted to the left, which makes it less obvious, and is still missing the © sign.
• Apparently, Nuzee is parsing the feed and leaving spaces after hyperllinks and text in bold and italics. Bad design!

They probably need another tongue lashing in order to address these issues.

I've updated some stories on this weblog to reflect the new design:

• Who are you? (Linked on the left)
• Listen to the grapevine (Linked on the left)
• "Blog" Deemed A Real Word By William Safire
• "Blog" watch: A (selective) reader

There was no reasoning with him (or Him, apparently). No room for error. No possibilitiy that God was merely aggravated, or peeved. In the world where he lived, the Messenger had but one purpose - to warn any and all that we were evil and going to Hell because God was mad. He said it without malice, even sounding a little sad as he pronounced my eternal damnation. He also denied the allegations of his family; that he hadn't taken his medication for the last three days.

From No Code — Comfort Care Only, Dave's retelling of his encounter with God's Messenger. If I had been the one who had to listen to the Messenger's screams, I'd probably had bugged out.