Long story short – Romy and I were talking on Friday (6/26) about the Ken Burns’ series “Baseball.”

We had watched it; she suggested I buy it….

Later in the evening she looked it up on Amazon, and, yeah, I should purchase it. (Less than $40; but surprised that it was 4:3 [pic format]. It was initially released in 1996…OK…).

OK – I’m an Amazon Prime member (free two-day shipping on most stuff). Whatever.

So, ordered something late Friday, expect it on Tuesday (two biz days).

But when I placed the order late Friday (6/26) (~ 9:45pm), it promised a Sunday (6/28) delivery!

Yikes.

Turned out to be true – ordered the DVD Friday night at approximately 9:45pm; the delivery came on Sunday at about 11:45am.

38 hours. Delivered on Sunday (by USPS). DVD originated from just northwest of Indianapolis. Imagine how much faster it will be when the Amazon Fulfillment Centers in Kenosha, WI (about 50 miles from home, as opposed to Indy shipment, approx. 200 miles away).

Weird new world – I didn’t ask for Sunday delivery (and never expected it), it just came with Prime, I guess.

Just a note about what I’m seeing…

A new version of Firefox appeared today; I installed same.

While I appreciate the security and other fixes, I DO NOT appreciate the install – as part of the base code – of a new part of the browser: Pocket.

Yeah, Pocket sounds interesting, but don’t make it part of a base install of Firefox – make it a trusted add-on, from Mozilla.

Don’t force (non-security) stuff on folks – Again, Pocket sounds interesting. If I really cared, I’d download the add-on.

ALL additions to the browser core can have security issues – more code that can potentially be exploited; it’s the nature of the beast. Don’t make this part of the code base. For security.

ALL additions to the browser core can create overhead that slow things; it’s the nature of the beast. Don’t make this part of the code base. For speed.

Make it an add-on.

And that way, should Pocket become an issue, one can uninstall the add-on, not have to have a new browser with this functionality removed.

That’s the reason I use – for personal use – Chrome on Win64. Just fast, clean, uncluttered.

NOTE: I love Firefox for the way it supports Add-Ons: As a developer, I’d be lost without Firebug & Web Developer; as a person, I’d hate to live without ForecastFox. But don’t put these types of features – like Pocket – in by default, please…

My take. And I “get” Pocket, but won’t (currently) use it.

That’s me.

In light of the recent, horrific train crash in Philadelphia, can we please begin to have a conversation about infrastructure improvement?

Recent reports suggest the train was traveling waaay too fast for the tracks, but even if it was human error, can’t we discuss upgrades to our rail/highway/(and so on) infrastructure?

Now’s a pretty cheap time to do so – borrowing money (yes, increasing the state/federal debts) has never been cheaper, and is soon not going to be that cheap (thanks to the improving economy).

And again – yes, the train was (for whatever reason) traveling too fast. Why can’t our rail system handle higher speeds (because our infrastructure is weak due to slipping funding)? Why aren’t the proven systems of auto-slowing down “too fast” trains in place there (again, lack of funding)?

Infrastructure improvements will cost money, create new jobs, help create an ecosystem where businesses can flourish (by leveraging the great roads/rails and so on).

And – like it or not – this or that bridge/track/highway is going to have to be replaced at some point.

Why not now? Yes, there are pros and cons, which include – of course – political pros and cons.

But can’t we at least have the conversation?

WATCHING:
Bourne Legacy
Starring: Albert Finney, Edward Norton, Jeremy Renner, Joan Allen, Rachel Weisz

Another of those movies that look good in the trailer, but the trailer has all the “good” parts.

Given the star power in this film, it’s a sad waste of talent.

This is just an attempt to do another Bourne movie, but without Matt Damon. Pretty flat, to me.

And the movie allegedly stars Albert Finney & Joan Allen – the former is in a YouTube video in the movie; Allen has literally 2/3 lines (questioned by reporters as she gets in car). I’m guessing these were outtakes from “The Bourne Ultimatum” just cut into the film.

Weakest Bourne movie of the (to date) four, by far.

All movies

Last weekend, we watched two movies that were basically an attempt to cash in on the earlier (somewhat successful) movie “franchises.”

One was sorta good (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit), the other was – in spite of a great cast – meh (Bourne Legacy).

Hollywood – got anything new? It’s all sequels/franchises (Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, Harry Potter and so on) or prequels (what’s reviewed here) or something else pretty much unoriginal.

Iron Man 27?

Spider-man 1,234?

We’re looking at the THIRD installment of StarWars movies.

Yikes.

Sometimes returning to old material works – I really enjoyed all three of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises)), even though Batman movies as a whole have been done to death. Also note that this was a trilogy of sorts, but none of the films felt like it was done just to cash in on the concept – each movie was good alone.

But do we really need another Pirates of the Caribbean movie? (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, due in 2017….).

Another Paul Blart: Mall Cop? (Second film in theaters 4/17/2015!)

WATCHING:
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Starring: Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Peter Andersson

Let’s call this a “prequel” to the Tom Clancy novels-to-movies franchise – Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games – and so on.

It shows how Jack Ryan got into the CIA; OK, that works.

It shows how Jack Ryan met and eventually wedded his doctor wife. Nah, doesn’t work. Anne Archer works as his doctor wife in the later (chronologically) movies; I just can’t see Keira Knightley as a doctor in this flick.

Oddly, Kevin Kostner works in this movie – he’s kind of the James Earl Jones character (Navy/CIA).

NOT as good as any other Tom Clancy-based movies, but not bad. Watchable. Not repeat watchable.

All movies

Look at some of the work David Fincher has done recently: Gone Girl, The Social Network, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. All really strong movies, and all that really have nothing to do with each other. Each stands – strongly – on its own.

Today, we really do seem to have a lot of sequels, prequels, movies based on action heros (comics) and remakes that really didn’t need to be remade (RoboCop, Annie … ).

When something original comes out, it can often just blow our socks off: The Fault in Our Stars, Obvious Child, Her. The latter, especially, doesn’t even fall into any genre bucket (the first two can be considered, in a way, rom-coms).

So, come on Hollywood: Dazzle us again. Less Pirates of the Caribbean and more American Hustle, Julie & Julia, even lighter fare such as Raising Arizona or The Lego Movie. Bring us more of the films that you go into expecting one thing but turn out quite a bit different: Young Adult, Up In the Air.

Just something that’ll – at the very least – keep us entertained (even if in an uncomfortable way – We Need to Talk About Kevin), and not have us know the ending before it begins (I called the whole plot of 27 Dresses before we even saw it [to be fair, in spite of the predictability, it was an entertaining flick. One I’ll never watch again, but…] ).

And take some chances – Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, all of The Station Agent and Million Dollar Baby (except for Morgan Freeman – he’s played that role a million times). Try quirky – sometimes it’ll pay off (Chicken Run, Memento, Juno), and – yeah – sometimes it’ll fall flat (The Way Way Back – trailer looked good; pretty lame). But get out of the formulaic rut.

Is that too much to ask?

Befor the fix

After the fix

Long story short – our plumbing was all clogged up.

Fortunately, it seemed to only affect the washing machine in any significant way (shower & toilet were, mercifully, spared).

So we called out favorite plumber – the first one we actually had success with (Intelligent Plumbing Services) – and had them out for what we all thought would be a simple power-rodding.

Was not to be.

Today, they tore up about a 3×2-foot section of our basement floor to see just what the hell was going on. Fortunately, they were able to identify the problem fairly quickly (broken section of pipe), repair same, and now we are good to go.

Expensive? Sure – the those are the breaks, pun fully intended. And it’s one of those things that needs to be done – it’s not really optional, like being without a toaster oven for a spell.

WATCHING:
Her
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson (voice)

Very interesting movie – set sometime in the future – a man (Phoenix) on the cusp of a divorce finds love with a software program – an assistant (Johansson).

His relationship with the program follows – with some interesting twists – the path his broken marriage has/had taken. First date mentality, getting to know each other more, sex drops off after the Honeymoon period and so on.

And this is juxtaposed with a real first date – with Olivia Wilde – that is a counterpoint for his “dating” his virtual assistant.

Lot going on – Spike Jonze, the writer and director – has left us with a lot of questions in this movie. And that’s good!

One of the reasons that I wanted to see this is to see if they got the tech correct – some home runs, some wiffs (why do you need a key for your mailbox?). Overall, pretty spot on – if one ignores the whole battery issue. (In this movie, devices last forever – no charging).

One other note: The women in this movie – Adams, Wilde – are remarkably make-up free. I guess that’s the nod to “in the cloud” events: Reality is more than the specific event/presence.

All movies

Yes, that’s a pretty ambitious title to this post, but I don’t mean it in an over-arching, comprehensive way.

What do I mean?

Well, as you can see by the embedded review, I saw Her last weekend. One of the reasons I wanted to see it was to see how the movie – set somewhere in the pretty near future – would handle tech. What changed, and how?

Peter Thiel – PayPal’s co-founder – has written famously in a manifesto about how tech has failed us – the manifesto is subtitled: We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters. Valid point.

I don’t know if he mentioned personal jet packs, but – again – a promise unfulfilled.

The movie – and the manifesto – just got me thinking about where we are now vs. where we thought we’d be today.

Just random musings; again, no big manifesto for me.

• Smartphones: Even as recently as 2005 (two years before the launch of the iPhone), I don’t think anyone could imagine that today we’d be walking around with what – in 2005 – passed for supercomputers in our pockets. On our smartphones, we play games, read/send email, read/send text messages, download apps (2005: what’s an app??), listen to music, watch videos – both on the web and stored on the device. Oh, by the way – this smartphone is also a phone.
• iTunes: Using iTunes in the abstract sense. Napster gave us our first taste of free music, and music that was consumed (this is key) song by song. Not via the vinyl/CD model of “albums.” A completely different way of listening to/buying music. iTunes made it easy to pay (very little) for music; Napster died, and iTunes is going strong. Note: streaming will eat iTunes (and similar properties) shortly (Spotify, Pandora, whatever Apple does with Beats….). When? Sooner than you might think….
• iTunes deux: Again, using iTunes in the abstract. Shuffle (first begun with the iPod) has changed the way we listen to music. We don’t listen to “albums,” we listen to songs, VERY often in a random, shuffle way. With vinyl or a CD, you popped in a machine (stereo) and listened to the music in the order the artists set. Not so much any more. I may be an outlier (doubtful), but I listen to iTunes on my computer/iPhone/iPad in shuffle mode virtually exclusively. That’s a big shift from hearing “Dark Side of the Moon” side 1, then flipping over to hear side 2. Good thing/bad thing? I like the choice. YMMV.
• Tesla/beginning of the end of gasoline vehicles?? (Nah, but good start): Tesla Motors is the poster child for non-carbon vehicles, but there’s been a lot of work in this area recently, even if it is less than many would have have expected 20 or so years ago, but there’s some traction now: Tesla, Toyota Prius, Chevy Volt and so on. Let’s have the argument about the carbon footprint of each – really, let’s have that argument: It means progress!
• Robots: People always mis-characterize robots – they see them as sorta human replacements. Maybe the Roomba , but that’s it. What about the Nest Thermostat or Nest Smoke Detector. Robots. Of a different flavor, but robots all the same. Yes, the Internet Of Things is upon us, with all the potential goodness it offers (control your thermostat from work!), as well as the badness (yes, your internet-enabled front-door locks may be hacked….). Robots. Lots of work to do: functionality, security, privacy. Tough needle to thread. We’ll be hearing a lot of more this in the very near future.

For the past decade or so – for various reasons – I’ve been listening to less and less radio.

As a result, I’ve been having a hard time finding new music.

I was thinking about this discovery process (finding new music), and while a fine topic in itself, it made me realize that most of the new music I’ve found over the last 10 or so years has been female-led bands, or female singers/songwriters. The former group, think 10,000 Maniacs, which is nothing without the vocal stylings of Natalie Merchant. For the latter, think Patti Smith or Joni Mitchell.

Some is old, some is new – but all is newish to me.

Some examples:

Mazzy Star
I first stumbled across Mazzy Star on the Stealing Beauty soundtrack (one of my all-time favorite soundtracks; good movie, too).

I can’t recall what caused me to pull the trigger on purchasing an album, but – once I did – I purchased many others. Great sound.

Full disclosure: The band is technically called Mazzy Star, though the lead female vocalist – Hope Sandoval – sometimes goes by that name. I had always thought the female lead, and the real force of the music, was Mazzy Star – like Jethro Tull was the lead singer, not Ian Anderson.

PJ Harvey
There was a guy I used to work who I would swap CDs with: I turned him onto Son Volt, and he turned me onto PJ – Polly Jean – Harvey. She’s a British singer/songwriter in the same wheelhouse as Patti Smith – rock/punk/folk. Not a beautiful voice, but a powerful one.

I don’t know how many CDs of hers I have of hers; whenever I stumble across a new (or new to me) CD, I buy it and have yet to be dissatisfied.

My personal favs are “Is this Desire,” and “Let England Shake.”

New Pornographers
This is a band that is a very collaborative effort, but it would be nothing without the lead vocals of Neko Case (strangely, unlike Natalie Merchant, I like Case’s efforts with the band much more than solo).

The music is a little hard to describe – oh, it’s rock, but more lyrical, almost old-English. Somewhat like some Fairport Convention, and early Richard Thompson (he of the Fairport).

The band’s name has an interesting – if apocryphal – origin: Some uber-Christian leader in the US declared that “rock and roll was the new pornography.” Since the band was producing rock and roll, well, they were the “new pornographers.”

Even if not true, a good story.

Regina Spektor
Another soundtrack discovery – this time two songs on the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack (“Us” and “Hero”).

Got the soundtrack, and then got around to getting some of her CDs after having those two songs stuck in my head.

Spektor – whom I believe was born in the then USSR – is similar to Tori Amos: The basic sound is her voice and her piano, but there are no Corn Flake girls here. Spektor is brash and with brass: heroic odes.

Nanci Griffith
This one’s a little hard to describe – I can’t recall where I first ran across Griffith, but I’ve purchased at least seven of her CDs.

And they get heavy play.

A singer/songwriter, Griffith has an unmistakable country twang – and I hate country/country & western (as a general rule of thumb).

But how can I hate someone who has an album titled “Other Voices, Other Rooms” (the Truman Capote collection of short stories that paved his way to fame)?

She’s just an unassuming and engaging singer.

Years ago – before I had ever heard of her – she was supposed to be the opener at Ravinia (Chicago suburb outdoor music venue), where I think I was to see The Chieftains. But she had to cancel for whatever reason.

Didn’t think a thing about it then – but, today, that would be crushing.

Because Nanci Griffith – country twang and all – is a great talent, and I’d love to see her perform live.

Hey, that’s the way things roll…

Patty Griffin
Much like Nanci Griffith – and don’t get me started on the confusion with spelling – Griffin is a singer/songwriter.

Unlike Griffith, Griffin is a less twangy, more soulful singer. Where Griffith sounds like she’d be great to hear live, Griffin sounds like she’s performing for herself – a inner musical monologue.

And that’s a good thing. Beautiful music full of reality. Rich. Haunting.

I don’t know how I stumbled upon her, but getting each new CD was a delight. So good.

This doesn’t mean I’ve ignored the male-led bands/male singers/songwriters. It’s just that the bulk of purchases for “new” artists have been the above.

Romy and I both had today off, and we decided to go into the Loop for a change (we usually go into Chicago once or twice a year).

As we normally do, we went to the Cultural Center – one of my favorite Chicago buildings – and to the Art Institute of Chicago. There were a couple of photography exhibits that I wanted to see before they ended their runs later in January.

They were OK – no great shakes – but I always enjoy the Art Institute.

After rubbernecking, we went to the Italian Village – a Chicago institution – for lunch. Romy’s eaten there; I don’t recall ever having a meal there, just going to the downstairs bar once or twice. It was very good – Romy had pumpkin-stuff ravioli (not to my taste), and I had the Chicken Marsala, which was excellent.

We took the train in, and there was a holiday train running when we were looking to go home that ran express from the Loop to Mt. Prospect (our stop). We didn’t even know about this, but it worked out perfectly.

Weather was sunny and above freezing (no snow on the ground); wind was minimal.

Nice day. We should do stuff like this more often.

WATCHING:
The Lego Movie
Voices: Frankly, everyone

Fun, smart, silly movie.

A CGI-animated film that is designed to look like a film created by stop-action Lego blocks. Really.

Nice story within the story, as well.

And nods to all sorts of literature and movies: 1984, The Matrix, Ghostbusters, Star Wars…I really had no desire to see this, but I’m certainly glad I did. I’ll have to see it again sometime, just to try to catch some of the things going on at the edges. There seemed to be a lot of that, like in Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Watch the credits, and yes, well done. (Actually IS stop-action animation of Legos – took almost a year to make.)

Believe me: “Everything is Awesome.”

All movies

It seems as though no matter where/when you wander on the web, there are stories about how email is dead, should be dead, will soon be dead and so on (too many to link to; try this Google Search for “Email is dead” – hundreds of thousands of results going back years).

Lot of email hate out there, and I can’t disagree too much: Email is something the average worker has to commit waaay too much time to on an ongoing basis (Let’s leave personal use out of this discussion; similar discussion, but less of an issue.). There HAS to be a better way!

Yet for all the email killers offered – IM, Skype, Slack, cloud offerings, social networks and so on…well, email has not died.

Maybe email use has somewhat declined in some respects (younger internet users), but it is still the informational currency of business. Companies are still heavily invested in in-house email (usually Microsoft Exchange Server/Outlook) solutions and email attachments.

Quite honestly, at the end of 2014, that’s how businesses operate. Even if companies have extensive cloud accounts, FTP servers and so on. For the average cubicle-dweller, Outlook with Excel/Word/PDF attachments is your life.

Pretty much as it was back in 1996 or so…

How did this happen?

——————————–
A look back
——————————–

In the computer world, there are “killer apps” that made all that became before (in that space) somewhat obsolete. The command-line world of Unix/DOS gave way to GUI systems. No going back for the non-geek.

The closed-walled garden of AOL, Prodigy and so on gave way to the open-garden World Wide Web. Totally changed everything. Once launched, Photoshop dominated photo-processing (hell, it became a verb).

Over time, as computers became more common, the killer app could change but in more modest/incremental ways: VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program – a killer app that made getting a computer a requirement. VisiCalc gave way to Lotus 1-2-3, which gave way to Excel. In the latter two cases, you already had a computer, you just switched to the newest flavor of the killer app – but you HAD to have it to read files others would email you…

Yes, WordStar & Xywrite (DOS) were replaced with WP5.1 (DOS), which was then replaced with (GUI) MS Word and, today, Google Docs and so on. Just a simple progression of word processors.

But for the average user – despite the window dressing – there are only two internet apps: email and browser. (Something they never had before.)

These are, to the non-geek user, the only way one’s computer interacts with the internet. Even those savvy enough to use FTP usually (again, this is business customers) use IE as their “FTP client.”

To them, FTP is not part of the internet, it’s a browser-supported function.

And while the tools may have changed a bit (IE=>Firefox or Safari or Chrome; Outlook=> browser-based email with varying levels of functionality).

One has a slew of desktop applications: Word, Excel, Photoshop, Quicken…

The internet is still: browser application and email application.

Two different worlds (yes, not….).

——————————–
Where we are today
——————————–

Well, credit Microsoft for bulking its Outlook program so well that it basically absorbed (for better or for worse – not today’s topic) the vast functionality it has today: email, threading, calendar, attachments. To most users, Outlook (or some equivalent) and a browser is all one needs for the internet, and MS Office for “offline” use.

And to be honest: For MOST users, that’s true, and that’s what they think.

So WHY would anyone dump email?

It’s a hard call, because no matter how far apps have advanced, there IS NO email killer.

Try to kill it with IM/Skype and so on, and email will continue. Sorry.

It’s The Email Zombie Apocalypse.

Update 12/30/2014: According to a new Pew Survey, what I’ve been blathering about is true. For the average, sit-at-a-desk office worker, email is the one can’t-live-without tool that workers value.

On Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014, Comedy Central broadcast the last show of Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report.”

Good, solid show, but the ending was the over-the-top, OMG/WTF ending that was just perfect for this nine-year-old show. (NOTE: There was a brief, prerecorded segment after the musical number to close out the show, but the musical number was the highlight.)

Hard to fully detail, but the ending was Colbert, joined by Jon Stewart and Randy Newman, singing “We’ll Meet Again.” Fitting.

But slowly, the stage was filled with, well, everyone:

• Singers – Country, rock & roll, classical (Yo Yo Ma)
• Academics – Historians, economists, scientists
• Politicians – Right wing (Mike Huckabee, Henry Kissinger [honest!]); left wing (NYC mayor Bill de Blasio, Andrew Young, Cory Booker)
• News anchors, news and sports (Tom Brokow, Bob Costas, Katie Couric…)
• Journalists of all stripes – newspaper/magazine/blog … and both left and right
• Intellectuals/trend setters: Gloria Steinem, Robert Pinsky, Dean Kamen
• Athletes/celebrities: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Franco, George Lucas, Sir Patrick Stewart, Alan Alda
• Big Bird, Cookie Monster…

I could – and should – go on about the ending, but watch it yourself. Joyous.

Probably the best end to a show I’ve ever seen. It was like the end of a Saturday Night Live (SNL) show, but to the max.

The Colbert Report