If you don't have HBO, rent it. If you haven't already caught it, it "Capturing the Friedmans" airs in an hour on HBO, then again next Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at midnight.

The film presents the case of a family accused and convicted of having sex with children, and then presents evidence the court never heard that appears to clear them. The DVD has extra information and interviews.

Should they have been convicted?

Has everyone but me seen the AP/Yahoo News picture of Bush and HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson from 3/3/2004?

Update: Photo is now gone from Yahoo, but I saved the picture and its page (page and the rest copied on the 12th). The dead Yahoo link, may still have original caption :

From Bloomberg obit:

1. The body of Spalding Gray, the author, theatrical monologist and actor who received critical acclaim for work that combined wit, dark humor and observations as seen through his own life, washed ashore yesterday on the Brooklyn waterfront, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner's office said. Gray was 62.

Had a vivid dream last night and -- despite the distraction of the alarm clock -- managed to remember a good deal of it. After emailing it to friends, one asked me to post this silliness, so I will ... but I doubt it'll work for those who are unaware of our real-life situations.

I don't normally review bands, and it's unlikely I'll be doing this again, but this is a local band that I'm embarrassed to have missed for so long. Until this weekend, I'd skipped The Capitol Year. After hearing an earlier album,it seems a good thing I waited. I might have been turned off by the simplicity of the earlier work.

I consider this to be the best right-to-privacy ruling in a long time. I know lots of people are thinking of this as a win for gays and liberals, but it is a win for people over bureaucracy. It favors all citizens (as long as they aren't suspect of being terrorists, having contraband items, engaging in immoral acts with children, animals, causing harm to another, or such).

This is a week old, but I've only just read the Economist article. I understand the need for crowd control, but the idea of _selective_ crowd control really irks me.

I'm looking for input on a specific side-issue to the following.

Senator Rick Santorum (R., PA) commented on the Texas/Gay Sex issue before the Supreme Court (quoted from local newspaper -- a local TV station's blurb omits the second part) :

Been a long while since I've written about movies (been too busy), but if I don't write notes for these, festival filcks, I'll never get around to it (just as I never got around to praising "Spider").

Yesterday, I spent 6 hours shoveling my sidewalk (1st priority -- required by township law), the doorways, dog houses (they couldn't get into their outside shelters), the fence gates, the car, and the drive way. All told, I figure it was about 400 square feet @ a depth of 1.75 feet plus another 100 square feet @ a depth of 3 feet where plows had showed all the snow from the road onto the sidewalk and into the driveway.

Saw an article in my print newspaper about grid.org starting a distributed task to find a cure for smallpox -- not a vaccine, a cure.

Install their screen-saver/client on your Windows (and only Windows) OS, and your spare cycles can be spent on the research (or on one of their other distributed tasks).

The project's FAQ explains how this is getting funded.

This is a bunch of snippets from a local music mailing list that I get. Emphasis and [editorial comments] are mine; CAPS are theirs. They're, ummm... rather hysterical on the subject, but as someone who goes to tiny live shows, I don't want to see promoters/venues scared out of holding such events. Also, I'm happy they included an opposing view (two at bottom).
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I wish I'd noticed this sooner. Heck, I wish I'd made a JE about the fact the show aired last night! Now there's only ~45 minutes before the discussion begins (and I have too much work to follow it).

To estimate how much you'll like the film The Hours, give yourself 3 points for each of the following:

• you're female,
• you're over 25,
• you've gone through menopause,
• you read classic novels,
• you sympathize with victims of AIDS
• you saw (or will see) the movie with your girlfriend(s)
• you've enjoyed watching Oprah
• your Home Team's SuperBowl playoffs don't/didn't interest you