August, 16, 2003 archives

the starscene festival is a once-a-year carnival in north hollywood. it's a hot day for a carnival!

from the latest issue of the effector, the electronic frontier foundation's email newsletter:

[RB - do we want to find some way to give existing members an opportunity to compete? They seem to be a likely bunch to give us money.]

i think someone let a comment on a draft of the newsletter slip through into the final product!

that section of the newsletter was about the 10,000th member contest. there are about 9,700 members right now, and the 10,000th will get (and i quote):

• Freedom to speak and innovate in the digital world!
• All the goods provided for our premium members (EFF SWAT hat, T-shirt, new brushed-aluminum "Proud Member" sticker, decoder ring)
• Vintage EFF T-Shirt of your choice (sizes and styles limited)
• Haiku (possibly senryu) using the winner's name to be published in EFFector
• The best tech-karma that money can buy!

so go join the eff!

i'm not sure why it is there, but there is a martin lawrence gallery (no connection to the comedian) in the middle of universal citywalk, the touristy mall adjacent to universal studios. so next to jodi moroni's sausage kingdom, you can go into the gallery and see some picasso etchings and some really beautiful serigraphs by liudmila kondakova.

memento employs a narrative trick the likes of which pretty much guaranteed i would like the film, even if it weren't well-acted and filmed. but it is also both of those, so it is a very fine film indeed.

one casting choice that kept drawing me out of the movie was jorja fox as leonard's wife. every time i saw her, i thought hey, it's that chick from csi (and er)! i guess part of the problem there was that her role was basically limited to being in dialogue-free flashbacks.