I'm No. 4, and a smut warning; some of these entries are smutty.
December 14, 2001
NOTE FROM CHRIS:
Senator Strom Thurmond celebrated his 99th birthday last week by telling his fellow senators, "I love all of you men, but you women even more! I appreciate every one of you, especially you ladies. You are good-looking."
16> "Is that a banana in my pocket, or am I just happy to see you? I'd really like to know. I can't feel below my neck."
15> "So, is it true that y'all can vote now?"
14> "Gals like you are the reason I invented foundation garments."
13> "You are fair of face and your manner is beguiling. Perhaps we could go a-courting, if your family will agree."
12> "So, Miss Smith, you were a topless dancer *and* a Playboy model?"
11> "Want a hit off this oxygen?"
10> "Am I in heaven? 'Cause you look like an angel. No, really -- am I dead yet?"
9> "If I said you had a nice body, would you give me one of your kidneys?"
8> "How about dinner tonight? Pick you up at, say, four-ish?"
7> "You make my heart skip a beat... and another... and another... uh-oh..."
6> "I've lived through two Johnson administrations already. Care to make it three?"
5> "Ever date anyone who's 693 in dog years?"
4> "Baby, these sheets ain't just for wearin'."
3> "Wanna play 'Angel of Mercy' and smother me with them pillows?"
2> "Who's your great-great-great-granddaddy? Say it!"
and Topfive.com's Number 1 Strom Thurmond Pickup Line...
1> "I promise I won't die in your mouth."
[ The Top 5 List
www.topfive.com ]
[ Copyright 2001 by Chris White ]
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Selected from 148 submissions from 54 contributors.
Today's Top 5 List authors are:
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Allen Lindsey, Cincinnati, OH -- 1 (7th #1)
Paul Schindler, Orinda, CA -- 4
Merle Kessler is one of the funniest guys I know, and he has a new essay up at Salon:
Merle is, hands down, my favorite living American humorist.
Apropos of last week's item about Digital Equipment Corp.'s digital project, Richard Dalton wrote:
I'm not suggesting that I'm always a year ahead of Wired (or even that I want to be) but your digital projecting piece jogged my memory of the enclosed, which appeared in an April, 1999 issue of the newsletter Telespan.
TI's Boffo DLP Clouds Movie Moguls' Minds
DLP is a breakthrough video projection technology that has somehow managed to escape broad public notice, even though it received both an Oscar and an Emmy for technical achievement in 1998. It's a Rube Goldbergish mechanism that Texas Instruments has been working on since 1991. And it's one of the first commercial products to integrate microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
In this case, the MEMS are tiny mirrors directly connected to a memory array. By shifting each mirror 10 degrees, it can be made to reflect or not reflect light. About half a million of these little devils shift back and forth on command within a DLP array in less than 2 microseconds. That's pretty dazzling but it's not just a stupid chip trick. Because these mirrors are so tightly packed, you greatly reduce the "pixelation" common with LCD display systems. DLP projectors are also brighter and exhibit much less flicker than other display systems. Another LCD problem, viewing angle, is virtually eliminated-I stood at about a 15 degree angle to the screen and was able to read everything in view.
Vanilla Sky
You want the facts? Go to the
Internet Movie Database
Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this remake of the 1997 film Open Your Eyes, also starring Penelope Cruz as Sofia. I don't know anything about the screenwriters of the original, Alejandro Amenábar and Mateo Gil, except that they must be very odd people indeed.
Don't believe what you may have read elsewhere, Tom Cruise can act, and he proves it in this film. Why is it that handsome actors figure they have to be facially disfigured in a film in order to prove they are also serious actors?
So, what's with Benny the Dog? If you can figure out this recurring motif, feel free to drop me a line.
And who's Ellie? Actually, Vicki figured it out. Can you?
This film is a meditation on the nature of love and death, reality and dreams. Although it is nothing like Waking Dreams in terms of structure, plot or style, it still seems reminiscent of that film in a way. Are the Buddhists right? Is this whole life a dream? I'm not sure, and after you watch this movie, you may not be other.
What does the last, split-second scene mean? Your speculation is welcome.
Cruise is a billionaire's son who mistreats a woman (Carmen Diaz). She, in turn, stalks him. He goes home with, but does not sleep with, Sofia. Diaz picks him up the next morning, and drives off a road at 80 miles per hour, killing herself and disfiguring Cruise. Or does she? Is he in jail for murder? Is his face actually repaired completely?
There is a rule they teach in television writing that anyone coming into the middle of a show should be able to figure out what's going on within five minutes. Most movies are plotted that way too. To the extent that this film is plotted, it is one of those films where, if you weren't completely captivated and wondering what's next, you'd turn to the person next to you and say, "What was that all about?" It's like American Beauty, but with some actual philosophical underpinnings. It is also one of those films you might want to see a second time, once you learn what you think are one or two of the tricks, to see if the moviemaker played fair with you (like The Sixth Sense).
SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD
I won't tell you why, but take note of the morning Cruise wakes up on the sidewalk, and things that happen after that.
Four stars for weird. Too much sex for any teenager below about the junior or senior year of high school. Definitely not a popcorn film, but if you're looking for a little mental challenge, this is the film for you.
Andy Stewart on Martin Lukes and Me
What a cool place the Internet is. Did you know that in England, they write "mob" (for mobile) instead of "cell" (for cellular) in front of their cellphone numbers? Anyway, London resident Andy Stewart wrote:
I'm a big fan of the Martin Lukes column in the FT [Financial Times] and it was while searching on those lines that I hit your page. Very funny - keep it up!
I have plugged Lukes before, and that must be how he found my column. Lukes is good, so I am going to plug him again. Here are excerpts from a recent Martin Lukes column.
Over the weekend I went with my son to see Harry Potter. I was expecting a kids' film but found myself watching a highly insightful modern management parable. In 2 1/2 hours, I clocked no fewer than 38 key learnings that could help drive forward our culture change programme.
Very much in the vein of Robert Benchley.
