SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen it and want to see it, then leave this blog now!

I still think it's one of the best movies I've seen. When you come away from a movie so energized and enthused and thinking about all the nuances and all, you know it's a good movie. The first time I saw it had me all kinda fucked up. I went online to see what people were saying about it and about the ending and that put even more questions in my head - so much so that I almost the conclusion that the whole movie was a dream - or alternatively the part from when he gets to Paris right up to the last scene in the airplane was a dream; Notice no one said anything once the dreams were over and we never did see the top stop spinning at the end.

But upon seeing it again, a few things made a bit more sense:

• the Pinwheel in the safe in the 3rd dream was the pinwheel in the photo that old man Fischer broke
• I got more clarity on the training sessions with Ariadne
• everytime Cobb finished a dream - he always spun the top but the only times we didn't see it finish spinning was the time Saito found him in the bathroom in Mombasa (where it fell) and at the end where they pulled some Sopranos shit on us
• I laughed about Arthur's conning that kiss from Ariadne
• drinking wine made the Chemist's dream end up rainy because he wanted to pee lol
• THE KICKER: The shoes on the kids were different at the end than in any of the previous memories/projections

Lotta comparisons with The Matrix because of the whole questioning of reality thing - and that almost always makes a good movie when done well. I particularly like it when there's a good amount of a action in it too - like that fight scene in the lobby in The Matrix. So my conspiracy theories about the whole thing being a dream are disproven, I think. I figure they don't talk at the end so they don't arouse the suspicion of Fischer, but you did see Arthur look at Cobb and smile when he finally woke up. And them cutting off the movie after top spinning at the end was probably just for effect.

But still, some small things that I couldn't reconcile:

• the "Leap of faith" phrases that both Saito (proposing the Inception job, in the boardroom in limbo) and Mol (standing on the ledge before her suicide) used - purely coincidence?
• how did Fischer not recognize Saito if indeed he was an industry rival?
• why was the Dad waiting for him at the LA airport
• when they missed the first kick how did Arthur know about timing the explosion the 2nd kick that everyone at the snow level was planning?
• how did Cobb get to Saito's limbo? And if Saito/Cobb left limbo with a gun shot how come the same thing didn't happen to Fischer when he was shot? Was it because of the sedative? Or how come Fischer didn't go into limbo when he was shot?
• if they were waiting out the sedative after the van hit the water, was it the flight attendant that put away the dream machine? Surely she'd have to if Fischer were to wake up and see something attached to his arm

Any ideas?

But still, it was a great movie. In complete contrast to The Other Guys which I saw last night. Why do I give Will Ferrell movies a chance. I never find him funny. Never did on SNL and not with Marky Mark. He's only funny to me when he's with other people I find funny. Even Damon Wayans and Rob Riggle couldn't save this piece of shit. And Eva Mendes, my future wife - even she. And there was a pretty clear flub with the wooden gun after the explosion. Just sloppy. How that crap got 80% on Rotten Tomatoes is beyond me. I would have had a better time lighting my $8 on fire. At least I didn't spend money on their overpriced food.

WISCONSIN, the backwater setting for the US PGA Championship, has a reputation for sporting eccentricity.

The fans of the Green Bay Packers, 47,000 of whom watched the state’s American  football team train one evening last week, take pride in wearing cheeses on their heads.

Meanwhile the Milwaukee Braves’ home baseball games are routinely interrupted by an It’s a Knockout-style sprint between five giant sausages.

So yesterday’s opening plot line for the season’s final golf Major at Whistling Straits would have appealed to the delighted, deranged locals.

lol@ "routinely interrupted" - some might say it's the baseball game that routinely interrupts the sausage race!

[image via TechDigest]

A burning vision of the internet in 2016
The public internet is basically overrun with 4Chan-like social networks that run very slowly and are drenched in advertising and spyware. You can watch some TV on the public internet, if you're willing to wait through long "buffering" times and bad commercials. You can play casual games, especially if you want to fork over a few bucks. There's webmail, though sometimes all your saved messages disappear - for "guaranteed backups" you need to subscribe to the special mail service via Googlezon. Plus, the only way to get to the public internet is with an unwieldy laptop, which sucks.

Most people go online with their mobiles. Anybody who wants to get access to games, movies, news, or other services online has to buy separate "special service" packages to make sure they run fast. Premium services guarantee you can watch movies on your Droid, or do your mail and calendaring on your Nexus SE234. An informal market in special service minutes springs up anywhere that people are too poor to get a mobile that does more than make phone calls.

Ironically, the public internet is the least public place online: It's an antisocial space, a crumbling, unsupported legacy network, full of ads and graffiti. Googlezon has succeeded in creating a caste system in the online world, and the public is the lowest caste of all.

chilling!

hilarious

The market research firm iSuppli just put out the most damning numbers: In terms of global smart phone market share, iPhones will peak at 15.9 percent in 2012, then fall to 15.3 percent two years later. Android will snatch 19.4 percent in two years, and keep on growing, hitting 22.8 percent in 2014. The firm's stated reason for the limited Apple growth? "While Apple's family of iPhone products continues to be the standard by which all other smart phones are measured, the proprietary nature of the iOS and Apple's closed system business model will limit the number of smart phones with the operating system." Meanwhile, "the flexibility Android offers for hardware designs and its appealing business model" is already luring in loads of eager hardware makers.

Deja vu

Sound familiar? Or maybe exactly like Windows vs. Mac, the decades-long personal computer battle? You know, the one that had one clear winner and one clear loser, at least in terms of market share? I'm hardly the first person to identify Android as the new Windows, and maybe that's something we can talk about in depth at another time. What's surprising to me is that Steve Jobs didn't see this coming, didn't see how too much control over the hardware supply might once again prevent him from grabbing the brass ring. A little control can be a good thing, but a chokehold, well, that's strangulation, brutha.

I'm not asking for authorized iPhone clones. God knows, nobody wants to relive the StarMax years. But I am saying that when one phone platform is available on all four carriers in a variety of shapes, sizes, software configurations and monthly plans, and the other - fashionable, sure, but no longer a league above - is tied to just the one carrier with the one pricing structure, good people who exercise sound judgment will be forced to pick the former, despite the latter's halo of awesomeness.

And when the halo of awesomeness starts shimmering less brightly, well, even people more susceptible to peer pressure and marketing will start looking elsewhere.

good read. Apple had a good product, but all in all, the competition (Android, BBOS, WP7, webOS) has, is, and always will level the playing field ... as well as self-inflicted hubris (e.g. "Hold it differently").

Spiderman, Spiderman,
Does whatever a spider can
Spins a web, any size,
Catches thieves just like flies
Look Out!
Here comes the Spiderman.
Is he strong?
Listen bud,
He's got radioactive blood.
Can he swing from a thread
Take a look overhead
Hey, there
There goes the Spiderman.
In the chill of night
At the scene of a crime
Like a streak of light
He arrives just in time.
Spiderman, Spiderman
Friendly neighborhood Spiderman
Wealth and fame
He's ingnored
Action is his reward.
To him, life is a great big bang up
Whenever there's a hang up
You'll find the Spider man.

Pretty much speaks for itself, no? The main observation is that the huge runups in the debt that we’ve experienced since 1980 are almost entirely the results of the policies of two Republican presidents, Reagan and Bush Jr. (The elder Bush deserves some credit for a willingness to tackle the debt through a modest tax increase.) Yes, these presidents sometimes had the cooperation of some Democrats in Congress. But the disastrous supply-side-style tax cut policies were authored by these presidents’ administrations, and they are responsible for them.

As you know, our beloved game Scrabulous is no longer available for Facebook users in the US or Canada. But there is a workaround that will enable you to continue playing, and it won't take you more than 15 minutes, tops.
Facebook can tell what your location is based on your IP address when you connect to their servers. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it, but basically it is kind of like looking at the area code on your caller id to determine the caller's location.
What you are going to do is set up your computer to use a proxy server ONLY for playing Scrabulous. What this means is instead of connecting to the Facebook application servers directly, you will go through a third party. The third party will be located outside of the US and Canada, and when Facebook sees you coming from that other location, it will let you play. All other web browsing will be unaffected and will be exactly as it is now.
Below are the instructions. Print them out or copy and paste them to some other application if you happen to be using Firefox right at this moment, because you will have to restart your browser.
If you get stuck or get confused, go to an excellent tutorial made by Ryan Smith at http://scrabulous.razwebs.com/index.html which will show you all the steps. It will download a video showing everything Ryan did to get it working on his machine. It may download slowly on your machine, so be patient. This is the closest you can get to looking over someone else's shoulder while they show you how to set this up.
1. Install Firefox. This is easy to do on any operating system. Don't let anyone tell you it won't work on Windows, that isn't true. Go here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
And click on the free download button. The instructions are easy to follow so I won't go into that here.
Theoretically these concepts could work for any browser, but these instructions are going to set you up with a special proxy server setup only available on Firefox that won't interfere with your other web browsing if your proxy server is slow or goes down (which can and will happen). But besides, you should use Firefox anyway because Firefox is a much better browser. Seriously, you will start using it all the time.

2. Install FoxyProxy. Go here using your new Firefox browser:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2464
And click the add to Firefox button. A window will pop up - hit the install button when it becomes activated. It will install and prompt you to restart Firefox. Click the restart button.
3. When it restarts it will ask you if you want to configure FoxyProxy for use with Tor. Click no, since it serves no purpose for what we are doing here.
4. In the Firefox Browser menu, go to Tools -> FoxyProxy -> Options. The FoxyProxy options window will appear. In the Proxies tab, click the Add New Proxy button. A Proxy Settings window will appear.
5. On the general tab (first one), enter scrabulous in the Proxy Name box. On the Patterns tab (last one), click the add new pattern button. An Add/Edit pattern window will appear. Enter scrabulous in the pattern name field and "*apps.facebook.com/scrabulous*" in the URL pattern. Or use "*apps.new.facebook.com/scrabulous*" if you are using the new facebook site. Enter that exactly without the quotes. Hit OK.
Have a look at this if you get confused:
http://scrabulous.razwebs.com/step5.html
6. In the Proxy Settings window, go to the Proxy Details tab. This is where you enter your proxy server. To get a proxy server, go to this website:
http://www.proxy4free.com/page1.html
Bookmark that later.
Note that at this moment in the instructions you can not go there with your Firefox browser because of the other open windows. This lists proxy servers and their location by country. Pick one that is not in the US or Canada, obviously. You may have to try more than one to get one that works. Be patient, many of them will be too slow or not respond at all. When I wrote this I was using one in China (host name = 60.28.196.119 port 80), but it doesn't work now so use a different one. Enter the host name (IP on the website) and port in the two text boxes, then click OK.
7. In the FoxyProxy Options window, change the mode to the first option, Use proxies based on their pre-defined patterns and priorities.
8. What we have now done is set up only your Firefox browser to use the proxy server ONLY for playing scrabulous. Any other web request will go through the regular channels. If your proxy server goes down or is slow, it won't affect your other browsing. Note that if you want to disable the proxy server at any time, you can simply go to Tools -> FoxyProxy -> Completely disable FoxyProxy.
9. Now, test it. Using Firefox, log into Facebook and go to scrabulous. If it is no longer in your applications list, you may have to go to http://apps.facebook.com/scrabulous/ or http://apps.new.facebook.com/scrabulous/ directly. (Most likely it will not be on your applications list, so do not be alarmed if this is the case.) When you click on the link for scrabulous you should see your games and not the message about scrabulous being no longer available. If your browser does not respond or gives an error, you need to change your proxy settings. Note you will have to do this from time to time because proxy servers do not last forever.
Also test by viewing some Facebook photos and some non-Facebook websites. If you have trouble looking at Facebook photos or other websites you may have incorrectly entered the pattern in step 5. You will be able to see in the lower right hand corner of your Firefox browser if it is trying to use a proxy server for the page you happen to be on.
Sometimes people get frustrated trying many proxy servers, and it can be confusing if it is facebook or the proxy server that is causing it to not work. One suggestion which might help is to go back to step 5 and enter a pattern like *.cnn.com* and see if you can browse the cnn.com website. CNN doesn't block anyone, so if you can't do that then either the proxy server is bad or you set something up wrong.
If you can get to the scrabulous board but the board is blank, that means you do not have flash installed properly, or firefox can n ot use it as an addin. To fix that, try going here with your browser:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
And click download now.
10. To change your proxy server, go to Tools -> FoxyProxy -> Options, and then double click on the scrabulous proxy you created, which is in the list box. On the proxy details tab, change the host name and port to be a different server using the url from step 6. Test it, and continue playing. Enjoy!

replace "Facebook.com" with whatever site you need to see (bbc.com, pandora.com, etc.)

Of all the many fascinating things I've read about Manute Bol this weekend, here's the most bizarre: a language blog written a few years ago suggested that Bol might have been responsible for coining and/or spreading the phrase "my bad."

(I'm not trying to be flip; for the really touching and moving version of Bol's legacy, please read The Post's obit, or Kevin Blackistone's column from South Africa.)

The "my bad" item, written by British professor of linguistics Geoffrey K. Pullum (the co-author of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language) quotes one source who recalls first hearing "my bad" in the Bay Area in 1988, after Bol had joined the Golden State Warriors. And indeed, if you run an archives search on "basketball" and "my bad," the first three usages are all linked to Bol.

A fascinating story