This job probably doesn’t pay enough to entice me, but if you’re conservative, a blogger and can stomach David Horowitz, check it out. They probably wouldn’t hire Matt Welch.

So, a teevee commercial influenced, for the first time I can remember, a buying decision. Two nights ago, I bought “Get Born” by Jet, all because of the Apple IPod commercial.

“Are You Gonna Be My Girl” is the IPod song, and an early favorite off the CD, but it’s also a good indication of what to expect from the rest of the 13-song set, both in sonic simularities, songwriting quality and musical aptitude. Jet is pure garage band energy, power-pop hooks and respectful nods to the Beatles and the Who and the Stones, without spirialing into pastiche. If you like the Strokes and the White Stripes, you might find yourself enjoying Jet even more.

My recommendation: buy.

As for the IPod, I’m still not sold.

Via Instapundit, we learn the Opus Lives!

I left this comment on Drezner’s site:

Back in the mid-late-’80s Breathed had Opus shout “Reagan Sucks.” The San Diego Union refused the run the panel.

I wrote an editorial for my paper blasting the Union’s lack of free-speech spirit. Won my first journalism award for that editorial. And I sent a copy of the paper to Breathed and he returned it signed. I’ve always wanted to get that framed …

Cool, I have an author’s page on ESPN! And so does Britney Spears.(Via Matt Welch).

Real writers write because they enjoy the process, the exploration, the way words sound when strung together, and the chance to memorialize their own ideas. If anybody reads their words, great. If not, that’s fine, too. Real writers write with an audience in mind, and love to know their words connect with other people, but they write first for themselves. Let’s get this straight: Real writers love to write. Hack writers think “writing is tiresome.” (via Instapundit).

Is it possible to make an action film full of dazzling special effects that is slow, ponderous and uneventful? Yes, and I’ve just seen it. It’s the Matrix: Revolutions. Not only is the paper-thin plot tedious and the dialogue insipid, it is full of insufferable self importance. Yes, a million monkeys typing endlessly might eventually write Hamlet, but first they would churn out a hundred thousand copies of Revolutions. In fact, I think monkeys wrote this movie. Surely, no writer who’s graduated high school drama class could churn out crap like, “When I saw your face, I knew you weren’t coming back. And when you looked at me, I knew I was going with you.” Cue steam train on railroad track and Dudley Doright theme … “Oh, WOE IS ME … “

The war scenes, the fight scenes, the death scenes — interminable all.

The worst part is, The Matrix was such a great movie. One of the greatest ever, and II and III have pretty much soiled its reputation. The Matrix brand has lost its luster because II was, at best, OK (I loved the highway chase scene, though some critics panned it), and there were some interesting new characters and the plot, while labored, didn’t plod. III has no redeeming qualities. The special effects are stunning, but you’ve seen them all already and they lack the panache of I and the poetry of II. Revolutions is more like a parody than a thoughtful, satisify conclusion.

The best I can say about Revolutions is that if you’ve seen I and II, you’ll want to complete the trilogy, but that can be done cheaper with a DVD rental (I certainly wouldn’t dump $20 on this turkey).

What’s most embarrassing about admitting that we paid full price for this crap is that we passed up a chance to see a free screening. We got to the theater late and didn’t want to stand in line and wind up with a lousy seat. A friend who’s seen the screening told me the free movie was better than Revolutions, but I didn’t listen. Maybe he should have been more explicit and warned me away altogether.

Where have I been the last several days, inquiring minds want to know?

I’ve been working — there are big changes afoot at the job, and that could be a good thing for me, so I’ve been toiling to make sure things go my way. And if I’m not working, I’m spending more time with my guitar.

Last weekend, the wife and I went to San Diego. I planned this elaborate post about the trip, full of horrid sentiment about my old hometown, but when I sat down to write it, my keyboard was sprinkled with some fine fairy dust that rendered it inoperable, hence you were spared my purple prose. But I still want to post a couple of pictures, so you’ll find a small slideshow here.

We watched the CMT tribute to Johnny Cash last night. It wasn’t as maudlin as some such shows, and it was punctuated by a few fine performances — Sheryl Crow, Marty Stuart, Travis Tritt, Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr. (surprise!). I don’t know if it was coincidence or not, but the anti-war crowd was strongly represented, from the host Tim Robbins, to John Mellencamp, Steve Earle and Al Gore. There was lots of talk, including a speech from Robbins, about Cash’s concern for the downtrodden, the disadvantaged, the poor and the struggling, which is all fine and well and true, but what’s also true is Johnny Cash loved his country and can’t be easily pigeon-holed as a leftist icon. I hope the Cash family isn’t planning that sort of legacy for him.

This post from Tyler or Volokh got me thinking about a file sharing scheme that would frustrate the RIAA no end. If I had the time and programtic expertise (and given the time, I could figure the tech details out), I’d build a file sharing network that would allow users to restrict who they share files with. In other words, you would only let your friends and trusted associates on your hub of the network. It would be a self-policing effort to keep RIAA thugs out. Of course, you might belong to more than one hub, and other people in your hub might belong to multiple hubs, and in that way, files would get pass around. Sure, it would be harder to find stuff, but if friends helped friends, the job would get done, you know. Only hub owners could authorize new hub members, and it would be in a hub owners own self interest to know new members well enough to ensure they weren’t RIAA goons. It might work.

Speaking of music, go buy Layne’s new CD (I haven’t gotten mine yet, but I will).

Further on the entertainment front, go see Master and Commander.

Master and Commander does for early 19th Century naval warfare what Saving Private Ryan did for D-Day. It is gritty, nuanced and spectacular without being forced. It never plucks the wrong note. It doesn’t beat you over the head with plot twists, or overplay its dramatic crescendos. It is a sea adventure without swashbuckling cliches. It is Moby Dick without the whale, and Pirates of the Caribbean with a “ghost ship,” but without the camp.

One of the beauties of Master and Commander is it doesn’t play politics. It makes no attempt to be contemporary and relevant. It doesn’t sermonize about war being hell or the evils of imperialism. It is simply about a crew of seamen who have a job to do — a bloody and ugly job, but it is nonetheless their job. If the movie teaches us anything, it teaches us that in 1805, the seafarer’s life was brutal, hard and treacherous. Survival depended on strong leaders, but stronger men.

I’ve never sailed on a big ship, so call me a chickenalbatross if you like, but I have little doubt that life aboard a ship in His Majesty’s Navy was much like it was in this movie. Or at least movie sells the idea well enough that from the start the suspension of disbelief necessary to good drama is at full sail.

DirecTV screwed me over, man. Some technical glitch caused them to lose service during last night’s Survivor. Went to watch it tonight, and it’s not there — and it was a key episode, too.

Anybody out there have it on tape or DVD and could send it to me?  Hit the “Contact” link to the right, drop me a note and I’ll send you my mailing address.

Please, no spoilers in the comments, in case I do manage to find a copy.

New Media News Executives Read This. That is, if you’re site is, um, planning, yah, user, ah, registration. Read the comments, too. Hope your sites fair better …

My first reaction to this story: Energy crisis? What energy crisis? My second reaction: An environmentalist begging to keep an energy generating plant open?

First, we learned that the U.S. Forest service ordered a helicopter in San Diego not to drop water on the then infant Cedar fire, now we’re told that a massive Russian-built plane that could have made fighting the fires much easier is being refused by the Feds.

The IL-76 can drop a near-solid sheet of water on an area the size of 12 football fields in 10 seconds, and because it uses a gravitational, rather than a pressurized, release system, which creates a simulated downpour rather than an aerosol mist, much more of the water released from its holds actually makes it to the ground. Since 1995, the Russians have repeatedly offered a pair of manned, tanked and waiting IL-76s during major U.S. fire outbreaks—asking only for primary expenses to be covered—but the US Forest Service, the body in charge of all wildfire control on federal land, has told them time and again that their services were neither needed nor wanted. Now, they no longer keep the immense aircrafts waiting in the wings, and are waiting for someone from the US government to step forward and ask them over.

Ah, you’ve got to marvel at the small minds in big bureaucracies.

Check out Steven Den Beste’s animated gif of how the San Diego wild fires spread.

The U-T is reporting: Fires end in sight. Good news.

I’ve heard talk that next Sunday’s Chargers game might be moved to San Fransico. Another reason to root for more rain in San Diego. I’m planning on going to that game, and I won’t be going to SF.

It’s the dead time of the year. Yes, the leaves are changing color. Bears are hibernating and sparrows are migrating. But the deadness of fall and winter has to do with forces far more fundamental than Mother Nature’s cornucopia.

It is the time of year when God snoozes. Football (yawn). Basketball (snooze). Hockey (zzzzzz). There isn’t even a good golf tournament to quicken the pulse.

But most of all, there are no four-seamers. No frozen ropes. No thawk. No thumpf. No dirt on the plate and no chalk on the uni. You can’t smell the grass, and you can’t yell at blue.

The year is officially dormant. And it won’t begin again until pitchers and catcher report.

Today I began my winter project. In my substantial collection of books are a number of titles that purport to tell us something about God’s Game. Most of these I’ve owned for years, or longer, and have never read. My project, beginning today, is take a baseball book with me to the gym as my shield against the monotony of the spinmaster. The goal — to get through three or four of them before Bruce Bochy fills out his first line-up card of 2004.

My salve against the cruelest of months will be words on paper — a ballpark of the imagination. Today, I started with Bernard Malamud’s The Natural.