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Intellectual House o' Pancakes Webdiary

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2005-02-13 - 8:20 p.m.

Some friends of mine (hi!) were recently discussing randomness as it applies to "shuffle" functions on iPods and CD players, and the conclusion was that, to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: "You want randomness? You can't handle randomness!"

Then, completely unrelated, someone on a mailing list I'm on mentioned the random event generator, a wee gizmo developed by the Global Consciousness Project at Princeton. The GCP believes that their REG suggests a collective subconscious and the feasibility of predicting the future.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.


Saw Million Dollar Baby today, and enjoyed it for the most part. I am always moved by stories of mentors, and of people training and overcoming obstacles, for little reason other than to prove to themselves that they are worth something...

There are nice touches--I liked the color palette, which features deep and complex greys and streaks of bright red and blue. There is a priest character who is compassionate and human (you don't see a lot of those in movies these days). Hilary Swank is terrific and I predict (although I'll check my REG) that she will win another Oscar, and I will be glad of it.

However, I thought the last third of the film dragged, and the portrayal of Hilary's family was heavy-handed. And Clint...well he's never struck me as being that good an actor.

Forget whatever you may have heard about a major plot twist--there really isn't one. In fact, what happens in the last third of the film is a little predictable, and I am baffled at how it came to be regarded as a big hairy secret.


After M$B, had dinner here, which was enough to convert me to Middle Eastern fare, never a big favorite of mine in the past.

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