red | this is the popular red style...a little bolder than blue.

white | this is my personal fav...very subtle hyperlinks overall.

blue | this is the default blue color. i've often thought about changing the default, but so far have been unable to muster the courage.

werkz advice: don't bother.

the movie "man of the century" is a neat idea which fails to really catch on. most time travel comedies are obsessed with the fish-out-of-water concept and exploring the hilarity within. motc, on the other hand, takes a character, johnny twennies, and puts it into the late nineties, without bothering to tell him that he's out of place. consequently, johnny deals with people and incidents as if he's right back in a 1920's reporter movie. full of antiquated cliches and references to old movies in times past, the concept itself sounds great. hell, i'd back a movie like that.

in reality, the movie appears to have been the victim of some mind-altering drugs. for starters, the entire plot appears geared to reference early 1920's movies...not the actual 20s themselves. this is easily manifested when johnny encounters crooks and villains and behaves with perfect chivalry, unlike anyone from the actual era. great movies point out the similarities across time, while great television comedies poke fun at the stereotypes of older periods (see that 70's show for instance) but lacking the pop-cultural signifiers of more recent days (pet rocks, lava lamps, pegged jeans, punk fashion), the time itself doesn't have any inherent humor in it. if one were merely clued into the cinema of the time, it might also work, but not being an avid early 20's movie watcher, i'm sure that some of the film-reference humor was lost on me. in addition, the jokes and cliches from that period aren't terrifically amusing in and of themselves. (using the expletive "banana oil" makes me almost want to laugh...on the inside) unconsciously, i think i wanted johnny to wake up, smell the dirty streets, and wise up. his bravado simple fell flat...

this points out another obvious flaw. the acting, script and even simple blocking all appear to be bad film-school fodder. actors butcher their lines, people look awkward around the camera, and only johnny himself appears natural: natural in only the way that someone ripped from the twenties can. it is never explained how johnny arrives in new york, or how the premise is setup. our suspension of disbelief is further tested when johnny explores an egyptian tomb, emerging from a trash can into his office, or when he suddenly appears in a scene dressed as a sailor. add a few musical moments and you've got the makings of a completely insane screenplay. words cannot describe the odd sense of pace that goes with motc, leaving one to only wonder when the next wacky "what is going on" occurrence will take place. lacking those scenes which don't appear to have anything to do with the movie, you've got under an hour of ho-hum entertainment acted by people who appear to be no more talented than you or i.

the one-trick pony, it seems, lacks enough moxie to win. ironically, when looking through the latest releases in blockbuster, another comedy was suggested to me, which i rejected on the basis of a picture on the back portraying a young man dressed in a bondage outfit next to a copy machine. it didn't appear to have anything to do with that particular movie, and one could only envision how such a character would come about. surprise of surprises, even this movie manages to sneak in a quick scene with a dirty old man decked out in leather finery. upon seeing this moment, i know motc wasn't going to deliver: combining the late nineties and early twenties is too great a gap.

Superficially, such a comparison is absurd. Jackson led a populist revolt against concentrated wealth in undoing the Bank of the United States; Bush is closely allied with corporate interests. Jackson lost a disputed election in 1824 to the son of a former president; Bush, as son of a former president, won such a disputed election. Jackson was an uneducated war hero and father of the Democratic Party. Bush, of Andover, Yale, Harvard and the Texas National Guard, came to office in hopes of imitating McKinley, who defeated Jacksonian style populism in building the modern Republican Party a century ago.

But the White House is convinced of the similarities. Top Bush strategist Karl Rove, in fact, has invited historian Robert Remini to lecture senior officials at the White House Thursday on similarities between Bush and Jackson.

read the bios. jackson is almost the exact opposite of bush, and the only similarities are the qualities in jackson that were undesirable, like his flaunting of international law. of course, in those days, there was no global community, which makes bush's transgressions all the more extreme. jackson's dislike for washington seems similar to today, except that in jackson's day, all government positions were life-long and prone to corruption. his creaton of the spoils systems seemed like a novel idea at the time. the washington of today is far less corrupt and beholden to the bureaucracy, making bush's nominees much more idelogical in nature. judge for yourself

first, the tracking collar. essentially, i have to tell people when i go on lunch, when i'll be back, keep my phone with me at all times in case something comes up, report to work fifteen minutes early in case a user does, and keep my phone on me after work ends, despite the fact that i'm not technically supposed to support people after hours. nothing made me angrier than the demand that i come into the office to unlock a user account over the weekend, as if what i was doing could be simply dropped for the sake of a user who ran into the wall of having their password locked out. despite making a few bucks for the trip, it always implied that i couldn't or shouldn't see movies, go swimming, etc, despite the fact that there was no policy regarding this.

second, the sub-basement. my employer's office was filled with windows on every wall, which allowed light to stream through if needed, or shut off with blinds. all the furniture looked like it had been ripped right from the ikea showroom, down to the uber-cool drink coasters. i loved it. my current "office"? a cubicle in a sub-basement. the only saving grace is that the lights above me are extra-white, so my cube looks much brighter than the other dingier cubes. on the downside i can never see the sun, i get to hear everyone else but not see them (3/4 high cubicle walls are the spawn of the devil!) so there's no sense of community. there are cockroaches galore down here, which disgusts me to no end, and i have to uze my id card to buzz into the breakroom. our fridge, leaky and unable to keep things cool, has tighter security than the building itself.

third, the attitude. even today, after working here for over a year, i try to stay naive. most others fall into the trap of saying "it's the government" as code words for "people say we're slow so despite being contractors, we won't make any effort". other times people will use the words "it's political" to mean "i don't know what i'm talking about but saying this means i'm off the hook". never before have i seen so many private-sector people more interested in CYA than in getting things done. by contrast, the government employees seem inspired and willing to help. i've lost track of the number of projects i've come up with and begun to implement only to be told by the contractors that it's not worth the time. i'm sure i'll come up with more later. i actually enjoy working here, the tough conditions notwithstanding. the workload is low, the users are complacent, and things aren't that bad, if people would just let me fix their problems instead of throwing up roadblocks.

second, after reading this article in the post, i realized that it spoke to the problem of post september eleventh: that we have cut out the heart of america to save it. try reading this and this for dessert. it's about time someone said the obvious: september eleventh was bad for our nation. not merely for that particular heinous day, but for our reaction to it. we didn't come together and show the world why we were great: we bombed our enemies mercilessly yet refused to send in ground troops, we locked up our own citizens, calling them "enemy combatants" and we asked for no sacrifice save for a willingness to accept more tax cuts. we admonished the press and any naysayers. we are now poorer, financially and morally, than we were before. when president bush says with a straight face that ellis island welcomed immigrants to our shores, yet cracks down and deports as many as possible, we must speak up. we must ask for open borders, for the huddled masses who yearn to be here for a dream that we not only take for granted, but abuse on the airwaves. instead of demanding that the press be less free, we must demand greater freedoms. give every immigrant a cheesy mcbasket of fries, tell him he can go where he wishes, earn a decent wage, and acheive greatness. that is how we will defeat the terrorists, not with their weapons of violence and indoctrination, but with our economy, our political beliefs, and our bill of rights.

as one enters duke's, the decor is startling. around the entrance, menus from restaurants around the world have been tacked to the walls. although novel, these menus only highlight the fact that duke's actual menu is rather spartan. after a brief wait, one is seated in the restaurant that conveys nothings so much as average. the prices tend to be reasonable, although the food leaves a little to be desired in a location that can't afford to leave anything to chance.

to be specific, the steaks are all right. the filet is quite tasty, the sirloin less so. sides tend to be simplistic, like simple cooked green beans or garlic bread made from one half of a sub bun (complete with sesame seeds!). the only really tasty side are duke's steak fries, which have a crispy crust and a tasty center. far worse are the salads which appear to have been constucted in a few seconds with a minimal amount of attention. given that it took a great deal of time for our food to arrive, i was pleasantly surprised to find everything warm, although things could have been speedier. the lack of any bread before dinner was also disappointing.

overall, duke's is a place that is about $2-3 too expensive per item. if it remade itself as a great cheap steakhouse, it would seem worth it, but unless you stiff the tip, you'll end up spending over $25 for a meal that feels like something you could've cooked at home for far less. as a novelty spot, it lacks pizazz, especially since there are other, far better places, to eat in elkins.

"The attack on our nation was also an attack on the ideals that make us a nation. Our deepest national conviction is that every life is precious, because every life is the gift of a creator who intended us to live in liberty and equality."

I, for one, don't believe that our deepest national conviction is that every life is precious. We are not a nation of quakers. We believe as a nation that sacrificing life in the defense of liberty is acceptable. Conversely, conscription certainly doesn't equate with the notion that every life is precious, because an army composed of draftees certainly doesn't want to sacrifice itself. Whether sacrifice or a desire to live, all Americans simply want to live their lives with freedom. I would contend that our deepest national conviction is a love of liberty, of the ability to go where we want, say what we want and do what we want without looking over our collective shoulder. Put into perspective though, Bush's words explain a great deal. A nation obsessed with protecting life would want to prevent terrorism by curtailing liberty. A nation spying on itself would certainly live longer than one which prized individual freedom over constant monitoring. A nation which locked up citizens and declared them enemy combatants certainly could reduce the number of deaths associated with such people. (Forget, for a moment, that the death penalty exists...and assume that everyone we lock up continues to live.) But why stop there? Why not lock up anyone that seems suspicious, if the postal worker or plumber things that they might be dangerous. The more of us in prison, the less of us out there with the capability to kill others.

Our nation is not and should not, be obsessed with protecting life at the expense of liberty. If it becomes this way, then the terrorists have won, for they have killed the America that I love. My America has a vigourous law enforcement program, but doesn't spy upon its citizenry. My America presumes innocence until guilt is proven, and ensures due process through our judicial system for all of its citizenry. My America jealously guards the rights of the most intolerant among us, of the smallest minority, for there is no doubt that one day, we will all be lumped into a minority, and it is only then that we can see the inherent justice in our system. My America holds not only that life is sacred, but that liberty and the pursuit of happiness are equal rights as well. The Bush Administration seems to have forgotten this particular history lesson.