Helena's visit, a big party and a lengthy recovery. All part of a fun weekend. I'd post more, but pizza and Tuesday Salon beckon...

We're having a party this weekend. You should come. If you're someone we don't know, and you actually find me, I'll give you a present. Like that's going to happen...

Okay, I figure it's time for me to chime in with one of my own. So here goes.

When people who haven't watched any anime are introduced to it, it's often through one of two movies, either Ghost in the Shell or Akira. There's a bunch of hype out there about both of them, but Akira especially.

Akira was the love-labor of Katsuhiro Otomo who is currently working on the upcoming Steamboy (which I'm extremely excited about, especially since one of Jenna's friends mentioned an interest in it). Otomo had a great series of ideas, but his work isn't "beautiful" like Miyazaki. Instead, Otomo is best at making a series of scenes seem impressive. An action packed cycle race, or a crazy series of mutations all are visually stimulating, and serve to

The film deals with biker gangs and some telekinetic humans. That's pretty much it. Throw in some violence. Add some military people. Mix in some "rebels". And secret projects.

Akira isn't for everyone, and thus, I feel somewhat annoyed that it is often recommended to people like me as "the coolest movie ever". It's not. It's far from it. The plot (it was adapted from a lengthy manga (Japanese comic book)) is somewhat tedious and nonsensical. The pacing is simply awful. The philosophy is unnecessary. At the end of the film, I'm sure many people have thought, "so what happened again?" If you watch it a second time, you'll appreciate the cool parts much more, but the bad will seem even worse.

In short, if you've never seen any anime, skip Akira. Otherwise, dive right in.

It's official: Social Security reform is dead.

The House's top two Republicans swiftly rejected an idea floated by President Bush to raise the ceiling on wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax, with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay saying yesterday that they would consider that a tax increase.

Underscoring the fluidity of the debate over Bush's proposal for restructuring the 70-year-old retirement program, DeLay (Tex.) said Congress should look at a more flexible retirement age. But he flatly opposed subjecting more of the earnings of higher-income people to the Social Security tax.

You see, the best, easiest way to get the Dems to cave on Social Security would be to press them to raise the payroll tax cap to, say, $120k. That would take care of almost all of the long term problems in the system. It would mean that those earning over $90,000 would see a chance, but no one else.

So, for a few days, I was worried that the Republicans might do just that which would leave us flatfooted with no room to fight back. But if the DeLay is against the idea, we can continue to press for it, knowing the GOP would rather lose a vote than go down that route.

We just won...

I like lists. Most of mine are mental, but the whole idea of LISP-style schemin' appeals to the Haskell in me.

Thus, enter TaDa List. It's online and free. From the guys who built basecamp. Over 10k people have joined...which makes it seem less cool, but I suppose it's better to be late to the party than to never arrive at all.

"Bar Pilar" is set to open next to St. Ex.

If they have outdoor seating, I'll be psyched.

Everyone should head over to Senator Schumer's new Social Insecurity Calculator and give it a whirl.

I lost 30%! What about you?

I just discovered Richard "The M is For Misunderstood" Stallman has his own blog. It's more like an online diary, really.

The new Free Software Foundation website is pretty nice, too. Go check it out!

This story is why I like Rendell. He just tells it like it is:

Social Security, I mean, we think of it as an entitlement, but it shouldn’t be an entitlement. It’s a safety net.

And you know, this argument that people know best how to handle their own money – if that was the case, why would we have ever needed Social Security in the first place? Right? If people were doing such a good job handling their money so they had no nest eggs for retirement, why would we ever have needed Social Security in the first place? Well, there you have it.

My argument exactly: people aren't smart enough to handle their own money. And by "people" I mean "people like me". We'd just spend it.

Go tell JMM to remove Ed from the faction.

So the new NID will be John Negroponte. Hmm. I can't say I"m happy. You'd think Bush would've chosen someone who wasn't in Honduras from '81-'85. His deputy will be the current head of the NSA, which I guess makes some sense, given that the NSA has tons of money to throw around.

On the bright side, I did consume half of a half of an extremely tasty salt bagel that Nicole brought me. And I did get to laugh at Bush looking awkward during his press conference, sans "Jeff Gannon", who was roasted last night in a hilarious Daily Show episode.

Properly done, a trailer can make a world of difference in me wanting to see a movie. The last time at the the theater, I saw a five minute snoozefest trailer for The Interpreter. I also saw a twenty second teaser trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The latter was awesome. Just music, an explosion and a cool font. I haven't even read the book but I was hooked.

So the new trailer is up on Amazon and leaves me with a conundrum, by virtue of its jaw-dropping coolness: should I go and check the book out from the library? Or wait for the movie and read it later if the movie is good? Thoughts?

And speaking of book adaptations, there have only been a few good adaptations of novels that stay true to the actual source material. In terms of good movies that are close to the novel there is:

1. Fight Club
2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. (Fairly close!)
3. The Harry Potter movies.
4. John Grishman adaptations.

Movies that differ vastly from the novels but still manage to be good include:

1. Blade Runner
2. Jurassic Park
3. Adaptation
4. Minority Report
5. Hell...any Philip K. Dick story, really...
6. Any Ian Fleming novel/James Bond movie.

I was going to add "Any Michael Crichton novel" to the latter list but then I remembered that other than Jurassic Park, every adaptation of his (yes, including Westworld) has been awful. Except for the Andromeda Strain. Which maybe means I should list it...

werkz advice: a great read

Last weekend I finished Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. The novel works on many levels, but for me, the greatest part is that it blends a terrific style with a circular plot which neatly resolves itself at the end of the novel. The entire book I kept thinking "this is great...but the ending will stink". I was wrong.

Ostensibly, the novel focuses on one screwed up family. Easy to empathize with. That's all you need to know. Go buy it.

Another great Tuesday Salon is over. My head is somewhat cloudy, but otherwise everything is very clear. Tomorrow should be super-busy but I hope to throw up a couple reviews of the past several books I've read in the last week.

Until then, have a good morning!

So in addition to the new redesign, the Washington Post also trotted out a new blog by the Going Out Gurus, to join Joel's blog.

The best part? The very first few postings alerted me to a new Ruscha show at the National Gallery. In my excitement I may have used too many bangs(!) in my comment but now that I know, anyone care to join me for lunch one day?