Fear the Amphibious Robot Snake!

This is one freaky little robot. Cool, though.

Welcome to the Summer of Rage!

In Europe, at least, 2009 will be "The Summer of Rage". Yes, we're still months away from summer and it's already been dubbed that by numerous sources. The G-20 summit in London will be the first event of this Summer of Rage. (I think they might have worked on the name some more, frankly.)

The G-20 summit is significant in its own right. I subscribe to the geopolitical website Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor). They're a pay site, but they do have an introduction to the G-20, which may rewrite the world's financial system. Maybe. The problem is that the Americans and the Europeans don't agree on what the problems are and what we should do about them -- especially since Europe is in *much* worse shape than the US is, even if we triggered the mess. The Chinese want to play for leadership, which is a marvelous bluff, since they have far less power than the rest of the world gives them credit for.

So, the financial system will probably change one way or the other and we have at least a couple seasons of protests and rioting to look forward to. We are entering Interesting Times again.

Financial Predictions

I have been in my current job, mutual fund accountant, for a little over 2 years now. (I was one before -- just before and during the dot.com crisis. I pick lousy times to be in the industry. :) In my spare time at work, I go on Bloomberg and read most of the interesting articles. I get to not be bored *and* it is work related!

Between my job and Bloomberg, I think I've gotten a pretty good idea of what the stock market is doing these days and what it will do in the nearish future. I want to actually write this out so I can see later whether my knowledge and the economic theories are correct or not. My memory sucks, so this will keep me honest.

Note that this is only about the stock market. I've only really studied it, not the general economy. I don't know how long the rest of the economy will take to recover -- longer than the stock market, but I can't be more precise than that.

My near term prediction is that we are at or near the stock market bottom. Earlier this month, the news and predictions on Bloomberg became overwhelmingly negative. Everything was bad, everything was going to get worse. Now, according to the market theories I subscribe to, this means that the market was about to go up -- which it did, when I was home sick, otherwise I would have posted this earlier. :)

Now, while I am confident that we are at the market bottom, we could skitter along the bottom for a while. The last two days, the market went back down. It could go down more and it may do so a few more times before it genuinely heads up. But it won't go below the recent lows, and the S&P 500 definitely isn't going to go down to 600.

My other qualifier is that some currently *unforseen* disaster could send the market back down again. There are some possible disasters on the horizon that will probably cause a bunch of damage to the economy, but they're priced in to stock prices already. For example, in number of banks, including Bank of America, could go under. Hedge funds will go under and private equity firms will go under. This is all expected and shouldn't really affect the stock market much.

Part of what will fuel the near-term stock market rise will be acquisitions, especially amongst pharmaceutical companies. There will be a feeding frenzy, as big companies whose patents are expiring try to buy new revenue streams. Again, this is already happening, so it's not much of a prediction, but it will keep happening. Apparently, the same will also happen in the health care industry. Humana is a target, for some unknown reason.

In the mid-term, the Nasdaq stock market will finally recover, which it hasn't, really, since the Dot.com era. Tech stocks will go up and this will be a more genuine rally than in the late '90s, since the companies will actually be worth something. They will begin replacing financial stocks as the stars.

My longer term prediction probably will sound unbelievable to a lot of people: US manufacturing is going to recover. Companies that actually make things, in the US, will be a major growth area. Why do I predict this? Oil has gone done in price, but it *will* go back up. The cheap transportation costs that helped fuel manufacturing in the developing world will not come back.

Equally importantly, Mexico is increasingly in chaos. As the Colombian cartels were destroyed, the Mexican distributors grew in power. They have grown more and more violent, until they regularly assassinate police officers. They even assassinated the head of federal anti-cartel operations in Mexico City itself. Even excluding the killing, kidnapping has become a major industry in Mexico and foreign businessmen are an enticing target. Mexico is becoming a more and more unattractive place for manufacturers.

So, if you can't get the cost savings through overseas production, and Mexico is out (and Canada is simply too small), that leaves the US. Just as the market is at or near a minimum today, US manufacturing is at or near a minimum. It will come back and US manufacturing companies will, in 5 or 10 years, be big again.

New Year's resolutions: to be Vain, Twitchy, and Annoying

I'm a bit late posting this, but I blame end of year at my work. :) I made these resolutions New Year's Eve, anyway.

Vanity: I resolve to be more vain this year. If I was more vain, I'd look in the mirror more often. If I looked in the mirror more often, I wouldn't have let myself get this out of shape. So I need to be more vain so I can get in shape.

Twitchiness: My son doesn't stop moving. He twitches all the time. He is also all muscle -- my wife has compared him to Iggy Pop. He took that as a great complement. :) I tend to sit quietly most of the time, especially at work. The more I move, the more exercise I get. And the less time I spend snacking.

Annoyance: I'm a lot more outgoing than I used to be, but I'm still an introvert at heart. Which means I don't initiate much conversation or contact. I've drifted out of contact with a lot of my friends and I want to correct that.

Annoyance also covers another thing: I want to actually write the stories I've been thinking up this year. I've got lots of notes, pre-production work, and even some early rough drafts and outlines, but I need to actually finish something. Once I have actually finished something, I can get it published. And then I can annoy hundreds or even thousands of people! :)

So that's my resolution: vain, twitchy, and annoying. It'll be good.

Citipoop

I'm off work for most of this week (I still have to work Friday, but at least I get a bonus vacation day out of it, which means my 4 days off is only costing me 2 vacation days) but I'm a mutual fund accountant. I checked in on Bloomberg.com yesterday. I couldn't help myself. :) There, I see that the Feds are bailing out Citigroup. Not only that, but the markets are UP on this news! Like it's a *good* thing that the largest bank in the country is a total, abject failure? I checked in later and saw a headline that the Dow had its biggest two-day gain ever. WTF?

I haven't read the stories, so I don't know how the Citipoop failure is being spun. (I have *some* control on my days off!) Citigroup, though, is not (at least primarily) a victim of the subprime crisis. It's more like the Big Three car companies -- the victim of years of stupid management. Citigroup hasn't been a successful bank. It has merely been a *big* bank. Citibank was reasonably successful. The Travelers' Group was reasonably successful. Combine the two and you get a big, inefficient, clumsy, not nearly as profitable as it could be mess.

I suppose Comrades Paulson, Bernanke, and/or Bush felt that they "had to" save Citipoop. And maybe they did. As I'm writing this, the Dow is still up for the third day in a row, so the market seems to think it's a good thing. But, really. There's been some good news recently that the market has ignored. We're at least halfway through this mess, if not more, because it *actually* started falling apart sometime in mid-2007, when everyone was still claiming the financial system was Peachy Keen.

Contrast this with the Consumer Price Index. The numbers for October came out last week, showing that consumer prices (the stuff actual normal people usually buy) had dropped. The market went down! Oh, sure, some talking heads made noises about how consumer prices going down is bad, but they're fucking morons. Most of the US economy (like 70%) is based on consumer spending. In the last few years, the cost of food has almost doubled and fuel has tripled in cost. Everybody needs those and most people buy them first and fuck the luxury items. Now, with the credit crisis, a lot fewer people can buy on credit. So with all their money going to food and fuel, and less credit cards and home equity loans to buy shit they can't afford, most everything else just isn't being bought. That causes other retailers to go out of business, which puts more people out of work, which makes things worse, etc. Thus back to the CPI -- if it goes down, that means shit is getting cheaper, which means people can be more shit, which means fewer retailers will go out of business, which means more people get to keep their jobs.

So, the market goes down on that good news, and goes up on the colossally bad Citipoop news. Leaving us with an inescapable conclusion: Most investors, from the smallest to the largest, are MORONS.

The Internet Party

Okay, I probably find this to be more funny than it actually is. But it had me laughing out loud at several points. I present, from my current favourite website (Cracked.com), The Internet Party!





The sequel isn't as funny, but still had me lol'ing. Giggle. :)

We're number one! So God you must suck...

Recently, I noticed a brand new sticker on Denver's buses and light rail trains. Apparently, the Denver Metro Area's transit system, RTD, is the number one transit system in the country for 2008. All I can say to that is that the rest of the country's transit systems must SUCK ASS.

Seriously. RTD is okay at best. The buses mostly follow bizarre routes that stagger randomly down major streets and minor side streets alike. It's rather scary to see an articulated double-length bus turn onto a side street that is only technically two lanes wide. Not to mention that the buses have stops practically every fucking block for large stretches of their routes. Some routes, usually designated as "limited" routes, are straighter and don't have so fucking many stops, but they are unfortunately in the minority.

The light rail is better, but it covers only a very limited area so far. And they keep cutting the fucking service! They tried to cut my route entirely, saying it wasn't profitable -- despite the fact that the train is packed at rush hour. The riders fought back and at least managed to keep the rush hour trips. But, overall, I do have to give it pretty good marks, especially in the winter. It's very nice to be travelling at 55 when the highway next door is a parking lot. :)

So I'd give the general bus routes a D, the limited routes a C+, and light rail a B-. And apparently this is the best this country has to offer. Remind me never to take a bus in any other city!

I'll take my Nobel prize for Physics now!

I have been largely out of the physics loop for well over a decade now -- ever since I dropped physics for history. But I've paid some attention to popular science programs, read the occasional Discover magazine and such, so I've had some vague idea of what ideas are trendy in physics.

A little while ago, though, I finally heard about one of the theories in physics concerning dark matter. According to currently accepted theory, all of the visible matter and energy in the universe only adds up to create about 5% of the observed effects of gravity. So the current theory posits that we're only seeing 5% of the universe, and the rest is one form or another of "dark matter and/or energy".

The theories have gone right 'round the bend into insanity, though. The theory I heard was referenced in a Cracked article on the Five Scientific Experiments Most Likely to End the World (specifically number 4). I was particularly struck by the following: "One prominent scientist theorized that the changes caused by simply observing dark energy could cause it to collapse, taking the universe with it." (Their link to the original article may be dead; I can't get it to come up at least.)

I have this theory about theories. When they get to the bugshit insane stage, they're WRONG. You know what dark matter and dark energy are made of? Luminiferous Ether, that's what. Back in the 19th century, right before quantum mechanics came along, all the scientists of the day knew that light acted as a wave. If it's a wave, it has to be travelling through some medium. That medium, they though, was the luminiferous ether.

Only problem was that, in order for the ether to exhibit the properties they observed, the ether itself had to have weirder and weirder properties -- like being infinitely rigid. How matter was supposed to move through something infinitely rigid was kind of hand waved over.

Eventually, though, they finally hit a brick wall with the Michaelson-Morely experiment. (A side note on my geekiness: I *remembered* that by name.) In 1887, they proved conclusively that the luminiferous ether did not and could not exist. Granted, they were trying to prove the opposite, but their actual result was far more important.

I think you can see where I'm headed with this. Just as luminiferous ether kept getting loonier and loonier, so to dark matter/energy keeps getting zanier and wackier. Personally, I think these are all terms that a reputable scientific theory should not evoke in a person.

I don't know *when* dark matter and dark energy will be disproven. Maybe if they ever fix the sabotage on the Large Hadron Collider (and prevent further "accidents") they'll come up with something. Whenever they do, the Nobel committee better remember to include my name on the award, too. And more importantly on the award check. :)

Welcome to the REAL "Real America"

I've been trying to gather my thoughts on the election all week. For the first time ever, I've voted for the winning presidential candidate! (I used to be a Libertarian, though. I wasn't expecting a win the first three times.) And it isn't like the last election, where I held my nose and voted for Kerry because at least he wasn't Bush. No, this time I voted for Barack Obama because he was a candidate I actually supported!

One of the best things for me this election is seeing middle aged and elderly black women, dressed in their Sunday Best, walking around with their head held high as they voted in the caucuses, then primary, and now the general election.

There are many things that I love about this election. But the best thing of all is the defeat of Sarah Palin and everything she stands for: stupidity, ignorance, racism, hate, and above all Fear. Give me Hope any day. Not mindless, unthinking hope where you just hope things turn out well. That isn't what Obama has ever offered -- though I know some of his followers have unrealistic expectations about what he (or any human being) could possibly do. No, it's the sort of hope where, with a hell of a lot of hard work, you really *can* make the world a better place. And that's my kind of Hope.

Totom -- My Violent Heart mashups

I am a big fan of mashups, especially the ones by a French artist named Totom. One of his specialties is taking a rap or hip-hop track and giving it better backing music -- usually rock and often Queens of the Stone Age. A good example of this is AYO Drag, 50 Cent mashed up with Placebo.

He also does quite a bit with Nine Inch Nails -- both taking the vocals and putting them with new music, and taking the music and adding on new vocals. His most recent project is Bootleg is Resistance, which is a total of three albums and 48 tracks mashing up the songs from Year Zero. It would be difficult to review them as a whole -- each track is its own work of art. As with any experimental art, some aren't so great. But most of these are, and some are downright great. And almost all of them are better than the original songs as mixed by Trent.

Two of my favourites are based on the song "My Violent Heart". Granted, it's one of the better tracks on the album -- though the end of the song drags on about a minute longer than it should -- so it's not surprising that it makes excellent mashups. The first mashup is 1 2 3 4 My Violent Heart, which mashes up the song with "1 2 3 4" by Feist. Feist's original song is GODAWFUL, but it turns out that is mostly the fault of the "singer". The instrumentals are just fine -- and they make for quite an amusing mashup. I don't think Trent would ever pick something that bouncy on his own. :)

The other mashup I'm featuring is My Growing Heart. It is mashed up with Growing Up by Peter Gabriel and it is one of the best mashups I've heard, period. Gabriel's vocals are overlayed on Trent's instrumentals, without the excessive tail. It doesn't even sound like a mashup -- it sounds like the song was recorded that way. I think it's a better match than the original. I've had it on my MP3 player since Totom released it in May and it's not likely to come off any time soon.

I don't know if I'll convert anyone to mashups, but the three tracks above are a good start. They show some of the finest things a mashup can do: give better background music to rap, make something surprising and different out of a song, and make something that sounds even better than the originals. Not bad for an artform the RIAA would love to destroy.

My Own Worst Enemy: cool new Christian Slater TV show

My Own Worst Enemy is a new show on NBC after Heroes on Mondays. (The series premiere is being reshown tomorrow, so it's still possible to catch it if you find it sounds interesting.) It stars Christian Slater and, if you like the movies he's done, you don't really have to read further. He was as good as he's ever been in the premiere and there's every sign the rest of the show is going to be the same quality.

The plot may sound kind of familiar, and it definitely has nothing to do with reality, but they do it well enough that you can easily suspend disbelief. Mild-mannered efficiency expert Henry Spivey discovers that he doesn't actually exist. He's the (very, very elaborate) cover ID for Edward Albright, war hero and super spy. Edward volunteered for a program where the US government imprinted a second, completely different personality that appears real: Henry. He has his own job, a wife, and even two kids. He has no reason to suspect he is going on missions. Whevever his "job" sends him on a business trip, he is turned off and Edward reemerges.

Now it may sound like I'm giving away spoilers. I'm not. This isn't the reveal; this is just the setup of the show. Both Edward and Henry's lives are going along just fine until something goes wrong and Edward wakes up at Henry's house. His controllers have no idea why that happened, but they know it's bad. Things get worse when Henry emerges in the middle of one of Edward's missions and almost gets his ass shot off.

Like I said, this isn't a truly original concept, but they do it extremely well. Besides Slater, the show also stars Alfre Woodard as his boss. You probably won't recognize her name, but you'll recognize her. She adds quite a bit to the show and she hasn't really even featured much yet. I'm not really familiar with the other actors, but they all also did a great job. The acting really makes the show. Even at points when my rationality was saying "yeah, right!", I still ran with it and loved every minute. There aren't many TV shows I bother with any more, but this one has been added to my list.

The SEC fiddles while the markets burn...

I just read the following article:

SEC's Short-Seller Witch Hunt Nabs a Munchkin: Jonathan Weil

And my only response is WTF?!?!?!?!? A measly 200 grand and they act like they've caught a real criminal? This is a fine example of why the Treasury and Fed are acting on their own and not even phoning the SEC to tell them what they're doing. While the financial system falls apart, the SEC wastes its time going after penny ante short sellers. (Yes, I realize many of my readers may not think 200 grand is penny ante. On a personal scale, yeah, it ain't: 200 grand would make all my financial problems go away permanently. But in the scale of the financial world, it isn't even a blip.)

The whole short selling issue in this situation is just like when a political candidate brings up abortion or gay marriage: it's just there to distract the Hoi Poloi from the real issues. Traders want to do short sales on financial companies because the financial companies suck and are largely worthless. The short sellers didn't *make* them suck and didn't *make* them worthless. They just have the intelligence to see that this is the case. But they make an oh-so-convenient scapegoat: they bet the stock price is going to go down, it goes down, BAM! they are to blame.

Nice theory. Too bad all the protected financial companies are still dropping like a rock. Oops.

Stupid D&D Monsters

Since I haven't looked at any of my D&D monster books in a while, I forgot that the Flumph is *not* the stupidest monster they ever came up with. Arguably, the gem listed here *is* the stupidest. But there are more contestants! And many of them can be found here, on Head Injury Theater, a site I just discovered. Pretty cool. Though the monsters aren't. :)

Fatigue

I have had all kinds of rants in my head about this financial mess. Every day something new and insane comes up. Like Comrade Paulson's 700 billion dollar price fixing scheme (now fortified with another 150 billion more dollars of election year tax cut pandering!). Boy, it's a good thing they got that passed! If they hadn't, the markets might have tanked again on Friday! Oh, wait... :|

But I haven't written any of them out. Matter of fact, I've done little other than come home and veg out playing Civ IV. (I played a game on Earth, starting in 1000 AD, as the Aztecs. I actually made it into the 1950's before I got invaded in force. Since my opposition was twice as strong as my best units, I just quit then -- I didn't need to see the slaughter. I have a good imagination. But I thought keeping the Aztecs around 'til then was a decent enough result...)

Normally, my job doesn't involve any overtime. We work while the markets are open, then another two hours after to get our reporting done. Once that's done, there's nothing else to do, and we leave. Not the past couple weeks. This last pay period, 11 working days, I had 7 fucking hours of overtime! Granted, the paycheck will be nice, but Jesus Fucking Hallmark Christ! Not to mention that I was working much harder during my regular and extra hours, trying to keep up with that mess. Another rant I didn't write: Uncle Sam was an IDIOT when he let Lehman go bankrupt. They'll still be cleaning up that mess years from now. Maybe even 5 years from now. And it's especially stupid, given all the other Communist things the Feds are doing now...

So what I want for my birthday (preferrably before) is for this insane ass shit to STOP. Every time the investors panic and start selling like crazy, they lose money. It's called buy LOW sell HIGH, assclowns. Not the other way around...

¡Clickhalah!

Cracked: 7 Classic Kid's TV Shows Clearly Conceived on (Bad) Acid

This is some seriously fucked up shit. I had forgotten all about the horror that was Slim Goodbody. Maybe I just purged the memory. :)

I didn't see numbers 2-6, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

The Tomorrow People was fuckin' cool, though. If they had even had 50 pounds to spend on special effects, it would be remembered as one of the greatest kid's shows EVAR. Of course, you'd expect an elitist like me to like the idea of Homo Superior.

Serj Tankian: Elect the Dead

Elect the Dead is the solo album from the singer of System of a Down. If you like System, you'll like this album. It isn't exactly the same as System's music -- it's more political, for one thing -- but it's close enough that I think fans of one will be fans of the other.

The album is very strong and consistent over all, though I don't really like the song "Elect the Dead" and a lot of the tracks are better than the single "Sky is Over". "Beethoven's Cunt", available for download on Rock Band & Rock Band 2, is a better example of the quality of the songs on the album.

While most of the rest of the songs are good, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" really stands out. I'd consider it not only the best song on the album, but also one of the best songs I've ever heard. While the songs aren't similar, it has a similar feel to the System song "Chop Suey" -- it bounces all over the place and every bound is perfect.

So I'd definitely recommend the album and the track for Rock Band. Excellent, excellent music.

Seeing Red: Comrade Bush and the People's Federal Reserve

When the media first started doing that silly "red state, blue state" crap, I wondered why the Republicans were labeled as "red". Last time I checked, in politics, red was the color of Godless Communists. Well, the Republicans have since established their communist links with depressing frequency. Comrade Stalin would have approved of Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, and the "Patriot" Act.

Now, Comrade Bush, Comrade Paulson, Comrade Bernanke, the People's Federal Reserve, and the People's Federal Reserve are engaged in the largest nationalization of industry (by dollar value) ever done in the world. Yes, it's the financial industry, rather than traditional manufacturing industries, but it's the important industry these days. And the communist solution they choose for this is to nationalize, nationalize, nationalize!

The "loan" to JP Morgan is actually an equity position, making Comrade Uncle Sam a major stockholder. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac no longer have an implied US backing -- the Democratic Republic of the United States is responsible for the outright. And now AIG is the latest department of the increasingly communist government.

Capitalism, we'll miss you.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were NATIONALIZED.

The official press release says that the Treasury is putting FNMA and FHLMC under "conservatorship". Don't believe it. They just got nationalized. Yes, private individuals still own their share (though they're worth less than a dollar a share now). Lots of nationalized industries still have private ownership -- Petrobras, Brazil's oil company, is 60% in private hands. The important thing is that they are now controlled by the US government, which is nationalization.

Communist style nationalization.

Naughty Librarian: Dangerously, Incompetently Inexperienced

If the Republicans are right, and Obama is "too inexperienced", then by the exact same standard the Naughty Librarian is dangerously, incompetently, criminally inexperienced. (Okay, if we ever have some geopolitical moose-related incident, she's the one to call. But otherwise...)

As a matter of fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a US politician who has less relevant experience than the NL. Take a local example for me -- Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver. He is a very successful businessman, who created not just one of the most successful bars in Denver, but also revitalized the entire lower downtown area of Denver. It wasn't even safe to walk down there and it's now a major business center/tourist trap. He has continued to revitalize Denver as mayor.

His qualifications are miles above the Naughty Librarian's. But would anyone float Hickenlooper as a candidate for President? I don't fucking think so. Lovely man, but he doesn't have any really relevant experience. Which means that the Republican choice is...

Rant: The GOP, the Naughty Librarian, and the Slutty Daughter

The McCain campaign is continuing to amuse me. First, that he's even the candidate -- the GOP was so desperate for somebody, ANYBODY, that wasn't Mormon or certifiably insane that they took a man the party core despises. Next, he goes and pretends he's the second coming of Bush, which isn't going to convince the GOP skeptics and is going to manage to turn off any independents who might have fallen for his undeserved "maverick" image.

But now he's gotten even worse. His running mate, the Naughty Librarian, was chosen exclusively because she has a vagina. Sadly, this will actually get some of the Hillary supporters to vote for him, which shows exactly what sort of scumbag traitorous bastards THEY are. (And I say that from an objective point of view. They are traitors to the causes they believe in if they vote for McCain simply because their candidate didn't win. Not to mention that most of them are racist pieces of shit, but that's another rant entirely.) Just imagine -- if McCain kicks it, we'll have a local sportscaster with her finger on the nuclear button! Isn't that a reassuring image?

And she isn't exactly going to ignite the GOP base. She actually is something of the maverick that McCain says he is, going after Republican evildoers in Alaska. That's not going to increase her popularity with the party leaders. It's one thing to *claim* you're out to clean things up. It's quite another to actually *do* something about it.

And now her Slutty Daughter shows up five months pregnant. (Not to mention the internet rumours that the Naughty Librarian's youngest son is actually the Slutty Daughter's child. I don't think there's actually any basis to believe that, but I'm going to help spread the rumour anyway. :p ) Boy, howdy, the GOP sure lives up to its family values platform! Oh, but they're saying it's all right because she's going to marry the father of the child and have the baby. Or at least marry the guy she guesses is the most likely candidate to be the father, at any rate. She's not going to have an abortion, though! That makes it all right! Just imagine if the 17 year old daughter of a Democratic candidate showed up five months pregnant and unwed. The same people sure as hell wouldn't be saying "it's a family matter." It'd be the only thing on Fox news for a month.

The GOP hates Obama for the same reason Hillary did: you can't find a real scandal on the guy. The GOP seems to have gone the other direction, though. Is there ANYTHING about the Naughty Librarian that isn't going to turn out to be a scandal?

Review: Psycho Beach Party

At my last job, which sucked and was really boring, I ended up reading most of the reviews on the site Badmovies.org. I put a bunch of the movies on my Netflix list and they're finally coming up. The really bad ones are every bit as painful as advertised (like The Dark Power -- an elderly man with a whip as the hero; dear Goddess the pain!), but the good B movies are proving to be *good*.

Psycho Beach Party is quite simply the best B movie I have ever seen. Given the hundreds of the damn things I have watched, that's saying something. It is a sendup of beach movies in general, and Gidget in specific. (As Andrew Borntreger of Badmovies recommended, I recommend seeing Gidget right before you watch the movie. Gidget's actually pretty decent and it will make the jokes funnier.) I've seen many parody movies, but this is the best by far.

What puts Psycho Beach Party at the head of the pack? The excellent writing is definitely a part of it. The genre adds a lot -- beach movies are a target deserving of quality skewering. But most important is the acting. Lauren Ambrose plays Florence 'Chicklet' Forrest, a ditsy teen girl who becomes enamored with surfing, just like Gidget. But unlike Gidget, Chicklet has multiple personalities and she keeps blacking out and slipping into them. And kids are getting murdered on the beach! She's afraid that she is the most likely suspect...

Ambrose amazed me with how quickly and easily she can switch personalities. Her main alter ego is Ann Bowman, a foul-mouthed dominatrix, but I was even more impressed with her black alter ego. Seeing a young red headed white girl say "I will cut you! I will!" and sound just like an angry black woman is impressive.

So I'd recommend this double feature -- Gidget and Psycho Beach Party. It's far higher quality entertainment than you'd expect.

Rant: What's good for the Kosovo is good for Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Since the 9th of August (or so), Bushie Boy has been sanctimoniously proclaiming that Russia's invasion of Georgia is an illegal action. Boy howdy, but ain't he right! Just too bad that the Nato/EU/US annexation of Kosovo from Serbia was equally and exactly equivalently illegal and served as a precedent for Russian action against the Georgians.

No matter how many time Shrub and Conodleeza Rice say otherwise, Russia hasn't done anything different than the West. I wondered, when Kosovo illegally declared "independence" (like it would last five minutes if the occupying troops left), why Putin didn't make some effort to stop it. Now I see why; he was waiting for the West to put their collective foot in it. Once you start loping parts of countries off by force, you can't justifiably complain when someone else does the same.

Not that it's going to stop our leaders here in the West pretending they are right and Russia is wrong. And they may convince some of their constituents, here and now, but I don't think History is going to agree. We've given the Russians the green light to reconquer their empire.

Review: Nine Inch Nails "The Slip"

I have probably given Trent Reznor more chances than he deserves. I love his older works -- Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, and the Downward Spiral. I recently put both disks of the Fragile on my MP3 player and I think it measures up to the same standards. I know a lot of people think it's weak compared to his previous albums, but I think he was still putting out quality music at the time.

But then he put out With Soft Gumming, which is crap from beginning to end. Year Zero was little better -- the best song by far is "Hyperpower", which is basically a throwaway track and doesn't even last two minutes. Things got even worse again with Ghosts -- the free Ghosts I was so pathetic that I don't even care to listen to the other three.

With that track record, I almost didn't download the Slip. I think I could have been excused if I didn't. But I went ahead and downloaded it anyway and was amazed as soon as I started listening to it. Trent is back, and he is finally producing good music after nearly a decade of crap. Damn good music actually -- the album is solid from beginning to end. It almost makes up for having to pay for With Gums and Year Zero.

I've seen a complaint that the songs don't flow as an album, but I think that's wrong. They don't have a theme, really, but Year Zero had a theme and ended up as crap. The weakest song on the album is "Lights in the Sky", and it is still better than anything on With Slobbering. The single "Discipline" isn't all that strong compared to most of the album, but it's still one of the best songs he's done in years. "Echoplex" and "Demon Seed" stand up there with the best Trent has ever done -- I'd rate them with "Head Like a Hole" and "Closer" without hesitation.

In summary, if you like NIN, or industrial in general, and you haven't done it already, download The Slip. Hell, I'm almost tempted to buy the physical release for the DVD extras. Trent is back and kicking ass. Let's just hope he stays that way.