Off to see and have a wedding ceremony this weekend in Gatlinburg, TN.

Important Things to Remember: Must not recite best man speech in my death metal singing voice. Keep pants on no matter how much champagne I drink. They are laughing with you. Use your best man in a tux super powers to score with the chixors.

Every day that I go into work I start it off listening to "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel. I've been listening to it almost non-stop since I discovered it in spring on a new article on Salon, and a recent Creative Loafing article that praise it. Not bad for something that came out five years ago.

It was neat to see references to Soft Machine, Elf Power and Olivia Tremor Control. I love it when I've assembled a little music universe for myself and then discover that someone else used the same parts to build theirs. It kinda makes everything seem structured, meaningful.

I got something in my email today from a Dallas theater called the Inwood. This is something I don't think I'll ever see in Huntsville, AL:

USA Film Festival and Landmark Theatres want to offer you FREE tickets
to a Special Screening of SECONDHAND LIONS.

Star Haley Joel Osment and Director Tim McCanlies will be in attendance
at this screening.

I can't imagine Huntsville would ever get a Landmark theater, have a local festival of the stature (which is decidedly humble) of USA Film Festival, or get Hollywood talent to attend a screening of their own film in Huntsville.

Now Huntsville does have a number of cultural activities that are unique. Why don't I find those as appealing? Is it some kind of pop culture brainwashing?

Looks like some folks are finally beginning to bring the brilliant ideas in BFS to other platforms. Beos had the ability to track your work like this from day one, although the addition of Rendezvous to make it work across multiple computers is novel. I wonder if BFS guru Dominic Giampaolo (didn't have to spellcheck his name thank you very much!) will fold this functionality into OS X since he works in the Apple file system group.

It would seem that about 100 years before 9/11/2001 we had 9/6/1901 when President McKinley was shot and killed by an anarchist in Buffalo, NY. (Considering the stock market crashes and miscellaneous other horrible things that happen in September you'd think we'd just skip over that month every year.)

The Boston Globe, in their Ideas section (what a great idea), has a good article about how President Roosevelt dealt with terrorism. The great trust-buster realized that he could fix American social problems by trimming the excesses of unfettered capitalism. Thus removing the conditions that spawned McKinley's killer Leon Czolgosz.

My translocation is almost complete. The last link to Dallas, my cell phone number, has been changed to a Huntsville number. Hopefully within the month I'll have my stuff transported here. Just waiting to get paid. Relocating to Huntsville, AL from Dallas, TX has meant a $500+ reduction on my 6 month car insurance premiums. Yeah! It's below my car payment now. Coming back to Huntsville stings a little. I feel like I've retreated.

I'm obsessively enjoying a project at work. I haven't been this excited about a project for many months. Right now work is like what I had at apt minds, only getting paid regularly, and I can't wear blue jeans. Oh, and I have an obnoxious, belligerent overlord that I didn't have at apt minds. Thankfully my manager is enlightened and willing to buffer us from her behavior. I don't think she'll be destructive to my personal productivity or the groups. However, if that happens I feel confident I can go "nuclear" right back at her and tell her to back off or I'm leaving.

I didn't always feel so ready to stand my ground. I wonder if that's just come from getting older, or if some event happened in my past that flipped a switch. I think part of it is situational. I believe I'm more useful to the workplace than she is. hmm, perhaps ego needs deflation.

One other plus side about where I work. The designer that works with our group has her degree in psychology with a certificate in computer mediated communication. She also has an interest in information architecture. I've been wanting to find an IA person to work with. I think she may be a really great resource on future projects. Her interest in IA seems like it might be a bit deeper than just work...with a little bit of nurturing perhaps it could become a passion.

Those who laud the American do or die spirit and hate that "axis of evil" country Iran should take a closer look at what a couple of Iranian filmmakers are doing. Compare the raft of shit that floated through our movie theaters this summer to what these two guys are doing. Sounds like that American do or die spirit is alive and well, in Iran. I'd be flabbergasted to see a major Hollywood studio take these kinds of risks to tell a good story.

From Studio Briefing:

The Venice Film Festival was plunged into international controversy Tuesday when an Iranian director charged that authorities in his country had confiscated his film and that he had to smuggle out a digital copy to present at the festival. Babak Payami's film, Silence Between Two Thoughts, concerns a Taliban soldier ordered to rape a female prisoner so that she will not be able to enter paradise. In an interview with Reuters, Payami said, "They didn't even see my film before they confiscated it." Another Iranian director, Abolfazl Jalili, who had been scheduled to appear Monday with his film Abjad (The First Letter), about a Muslim boy who falls in love with a Jewish girl, did not appear at the festival after Iranian authorities reportedly refused to authorize his trip.

That's just it though. The studios don't have to take any risks, except commercially, to tell a story like that. I don't get it. We have this great freedom to say what we want, and yet we limit ourselves. These guys, and I'd add Abbas Kiarostami to that list, work around all the limitations they have.

One final thought, organized religion is the great silencer no matter what country you're in.