Author: Mike P. Lewis

Guerrilla Gardening

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The was a post (here) about how watching the awesome TED speech by Majora Carter (which i posted about a month ago) reminded him of another project committed to green spaces in the inner city; Guerrilla Gardening, people who go and garden in neglected public spaces, without permission but with love, generosity, and humour.

gardening

The Guerrilla Garderers find abandoned, unregarded bits of urban environment, covertly sneak in at night and do some planting, some maintenance and eventually some harvesting. The idea has a distinguished history but has re-emerged in mainstream media through the efforts of a small band of gardeners in London, and around the world.

They are tryign to get 100 random acts of gardening in 4 countries by Sept 1, 2006.   Want to lend a hand?

Badass Cops

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I’ve travelled around quite a bit over the past few months and come across various policemen in different places. I have to say that some of their equipment is pretty funny. Check these two out:

New York’s Version of the Batmobile

In the US’s Gotham City, there’s now a sweet new vehicle roaming the streets. It’s sleek, it can get through traffic jams, and its miles per gallon is phenomenal!

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Italy’s New Speedster

What else can you expect from the home of the incredibly engineered cars like Ferrari, Bugatti, and Maserati – how about the new Italian Police Segway! I can just see a platoon of Segways cruising the streets trying to corner a criminal who’s cruising away in a regular car.

Italian Segway

Minnesota Timberwolves' Draft Story

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It is largely thought that my Minnesota Timberwolves got one of the best players in this week’s draft, selecting Randy Foye in the seventh pick.
The Sports Guy column recounted the way that Minnesota came across that 7th pick.

It’s April 19, 2006, the final day of the season. The Celts have the sixth-worst record and plays host to Miami; Minnesota is at No. 7 and plays host to Memphis. The C’s do the honorable thing, play hard at12wolf050104l.jpg home and whup Miami’s third-string with their kids. Going against Memphis’ third string, Minnesota does the dishonorable thing and completely tanks the tail end of the game. I mean, COMPLETELY. To the point that Mark Madsen plays 30 minutes, goes 1 for 15 from the field, misses seven 3-pointers (yes, you read that correctly), conveniently “forgets” to guard Brian Cardinal on the game-tying 3 in the final 20 seconds of regulation, then misses three straight 3s to kick off the second OT (check out the play-by-play if you don’t believe me). Mark Madsen basically shaved points in this game.

I’m telling you. I have never seen a professional team throw a game this blatantly, in any sport, at any level. Even the 1919 Black Sox would have been mortified.
So what was the end result? They moved into the No. 6 spot, Boston slid to No. 7.

Look at the box score. Seriously, take a look. Before this game, Madsen shot nine 3s TOTAL during the first six years of his career. Did he get suspended after this tank job? No. Did anyone get suspended or fined? No. Does anyone remember this other than me and my dad? Apparently, no. And then the T-Wolves get rewarded with a better pick? What a joke. I don’t know where the WWE ends and the NBA begins anymore. And yes, I’ve been waiting to rant about that for two months. So there you go.

I’m not sure how i feel about this.  On one hand, it would have been pointless to win the game.  On the other, every game should be a competitive.  Similar to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors regarding the ethics of medicine, i believe there should be a similar oath taken by athletes that they will compete at the best of their abilities and attempt to win each game at all times.  What this article doesn’t mention is that KG refuses to lose any game. Because of this, he was basically benched for the last 2 weeks of the season.  Sure, they called it “resting” but there’s no way the coaches were going to let him go out there and win game.  Interesting indeed.

Ideal US Soccer Team – With Non-Soccer Players

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I’m a big supporter of US soccer. We’ve got consistently better over the past 20 years and are only going to continue to improve.

However, the US just got crushed by the rest of the world (Ghana and Czech) at the World Cup. It was sad. The other teams looked faster, better, and more experienced. Because of this, i began to think about what would happen if the best athletes in the United States actually played soccer instead of more popular (and lucrative) sports such as basketball, football, or baseball and what our team would actually look like.

I came to the conclusion that our team would be a standard 4-4-2 formation and would consist of mostly football and basketball players. I thought about non-team sport athletes and while i respect them, i couldn’t really find a spot for them on the roster. Here’s what we’ve got (click here for a larger image):

Up Front

Randy Moss (Oakland Raiders) and Richard Hamilton (Detroit Pistons). Moss would be a big target who could knock down long balls and lay it back to our incredibly quick midfield. He also would be just deadly in the air – dominating crosses. Just send it up high and let him bring it down with his chest or head. It would be great. Next to him is Richard Hamilton. Rip would also be big, but he’d rely on his great workrate to find the ball and create scoring chances. His non-stop unselfish runs to the corner and front-post would allow Moss to hang in the middle, and his back-tracking is a bonus. In addition to Rip being a workhorse, i also think he’d be a clinical finisher. Unlike Moss, he’d have a great shot from almost any distance yet be be quick enough to capitalize on mistakes in the box.

In the Middle

Our midfield is amazing. Down the flanks you have Allen Iverson (Philadelphia 76’ers) on the right and Steve Smith (Carolina Panthers) on the left. Both can run all day, and both can take people on. I can envision both absolutely abusing other defenses with their pure speed and quickness. In the middle of the field, you have Dwayne Wade (Miami Heat) and LaDanian Tomlinson (San Diego Chargers). Both have the work rate and quickness to defend any other opposing midfielders, yet the aggressiveness to tackle and attack with pace and creativity. Wade would probably go forward more, while Tomlinson tracks the ball.

In the Back

On the outsides Champ Bailey (6’0” Denver Broncos) and Sean Taylor (6’2” Washington Redskins). Champ, playing on the left is a 6-time Pro-Bowler who can cover just about anybody. Nobody would get by him. On the right is Taylor who is a combination of strength, speed, and agility that made him the best safety in the league last year. No only would he shut down opposing forwards, but he’d get forward often to support Iverson.

In the middle you have Troy Palomalu (Pittsburgh Steelers) at center back in front of Vince Young. Palomalu, as we all know, is just a beast of a defender. Could you imagine anyone taking a lot of touches in the middle of the field? Imagine him and all his hair flying at you. Vince would play behind Troy and he has the height, speed, jumping ability and athleticism to dominate any opposing forward in the air and would be a wall of a man to get around on the ground. Also, as a quarterback, his distribution around the field would be great. He could launch a ball up to a posting-up Moss who could lay it to Rip or AI or Wade for a shot on goal. Ah, it’s a beautiful thing.

Keeper

At keeper, i’d like to see Tayshaun Prince (Detroit Pistons). His height, quickness, freakish long-arms, and large vertical (did i mention long arms) would allow him to take down any cross and be a great shot-blocker.

There’s the team. I think we would absolutely dominate the world with this squad and with new players coming in each year (Reggie Bush), we would be a hell of an exciting team to watch.

Superman Returns – Good Only if Born After 1975

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superman.jpgHaving read many reviews of the newly released Superman Returns, i wasn’t expecting much from film when i entered the theater. Two and a half hours later, i left feeling completely entertained and fulfilled. Feeling misled by many critics, i began to wonder why the movie was being panned by critics i generally trusted. Going back to the reviews, i found that almost every critic that gave the movie a compared it to the first two originals.

For instance the New York Times can help but repeatedly discuss the greatness of Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman’s roles rather than the effectiveness and charm of Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth. For instance, the NYT review actually lists all the characters of the 1978 film and only after praising the original storyline and cast does it briefly mention the actual participants in the current film:

Released in 1978, that film ushered Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s original comic creation into the blockbuster age with frothy wit and a cast that included Marlon Brando in a creamy scoop of white hair and Gene Hackman in clover. Christopher Reeve, of course, wore the cape and tights, while Margot Kidder did a fine approximation of the young Katharine Hepburn at her most coltish. Valerie Perrine and Ned Beatty added some laughs, while Glenn Ford supplied a pinch of gravitas.

The NYT’s infatuation with Reeve continues later in the article:

Mr. Reeve worked the tonal changes with similar ease, delivering a superhero whose earnestness was strategically offset by his fumbling, bumbling, all-too-human twin, who was just the ticket for the post-Watergate, pre-Indiana Jones moment. Mr. Singer’s Superman, played by Brandon Routh, is a hero of rather different emotional colors, most muted……Part of the charm of Mr. Reeve’s interpretation was that a guy this impossibly handsome, who literally towers over everyone in the office, could hide behind a slouch and oversize eyeglasses.

The NYT is not the only review to do this. Roger Ebert’s review is the same:

Routh may have been cast because he looks a little like Reeve, but there are times when he looks more like an action figure; were effects used to make him seem built from synthetics? We remember the chemistry between Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder (Lois Lane) in the original “Superman” movie, and then observe how their counterparts are tongue-tied in this one. If they had a real romance (and they did), has it left them with nothing more than wistful looks and awkward small talk?

Of course, Lois doesn’t remember the romance between her and Superman because he erased it at the end of S2, but apparently Ebert forgot that point.

What gets me about these constant comparisons to the past films is that, as a 28 year old, i don’t remember them. The first and second films came out when i was 8 months old and 2 years old. And, anyone younger than me probably doesn’t remember them nor think fondly of them. Thus, you have 2 brand new generations of viewers who are experiencing a modern Superman film for the first time. It seems that older reviewers get caught up in their own nostalgia when reviewing a remake and i’m sure older film-goers may agree with them, but for me these reviews prove the generational gap just as much as the reviews of Dumb & Dumber did when that film came out in the mid-90’s and was generally panned by all viewers.

The long and short of it – is Superman it a classic? Definitely not. But it is a very enjoyable popcorn movie and is more than enough to make the July 4th movie going experience worthwhile, as long as you haven’t seen the originals and can barely remember the Ronald Regan presidency.

Elizabethtown – The Real Story

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bilde.jpgI saw Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown last year in the theater and although i love Crowe’s movies, i left the theater thinking that it was one of his worst films to date. I also thought that that Orlando Bloom completely ruined the movie. He had no depth, was not interesting and had no redeeming value as a character.

The film, for those who haven’t see it, is about Drew (Orlando Bloom). In the beginning of the film he causes the Oregon shoe company he works for to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, is fired for his mistake, and promptly dumped by his girlfriend, Ellen. On the verge of suicide, Drew is oddly given a new purpose in life when he is brought back to his family’s small Kentucky hometown of Elizabethtown following the death of his father, Mitch, as it falls to him to make sure that his dying wishes are fulfilled. On the way home to Kentucky, Drew meets a flight attendant, Claire Colburn (Dunst), with whom he falls in love, in a romance that helps his life get back on track.

That was the movie i saw (again, which is not very good). Now, over a year later, i have learned more about what the underlying real story of Elizabethtwon might be. Apparently, Kirsten Dunst (Claire) actually plays an angel sent back to earth to save Orlando Bloom (Drew) and place him back on a heavenly path. I learned most of this from Todd Zimmerman (here). I’d like to list these facts as i see them. They certainly would make a repeat viewing much more enjoyable.

Some clues of the hidden plotline….

  • At the shoe companysatan.jpg
    • The corporate shoe king Phil (Alec Baldwin) plays satan and tries his hardest to condemn Drew and drive him to suicide. He has a monologue about the virtues of “original thought” and doing things for yourself.
    • Phil’s assistant, Ellen, is also Drew’s girlfriend. She clearly is trying to destroy him too.
    • Drew chooses to skip Christmas and a wholesome family event for the hedonistic office party – displaying his life is veering towards one of moral corruption. His soul is not grounded.
    • Drew’s main product – his shoes, similar to his self, have a flawed sole/soul that needs saving or fixing.
  • On the plane, we can conclude Claire (Dunst) has been sent back down by God to help a lost soul. She alludes to “not doing her job in the skies well” and that Drew is her last chance.
    • Her quote “I’m hard to forget but impossible to remember” makes a lot of sense if she really is sent to earth to guide people.
  • Claire decides to take Drew on as a case as he’s in need of help. She refers of a “trip to Hawaii” which we can interpret as going back to heaven, which she decides to pass on.
  • At the end, she has to make a decision about her own future in addition to saving Drew. Is personal love on Earth more rewarding than impersonal love from Ben.
  • Claire refers to another guy, Ben, and we have to determine for ourselves whether or not he actually exists. Ben=God.
  • His cousin Jessie could be a christ/god-type figure. He is an unconventional father. He fixes computers, i.e. solves modern man’s problems. He is very lenient to his own child Samson – who doesn’t seem to have a mother…odd? Everyone is equal in his house (Lincoln and Ronnie Van Zant).
  • Drew’s mother Holly was also a lost soul once, until Drew’s dad found her. They met in an “elevator.”
  • The cremator guy and Claire give each other funny looks as if they know they’re on separate sidelines. He convienently schedules the cremation to be done early and gets some strange satisfaction in that fact
  • The wedding Claire and Drew attend:
    • Symbol of people in Heaven.
    • No premarital sex – in fact, Claire is perceived by them as breaking that rule and jokingly called a slut by them (at the bottom of an elevator too

There are many other referecnes to Hell and God in the movie, but i think you get the idea. For me, the new-found plot doens’t change the movie’s “crappy” status. But, it does make it much more watchable and interesting. Kudos to Crowe for at least trying to put some layers into the film. It’s too bad that the first layer was so bad that i don’t care that much about the rest.

Rita Rudner Quotes

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Some good quotes by Rita:

  • Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love. I’d stepped in it a few times.
  • I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
  • Marriages don’t last. When I meet a guy, the first question I ask myself is: is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?
  • My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can’t decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives.
  • When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was Always.

TED Presentations, Dean Kamen & Majora Carter

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I once had the priviledge to go to the TED conference (thanks to Jules) and saw the best speech i had ever seen by Dean Kamen and his quest to fix many of the problems of the world using technology.

Now TED is broadcasting their videos on their site. I recently watched another great speech by Majora Carter who advocates environmental justice through “green” community developments in the South Bronx. Her project is the Sustainable South Bronx and her speech is here and below – it’s worth a viewing.

As for the Kamen speech, i have the DVD and i’ll post it as soon as i get it up.

The Big Green Bus

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12 Dartmouth students are driving their “Big Green Bus” from California to Hanoverthebus2.JPG (NH) and back on nothing by Vegetable Oil and solar power. Awesome.

This story will tell you more about how these guys will grab vegetable oil from restaurants along the way to power “the bus” and the solar power is keeping the oil from thickening while also powering their laptops and cameras.
Hell ya – go Dartmouth! Check out their site at http://www.thebiggreenbus.org

If you want to show your support, here’s their route

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