Blog from the Future Past

A Fond Farewell to Privacy

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:00:00 -0700

I used to be quite the privacy nut. So much so, in fact, the second time they printed out one of those red coupons at the supermarket checkout for an alternative product to one I had purchased, I asked to see the store manager. "I don't want you looking at what I bought," I complained. "What if I used a credit card (I wouldn't use a CC at the supermarket at thetime)?" I was probably foaming at him. "Someone could tie my name to the things I've purchased... target me with ads, make inferences about my lifestyle, or all kinds of weird crap."

The guy looked at me, puzzled at first, until that dim light bulb warmed up. "What a good idea!" he said.

That was probably sometime around late '80's, early '90's as I recall. Shortly after, my frugal Japanese bride wanted to pay everything by credit card or direct withdrawal. "Saves time and trouble," she said, "and we'll have a record of everything we purchase."

It sure saved a lot of trips to the cash machine and though I wasn't crazy about it, I went along with her. In doing so, I became one of the prime agents in the demise of my own privacy, but I was hardly the only one.

The United States Government has the whole package, the entire info kit-and-kaboodle on Bill, if they want it. And they do want it... the census, a tool that counts us and lists where we live and citizenship status is required by The Constitution of the United States. Far more useful: the number assigned to each by the S.S. system, linked to our the state and federal tax filings, which in turn, contain detailed financial information, employment history, etc.... you know the drill. There's a lot about us out there by way of our commercial footprint any third class hacker could easily swipe. Corruption and crime related to identity theft or fraudulent and predatory marketing practices are becoming endemic in breath and scope.

In other words, unless you have intentionally lived your entire life off-grid and the government somehow doesn't know you exist, all of your privacy cats are pretty much already out of the bag and surely out of your control. There is no privacy to speak of, not in any real or secure sense.

Now, I don't really care if people know my name, where I work, or even my financial details. What I do care about is whether or not my information is misused or abused or put to purposes to which I might not agree.

A bit of irony begins to appears, on its way to becoming the 800lb. gorilla in the room. The only way to put a stop to the theft and misuse of our information -- to get it back under our control--is to create a centralized informational image having "everything about everyone" that can be linked to, searched and data-mined for telltales signs of information abuse.

At present, the only entity that has access to most of what's needed is our crazy Uncle Sammy. We would never allow our weird Uncle Sam do such a thing, would we? We couldn't allow the G's to link up state, federal and even international reservoirs of information for purposes of gun control, finding tax fraud, public corruption, crime prevention, and rooting potential pockets of terrorism, could we?

Such a thought would be insane, if weren't for the fact the most of our private milk has already spilled and there's really no other choice.

Traditional Values? Really?

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:06:50 -0700

After watching newsclips of the Million Moron March, I had to wonder which traditional values they were talking about: slavery, gender inequality, 3/5 rule, Dred Scott, Trail of Tears, Andersonville, Sherman's March, lynchings, Irish need not apply, smallpox blankets, Wounded Knee, cross burnings, Jim Crow, robber barons, child labor, sweatshops, Red Scare, Scotsboro Boys, Selma, Montgomery, assassinations, Chicago 7, City Riots, My Lai, Kent State, Watergate, Wall Street...

On and on it goes...

Seems to me Glen Beck would take us back to some pretty hard and ugly times, all the while worshiping a god that doesn't exist. Let's hope someday folks who insist on forcing their religion on everyone else will be consider sociopathic criminals like today's sex offenders; isolated from a society much better off and much less troubled without them.

I can hardly wait for that glorious day.

Wrong System, Wrong Times

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:11:57 -0700

One high-end suburban west high school; four scary, puzzling incidents within a single school year. On the eve of the first day of school, a young woman, stellar student, took up a rope and ended her life upstairs in her room. Last week a dude who seemed to have everything going for him did likewise. In October, a series of threats were inscribed on the school walls with reference to the Columbine High killings. Around the holiday break, the police were called in to locate an explosive device rumored to be in the school. In the latter two cases, boys were expelled and arrested.

Many claim these sorts of incidents arise out of the natural pressures of an environment rife with high-performers and even higher expectations. That certainly is a factor here in Concord-Carlisle, but I'm not convinced it's a cause rather than a symptom of the larger, more widespread problem. After all, the worst of schools in the poorest of neighborhoods have their own set of peer pressure issues... gangs, for one... and being cool or uncool in the neighborhood sense is always a difficult place for a kid to find the right fit. And bullying certainly has no boundaries... unfortunately, it's everywhere.

That second suicide kicked me hard, right in me bucket. Another voice mail from the school principal announcing another wasted life, followed by the email messages citing the same sources of grief counseling and "How to Talk with Your Teen" seminars. Call now... grief counselors are standing by.

The school doesn't seem to recognize that it has any responsibility except passing out information, but in some way, you can't blame them. It's hard to reach kids who don't want to be reached, and basically, kids don't trust adults easily or readily... certainly not teachers, school administrators, surely not other people's parents.

In a sort of an epiphany, I realized the only way troubled kids could get real help is from other kids, not adults, and the way typical American schools systems are designed and implemented forces them into isolation and the ensuing risk. It shouldn't be that way. Throughout most of human history, education of the young indeed took the entire village. Kids weren't bunched into same-age peer groups, separating them through most of their school life from the rest of society. People were taught mainly through an apprentice system, working with and being taught elders who do what the kids eventually will be expected to do.

Our narrow and now antiquated industrial age concept of public education forces many teens to depend solely upon their peers for support and nurturing in any spiritual sense, and most high school kids are often not quite good enough at that... nor should we expect them to be. We need a different system, one in which people of all ages can interact in a life-long, ongoing, educational process where the old will teach the young and elders will have more opportunity to learn from their children.

In Search of...

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:01:17 -0700

Ancient Chinese Wisdom: "Use lead paint to cut manufacturing costs."

Womenfolk will take you on
a number of extended journeys
in search of the perfect handbag.

LUCKY RODENT: NYC sewer rat

Red Sox Need a Bigger Boat

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:25:42 -0700

After watching the Rays embarrass the Red Sox with a series sweep over the weekend, the voice of a favorite film character echoed around inside: Captain Quint from the thriller, Jaws, "Their eyes are lifeless, like a doll's eyes..."

It was a four game zombieland out there, a slaughter that will be known forever in Red Sox lore as the Patriot's Day Massacre... and if they weren't lifeless and dead going into the weekend, they sure were when they came out, judging by the post-massacre locker room interviews. Someone has better fix the "Papi Problem" and right pronto, whether it's David Ortiz or the brain-trust, or else this team is destined to fall asleep on the express train to Nowhereville.

The Boston Red Sox need to hire Quint if they ever hope to catch the Tampa Bay Rays.

While the Nation reels and makes a beeline for the panic button, Terry Francona acts as if there's nothing's wrong and nothing to be done, sort of like the Pope and the abuse scandal.

Hello... Terry? Theo? Someone better Mister-T some life into this miserable platoon of walking dead or the curtain will be down on the 2010 season before the All-Star break.

Time to Give Tiger a Break?

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 18:06:00 -0700

Someone close to Tiger Woods recently claimed off the record that the world's best golfer was badly influenced by the likes of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley and the city of Las Vegas.

This explains a lot about Woods: he learned the NBA model of public behavior from two of its most skilled practitioners. If Michael Jordan invites you into the VIP room to share the bounty with a six-pack of stacked bimbos, how could you refuse? Once you figure out how many bimbos you can get for, say, a billion dollars, who could blame you for a full-frontal foray into the pay-for-play commodity sector?

At least Tiger was never caught carrying a loaded 9mm or a pound of crack, unlike most NBA players.

It wasn't Tiger's fault. He only wanted to be like Mike. Charles was there to call him a pussy if he wasn't.

In addition to her smashing success as an adult film actress, Jocelyn James is one of the world's most celebrated bad hairpiece models.

Others were shocked by the text messages revealed by one of Tiger's 30-odd mistresses, porn star Jocelyn James. But shouldn't we expect this sort of thing as the norm? After all, if you were dating a porn star introduced to you by Charles Barkley, how the hell do you think you would talk to her?

You can't fault Tiger for adapting so well to NBA/porn-star culture. Someday Tiger Woods will be revered not only as the World's Greatest Golfer, but also one of the top celebrity stick-men of our age... right up there with JFK, Warren Beatty, perhaps second only to the King of Swing, Wilt Chamberlain.

TIMER MAGAZINE
"Gabriella Stompanazzi is Tinsel Town's primary source for
who is doing who, and which end they're doing it with..."

Call in the Militia

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:48:39 -0700

Ancient Italian Wisdom: "Even the best cheese freakin' stinks."

Some of your neighbors will plan to overthrow
the U.S. Government and replace them with
camouflage-wearing inbred morons with bad teeth.

LUCKY INSECT: Domestic Cockroach

Check That One Off the List...

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 08:05:00 -0700

Looks like we can put a big check mark next to, "Select a College and Get Admitted" on Marii's never-ending TO-DO list. Roger William University, Bristol, Rhode Island is the place she'll be, the deal sealed after a family jaunt down there last weekend for "Accepted Students Day".

I'm proud of our daughter, how she went about getting to that choice, all told. A very short year-and-a-half ago, I would have never believed it.

I've been driving Marii to school most mornings for the past two years; part of the deal we made early in junior year after too many missed school busses. Occasionally we talk, overcoming the parent filter permanently attached to every spare teenage ear. I've watched her ideas develop over time, from patently clueless in the fall of 2008, to a lot more focused and decisive now.

Well, I've had little or no experience with college admissions, since I've never attended a day of it. As a kid, the only folks I knew who were college graduates fell into three major categories: priests, teachers and medical professionals (though I never really thought of the priests as 'college guys'). Only one neighbor I can recall: an ad salesman for a local billboard company, and the dad of just one among dozens of friends, a small businessman running a mickey-mouse phone answering service... and badly, too. Not many role models; the folks around us toiled in the factories, shops, and the trades, solidly lower-middle class at everything they did, including a strict avoidance of a higher education.

Going away to college seemed like an unattainable dream to me then, since at the time there was no money to pay for it. Anyway, I didn't want to be no freakin' lawyer... or anything else, for that matter.

Another story, but I've had no real experience and Marii's Mom went to a top women's college in Japan but doesn't know the system here. She would have Marii in one of the Seven Sisters based on reputation, at least until she got a load of the tuition costs. We were the blind leading the blinder at first. Fortunately, Marii took up a lot of the initiative in driving the process and in the end, did it quite well.

Sometimes our children will suddenly and sneakily mature on us and we hardly notice.

As the old song says, "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?"

Since Roger Williams never sat for a portrait and no surviving likeness remains, the artist who made the statue that centers the RWU campus used Red Sox slugger Ted Williams as the model.

Alice in Wonderland

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:20:04 -0700

I had just entered the theater and began looking around for a seat. The onscreen message was already telling us to put on the 3D goggles and I thought the feature was about to start, but the glasses were for the coming attractions for four different animated films, all in 3D, all four entertaining and fun to watch.

One was a new Toy Story from Disney, the other three based on popular children's books. In a preview of an animal animation featuring talking owls, the level of detail blew me to a new place in film watching experience. Totally absorbed with its artistry and beauty, it reminded me of the awe I felt at my first 'Cinerama' wide-screen event back at age ten.

It was that good. This is the near-term future of film, I guess... the big bold immersive experience of 3D; an edge the large-screen metro-plexes still have over home theatre.

Johnny Depp's insane clown stare will haunt many a contemporary childhood nightmare, but flesh and blood was outdone by the animated characters, most notably Helen Bonham Carter voicing the clueless Red Queen.

It just makes sense that animated films are pushing the 3D tech envelope, though James Cameron's Avatar 3D digital camera innovations will undoubtedly raise the future quality of live action fare. Animated films are adapted to 3D much easier than live action cinematography, which requires special cameras and complex set-ups and have certain limitations in quality of the final cut 3D effects. With animated imagery, stored as digitized frames and layers, the secondary image required for 3D can be generated algorithmically using a digital post-process that will vividly render 3D with a depth and range live-action camera technology inherently lacks.

All this geeking on graphics technology finally brings me around to Tim Burton's and his silly movie, Alice in Wonderland. There wasn't much of a story, of course none of it makes sense. The comedic tone was often uneven. Johnny Depp's Matt Hatter fright face filled up the screen way too long and way too often.

All that said, there was plenty of eye-popping candy for everyone. This film earned its three Fat Laughing Golden Buddhas because there was nothing particular you needed to think about while every thing in sight was way fun to watch. The animated characters are so well done, you truly do forget rabbits can't talk, playing cards can't walk, cats can't fly, and you couldn't care less.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0 acid-tripping
Fat Laughing Golden Buddhas

A Nice Start for the Mosquito Breeding Season

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:25:45 -0700

How nice it is to step outside and bask in the warmth of an early spring sun. During the peak of the deluge, we had a wide rivulet cascading over the top of our driveway. There are now five small running streams within 100 ft. of the house and Lake Lambert, our experimental mosquito breeding facility, has been nicely topped up.

As far as I recall, this is third time we've had an incident of driveway river in the ten years we've been here in Carlisle Woods. This year was by far the worst, though.

Should be a real bumper crop of mosquitos this year: Global Wetting.

Have a Nice Fright!

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:34:21 -0700

The trousers of the airline passenger seated
next to you will suddenly burst into flames

LUCKY NUMBER: (617) 522-2043, ask Mai Ling

Love of the Game

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:32:00 -0700

After a big night out on the townies, Tiger Woods pulls wads of pubic hair from between his teeth with the new Gillette Mucho-Macho Hot Wing razor.

Love of the Game

over perfumed blonde

fine caboose, tossed mousse, eyes loose

ti' yanks out a wood

I suppose most guys wouldn't be entirely unhappy to be playing some of the same holes Tiger Woods has been playing recently. Fortunately, some of us--somehow and somewhere--managed to acquire at least a modicum of moral restraint and have limits.

During all the formative years and endless hours Tiger Woods' and his father stalked their way through ten-thousands of golf rounds, what lessons did his father teach him? What did they talk about?

You gotta wonder.

Guaranteed Money Maker

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:41:28 -0700

Invest everything you own
in medical marihuana futures

ENTER THE DRAGON LADY:
(617) 522-2043, ask Mai Ling

The New Reality

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:50:00 -0700

As soon as the programming geniuses over at TnA heard Octomom Nadya Suleman openly assert an attraction for John Gosselin, they began burning the midnight oil on a new reality-based show they expect to be next year's blockbuster.

TnA VP for New Concept Development, Hans Beerman, could hardly hold back his excitement as he explained his new concept, over lunch at the Four Seasons.

"We're calling it Octo-Mom, Sexto-Kate and Balloon Boy," he told me, "And get this... as we speak, we're negotiating a deal with the Michael Jackson estate to film the entire series at Neverland and even get the Jackson kids to stop by and have breakfast with all twenty Suleman, Gosselin and Heene kids twice a week."

"It's can't miss," he continued, "Because of the incentives."

There's been a lot of talk around town about 'incentivizing' reality TV personalities much like professional athletes. A pitcher in baseball gets a little extra if he gets the Cy Young Award, for instance; or Michael Strahan got a hefty bonus for every leg he broke during the last half of his NFL career.

In case "Octo-Mom, Sexto-Kate and Balloon Boy" never comes to fruition, Richard Heene is working on a new concept show with the FEED NETWORK, introducing America to the culinary delights he loved as a child on the planet Blaxxon. In the series pilot yet to air, Richard and his Blaxxonian Mom Thxdra demonstrate techniques used to make Blaxxonian Hydrocloric Tungsten Curry, served on a crouton of white-hot steel plate and garnished with a chiffonade of cast-iron shavings and a spicy ground glass chutney.

This was the first time I heard a top network executive push incentivization openly as a way to improve program quality and viewer excitement. When I asked Beerman about details, he was happy to fill me in and proud of it.

"Every adult in the program will get a $50,000 bonus for participating in an affair that lasts at least three episodes, a $250,000 bonus for every pregnancy and an additional $250,000 for every live birth, provided we're allowed to broadcast the blessed event as it happens," he said.

Stunned, I asked what was behind these particular incentives. "Let's face it," Hans told me, "Viewers want sex, and lots of it. We have five adults: Nadya, Kate and John Gosselin and Richard and Mayumi Heene--at least until Falcon Heene and the Jackson kids reach the age of consent. We're hoping the cast will establish a series of rotating polyamorous relationships that will draw in the public. Did I mention that there's extra money for same sex relationships?"

"Your not serious?" I said, pretending to be surprised.

"Gays and bisexual relationships in a reality show pull in an enormous hate crowd in the red states," Hans explained.

After yours truly queried him further, Beerman denied rumored plans to incentivize episodes of beastiality, but then added, "Of course, the boundaries of the show's reality could always be revisited at a later date.

OMSKABB is slated to premiere in early January, after the holiday season.

TIMER MAGAZINE
"Gabriella Stompanazzi is Tinsel Town's primary source for
who is doing who, and which end they're doing it with..."

Zombieland

bill@blamby.org (Bill Lambert) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:19:36 -0700

A virus born of bad hamburger infects the vast majority of mankind, turning them into crazed killers with a rabid craving for human flesh. There are only two kinds of people left in the world: roaming gangs of zombies with the super-munchies, and those who kill them--the remaining few who, by dumb luck or well-honed combat skills, have avoided the disease.

If your taste in film includes the living dead slurping down sinewy human sashimi, then Zombieland might be just your kind of sick diversion. After a while, killing zombies gets to be wicked fun--their heads get crushed by SUV's and pianos, their limbs torn off and skulls splattered by high-power weapons fire.

There's nothing to like about them... friggin' zombies. We enjoy watching zombies meet their ex-maker with a total lack of empathy, pity or remorse. As more blood flows and more gore globs, the laughter rises. You know what's going to happen, but that won't stop you from getting into this fast-paced chronicle of the great zombie genocide.

If it weren't for Harrelson's and Murray's big tickets, Zombieland would have cost about $19.99 plus a case of red food dye to produce.

Nerdy OCD college student 'Columbus', portrayed by Adventureland's Jesse Eisenberg, religiously observes a self-made set of rules that keep him alive: No. 6, for instance; Always check the back of the car; No.14 - Avoid public restrooms, etc. Making his way from college in Austin back east to his namesake hometown in Ohio, he hooks up with Tallahassee, cowboy zombie executioner par-excellance, who reluctantly allows the kid tag along.

As Tallahassee, Woody Harrelson resurrects his murderous character from Natural Born Killers, dealing out a double-deck of zombie death wearing his trademark pasted-on impish smirk. This role seemed remade for him.

"Mama always said someday I would be good at something.
Who would have thought it would be killing zombies?"

Now, even the best Zombie-killing buddy flick can be a drag without enough cool chicks to go around and a healthy dose of tight-jeans T & A. While Tallahassee obsessively rummages through what little remains of America in search of Hostess Twinkies, the boys meet up with the grifting sisters Wichita and Little Rock, who promptly relieve them of their hopped-up Escalade, their pride and their weapons. Of course Tallahassee and Columbus eventually chase down the girls, and after mutual mistrust melts away and a romance begins to blossom between Columbus and Wichita, they all head off for the left coast to take young teener Little Rock to the California theme park she loves so much.

There's not much more to be said about the story, which got started late and never really ended before the credits rolled. I smell a rotting-gut sequel.

I downgraded my rating half a Buddha because, after the four arrive in Lalaland, they kill Bill Murray. You just can't kill Bill Murray and expect to get away with it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.0 exceedingly grossed-out
Fat Laughing Golden Buddhas