I recently finished ‘Letters to a young contrarian’ by Christopher Hitchens which is a shining example of great writing. I also slogged through the very short ‘Communist Manifesto’ by Marx and Engels. Hard work, but nice to have on the shelf as a reference. I was surprised to find myself wondering if it is an historical curiosity or still relevant today? Marxist (even communist) principles will be with humanity for a long time, and they have the power to help when wisely implemented and the power to ruin when incorrectly interpreted.

I’m presently reading Nigel Cawthorne’s ‘Vietnam – a war lost and won’. Interesting background to the war, although Cawthorne’s writing is weak in relation to Hitchens and Marx (particularly Hitchens). I find his constant use of slang is getting on my wick – it’s like he is trying to make out he is a ‘nam vet. I’ve also noticed three glaring errors, something that I’m accustomed to in newspapers, but not books. In its own right a worthy book, but in comparison to some of the great writers I’ve been exposed to recently it reads like a ten year olds rushed homework.

Hitchens makes me want to write, Cawthorne reminds me that it is not so easy.

Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King
As long as Father O’Ryan’s Sunday sermon and about as interesting. I liked the battle scenes and settings. The thing that bugged me the most was that I felt that my emotions were being manipulated throughout the film. However, I am going to see it again and I reserve the right to change my mind….

Requiem for a Dream

This toe tapping musical depicts a jolly Staton Island adventure. But really – among the grimmest films I’ve ever seen, up there with ‘Nil by Mouth’. I do recommend it though, it is superbly made and acted – but be warned – for several hours you may experience an overwhelming compulsion to stick your head in oven.

Maidens in Uniform

One of the most fascinating films I’ve seen for many a year. Made in 1931, set in a girls boarding school, this allegorical tale of pre-nazi Germany defines the girls struggle against the authoritarian leaders of the school. It is Leontine Sagan’s only film. It has barely dated – Maidens in Uniform blew away my preconceptions about ‘old’ films, which caused me to watch….

M

Fritz Lang’s brilliant film about a child molesting murderer (played by Peter Lorre) on the run not only from the police, but also the underworld gangs. When separated from the context of the crime, the viewer feels an uneasy sympathy with the antihero. ‘M’ delivers an emotional speech at the finale. Powerful stuff, and I feel not the sort of film that would get made these days. Again, the film’s themes reflect Germany of the day.

Ghost World

Alternates between being funny as fuck and sad as fuck. Steve Buscemi rules as always.

Chinatown

Polanski in fine form. The film’s name derives from police in Chinatown never knowing what was going on due to the language barrier; who had shot whom, who the guilty party was and so on. In this noir inspired drama, Jack Nicholson’s character is at a loss to understand the increasingly complex situation growing around him. A dramatic ending as you’d expect, and super performances from John Hudson, Faye Dunaway and Jack. I recommend it.

Tokyo Story

A moving story about the relationship between parents and their grown up children – sure as hell gave me the guilts. Hailed by at least one critic as the greatest film ever made, this is definitely something out of the ordinary.

And so is bucketFountain. I’ve done some work over the weekend, tidied up the very messy backend of the application, gotten most of the pages to validate, and cleaned up the interface a little. I’ve nearly got an RSS feed on the site too, just gotta sort out an issue with the pass thru html in Domino….

I’ve installed FeedDemon for testing puposes. A lovely bit of work, but I’m not sure that I’d want to pay for it.

Here’s a list of (most of) the books I read during 2003:

Inventing a Nation – Gore Vidal
The Trial of Henry Kissinger – Christopher Hitchens
911 – Noam Chomsky
Chomsky and Globalisation – Jeremy Fox
Profit Over People – Noam Chomsky
Pirates and Emperors – Noam Chomsky

The Last Empire – Gore Vidal
Globalization and its discontents – Joseph Stiglitz
The Art of War – Sun Tzu (Shambhala edition)
Introducing Marx
Introducing Islam
Stupid White Men – Mike Moore
The New Rulers of the World – John Pilger
End Game – Scott Ritter
The Great War – Correlli Barnett

Happy new year folks, I’m off to Brussels for a few days….

Talk about exotic destinations for your holidays. My friend Paul has just left Iraq after spending a few days there, including a soiree to Baghdad. He had to do a bit of fast talking to get across the border, but found people to be friendly and helpful on the whole. “Only when I saw 2 Apaches fly over me this afternoon did it start to hit home exactly where I am!!” Crazy kiwi….

If you are a regular visitor to bucketFountain, you may be aware the bulk of the links to other sites open in a new window. If you were to hover over the link prior to activating it, you will see the title tag displays “Link opens in a new window”. I use this technique so that there are no surprises. I realise that this pisses some people off.

If you use Moz, you can always hold down ctrl whist clicking and the link will open in a new tab in the background. If you use IE you do not have this functionality, but you can use shift and the link will open in a new window regardless, although it will not be in the background. I may move away from this in the future, and then leave it to the user/user agent to determine what they do with links.

In fact, if I can remember, I will do it from this day forth.

Anyone know of any sites that have large collections of the designs on snowboards? A pretend chocolate fish to anyone who can send me cool links.

I found this, which has some funky old boards; and this one, which was the closest thing to what I was looking for, all though not exactly what I had in mind.

I was looking at the Sims site and they have some great designs (check out Montoya, Fader, and my fav, Sedition). You can get some of these as wallpaper for your ‘puter. Nice use of Flash too.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. – Theodore Roosevelt