Sundance, Slamdance, & the Freedom Cinema Festival (Part One)

Sunday morning. Everything is a bit of a blur. Even though I've spent most of my life in Salt Lake City, I've never been any kind of a Sundance festival attendee. I've only been to one screening at Sundance. It was the U.S. premier of Jackie Chan's "Rumble In The Bronx". That was in 1996. Liz was about 6 months pregnant with Elise at the time and we stood out in the cold for something like two hours in order to get standby tickets for the sold out show. Jackie came to the screening to introduce the film which made the effort we put in getting to the screening more worth it considering that "Rumble In The Bronx" is not really his best work. Technically, that is still the only Sundance screening I've been to. I saw two films in Park City this weekend, but one of them was a Slamdance screening and the other one was a Freedom Cinema Festival screening.

I wasn't intending to spend 3 days in Park City during the Sundance festival. I only meant to see the Michael Franti concert that Liz got free tickets to. I knew it would be a late night, so I arranged to take a vacation day on Friday. The Michael Franti show was really good if a bit too loud and about an hour too long considering that I'd gone to work an hour and a half early that morning so that I could get off early and get to Park City well in advance of the gig. At that show, I ran into a new friend from church and she hooked me up with two tickets to another Michael Franti show the next day. This first show was sponsored by Slamdance and the tickets she got me were for another performance for the Freedom Cinema Festival.

Even though Liz is the bigger Franti fan, she couldn't really attend the Friday afternoon show due to the fact that she does childcare on Friday afternoons for some friends of ours who are teachers. (The kids in our school district get out early on Fridays, but most teachers have to work Friday afternoons.) So, I found a friend to head back up for the next Franti gig. If Thursday night's Slamdance performance was good/great then this show was amazing. There were only about 50 or 60 people in this really small room that looked out onto the Park City main street. We sat on the floor (at Michael's request) and he and his friend Jay played a really great sounding, quiet, yet energetic set. They sat on stools in front of the wall of windows that looked out onto the January afternoon sunlight and clouds. They played for just over an hour. The best part for me, both nights, but particularly for the Friday afternoon show, was a cover of New Order's "Age of Consent". When Michael asked if there were any New Order fans present, nobody spoke up. I meant to, but my throat wasn't working at that point. But, I did my best to sing along.

So, after the gig, my friend and I wanted to get into Michael's film about his trip to Baghdad, Palestine, & Israel in June of 2004. It's called "I Know I'm Not Alone". So, we headed out of the mall and across main street and down the hill a bit to the Slamdance box office. Of course, the film was sold out. So, we decided to buy tickets to the last Slamdance screening of the festival for a Belgian film called "Ellektra". "Ellektra" was pretty good up until the too happy ending. I was even working up the courage to tell the director what my thoughts on this until he basically intimated to the audience that he had had to lighten up his script in order to get financing for his film.

Now, we were in the mood to try and catch more films. A quick trip up to the Egyptian theatre, and we were informed that all Sundance screenings were sold out. We didn't investigate the option to purchase standby tickets. I only stood in line for 2 hours in 1996 because I really wanted to see Jackie's U.S. premier. I have no idea what played at Sundance this year and being that uninformed wasn't going to motivate me to stand in line like that again.

We headed back to the Freedom Cinema Festival. The only other film they had that evening that we could still get into was about victims of sexual abuse. It's that I'm not interested, or that I don't care, I just wasn't in the mood for something that heavy right then. But, lo and behold, they just announced that they're gonna screen "I Know I'm Not Alone" on Saturday at 3:00 pm. I called Liz to see if I should buy tickets right then and there, and while I was on the phone with her, a woman, who I believe is the director, gave me tickets to her film "I Pledge Allegiance". A few more phone calls to see if mom & dad will take the kids another night, a crazy trip to somehow get some cash out of my overdrawn checking account, and I had tickets to the 3:00 PM "I Know I'm Not Alone" and the 9:30 PM "I Pledge Allegiance" for the next day.

With no more films to see for the evening, Sam and I decided to head to Wild Oats for some food that is more reasonably priced that what you can get on main street during Sundance in Park City. We got to Sundance about 5 minutes before they closed so, since I had been talking up the black bean veggie burger at the Desert Edge Pub & Brewery we decided to just high tail it back down to the valley and get some of those.

Yesterday. Liz made us pancakes. Yay! I coerced Elise and Ian into helping clear the breakfast dishes. All four of us folded the clean clothes in the house and put them away. The kids "cleaned" their rooms. And then, we took them to grandma & grandpa's to spend the night. And, I have to go pick them up in 30 minutes, so this is gonna have to be a two parter...

Switched to Dvorak, Switched Back to Qwerty

There's a discussion on Slashdot today about a new keyboard that only has 53 keys that are arranged in alphabetical order. Of course, this has people going at it again about Dvorak vs. Qwerty. I chimed in to the discussion with the following:

I used to do phone support for a now defunct brand of PCs. This was circa 1997/1998. The job was mind numbingly boring. I'd heard how great Dvorak was supposed to be. I saved a Dvorak keyboard layout in my home directory and I would configure the machines I logged into with it and I started logging my calls typing with the Dvorak layout. It took me about 6 weeks to be able to type Dvorak as easily as I had done Qwerty, and the new challenge of trying to keep up with my work load with the new keyboard layout helped stave off some of the incessant boredom. I honestly didn't notice any difference in my speed, comfort level, etc. What I did notice was that when I used a computer that I couldn't easily switch to Dvorak, I was back to being a hunt and peck typist. This turned out to be a major PITA. Finally, I gave up and switched back to Qwerty. It took me longer to relearn Qwerty than it did to learn Dvorak, but in the end, it was worth it as I could now use 100% of keyboards I came across. I'm willing to go against the grain in a lot of ways. I'm a Mac user, a vegetarian, an agnostic, and bleeding heart liberal, but the fight against Qwerty keyboard layouts was a cause that turned out to just not be worth it. Too little return on investment for the effort involved.

Good News Kids, I Made Condi Rice

I've been trying to make a joke about Condoleeza Rice's name. I know
it's not nice and that she's probably a decent person in her personal
life, but as a public figure, she's a terrible person and totally
deserves it.

This is the best I've come up with so far, and it's not very good:

Parent: Good news kids! I made Condi Rice for dinner!

Kids: Condi Rice? What's Condi Rice?

Parent: It's a brown rice that is nearly indistinguishable from white
rice.

See, I told you, it's not that good. Still, I'm thinking there's a good
joke possible from her name.

Why Does Anyone Even Put Up With MS Windows?

I'm sitting here, working on a friend's computer. I worked on this computer about a year ago. At the time, they were infected with some viruses. We were able to get the viruses removed, install MS Windows security updates, put on a current antivirus system and firewall and basically get their system to operate somewhat stably again.

Here it is, a year later, and they've let their subscription for new virus definitions lapse. They have another virus, the firewall they installed is completely intrusive and pops up windows asking about every little thing that happens, and so I'm attempting to remove this new virus as well as installing adware/spyware removal tools. I've already wasted about 2 hours of my life trying to nurse another sick Windows PC back to health.

Why do people put up with this? I've never understood it. I've been using Macs in my personal life and working with PCs since 1992 or 1993. In all that time, I've never been able to figure out why most people choose to buy a computer running a Microsoft OS. Microsoft's operating systems have sucked since then and they never seem to get any better. And, the only reason that I can see that most people do this, is that they want to be like the majority of people.

There's this great quote that is attributed to Mark Twain, that says, "When you find yourself in agreement with the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

There's a lot of wisdom in that statement. Notice that Twain isn't necessarily saying that the majority is always wrong, he's saying that the majority is almost always wrong. Sadly, the majority is definitely wrong when it comes the blind adherence to buying computers that run Microsoft Windows.

Best Signature Line Yet

I saw this today on a Linux discussion board:

"The day Microsoft stops producing products that don't suck, is the day they start making vacuum cleaners."

It took me a second to realize what it was saying and then when I did, I laughed so loudly that my co-workers thought I'd lost it. But, then I read it to them. It took them a second too and then they couldn't stop laughing.

I printed this slogan on a 1/2 sheet of paper and hung it up on my wall of pictures at my desk. I want this on a t-shirt. I realize that it's a harsh statement and also a bit of hyperbole, but it's also hilarious and cathartic too(especially if you work in IT support and deal with their products constantly like I do).

to:dad,

This evening, after I'd sent her to her room until she could stop the absolute torrent of a tantrum she was having, my daughter slid a note written on a 3x5 index card out from under her door.

On one side it said, "to:dad." On the other, it read:

to:dad,

if you don't
want me to run
away. then you
will have to
give me a small spoon
full of beans.


Now, you have to understand what she meant by this. I wasn't depriving her of beans, I had given her too many and she wanted only "a small spoonful."

Notes like these have become a new trend for Elise. So, I decided to engage her in this new medium. I wrote her the following note back:

To Elise (whom I love very much),

Temper tantrums and emotional outbursts are not the best way to get what you want in this world. Whether it’s not wanting so many refried beans, or whether or not you get an apple bar for breakfast, staying calm and being willing to discuss things will get you a lot farther in life than screaming, yelling, and tantrums.

I hope you will decide to calm down and that you will be able to discuss this morning and this evening’s events with me without becoming so angry. But, if you decide not to calm down and if you decide to run away, please remember that if you are having the same problems with your new family, it may be because you still need to learn how to calm down.

Love,

Russ, Your Dad


I printed this, signed it, and gave it to her when she finally came out of her room. (Mostly because I had just finished it then.)

She read it with hesitation and surprise that I'd writter her a note back. Then she looked at me with this jaded look in her eyes and just dropped it on the floor. It was like she was saying, 'that is so lame dad. I'm the one who writes the notes and you people are the ones who read them.'

She's only 8. What am I gonna do when she's 16?

Psycho Beach Party

Tivo-ed this movie off of HBO (which my kids have decided stands for "Horrible Body Odor" or "Horrible Butt Odor"; they think this is hysterically funny). I thought "Psycho Beach Party" was hysterically funny. It is very John Waters-esque in it's well intentioned campiness.

Lauren Ambrose (who plays Claire on "Six Feet Under") is superb as Florence 'Chicklet' Forrest. She suffers from split personality disorder and she does a fantastic job with her part. The movie would have been worth it just for her performance alone.

However, this film has even more than Lauren's great performance going on. Following the John Waters/Divine tradition there's a female cop character who is played by a man, Charles Busch. His performance isn't as blatantly over the top and weird as any of Divine's were, but he's a lot of fun to watch nonetheless. The sex scene with his character and the great surfer Kanaka (played by Thomas Gibson who is probably most famous for his role on the TV series "Dharma & Greg", but I know him more as Beauchamp Day in the "Tales of the City" miniseries) is a total riot. The obnoxious girl in the wheelchair is hilarious too. Who ever said that differently abled people can't don't have the right to be assholes too. Also, Chicklet's mom is a lot of fun too with her virgin/whore complex and fixation on perfection and cleanliness.

I'm sure Joe Bob Briggs would be disappointed that I failed to keep a knife fight and titty count, but I'm also sure that he'd say, "Check it out!"

Russ with Backwards S'es

My daughter Elise wrote my name in the snow in the front yard this morning. It was really cute. Both of the S'es were backwards. She's eight years old and she knows how to properly write an S. This evening, we were on the way out the door to the library and she said, "Dad, did you see that I wrote your name in the snow?"

I replied, "Yeah, that's really sweet."

And, she said, "When you're walking and making S'es, it's hard not to make them backwards."