The Underground Man

American torturing Iraqis?

I have yet to read the local papers but that is the front page news over here today. There has been lots of interest in the 60 Minutes II story that resulted from the pictures of Americans torturing Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Reprehensible behavior and I would like to see those concerned spend a few years in Leavenworth (including some punishment for their commanding officer). This sort of thing cannot help the occupation effort (let's call it that, shall we?).

I remain convinced that the US has to pull out.

On the other hand, putting former Sadaam generals in power over Iraqi units seems to be a strategy. We gather that US troops are pulling out from around Fallujah and will be replaced by former Nazi^H^H^H^HSadaam-controlled units.

The obvious parallel can be drawn to the Allied decision to re-arm Germany after the threat of war with Russia became a reality. Shall we just call them "Mamelukes"?

I think the difference from the previous plan to have US forces withdraw to laagers and have the Iraqis "police" themselves is that now we have the prospect of putting the same ruthless bastards back into power with which Sadaam controlled his country (as opposed to training new general offices from the ranks). This has both advantages and disadvantages.

The immediate advantage is deniability. They can be as savage as they want (necessary to quell the insurrection) and its Arab on Arab violence and so will likely not result in too much negative coverage for the US (nobody really cared about what Sadaam did to his people). The second advantage is that they are willing and capable of this savagery. (The disadvantages, I should think, are manifest to most people).

Or am I just cynical?

Parenthetically, my uncle calls me a "liberal" and I guess certain aspects of my thinking definitely fit the bill. But I'm not against the war in Iraq just because its war. But rather because I think it was unnecessary and wasteful. Conversely, I think pursuing Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is a very good idea and that we should spend more resources rather than less there. I prefer to think of myself as a liberal pragmatist (who is also a student of empires). I've felt for quite a while that if you have an empire, it's best to run it like one. Be sensible, predictable and ruthless. The world will be a better place. That was the thing about the British Empire. If any of the Great Powers wanted to know what would happen in a given geo-political arena where Britain was involved all they had to do was ask themselves the question "What is in Britain's best interests?". Then they had a guide to go on. That isn't the case with American foreign policy. We (America) frequently do things that hurt our interests in both the short and long-term. It's as if paranoid schizophrenics were running the only superpower. It makes the world a very much more dangerous place to live in than it has to be.

What, I wonder, is the reaction back home in America to this news? (Both the torture and the re-hiring of Sadaam generals.)

My letter to America

(with apologies to the shade of Alastair Cooke)

Well, I'm alive and well. Though a bit tired and soggy. Came in on British Airways yesterday direct from Seattle. 9.5hr flight and then I did the recommended thing and stayed up until by regular bed time (so 34 hours awake). I feel pretty good today except for the bags under my eyes. LOL.

Have a couple of sets of interviews scheduled already for next week. But I have been a bit shocked at the costs here. Basically, most services that we would pay dollars for are paid with pounds. So you're looking at a 75% markup on costs.

Then average in that a good wage in this country is considered 40k pounds/year and living in the London area is almost prohibitively expensive if you want anything near the same level of comfort as in the States.

On the face of it, London is as expensive or more expensive than San Francisco at the height of the Boom. (Where I was paying $3000/month for a two bedroom apartment).

This being said, it's nice being here for a while. I'm enjoying the differing viewpoints on world politics (and the football coverage).

18 hours to England

I'm off on British Airways tomorrow night to England. Today is busy with packing and making sure nothing falls through the cracks while I'm gone (for a whole month). Kind of left the bills/banking stuff to the last minute (ack..).

Next post will be from the UK (I hope). I already have interviews set up for 4 May so that's a good thing.

2 new powerbook goodies

I just had two new Powerbook goodies delivered: the Boostaroo and the iGo Juice 70.

The Boostaroo boosts the audio output of my headphone jack on my Titanium Powerbook. Recently, hanging out in Starbucks, I have found that I cannot quite drown out the combined din of inane chatter (housewives debating romance) and the soundtrack of the latest Starbuck CD. (Not that the CDs are bad, just not always what I want to listen to at the time.)

In any event, the Boostaroo seems to boost the signal quite significantly. So much so that I had to change headphones as the boosted signal seemed to cause some distortion in the first set (I suspect that they were an inferior design as they came with my Archos Jukebox). My first test will be the plane on the way to the UK. This device is powered by 2AA batteries and has three output jacks. So it was easy to test my headphones against one another and see which set were superior.

That leads me to the second purchase, the iGO Juice 70. This is a speciality power converter that allows me to plug my laptop into the plane's onboard power.

When I rode over on an American Airlines Airbus a couple of years ago we had cigarette-lighter-like jacks under all our seats. I don't know what BA flies, probably Boeing, maybe Airbus. American neither sold nor rented the adapters--aren't they missing a serious revenue opportunity here?

I'm just hoping that this converter works and that I can pass the time with my laptop rather than a book. I've got a slate of DVDs to watch and a bunch of code experiments to finally do.

Formula 1 GP (San Marino)

Well, I'm watching my ReplayTV time-shifted coverage of the San Marino GP. My uncle, whom I have visited this last week in SF, turned me on to it again.

Cat in lap, I'm really quite enjoying watching this. For the first time, I think, I realized the true beauty of F1. It is this: no one could do this better. These guys take their cars around a track as fast as is humanly possible. It is a team effort, with a vast amount of money behind it, some of the best automotive engineers alive, and the best drivers available. It just cannot be done better.

This seems like a profound idea and I'm still reflecting on it. It lends a whole new appreciation to the viewing experience (especially the in-car camera).

I'm not sure what NASCAR pit times run but these guys are getting serviced in about 7.5-8.5 seconds. Pretty damn quick. Notable was that Jensen Button (who finished 2nd) lost something like 1-2 seconds per stop to M. Schumacher. He lost the overall race by some 9.7 seconds. Given the roughly 4.5 seconds lost in the pits, this race would have been a lot closer.

Fascinating stuff. I've uploaded the F1 calendar to my iCal (again courtesy of my uncle) and am prepared for the rest of the season. Another 14 races!

A bad betting season

A bad betting season for me. I always place a few bets before the Premier League season - it makes things much more interesting.

This year I bet:

Arsenal to win Champions League
Liverpool to win UEFA Cup
Man Utd to win Champions League
Liverpool to win Premier League
Chelsea to win Premier League
Michael Owen to win top scorer

With the defeat of Arsenal in the knockout stage and with their huge lead in the Premier League standings it looks like I won't win any of my bets this season
(normally I at least recoup my investment).

For a while there it was looking pretty good. Ah well, we live in hope.

South African MotoGP

So I watched the South African MotoGP this morning (right after Meet the Press, what a juxtaposition). It's strange, I haven't really been able to watch much motorcycle racing since I stepped away from it in 1993. That was the same year that Wayne Rainey (3-time World Champion) was crippled at Misano, Italy.

I miss the adrenaline of racing, the smell as dawn comes up at the track and the two-stroke motors are fired up for the first time. The sensation of going out on a new track on new tires. Lots of stuff.

Of course, I don't miss the inevitable crashes and the pain and the expense. I'm far enough away from it now that I can remember those things. Funny that it took some ten years for me to get perspective.

I found a fascinating article where three of the great champions of that period (Rainey, Schwantz, and Doohan) reflected on the nature of their obessions.

I learned to my surprise that Mick Doohan was managing Valentino Rossi's team (the current World Champion). I just wonder whether he made the switch to Yamaha with Rossi--somehow I doubt it.

Rossi did this morning what no one has ever done. Win two successive GPs on different brands of motorcycles. I was discussing with my uncle whether one could list Rossi amongst the greats because he simply doesn't have the competition that Schwantz, Rainey and Doohan had (I think it was Rainey who said that he had to be obessed because he was racing five other World Champions.)

I begin to think that it is a sad thing that Valentino Rossi doesn't have better competition to measure himself against. Who knows, perhaps his switch to Yamaha was to quiet the doubters who said that his dominance was due to the Honda?

This win will certainly go a ways to disproving that charge.

I'm a Liberal?

Apparently so, according to the Harvard Institute of Politics.

You are a Traditional Liberal.

Traditional liberals like you tend to be:

Against pre-emptive strikes as a policy.
Strongly supportive of gay rights.
Of the belief that immigration has been good for this country.
Supportive of affirmative-action.
Oppose tax cuts as an economic policy.
Of the belief that basic health insurance is a right.

These are generalizations of the Liberal mind-set and not necessarily reflective of my particular beliefs (I strongly oppose affirmative-action for instance). But I was a "secular centrist" until I changed one of my answers that was erroneous.

Thanks to Paul Beard for this pointer.

Future president John Kerry on "Meet the Press"

I imagine mine is a partisan viewpoint but I thought John Kerry looked damned good on "Meet the Press" this morning. What's more, in the inevitable comparison with George Bush, Kerry was a long chalk better.

I have little doubt that he would be a better leader--surely his ability to think on his feet marks the largest difference. I imagine the right-wing demagogues will claim that all his answers were prepared (I'm sure they were) but what was impressive to me was the quality of his answers.

What I especially liked is that the most significant criticisms of the Republican party were centered about Kerry's criticisms of Bush and his lack of positive offerings to the American people. Both sets of criticisms have a lot of validity and I was very happy to see that he offers a number of "big ideas" that I would expect to see some substance behind in the next few months.

I think he has to be a visionary in addition to his criticisms on the economy, the conduct of the war, and the scandals plaguing the Bush administration (ignoring the priority of terrorism prior to September 11, the Plame affair, the obsession with going to war with Iraq, the conduct of the war in Iraq, the veritable destruction of US credibility with allies and friends, the evident corruption in giving cost-plus -cost contracts to firms like Halliburton).

(The list seems endless, doesn't it?)

I thought one telling comment from Kerry yesterday was that we need to replace the president in order to fix our foreign policy gaffes and have a valid exit strategy for Iraq.

The Neocons come out of the closet

Does anyone have any doubt that the Neocons surrounding Bush and Cheney are running the country now?

I refer to the news this week that Bush endorsed Sharon's new "plan" to withdraw from Gaza and keep the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. That is much less disturbing, frankly, than the decision to support the Israeli rejection of the Palestinian "right of return"--the right for Palestinians displaced in the '67 war to return to their old homes/property in now-occupied territory.

Every US president since Nixon has rejected this--most suggesting that it is something that should be discussed once other significant progress has been made--for good reasons. In negotiation terms, this is a huge issue. It's simply stunning that the influence of the neocons is so great at this point in the Bush administration that they can set US foreign policy for the last 40 years on its edge.

Now I really begin to wonder whether peace between Israel and Palestine is ever going to be achieved. Any pretense of the US being even-handed in this dispute have simply evaporated.

Tulip festival again

The other day I got up at 5:30am and drove north to the heart of the Skagit Valley. It is the time of the annual Tulip Festival. After WWII, a Dutch family emigrated to the region and took up tulip growing on a pretty large scale.

Now tourists from Seattle (and Vancouver, BC) drive up in large numbers every weekend in March and April to check out the fields of flowers. I took a lot of photos with my digital but had some difficulties with the low light (the sun was just rising). I made some accomodations as I went along--using the exposure lock.

You'll see that I still had some lens flare from the low angle of the sun.I quickly figured out that while I was impressed by the large fields of tulips they didn't really photograph too well. The swathes of color in the dull landscape just didn't come across. So I changed to taking some close-ups, thinking that these would prove more interesting.

Sardinia

Well, my parents landed in Sardinia today. They are finally taking the time to travel (which they love to do). Very cool. My dad bought an Italian "unlocked" cell phone and SIM and I was able to call him this afternoon.

Next thing I know I'll get an email from an Internet cafe. With any luck they'll love Sardinia (and country life) and decide to buy a place there. One can only hope.

In San Francisco next week

I'm back down to the San Francisco Bay area next week for the latter part of the week. I'll be job-hunting and visiting family at the same time.

I look at it as an opportunity to meet up with some friends I haven't seen in a couple of years (seems like yesterday I had a going away party and moved to France) and get some good food.

After 20 years in the Bay Area I know some really good restaurants. I just won't have the time to visit them all.

Tenet tells the truth?

I haven't been sure what to think of George Tenet. He seems like a smart fellow, not politically in one camp or another. More of a career professional who, is his last appearance in front of the 9/11 Commission seemed to walk a fine line trying to promote his agency's current priorities rather than indicting the performance of past and current administrations.

Today I thought he dropped a small bombshell. When asked whether Bush had communicated with him between receipt of the now infamous Aug 6. memo and Sept 11th, he said "No." Not once.

Strange that Condi Rice had left us with the impression that he briefed the President daily and that they were good buddies. Imagine the Commission's surprise (followed microseconds later by that of the television viewing audience) when we learned that they had not talked.

I think that the lies and deception are getting pretty thick. It's not such much that we blame him for the failure to stop 9/11. That appears to have required much more understanding than anyone had. It's the constant attempt to refuse any responsibility that bugs me.

Just as President Clinton wasn't indicted for Whitewater but rather for trying to cover up his sexual indiscretions, President Bush may well lose this election because of his administration's attempts to stonewall investigations and its allied attempts to refuse to acknowledge the validity of any criticisms.

Portfolio Management and its relation to Project Management

I attended our local PMI chapter meeting this evening and learned the newest buzz "phrase" in project management is "portfolio management". Unfortunately, ours is a pretty new discipline--at least the growth of project management as a management discipline. This leads to the appropriation of other disciplines terms or misdefinitions (risk being defined in PMI terms as both positive and negative risk).

In this particular case the term "portfolio management" has been redefined from the term in use in the investment community to mean:

The process of managing the assets of an enterprise, including choosing and monitoring appropriate investments and allocating funds accordingly.

This definition almost obfuscates the real ideas behind this concept:

1. The process of identifying, approving, prioritizing, funding, staffing, monitoring, and measuring the programs and projects that deliver your business goals.

2. A comprehensive strategy for aligning delivery with strategy, driving strategy to the project delivery level, for realization of business goals.

I'm very, very familiar with the program manager role and the project manager role having done them for quite a few years. This adds a third role, at the executive level of management. Basically, this is the highest level of three interlocking and interactive process loops. At this level executive staff provide "common vision, strategy, goals and direction" and these are translated at the program management office interface to enterprise prioritization, scope, goals, objectives and funding.

As explained to us this evening this frequently means a significant re-alignment of company operational procedure. Key to making "portfolio management" work in an enterprise is clear communication (surprise). Each member of management has to be aware that s/he is no longer working in a "silo" and that anyone at the same level of management or above (and sometimes below) can see how their group/division is doing against goals and other groups in very clear terms. So this introduces an almost unprecedented level of visibility to the modern American corporation.

Obviously, this can engender a lot of resistance among executive staff. Ooohh, accountability. Also key to this re-engineering of corporate dynamics is that management has to accept that not all information will be positive but the delivery of all accurate information--whether positive or not--is to be rewarded and encouraged ("don't shoot the messenger").

So in this concept, there is a top-down responsibility to provide clear goals and direction and align company values with honest presentation of data. From the bottom up there is a responsibility to develop accurate information and report it upwards honestly.

As recommended to us these sort of wholesale changes--where a company's goals are aligned throughout all the staff with the projects undertaken--must frequently take baby steps.

First one needs to develop a fairly mature operational project maturity (correct timekeeping, correct reporting, projects run to a clearly defined methodology) and then one needs to re-educate the executive staff to not "cover their asses" and to report data--whether negative or not--accurately so that re-alignment could take place in a meaningful way.

I mentioned that I thought the army was an excellent model for how to manage an organization along these lines and the presenter agreed. One of the issues in modern corporations can be the frequent turn-over of executive staff and managing to keep the "porfolio management" adoption going in light of this can be very trying.

I would also imagine one could use as a model the large business processing re-engineering firms (like the now-defunct Arthur Andersen) as a good model (they gave their staff some very interesting training).

All in all, portfolio management sounds to me a bit like Stephen Covey's principles put into a methodology.

(If this has some interest for you you can download a PDF of this presentation from my local chapter's Web site. A reference to the presenter's firm is provided on the Powerpoints and she will be presenting at the PMI International Congress in Prague next week.)

Off to England

I'm off to England for a month April 29th. I'll be staying with family in Sussex and will be looking for both full-time and contract work while I'm there. The job market in the UK seems to have recovered more quickly than the market here (or perhaps it is just the higher density of population).

In any event, May in England should be lovely and I hope to be able to fit in some golf.

Mickelson wins the Masters!

Great for Phil Mickelson and the game of golf, I say. He finally won (after 47 major championship attempts) with a birdie on the last hole of regulation play. In a way, I'm sorry that Ernie Els didn't win because he played magnificently. But he already has three major championships and it was high time for Mickelson to win one.

It was a great and dramatic finish to the Masters with Mickelson shooting 31 on the back nine. So much for those commentators who said that the course had been gimmicked up so much that we would never see a great charge on the back nine ever again. Both KJ Choi, Phil Mickelson and the high amateur (I forget his name) managed 31s on the back nine (that's 5 under par and a good charge in anyone's book).

The highlight of the afternoon (with the exception of Mickelson's final putt) had to be KJ Choi's eagle of the 13th. Brilliant play and it contributed to the sense of drama.

Tiger flails (again) at the Masters

So am I alone in thinking that Tiger is his own worst enemy on the course? It's very strange. I have thought that the last few times I've seen him play (and lose it) that he may be too arrogant for his own good.

Even his "B" game is good enough to win most major tournaments (and almost certainly the Masters). But where others (e.g. Els, or even Mickelson this week) seem capable of making smarter choices when they aren't on top form (laying up, using a 3-wood instead of driver) Tiger doesn't seem willing to do this.

He seems incapable of accepting that he won't always be able to play his way out of problems with a brilliant shot. Whereas a better-than-average shot might well allow him to avoid bogey and even have remained in contention this weekend.

Maybe its just an issue of maturity. We hackers seem to have learned a humility that Tiger lacks. Even the commentators marvel at the stupidity of using driver on some of the holes he hits it on.

Oh, yeah..

Didn't get the job in Austin with Frogdesign. Drives me up the wall. I cannot think of a better company to work for and I think I would be perfect for them. I'm completely mystified as to why it didn't work.

The Iraq Quagmire

I've been thinking about this developing quagmire in Iraq. My first reaction is that we should just pull American forces out and leave them to their own devices. My rationale is that it is a fallacy to believe that we can "impose" democracy on another nation. That sort of nation-building has never worked in the modern era and I think it highly unlikely that it would work in Iraq today.

Given that, what is the point of staying in Iraq? If we cannot accomplish the goal of creating a stable democracy, is there any point in the further sacrifice of America's young men and women?

Iraq (Persia) has been the graveyard of countless invading armies throughout history--we have just seen the first signs of an awakening national conciousness (as opposed to the religious tribalism of recent years) in the news that Sunni and Shiia have been fighting US forces together! Think about that for a second. If that continues, this could presage an entire country united against the US presence.

Add to this that there is no "nice" way to fight an urban war--there will be a lot of collateral damage and casualties--and the US is in a no-win situation in staying.

The only possible rationale for staying to my mind is if one accepts the original premise that Iraq was somehow aligned with Al Qaeda. Of course, what was not true then could quite probably be true after the withdrawal. I fully expect to see a theocratic state come into being within months of a US pull-out. Probably very similiar in nature to Iran; providing a lot of young men for whatever jihad is most current.

I say pull out now rather than waste more American lives.

The Masters - a crucible of golf

Ah, the Masters. Probably my favorite golf tournament to watch, even beyond the Open Championship. I think I've never quite seen a tournament that is such a crucible for human weakness.

For those of you who don't follow golf, the Masters is played every April in Augusta, Georgia at the private club founded by Bobby Jones (one of the greatest golfers who ever played the game). It's a storied course for all the great players who have won there (and all those who haven't). This was Ike's favorite course (he was a member) and Ben Hogan's.

This is the same course that the last two years has decided to reject all corporate sponsorship so that they can control the TV broadcast. That until last year never televised the play on the front nine holes. That insists that fans at the tournament be called "patrons". Violating this rule got commentator Jack Whitaker banned from further coverage. Commentator Gary McCord was banned for referring to the surface of the super-fast greens as having been "bikini waxed". (But enough of that silliness.)

The Master is drama played out on a very public stage. It's one of the only major tournaments (and the only one of the modern four "majors") that is played on the same course every year. Every hole on Augusta's back nine (and soon the front nine) is known to golf fans. Indeed, Amen Corner (holes 11, 12, 13) is so well-known that it has been copied several times on other courses.

I call it a crucible because it has been the site of some remarkable victories (Tiger's record 18-under victory in 1997) and sad losses (Greg Norman's memorable 6-shot collapse in 1996). Who couldn't empathise with Greg as his game crumbled on the back nine of the final day? Any weakness in a golfer's game or in a golfer's mind will be exposed in the course of the four-day match.

I'm not one of those who watches races for the wrecks or crashes and I certainly don't watch golf tournaments for the mistakes. I much prefer to see great matches between players. Golf courses are built to reward careful analysis and exploitation of the risk/reward factors built in by course architects. Few of us are ever good enough to really make the trade-off and play the course as the architect has intended--but the professionals are and its a joy to watch these guys go for it on Sunday when they are two strokes down and have to take a major risk.

The course is very dry this week and playing really fast. The commentators on the Golf Channel are saying that this will reward the long hitters like Tiger, Vijay, Ernie Els, or Phil Mickelson. I think we are all pulling for Phil--yet another golfer who has collapsed a few times while in the lead.

Whoever wins will surely deserve it and I'll be glued to the TV this weekend to watch as much as I can.

NB: Live coverage starts at 1pm on USA.

Boy, do I dislike Condi Rice

Most likely because she is smart and in the Bush administration. I watch her this morning on TV and she seems to be a one-eyed woman in a land of the blind. She answers the commission's questions in a way that advances the Bush Administration's charges that the Clinton Administration is too blame for everything terrorism-related.

Her answers to every question seem to end up in oblique and not-so-oblique references to how the Clinton Administration did not act against terrorists during their administration (though one of the committee members did get her to admit that failing the cooperation of Muslim countries surrounding Afghanistan military action other than stand-off options was not practicable). This directly contravenes the testimony of other members of the administration that the Clinton Administration sat on its hands and didn't attack Afghanistan after the USS Cole attacks. That the launch of 60-odd cruise missiles was "pounding rubble".

Senator Kerrey is nailing her to the cross right now. Lovely. Finally, a person of intellect to challenge her obfuscations and denials.

When spammers attack

The oddest thing. I'm getting a couple of comments per day from spammers. They seem to think that they can leave meaningless comments ("Hmmm, you think so?") with a porn site address and that they'll get away with it.

Did some write a little "get rich quick" manual telling these fools this is the way to drive traffic to their pathetic sites?

Hanging on tenterhooks..

I still haven't heard officially about my last set of job interviews in Austin. Tomorrow makes a week. I'm off to all-day interviews at Microsoft tomorrow (good to have more than one egg in the basket) and I'll just have to assume I'll be staying in Seattle for now.

I liked Austin a lot although I fear I would have to start taking allergy shots given how high the pollen count gets there in the spring. But at least I got to visit family I'd never met and eat some good barbecue (Stubbs).

Star Wars Redux

Sometimes I just don't know about the current administration. They seem totally mired in the past. What does it take? A 747 crashed into their living room? A dirty bomb detonated under their bed?

Now, we hear that the Bush administration wants to not only continue building missiles to defend us against the highly improbable attack from North Korea, but they want to increase the budget.

A very large group (49 to be precise) of our retired US generals and admirals have signed a letter to the effect that this money ($10.2 billion) would be better spent on securing the homeland against more likely terrorist attacks.

I have a friend who has seen these bases being constructed in Alaska over the last few years (since Bush ascended to the throne). We know from press reports that Condi Rice was going to give a speech on Sept. 11 about how missile defence was the highest priority for the administration.

It seems that they just haven't given up on the idea. Do they know something we don't or are they simply mired in the Cold War thinking that led them to ignore the threat of Osama bin Laden?

Will there be any consequences for an administration that lets the country down so badly? Sometimes I long for the British system so that our MPs could just vote them out of office this week and right the ship.

University presses closing down

According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor (don't put your nose in the air, read it, it's a great paper) a number of university presses (among them Northeastern) are shutting down this year because their losses are mounting during this recession.

So what occurred to me was: why don't they publish electronically? Sure, publishing on paper is sexy but it does kill trees and the books have limited press runs and exposure.

If the mission of these presses is really to bring works to light that might not be published by mainstream houses, or to publish works by students and faculty, then why not publish electronically? Their losses would surely drop immensely and perhaps they could resume paper publishing at some time in the future without having given up that tradition.

What am I missing here?

"It's not porn, it's British"

Or so went the thought through my mind as I saw the stewardess' eyes widen as she saw my laptop screen. I had just launched one of my favorite DVDs, the British mini-series, "Ultraviolet" (1998). The opening title sequence shows parts of a naked male body on an operating room table (nothing salacious) and then focuses in on the puncture wounds in the neck.

Into my mind came the line "It's not porn, it's British". It's funny how repressed this country is, that even a partially-seen naked body can be a cause for concern (if only in my mind).

It's a great mini-series, six episodes on two DVDs. The premise of the film is that the government has a secret agency to track down and eliminate "Type Vs". While the word is never mentioned in the film, we quickly learn that these Type Vs have a lot of vampire-like tendencies. One twist presented pretty early in the film is that they are invested in protecting their food supply so they support research into blood diseases.

It's a very up-to-date film with the good guys using weapons that fire carbon (wood) projectiles and with video-enhanced sights (Type Vs don't show up on video).

Give it a try at your local video store (if you can find it) or on Netflix.

Sick as a dog..

arrghg. I love travel, but I hate planes. Cramped, over-heated, noisy. And disease-ridden. I got quite ill Thursday afternoon flying back from my interviews in Austin.

Seems like a very nasty headcold but on top of one of the worst allergy attacks I've had in years I was in misery Thursday and today. (I learned on my return that Austin had recorded pollen counts amongst the top 3 in the country).

Just what I need in a new home. If it is going to be my home. Still haven't heard. I found Austin pretty nice though living in or near the downtown looks to be quite expensive unfortunately. I would have liked not having to commute to work. It may be a luxury I can't afford though.