Read this, then this.

For a while I've been keeping a list of the IMDB's Top 250 movies, and checking them off as I go. Others apparently like to do the same sort of thing, judging from this new web site. A link to the movies I've seen can be found via the new link over on the right side under the kangaroo picture.

What's the highest ranked movie you've never seen?

Three posts about the same book? Sorry, but I just finished that diary, and man, they need to make a movie about it. Since I reported last:

The remaining Jews, the guy included, received orders to appear at SS headquarters in two days times with a packed suitcase, for what everyone knew was a death march. He was one of the ones that had to go help deliver the orders.

The night before they were supposed to appear, Dresden was firebombed.

In the resulting confusion he decided to cut the Jewish star off his jacket and run for it.

He and his wife joined the throngs of refugees fleeing the city.

Through a series of close calls, phony ids, and continual near starvation, they make their way as far as Munich.

They are near Dachau when the Americans arrive, and he witnessed survivors, the walking dead, still in their blue and white striped linen.
It all reads like Hollywood. Perhaps most interesting were his reports of the reactions of the people as the war ended and they came to realize that they had been fed humongous pack of lies. Naturally, those that were clued in knew all along (including all the atrocities); on the other end of the spectrum, there were plenty who kept on believing, but of course denied involvement.

"Mo"vember. A bunch of guys at work are planning on using the month of November to grow mustaches. They're calling it "Mo"vember. There'll be judging at the end of the month; I don't know what the prize is, but I thought about participating. Marjorie thinks it would be hilarious if I did.

I think it would be funny, but I like my jokes to last somewhat less long than a month. I don't see it happening.

More Aussie-isms.

To rock up: to show up, especially at a social event. "You all go on to the pub; I'll rock up in a half hour or so."

To shit: to bother. "That new guy may be smart, but he really shits me."

Ye: you (plural). Actually, I think this is an Irishism. "You can work on this by yourself, or the two of ye can finish it together."

Upon noticing my Irish coworker using this last one, I told her the similar rule used in the Southern US: "y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural. She got a big kick out of that.

Sufficient density. It used to be that you could know pretty much everything about computers, but not any more -- not by a long shot. (The same could be said of mathematics, physics, or several other fields.) In the IT business, you really have to pick and choose what you learn. There's always a buzz of new ideas, which is what makes it such a fun field, but which ideas are worthwhile, and which are a waste of time? Some people just seem to try out everything that sounds cool, and revel in that approach, but not me. I have to wait until I hear a thing mentioned in enough places before my interest is piqued.

Which is a long way of explaining that I've set up a list of my favorite links on del.icio.us. I'm a little dubious that a site for publicly listing your favorite links will have the broad social implications that some people are predicting for it. But it's reached sufficient density to at least appear on my radar. And at least I'll get to access my hot links from anywhere. So what, beeg deal.

Snobservation. A sure sign of mediocrity in a restaurant: do they use iceberg lettuce in anything?

I'm With Stupid! I had Marjorie look over one of my chapter submissions for the book I'm contributing to. Among other things, she pointed out that in one place I used the word "stupider" instead of "more stupid".

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou...

The book I'll be contributing to is called "Mind Performance Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Becoming a Better Thinker". It has chapters on memory, math, creativity, clarity, decision making, info processing, communication, mental fitness, and "metaprogramming". My chapters fall under math and communication, but I'll leave the specifics for a later date. I think it has the potential to do very well; I find this sort of thing discussed a lot out on the web, and an earlier O'Reilly book on a similar subject was quite popular. I've seen the proofs, and there's some choice stuff in there. Due out in January. Exciting!

It's already listed on Amazon, Powell's, and Barnes and Noble (under the wrong title).

Years ago, after picking up Mary Chesnut's Civil War diary on a whim, I resolved to read a lot more historic diaries. It has to be THE best way to learn history; even though it's from a single point of view, you still get all the little details that make it real.

I went on to pick up I Will Bear Witness, the first half (1933-1941) of a diary by a Jewish professor of literature living in World War II Nazi Germany. It's amazing, but I never picked up the second half (To The Bitter End, 1942-1945) because the book company was only selling it in hard cover at the time (dirty trick!).

Just recently I managed to procure a copy of the complete diaries ("The Klemperer Diaries") through our library system. It is just an astounding read. The author was Jewish by heritage only; he was actually a Protestant, and had an Aryan wife (which undoubtedly saved his life). Still, as the war presses on, he is increasingly deprived of everything; his academic title, his home, his typewriter, his savings... I'm up to 1942, and was nearly in tears on the tram today as I read about them putting down their much-loved cat before it could be rounded up according to a new decree. This was followed immediately by the Gestapo's first raid of their house. By Klemperer's account, they got off "easy" -- he was visiting a friend; his wife got slapped and called "a Jew's whore". They of course ransacked the place and stole a number of provisions, there being severe shortages at the time. They also ground up some garlic they found and hid it around the house, just so their home would stink.

He's 60 years old and had angina, but still was ordered to work with a road crew shoveling snow -- and was the youngest on the crew. Hard to believe there are still another three years of this to read about; he is continually so close to death; not just from his physical condition, but from the whims of the Gestapo.

Hunt this one down, and give it a read. Utterly captivating.

Read any good historic diaries?

Marjorie's birthday wrapped up with the chocolate indulgence high tea at the Windsor. With me, it's class all the way, see?

This being Marjorie's birthday weekend, we rented a car and drove up to Daylesford/Hepburn Springs for some west and welaxation. I've recently resolved to try all the various different types of spa and massage treatments that exist, so this time I got coated in mud and cocooned in a blanket, while getting a head massage. Very nice! Marjorie opted to get her feet done.

Along the way we saw our first two wild kangaroos -- alas, roadkill. But while waiting for our spa treatments, we walked a little ways up a nature trail. After spotting some Jacky Winters, a superb fairy-wren, and several crimson rosellas, Marjorie spotted a small kangaroo peering at us from the top of a rise fifty metres away. Our first!

Super Bowl Grand Final Sunday Saturday. Last Saturday was the big game day in Melbourne, our second footy Grand Final. And for the second time, no Melbourne team was involved, despite the fact that Melbourne teams make up more than half the league. This time it was the Sydney Swans versus the West Coast Eagles. Support in our neighborhood was overwhelmingly in favor of the Swans, for reasons we couldn't fathom. Was it an east coast versus west coast thing? Turns out, the Swans used to be the South Melbourne Swans, before moving north to Sydney.

Twice while we were eating out during the weekend did the patrons spontaneously break into the Swans team song. Obviously, they won.

Geek warning. A thread on a board I read regularly spurred me to go out and try to do some basic astronomy. We only have one crappy little set of binoculars, but I thought I would at least see if I could orient myself. Living in the city means you only get a handful of stars (though Melbourne has far clearer nights than any comparably-size city I know). But with a little help from Your Sky and a field guide I bought a long time ago, I was able to pick out the tail of Scorpius yesterday. Slightly hazy tonight, but I spotted it again, and followed a trail from it to a particularly bright star just above the horizon. My field guide identified it as Rigil Kentaurus, which didn't sound familiar. So I looked it up online, and it turns out that that's just the proper name for Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighbor! A lucky find, considering there were only twenty or so stars even visible through the haze. Like the Southern Cross (supposedly right next to it, but obscured by a cloud), it's not visible from most of the Northern hemisphere. Pretty cool, I think.

I'm the penultimate! Our soccer team tallies best player votes at the end of each game. The other night we had our annual Vote Count night, where we see the tally from the year, presented as a game-by-game slide show with running totals.

I took second (for the thirds team), which is cool. Especially considering I have no ball skills to speak of, and don't have a particularly cool head when I have the ball. Early on I was aiming at not being the worst player on the team, so I'm happy with this.

Fairly eventful weekend, last. Saturday evening we went and saw a perennial favorite of ours, Glenn Tilbrook, at the Espy. Always a hoot. Nice thinly populated show, which is a good way to catch him. I called for him to play "By The Light of the Cash Machine", and he complied straight away. Marjorie walked up to the stage between songs to request the song he wrote with Aimee Mann, which he said he didn't remember -- "but I think it had a G chord in it." He did his amazing rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile", on acoustic guitar -- it has to be seen to be believed. He put the guitar behind his head and played an intricate repeating part while talking calmly into the mike -- he's quite an amazing guitarist. Climbing up on the bar, he did "Goodbye Girl" and "Black Coffee in Bed" singalong. There were a couple of blues covers with a guest guitarist whose name I didn't catch, that were quite tasty. And he closed with a cover of the Cornell Hurd Band's "Genitalia of a Fool" that had the crowd in stitches.

We stayed out too late, so I had to play our last soccer game of the season slightly crapulent and with not enough sleep. We lost a game we should have won. But it was fun. Home for a nap, then the first of a scheduled year's worth of once-a-month wine tastings, organized by a friend. Our turn to host will come. It should be a lot of fun, and edumacational too.

In the evening I went out and met with all my soccer teammates who were out "getting pissed". Out too late again, and I forgot to eat dinner too.

Not exciting news. YET. I've been asked to be a contributor to a forthcoming book. Without getting too specific, I will mention that it's an O'Reilly book, which is about as cool as it gets in the techie arena. I'm not going to get my hopes up too high, since my contribution would be small, and may not survive the editing process. It's very much the equivalent to a walk-on part in a big movie, that may well end up on the editing room floor. Still, it will be VERY COOL if it pans out, and might lead to follow-on stuff. Further details as events warrant.

On a lighter note-- here are the photos from our trip to Hamilton Island.

New Orleans. Not sure what to say. Still trying to fathom the extent of this tragedy. I went there, once. A little seedy but a unique and fascinating place.

There was a chart in a recent National Geographic, showing the number of hurricanes in the last ten years as almost double the number in the previous ten. They say this is due to the ocean temperatures being warmer. Is this a global warming issue? Hard to say; could just be a fluctuation. But it's worth investigating.

Podcast, schmodcast. Mixmaster Marjorie and I sat around the kitchen last night with some beers and played songs for at each other. We had just finished listening to the new White Stripes album, which ends with a gospel-y number, so "gospel" was the original theme. But we ran out of that, fast, and so switched to "original and cover songs", where we'd play a bit of the original and then play the cover. The playlist:

I'm Lonely (But I'm Not That Lonely Yet) -- White Stripes

Paul McCartney -- That Day Is Done (I like Elvis's version better)

Love Is Stranger Than Death -- The The

Jesus Gonna Be Here -- Tom Waits

Smells Like Teen Spirit -- Nirvana/Tori Amos

Which Will -- Nick Drake/Lucinda Williams

Hounds of Love -- Kate Bush/Futureheads

David Watts -- The Kinks/The Jam

Hallelujah -- Leonard Cohen/Jeff Buckley

Redemption Song -- Bob Marley/Joe Strummer (Somehow we don't own the original. Who could cover this song, but Joe?)

La Vie En Rose -- Edith Piaf/Louis Armstrong

New Amsterdam -- Elvis Costello/Tasmin Archer

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath -- Black Sabbath/The Cardigans

Cactus -- The Pixies/David Bowie

Hang On To Your Ego -- Beach Boys/Frank Black

Ruby's Arms -- Tom Waits/Frente

Gimme Some Truth -- John Lennon/Sam Phillips

Winterlong -- Neil Young/The Pixies

IGY -- Steely Dan (Who snuck that in there?)

The Other End Of The Telescope -- 'Til Tuesday/Elvis Costello

Speeding Motorcycle -- Daniel Johnston with Yo La Tengo

Police On My Back -- The Clash

Things started to break up towards the end, but it was fun.