movies

Helpful customer service reps almost make up for AT&T's vile, corporate policies (almost).

I'm old enough to remember a time when there was only one phone company—we called it the phone company. And while the company didn't have any competition, affordable rates or spark of innovation, it did possess a little thing called customer service. You could call Ma Bell for any reason, and in no time at all, a nice man drove up and fixed "your" phone in a jiffy, without charge. Those were the halcyon days of telecommunications. And the other day, I saw a glimmer of it again. Albeit, briefly.

Things a Bond flick must have to be a real Bond flick.

I just saw the new movie, Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig, and enjoyed it. Too bad, it's not a Bond flick. Yes, the lead character is named James Bond, but that alone doesn't make it a Bond flick (see Never Say Never Again). In fact, while the Broccolis think there have already been 21 or 22 Bond films, there have really only been about six: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds Are Forever. In short, the Sean Connery ones. And not because I think Sean Connery is the best Bond. Frankly, I don't care who the actor is. No, there have only been 6 real Bond flicks because most of the scripts lack the requisite Bond-ness to qualify.

Namesake's restaurant lives up to namesake's name

On a lark, I took my wife out to Bing Crosby's Restaurant and Piano Lounge way the hell over in Walnut Creek. It's a grueling 40 minute trek across the bridge and into the wilds of the East Bay, but I was overcome by curiosity about this establishment that bore my surname.

Paintball is hell.

They call it Paintball, or Splatball. I call it just plain stupid. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's this: You drive out into the boonies, dressed like Rambo, then arm up with a compressed air pellet gun that shoots gumball-sized plastic balls with paint in them. Then you split up into teams and play Capture The Flag. The idea being, if you shoot someone with a paintball, it will, upon impact, break and stain his clothes, "killing" him. This is where it gets messy. While your team is trying to go through the woods to their camp and back with flag in tow, they are trying to do likewise. Herein lies the potential for conflict. The opposing team gathers, and right quickly I might add, that if they shoot everyone on your team, it will make their journey all that

Evidently, Bush wasn’t a pigheaded, fear-mongering liar—just a Conservative.

For 8 years, I believed George Bush was an unrepentant charlatan, an ineloquent dolt and a power-hungry madman, but maybe—just maybe—I was wrong about him. Maybe there was another reason for his lies, war-mongering and mass eradication of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms.

Blog | 05.21.09 | By thecroz

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BOOKS

I am America (And so can you!), Stephen Colbert—Sage advice for an ailing nation.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens—The case against belief.
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Brian Greene—A mind-bending romp through quantum physics.
Adam's Curse: A Future without Men, Bryan Sykes—It's not MY fault, it's my chromosome's.
1984, George Orwell—Who says no one can predict the future?
Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny, Robert Wright—It gives you hope for the future.
The Stranger, Albert Camus—Alienated existentialism at its best.
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson—Why aren't textbooks this funny?

POLITICS

Change Congress Help keep Big Money out of politics
Earmark Watch Bringing citizen oversight to congressional spending
Money And Politics Illuminating the connection
Open Congress The real story behind what's happening in Congress
Fortune 535 Find out how wealthy your local politicians are
OpenSecrets Center for responsive politics
Citability Making government accessible, reliable, and transparent
Data.gov Public access to high-value, machine-readable data sets
Public Markup Review and comment on proposed bills before they are even introduced
FedSpending Find out where your tax money is going
The Sunlight Foundation Shining light on money, lobbying, and government
Transparency Int'l. Stop corruption to save lives.
Congresspedia The citizen's encyclopedia of Congress

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