Hallelujah!

Very few things will cause me to break out in pseudo-religious glee, but the indictment of Tom “Six of Clubs” DeLay is sure as hell one of them.

I’ll leave it open to discussion as to what the others might be. But I’ll give you a hint: One of them has the letters S-E-C in it.

An Unexpected News Source

Maybe I should add The Onion to my regular list of real-news sources, right alongside The Daily Show. Up until now, I’d always assumed that, while Jon Stewart had ventured into providing better news reporting than any other television news source, at least The Onion was still limited to satire.

But looking back, this piece from January of 2001 turned out to be right on the money. Funny how we thought that, at the time, it was nothing but humorous exaggeration.

(Thanks to alternative hippopotamus for the link.)

Not Much of a Surprise

I probably wouldn’t have labeled myself a true Socialist, but I won’t dispute it. The way I figure it, my abject hatred for the corruption currently employed by large-scale capitalists in this country has certainly colored my answer set this time around. Corruption is inherent in pretty much any social structure, but in this administration, it’s those capitalists who are being given free rein to exercise that corruption without anything remotely approaching consequence.

Individuals will always act in their own interests. Period. If they’re permitted by the rest of society to act with impunity, they will do so. As the past five years have proven.

Ask me again in another five years, and I may very well answer differently, but for now, I’m sticking with an “eat the rich” philosophy.

You are a Social Liberal (75% permissive) and an Economic Liberal (11% permissive)

You are best described as a: Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Can I Have a Raise?

Ooooooh.

Canon just announced their new XL H1, the XL-series version of a high-definition provessional video camera.

I have got to get me one of these... although at nine grand retail, I’m not exactly holding my breath.

Strange Sympathy

I’ll admit that for an avowed technophile, I’m coming in pretty late to the podcasting phenomenon. To be honest, about the only podcast I ever went to the trouble to download prior to the iTunes podcasting update was Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica commentary podcast. And even there, I wasn’t using a real podcast aggregator, but just copying down the raw MP3 files.

But once iTunes got into the game, I gave it a whirl. There were a lot of podcasts I tried once, and then forgot. Others were nice-to-hears, but not need-to-hears. But one podcast really captured my fancy: Skepticality. It was news from a skeptical point of view without being overtly hostile to faith, religion, and the like (some of the interviewed guests may have been a little more so, but they were balanced by guests with an opposing inclination).

I downloaded all of the old programs and started listening to them during my commutes. While it had certainly come to my attention because of its popularity, I didn’t feel that it was in any way designed for popular consumption. In fact, I’d argue that the target audience for the podcast is fairly limited. But however one might choose to analyze it, in the space of just a couple of short weeks, I was hooked. I had never met the show’s hosts, Derek and Swoopy — hell, I hadn’t even registered on their bulletin board — but I instinctively felt like we’d get along great. Oh, we’d argue, no doubt (particularly about politics), but on the whole, no worries.

And then this past Friday, Swoopy posted a message that — on the same day that they’d been singled out by Steve Jobs as one of the great new podcasts out there — Derek was hospitalized with an arteriovenous malformation (somewhat like an aneurysm, I understand), and was in a drug-induced coma.

I was stunned. And yet, these are people with whom I have had no contact whatsoever. They don’t even know I exist. And I’m certainly no sentimentalist who believes (in any literal sense) that we’re all connected by some sort of invisible ties. But I really felt for them. It really felt like this was happening to close friends, not complete strangers who I just happened to have been listening to on my iPod.

It makes me understand a bit more how people can become obsessive celebrity fans — despite all of the communication being strictly one way, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that, all rational thought to the contrary, some of that information is heading backward along that conduit.

I’m not so irrational as to believe that there’s any factual basis to that, but my feelings aren’t changing. I don’t pray, but I do sincerely hope that Derek recovers soon. And not just because I want “my new show” back, but because I honestly do want him to get better.

And though I don’t have faith that he will, I do trust that it may just happen — and the difference between the two is a topic for another day.

Making My Day

I love reading columns like Dan Froomkin’s White House Briefing, ’cause every once in a while you see a little tidbit that nobody else managed to pick up. In yesterday’s briefing, for example, was a little nugget that had me just giddy with joy in an otherwise depressing couple of weeks: Apparently, Turd Blossom was hospitalized with painful kidney stones (catch the second-to-last paragraph on the page).

God, I hope they were really painful. I’d hope for a relapse, but I don’t want to get greedy.

Hitchers Can’t Be Choosers

With the movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy making its DVD debut tomorrow, I thought it worth pointing out that a similar reimagining has recently become available — namely, the radio play version of Life, the Universe, and Everything (or “The Tertiary Phase,” as it’s entitled).

For those of you (probably a mere few in this audience) who are unaware of Hitchhiker’s history, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy started out not as a novel, but a Douglas Adams-scripted BBC radio play. It basically ran for what might be considered two “seasons,” later dubbed “The Primary Phase” (1978) and “The Secondary Phase” (a special “Christmas episode” aired in December of 1978, though the remainder didn’t run until 1980). Alas, they’re no longer available in the U.S. (unless you’d care to shell out $330 for a poor-quality used MP3 disc set), but can still be ordered from Amazon’s U.K. store.

From there, the “reimaginings” began. Adams was approached in 1981 about adapting the surprisingly successful story into a novel (while at the same time it was being adapted into several stage play versions). Unfortunately, he was only two thirds of the way through The Primary Phase when his editors demanded that he turn over his book, pronto. He quickly cobbled together a new ending to occur at that two-thirds mark, and unfortunately had to drop a large portion of the ending material. When the book, the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, became a runaway best-seller, Adams penned a sequel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, pasting together content from both the remainder of the Primary Phase and the complete Secondary Phase (dropping most of the original storyline from the latter). That, too, sold wildly, and the story was adapted into a BBC television series (which mostly followed the original Primary Phase, with some additions from the stage play version).

After all of this success, Adams decided to write a third book in 1982, Life, the Universe, and Everything, thus completing what would become known as the “Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.” This book differed from the previous two in that it was not adapted from prior material, but was a completely original storyline, following from the events of the second book. (Another adaptation included the successful Infocom game, which has since been reissued online, and a version of which I’m playing with my daughter on my Palm — there’s just something about playing Hitchhiker’s Guide on a device somewhat analogous to the Guide itself.)

Of course, the remaining storyline from The Secondary Phase would make no sense at this point — various events, causes, and characters having been completely reworked or even eradicated — so in essence, Adams started from scratch. Which brings us to the first problem in reversing the original process and adapting the book back to radio: The Tertiary Phase no longer follows the storyline of the original radio play. When we begin, our characters are back where they were not at the end of the Secondary Phase, but the Primary. Confusing, yes — readers of the books will be completely at ease, but were you to listen to the radio plays in sequence, you’d suddenly find yourself completely out of place. (There is a throwaway line implying that the events of The Secondary Phase were merely an alcohol-induced hallucination, but this falls more than a little flat.)

The reason? Douglas Adams passed away before the project truly got under way. So while he was aware of the project’s existence (and even went so far as to suggest that he should play the voice of the beast Agrajag), he was not able to contribute to its adaptation. And with Adams’s stamp so clearly a part of the Hitchhiker’s mystique, any attempt to make radical alteration would be doomed to failure, at least in terms of public reception. Still, I think at least a token explanation of the revised chain of events — a prologue episode, perhaps — would have made the overall experience much richer.

The second problem with the adaptation is its very nature. The first two books originated as dialogue-driven radio plays, a format which — though it limited the original story to what could be presented in that fashion — adapted itself fairly readily to the novel form. In writing the third book, however, Adams had no such restrictions — he was able to open up the scope of the story, using his singular wit for narration as much as for character conversation. In adapting it back to radio play format, however, such a scope necessitates an awkward amount of description rather than dialogue, a substantial departure from the earlier Phases. It’s not quite a mere audiobook reading, but it more closely approaches that form.

And the third problem is merely one of time. Not only had Adams passed away since the original, but so had Peter Jones (the very distinctive original voice of “The Book”), Richard Vernon (Slartibartfast) and David Tate (Eddie the shipboard computer). As all three characters appear in the later stories, they would have to be recast — a particular issue in the case of Jones, who was such an integral part of the original.

Still, even with those shortcomings, the result is eminently enjoyable. Almost all of the surviving cast returns — and they even manage to come up with a particularly creative way of explaining the Book’s voice change (William Franklyn takes over the role, but a substantial portion of Jones’s original recording is used in a “Guide upgrade” transition). Perhaps most astonishing, Adams himself gets to have his wish fulfilled — by incorporating audiobook recordings of Adams performing Agrajag, he does in fact get to play the role. And, of course, the story itself is as compelling as ever — different in tone from the prior stories (which were more episodic as opposed to plot-driven), but truly part of the same larger whole.

Also broadcast (and due to be released on CD soon) are The Quandary Phase (adapting So Long and Thanks for All the Fish) and The Quintessential Phase (adapting the final book in “the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy,” Mostly Harmless). From an overall story standpoint, these two tales deviated significantly from the established “formula” — So Long being more of an Earth-bound relationship tale, and Mostly Harmless being a fairly grim wrap-up. But I’ll still no doubt pick them up as soon as they’re available.

I may not be able to recommend you do the same just yet, but I think it’s likely a safe bet; despite all of their shortcomings, these are still probably better than most of the garbage out there.

One Step Closer

If the Times has it right, tomorrow may see us a little bit closer to that dream device I longed for a while back (more than a year ago, in fact). No, it’s not yet the all-in-one phone/iPod/PDA/electronic wallet I predicted, but it may be at least trending in that direction.

Of course, both my phone and my iPod are doing just fine right now, so I don’t see myself as an early adopter. Add in the PDA, though, and I’ll gladly toss my problematic Tungsten T3 out the window. The electronic wallet? You’ll have a friend for life (okay, as if they didn’t already).

Of course, it’s also conceivable that the buzz may be completely wrong; we’ll all just have to wait and see. Stay tuned for updates...

Update: Okay, so the buzz was pretty much right on the money. And I’ll readily concede that the iPod nano is really cool. But I’m not about to shell out $250 — after signing a two-year service contract — for what basically amounts to a cell phone/Shuffle combo. Part of me thinks they could have just duct-taped a nano onto the back of a regular cell phone and you’d have something more impressive (hey, I’ll have to get working on that). I’m more encouraged by the car stereo interfaces promised in the coming months. “Honey... I think we need a new car...”

Just What We Needed

Yeah, we all knew this was coming sooner or later, but bye-bye, Roe v. Wade.

Conspicuous Silence

Some may wonder why I haven’t said anything about the Katrina disaster. And to be honest, I don’t really know exactly why not. I guess it’s just that I don’t have anything deeply original or significant to say. The whole thing just seems too big; it feels like any expression of sympathy from me would just ring shallow. I don’t pray (or encourage prayer), so anything along those lines would just be hypocritical.

And while plenty of folks are assigning blame (not to mention condemning political opponents for imagined assignations of blame), I’m not up for doing so just yet. There’ll be plenty of time for that later. I’ve done more than a bit of my own analysis, but it’s too raw to go into it yet. There’s a very real human toll with which no amount of blather can pretend to compare.

So for now, at the risk of echoing the nation’s all-too-late response, I’ll just direct people to the Red Cross, and ask that everyone do what they can.

Oh, You Actually Want Your Credit Report?

Well, as of today, we East Coasters can finally order our free credit reports from the three major credit agencies. Not that they’re doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, mind you, but only after they were required to by law.

Their retaliation? Make it as difficult as possible to actually get those free reports. By this time, since we’re coming in pretty much last on the list, you’d think that most of the kinks would have been worked out. So I decided to give it a try. To their credit (um... no pun intended), the three major bureaus have set up a single website — www.annualcreditreport.com — that supposedly makes it simple to get your reports. A one-stop shop, so to speak. And at first, it did seem pretty easy; the information they asked for was stuff only I would (be likely to) know, but not so tough that it was going to require me to dig through mounds of paperwork to find some obscure ten-year-old account number.

And then they informed me that, well, I’d have to go to the individual credit agencies’ websites to get the actual reports. Annoying, to be sure, but at least they seemed to provide a method to hop back once you’d gotten your report from each of them. Fair enough.

And then — surprise, surprise — it turns out that each of the agencies wants more information. Account numbers, payment histories, etc. Still, I had most of my information on hand (or could recall from an admitedly dusty memory), so I forged ahead.

The first two agencies — Experian and Equifax — didn’t generate too much difficulty. I got my reports and saved them as PDF files so I could print them later at will (after all, you only get one free report per year). Finally, it was on to the last, TransUnion. The first annoyance was that they required me to set up an account. Hmmm... okay, but there’s no way in hell I’m giving you my email address — that’d be just one more thing for you to tack onto the report. In fact, I’m not giving you anything you don’t have already. Next step: Entering the personal information for “verification” purposes.

Hey, an option for me to enter my old addresses — okay, we’ll start there. Only... what’s this? They’re telling me that the street number doesn’t match their records. Huh? Yeah, it does... let me try that again. Nope, doesn’t match. How about a different one... that doesn’t match either? Okay, I might buy one address being off, but two? My ass.

Okay, let’s try the credit card numbers... one down, okay. They want another one? Okay, here you go. You want the one from XXX bank? Um... well, technically, I’ve got two accounts there, so let me try the one I’ve got with me... Nope, guess it’s not that one.

Wait a minute... now you’re telling me that if I enter one more wrong answer, I won’t be able to get my report? What the hell? I have been entering the right information, assholes. Oh, you’re telling me that if I need help, I can call customer service... yeah, right. From all accounts, nobody can ever get through to anyone who might actually be in a position to help.

Okay, so I’ve got two out of three reports, and no red flags on either. I suppose I should count myself lucky... but no, dammit, that’s my report, which by law I am entitled to.

For now, I guess I’ll just step off and come back when I’ve got all my paperwork in front of me. And I’ll stay away from their obviously nonfunctional “address checker.” After that, we’ll see what happens, but I’m not too optimistic.