Keeping the South in Calgary West

I've driven by this house in Calgary West many times and always wondered why they fly this flag. I'm not sure if it is a Confederacy flag, or just a state flag of Alabama or one of the Carolina's. I'm not up on my flags.

This is the third such flag I've seen around my area. Another is frequently seen on the aerial of a car that I see often and another in the large window of a basement suite over by North Hill Mall.

I find it puzzling and I can make no assertions about why these people fly these flags. My mind wanders and stresses under the weight of the possibilities.

One has to bite one's tongue with the Lee Richardson jokes swirling around in my tiny brain. Please recommend this post

Mr Pinsent, with all due respect...

From the Canadian Press:

MONTREAL – Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's promise to reverse plans to scrap tax credits for productions deemed offensive to Canadian viewers came as a pleasant surprise Tuesday to those in the film and television business and a major blow to the religious right.

"The arts community I think can almost relax and unpack their bags," actor Gordon Pinsent said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press.

Pinsent said he never would have expected such a change of heart from the Conservatives and wonders whether it means Harper may be open to other new ideas.

And magic fairies will fly out of my butt. And Charles McVety will be put in a straight jacket and fed-exed on a slow boat to outer Mongolia.

Right....

Grow up Mr. Pinsent. Don't you know that Stephen Harper is a compulsive liar. In spite of all the respect you've earned as one of Canada's greatest actors you sound like a child who is overjoyed when his father tells him he won't beat him anymore.

Unpack your bags my ass. Please recommend this post

Calgary West: Stare into the Abyss

According to the National Post/Canwest:

CALGARY - Controversial Conservative incumbent Rob Anders' political views are again coming under fire, as a local lawyer and humanitarian says Mr. Anders told her he believes Canadian diplomacy and humanitarian work should focus on changing outsiders' language to English and faith to Christianity.

Where have I heard that line before...Oh yeah, it was Ann Coulter expressing a noble thought about killing Muslim leaders and forcing their citizens to convert to Christianity.'

The comments that Anders made were corroborated by two people who were present and one assumes that the National Post verified the basic facts, even though it is quite odd for them to eat one of their own children like this. Anything for a buck.

Sadly, when I read stuff like this I'm just not shocked anymore. This is no longer about Rob Anders it is about the voters of Calgary West. You all seriously need some therapy or something. Electing this person 4 times in a row is inexcusable. You can no longer claim ignorance. Now it is down to willing complicity with pure moral degradation.

And no I don't want to hear about the National Energy Program. Thanks anyway. Please recommend this post

Edmonton PD Issues Amber Alert

The Edmonton police issued an Amber alert this morning for a seven year old girl who was abducted in north east Edmonton.

Edmonton Journal has full details and descriptions here.

Lets hope for a speedy and positive outcome.

Update 4:30pm MST. According to Canadian Press:

EDMONTON — A seven-year-old girl who was the subject of an Amber Alert after police said she was abducted from a northside Edmonton park was abandoned by a man in a gas station after an alert attendant noticed her crying...

Please recommend this post

Stephen Harper is Mike Harris. (Old News)

The Liberals just released a video claiming Stephen Harper plagiarized Mike Harris in recent speeches. The video shows two short snippets of Harris speaking followed by Harper saying pretty much the same thing. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.

I think the claim of plagiarism kind of weak, and I wish the Liberals would not waste their time on stuff like this. It is not uncommon for boiler plate phrasing to be recycled in political content. I don't think the problem here is plagiarism even though this kind of mimicry is certainly a sign of a weak and lazy thinker.

The real problem is that Stephen Harper is a lousy thinker with lousy ideas, ideas that appear to be lifted from other poor thinkers. If our Prime Minister elect opens his mouth and Mike Harris or John Howard starts talking its not a problem with plagiarism, it means we've lost or national soul and identity.

Its really about the Liberal Party at this late stage of the election. In the 1993 election the Progressive Conservatives dropped over 160 seats. The Liberals don't have that many seats to lose but they could easily lose half of what they hold now while retaining roughly the same popular vote. That's the wonderful thing about our archaic vote counting system. Am I cheering you up?

So as an undecided voter the Liberals need to convince me why i should vote for them and not for another non-conservative party. Or why I shouldn't just stay home on election day. They can do this by talking about ideas and visions and take a pass on the next plagiarism incident. (There will be more).

Now lets all hold hands and sing Waltzing Matilda. Not everything that comes from Australia is silly like John Howard.

Take Eric Bogle for example...

Please recommend this post

Calgary West Candidates

Meet your candidates for the federal riding of Calgary West...



Jennifer Pollock (upper left) ran in the last federal election and was a public school trustee.

Teale Phelps-Bondaroff (upper right) is a University of Calgary Student representing the NDP. Teale also ran in the 2006 election. He was the only candidate who showed up at my door.

Randal Weeks (bottom left) works in Calgary's Oil & Gas sector and is representing the Green Party. I believe he is running for the first time.

If I missed any candidates I'm sorry, please update me in the comments.

Candidates sites for further info:

Jennifer Pollock
Teale Phelps Bondaroff
Randall Weeks
Vote out Anders
Vote out Anders on FaceBook

I was sitting in a public place writing this. Two seniors sitting across from me were going through their stock investments and talking about what they wanted to invest in. They didn't seem to be too happy. Then they looked at the stock prices for Maple Leaf Foods. Some snark broke out.

We haven't done a good job of protecting and helping our seniors but this has not been an issue in this election so far.

I wanted to go over and ask them how that life long Tory voting thing was working out for them. Can I interest you in some income trusts? How about some tainted meat?
Need to borrow some money for an eye exam?

Of course there are many more issues that will be ignored, and many voices will be drowned out by the noise machines.

Leonard Cohen says it best:

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Yes, they will hear from me. Please recommend this post

Happy (Belated) Easter

I forgot to wish everyone a happy easter this year. I was very pre-occupied and didn't notice the Easter holiday go by. All those heavy themes of torture, death, resurrection, sin, and redemption were just a bit too heavy for me this year.

If I were 20 years younger there's a chance I might be emo, but I've always thought of myself as really quite masculine. It occurred to me that emo kids will have a bit of a problem with Easter given all the heavy themes. Not to mention the constant jokes about eating bunnies.

As luck would have it I found this video on YouTube which may help some of you cope.

(My nieces are all pretty emo, but not my nephews.)

Please recommend this post

Samsung Monitor Hung Up

Note: there are 6 images in this post. Might take a while to load completely.

In a previous post i wrote about my Samsung monitor developing a fatal and incurable tilt forward. I did not have a very good picture at that time but this next image taken from a side view shows just how much this monitor is tilting. (Usually in Alberta things lean to the right then fall over.)



Not to be one to accept bad designs I went to Future Shop and purchased a Vanguard VM-11 Computer Monitor Table Mount. These are a much better solution for mounting a flat screen TV or computer monitors and this one cost around $25. The next picture shows the base mount which clamps to the back edge of your desk. Notice the small hole in the front. The instructions said to screw the mount to the desk and they supplied a large wood screw. I'm not into screwing things to desks. I figure the whole point of the clamp mount was so you could move it around. It reminded me of an old P.D.Q. Bach joke about nailing one foot to the floor so he could dance to Chopin.



The next photo shows what the mounting arm looks like. The square bracket bolts to the back of the monitor and the other end goes in the desk mount. There is an industry standard for the positions of the mounting screws so this should work with almost all flat scree monitors.

It is made of an aluminum alloy. Strong and light. Sexy.




The next photo shows how the bracket bolts to the back of the monitor. Of course you have to remove the original stand first. Samsung was fairly confident in weight vs. gravity and only used 2 screws. The Vanguard mount used 4 screws. I went and bought some of those self locking washers to keep the screws from working themselves out. This is referred to in the business as perpetual motion unscrewing syndrome. (See Ford Truck complaint web sites.)

Don't over-tighten the bolts. The monitor end has the cheapest threads ever and I was worried I might strip them. (Google will have a hoot with these keywords.)



The monitor finally mounted is pictured below. As an added bonus I recovered a whole bunch of desk space under the monitor. I like the illusion that the monitor is just kind of free floating in the air. It reminded me (for some strange reason) of the scene in Dune where Sting was floating around in the air.



Pictured below is the original Samsung mounting stand. We consign this piece of equipment to the large dust heap of poorly designed things. Along side the Ford Pinto, DBase III, Windows ME, the Ariane 5 Flight 501 satellite launcher, and a host of other icky things that were designed or built late in the afternoon on a Friday.




Update: Fixed blogger's broken links to the images and a few grammar and spelling issues. Please recommend this post

Oilers: Three Points Out

If you're an Edmonton Oilers fan don't cry in your beer just yet.

In my previous post on the Oilers Playoff hopes, which I considered slim, I noted that the Oilers would probably require 95 points to make the playoffs.

The cutoff of 95 points was a reasonable estimation. Last year the Calgary flames finished in the 8th playoff spot with 96 points. The year before that it was the Edmonton Oilers with 95 points. But this year I'm not sure it will be that high.

As of today the Oilers do not have enough available points left to reach 95 points, and anyway they probably won't win all of their remaining games.

However, they are 3 points back of the final playoff spot with six games remaining. They could finish as high as 93 points, and they could still finish as high as 6th place.

Behold, the standings:



The shaded column is the number of points.


The bottom 3 playoff spots (6,7,8) could be won by any one of the six teams in positions 6 through 11.

But its really really a long shot for the Oilers I think.

If the Oilers did finish in 8th spot they would play the Detroit Red Wings in the first round of the playoffs.

Detroit fans are probably already becoming incontinent at the thought of playing a high flying team of devil-may-care rookies. Please recommend this post

Samsung Broke My Heart

I bought a Samsung SyncMaster 205BW flat screen monitor. It was well priced and I like everything about it. Good color, brightness, and a digital port.

But there's a bit of a design flaw in it. As you can tell (somewhat) from the bad photograph, the monitor is tilting forward more and more as time goes on. The connection hub that supports the screen does not swivel up and down. All the monitor's weight is pushing down on some small metal rails that appear to be made of of some soft metal like aluminum or an aluminum alloy.

This is the second monitor. I had to return the first one because these metal railings snapped leaving the monitor basically unusable.

Now I know better than to try to bend it back into an upright position. So I'm trying to think of a solution. This problem has been noticed by others and you can find many blog and forum postings.

From what I've read Samsung is not being helpful and wont admit that its a design flaw. Instead they choose to tell consumers that they abused the product. I also had a hard time returning the original monitor to Office Depot because they were hiding behind some warranty technicalities. And then they tried to up sell me which was sort of annoying. In the meantime I was dead in the water because this was my only monitor. (Don't get me started on the Toshiba notebook that died a horrible death.)

It seems to me a good idea for Samsung just to admit that this was just a really bad design. A couple of little pieces of soft metal obviously cannot hold a fairly heavy screen in an upright position. At the very least they could offer some kind of work around. (There is a viagra joke in here just dying to get out.)

Its too bad because I've bought a lot of Samsung products and have never had any problems. I even met one of the Samsung sales reps at Memory Express and he gave me a nice pen. He seemed like a nice man, but right about now I'd like to ball kick him even though I know its not his fault.

I apologize for my messy desk in the photo. Those M&Ms are not mine. Please recommend this post

Another Calgary Book Store Closes

My favourite independent bookstore in Calgary is closing. McNally Robinson on 8th avenue, aka Stephen Avenue Mall will be closing within the next few months, citing increasing costs and insufficient sales.

The lack of sales is a mystery to me. Within a few square blocks there are at least 10,000 office workers, many of whom work in technical professions. Additionally they have a separate division that provides hard to find engineering and scientific books.

After 5Pm the corporate people go home and the street is replaced with a different crowd who probably don't place reading high on their priorities.

MR has one of the best selection of technical books of any store, even rivaling Chapters Indigo. But there's probably not good money in these types of books. Books on computer technologies are expensive to produce and sell low volumes. No one will get rich writing, publishing or selling a book detailing the UNIX grep command.

I once saw a complete multi-volume copy of the BC electrical code which amused me no end.

And you could not stump their staff either. I know I tried several times. They always knew the book and how to get it.

They have several other stores, in Winnipeg, Saskatoon and New York. They are opening a new store in Winnipeg this year. So its not like they're going out of business, they're just leaving Calgary.

So whats wrong with Calgary, and Alberta in general? Independent publishers are apparently leaving in droves and the independent books stores are barely hanging on.

This is the third independent book seller in Calgary that I've become addicted to that has had to close its doors after only a few years.

McNally Robinson Website Please recommend this post

Reading Writing

I updated my MySpace profile for the what you read section, which is as far as I can tell mostly underused on MySpace because they're all a bunch of hoodlums selling cannibis. I'm sorry that was uncalled for.

I didn't realize how difficult it was to write a short descriptive blip about what you've read and what you like to read.

Here's the work in progress that I know will be edited about a 100 more times before I stop obsessing about it:

Favorite reading so far: C.S. Lewis Surprised By Joy, Catch 22, Anything by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., especially Slaughterhouse 5, anything by Graham Greene, especially The Quiet American. The Book of Psalms. The Imitation of Christ. The Entire Shakespeare body but especially the cross-dressing comedies (And no i'm not into cross-dressing). Any kind of Poetry, but especially the romantic poets, T.S. Eliot and the War poets of ww1. Canadian Poets: Leonard Cohen, Irving Layton, P.K Page and Anne Michaels. I like Naomi Klein's political writing as well, even when she infuriates me which is what a good writer does. I loved William Buckley Jr's weekly columns even though I never agreed with a single one of his ideas. He was a beautiful gifted writer he was just on the wrong side.

I hate propaganda and things that insult my intelligence so I don't often read newspapers.

I journal a lot, stuff that no one will ever read. Its neurotic I know. I write on two blogs, one about technology and the other mostly about nonsense. I sometimes mix up the updates and confuse the readers. I write a lot of web content and technical docs for work but I enjoy it a lot so it doesn't seem like work.

By necessity I read a lot about technology, especially about software development. Fortunately there are a lot of good authors out there so its not as boring or dry as you might think.

I admit to being a geek. Guilty as charged.

I'd like to find a girlfriend who might read Shakespeare or some nice poetry to me while I lay (lie?) my head upon her lap. Not to much to ask is it?

Its only a start. Please recommend this post

Who Has Felt The Wind

I went out for a bike ride today, for the first time since December. It was warm and sunny out but there was this stiff cold wind coming from the east. It made a huge sucking noise. I hate the wind. I take it personally. It's worse when you're on the bike path beside the Bow River because the Bow is glacier fed and throws off a cold draft even in the height of summer.

I took a picture of the bow river as the sun was starting to go down over Pump Hill...



Then I slipped on a piece of ice and fell on my butt.

Election tomorrow. Get out and vote! History shows that apathy comes with a price. Please recommend this post

Childe Hassam Rocks

I was wandering around the mall on friday night and aside from finding one of those pot belly ceramic stoves that are pretty cool I went into an art shop and found one of my all time favourite paintings. This is called Boston Common by an American artist named Frederick Childe Hassam. He painted around the turn of the century and most of his paintings are outdoors scenes around Boston and New England. He is generally considered an impressionist. I'm an unimpressionist.

I don't really know why I like this painting so much, but its probably the ethereal light. On winter days when the sun goes down around 4 or 5 you get the most beautiful colors and sunsets.

All of my memories growing up in Edmonton are centered around winter and being outdoors doing things.

The sales girl was yummy really helpful and I saw a few good black enamel frames that would go well with this painting. A nice frame with glass, plus the poster will cost about $350.00 which I think is quite reasonable.

The only problem is I can't really afford this right now, even though I want it badly.

And then I read this Globe and Mail article about how more and more single women are buying homes and at an earlier age. I think this is the result of our economy doing well and the sisters doing it for themselves. Wasn't that a Pointer Sisters line?

Anyway, it occurred to me that there should be at least one single woman out there who likes me enough to forgo the purchase of the house for a bit and buy this painting for me. In exchange, I would be willing to let you hang it in your new house for a few months later on.

Don't rule it out right away. Lets go back and forth a bit. I'm sure we can work something out.

God loves a cheerful giver. Please recommend this post

Some Music and Stuff

I spent a frustrating amount of time trying to figure out which audio formats can be played on my Motorola Razr V3T. Reading some of the cel phone forums on the Internet it is clear there is a lot of dissatisfaction out there. One more reason why this whole mobile industry is a little cheesy. More on that some other time.

But I was able to get a bunch of new music loaded onto my phone. Some of the tracks won't play at all some play half way through then crash the player.

I got enough working to proudly make my list of favourite tracks of this week:

the mcdades - valley of a thousand tears/hotel de ville

I like the McDades. I saw them a long time ago playing in a bar before they were known.

terry jones - i'm so worried

I'm so worried about the fashions today. I don't think they're good for your feet, And I'm so worried about the shows on TV that sometimes they want to repeat.

the be good tanyas - nobody cares for me

leonard cohen - i can't forget

jenny allen - evangeline

mark heard - awake in the night time

This song is from the album Dry Bones Dance. He only made a few albums before dying too young. While it is considered Christian/Country its a bit different from any Christian or Country album you might hear. The lyrics are a bit too thought provoking to leave it in the Country bin.

the seekers - a world of our own

The Australian super-folk band of the 60's and 70's.

loreena mckennitt - santiago

kathleen edwards - old time sake

She's an acquired taste. Most of her songs have a unique perspective.

stephen fearing - like every other morning

blue rodeo - holding on

tanita tikaram - stop listening

What else am I listening to...

I've got The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins on audio. I'm halfway through and finding it quite interesting. Does atheism irritate God?

I have Verdi's Rigoletto featuring the late Pavarotti. On the CD cover he looks about 12 years old. I bet in his prime he shagged every single one of the leading Sopranos. (Oh, Robert that's a horrible horrible thing to say.) It's the only opera whose plot I even remotely understand: Guy has daughter. Skeezy other guy wants daughter. Dad gets even. There are some tragic turns of events although some people find them comical. Probably hockey fans. People yell and scream and die unexpectedly. As in most Operas the characters see how badly they're going to get screwed at least 3 hours ahead of time and even sing about it, but still act shocked.

My worst fear is that I'll turn into an atheist who's addicted to Opera. Please, help me help myself. Only you can stop this outcome.

I have the latest Lily Allen CD because my friend told me it was delightful, lighthearted British pop. And it is. Every song made me smile especially the one about her little brother Alfie...



From Opera to Lily Allen. I think my jorb here is done. Please recommend this post

Stelmach's Ad Hominems

Last Thursday's leadership debate was the only time you will get to see the Alberta party leaders debate. Provincial elections are usually very short, especially in Alberta where they're really sort of a formality. No insult intended to the hard working opposition parties, but the system is kind of skewed.

The remainder of the time you'll just get to hear them re-iterate their talking points in highly controlled settings. In other words, it will be one way conversations. Mr. Stelmach, for example, was quoted extensively and unfettered in the Sunday Sun today. He was probably speaking to Rick Bell from his special Premier's-Office-To-The-Calgary-Sun-Editorial-Ass-Kissers hot line.

I often wonder if the evolution of the Web and other social technologies will eventually turn politics around so that there is more of a true dialogue and more accountability.

Some random thoughts on the debate from Thursday night:

1. We were only about 30 minutes into the debate before Mr. Stelmach responded to a criticism by blaming a former Liberal Prime Minister. That must be some kind of record for restraint. I'm sure he wanted to get that lick in much sooner.
   



2. No one really one or lost the debate, but Mr. Stelmach barely survived. He didn't particularly impress me as being smart, articulate or as having any grasp on basic realities.
   
   
3. I thought Paul Hinman was a very good communicator even though I didn't buy into anything he had to say. He was far more polished than I expected. His ideas about making Hospitals compete with each other was confusing and sounded like Fraser Institute boiler plate. I read some other bloggers that were a little insulted by his subtle suggestions about family structure and the economy. They read it as women should stay home. I definitely felt his social agenda was bubbling beneath the surface. I think all the leaders were totally afraid to go into social issues.
   
   
4. I was hoping we could get through at least on Alberta election without someone saying that you can't fix the health care system by throwing more money at it. It is a dull and weak minded cliché and does not clarify any particular issue. If I had a nickel for every time an Alberta conservative said that you can't fix the health care system by throwing more money at the problem I would have a huge pile of nickels. But the amount would be probably less than the amount of money they've been throwing at the problem. They usually don't do their talking points and it was nice to see the Alberta Liberals and the NDP call them on it.


5. Mr. Stelmach called the Liberals and the NDP socialists. Instead of answering a question it's better to channel Joseph McCarthy. Aside from being an illiterate and childish comment it was pretty ironic. Mr. Stelmach has been a part of one of the most interventionist governments in Alberta's history. For example, they rejected public auto insurance, but then intervened with a massive bureaucracy to set rates, and now the have to spend millions of dollars appealling the strike down of their stupid restriction on civil awards for accident victims. Seriously, how dumb would a goverment have to be to reach into the future and handcuff the civil courts. And don't get us started on electrical deregulation, bill 40, and the general drift towards bigger, less efficient and more controlling government, and a thick layer of very expensive cronyism. Sure, waste a bunch more of my money while calling everyone else socialists and bragging about what it means to be a "conservative".
   



6. Aside from that, I thought the debate was too long. I would have preferred that if they take questions they take them unprepared from audience members, rather than pre-discussed quesions from media people. For example, Nirmal Naidoo ask Brian Mason how much money it would cost to fix the health care system. This wasn't really a question but just a short editorial from CICT-TV.


7. I couldn't help think of that Stealers Wheel song:
   
   

   Clowns to the left of me,
   Jokers to the right, here I am,
   Stuck in the middle with you.
   

   
   
   Maybe Kevin Taft should use that as a campaign song.
   
   

Please recommend this post

Oilers vs Canucks

Saturday Night - Edmonton Oilers vs. Vancouver Canucks.

Who are you picking?

I don't want to make any predictions because it usually jinxes the Oilers. But, Oilers are playing good now and Canucks are not.

I'm willing to make small wagers with anyone. We could bet little children. But they would have to be young enough so that they would never know they were won in a bet.

And now the Oilers are required to win 78% of their remaining points to make the playoffs. This is a slight improvement but still no realistic.


Update: Canucks 4 Oilers 2. This puts the Oilers magic win ratio at .818 to make the playoffs. Those Sedin twins are such (insert word that Jane Fonda used). Please recommend this post

Canadian F-Word Blog Awards

I just cast my votes in the Canadian F-Word Blogger Awards. "F" in this case refers to feminism and not the other F word. There are a lot of blogs there that I have never heard of and hope to take a look at soon. I'm glad to see this part of the blog world alive and well, if only because it really pisses off a lot of people. These bloggers need some kudos thrown their way because they put up with quite a bit of verbal abuse merely because of believing in some simple ideas about life and gender. Please recommend this post

They Don't Get Marketing

I was amused to receive this email spam from the Princeton Premier Registry:

It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the 2008-2009 Princeton Premier Business Leaders and Professionals "Honors Edition" section of the Registry.

The 2008-2009 edition of the Registry will include biographies of the world's most accomplished individuals. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands of executives and professionals throughout the world each year. Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement.

Upon final confirmation, you will be listed among other accomplished individuals in the Princeton Premier Registry.

For accuracy and publication deadlines, please complete your application form and return it to us within five business day

I recognized right away that was something skeezy. Like others who received this email and blogged about it, I laughed because I've never done anything in my life even remotely that would merit such an apparently prestigious invitation. Like all crappy marketing, it appeals to raw vanity and assumes basic stupidity.

Of course it is not really an invitation and you are not being considered for anything. The link leads to a web page where you give up all your personal information, and then God only knows what happens to it. According to other accounts I've read a pushy obnoxious person phones you and tries to sign you up on the directory for $500 or so.

The sign up form is routed through an email company called Results Mail (http://www.resultsmail.com). They have an unsubscribe button but I always wonder whether clicking on such a button is really safe or not.

The spam technique is fairly simplistic and most people will see through it. What really interests me is why companies think behavior like this will work. The instant these emails start rolling out people start blogging about it or posting their suspicions in forums. If you're in marketing you ignore this phenomena at your own peril. It's a new world now. If you're a douche-bag millions of people will know about it almost immediately.

Check out two examples of bloggers who wrote about this email before I did:

al6400
Rose Desrochers

Note the large number of comments in each of these posts. Please recommend this post

Obligatory Celebrity Obit

Roy Scheider died this week and the predictable pre-written obits were run. Apparently he was very sick and repeated calls to the Olson twins didn't help. TorStar ran this studio still from Jaws. Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw are hunting a ginormous huge shark...which is why they're looking up at the sky. SKY SHARK! Maybe there was a witch writing something bad about Richard Dreyfuss in the sky. Or the camera was just at a bad angle.

Most of the Obituaries I read claimed that Jaws was his best movie and cited the famous line, you're going to need a bigger boat. There were a lot of good lines in that movie not to mention Richard Dreyfuss over-acting and Robert Shaw's horrible Scots accent. In my opinion, the Shark wasn't nearly mean enough. I didn't really like Jaws. And generally I enjoyed all the cheesy disaster movies of the 70's. They should have had Shelly Winters in Jaws, swimming across the bay, crying and kvetching.

I thought Scheider was a much better actor in 2010. This was Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001 A Space Odyssey. 2010 was not directed by Stanley Kubrick, so even though the novel is very good the movie sequel was not. In spite of that Scheider was good in this movie. They tried to imitate the feel of the original by having a lot of very esoteric dialog. The dialog in that movie was jaw droppingly retarded. Scheider pulled it off though, but always had kind of a smirk on his face, kind of like Shatner in Star Trek. You know the look: O for God's sake this is so ridiculous, but the kids do need college. Humor me. I did Shakespeare, remember that.

Good actors in bad movies is the Hollywood success story. Lets not mess with it. Please recommend this post