What the Bleep Do We Know? (2004)

2005-10-09 1 min read Movies Marco

This is actually an interesting movie – not because of the content, but because of the way it mixes documentary with conventional story-telling!

Somehow the real story is never clear. Things move from physics to biology, to theology and then back rather quickly. At the same time, Amanda, a mute photographer with a strong aversion to weddings, has to come to grips with reality – a challenge much greater than one would think.

Without a Paddle (2004)

2005-10-07 2 min read Movies Marco

Imagine a remake of one of the most disturbing movies of the 70-es, Deliverance. Done in 2004, in the middle of the neo-Victorian era, with the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breasts being item of scandal. That can’t be good news, right?

Without a paddle misses all the major points of the original: there is nothing of the duality of city dweller vs. country folk. None of the ideological reasons for the original trip. The rawness of the original is unmatched. The desperation is just not there.

Wicked (G. Maguire)

2005-10-04 2 min read Books Marco

I am terrified!!!

Ok, so there is a story about the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz memory. Funny looking binding, Garamond-ish old-style font – I was so sure it was going to be ironic-sarcastic-amusing!

I start reading, and someone I don’t smile. After the first chapter, I slowly start realizing this is not going to go anywhere else. It is going to stay what it started as. Horror. A serious story of the Wicked Witch of the West. I am not kidding! It’s like a weird cross between the Wizard and Harry Potter, all full of social strife and injustice, tyrants and martyrs, terrorism and salvation.

Bottom 10 Habits of Productive Employees

2005-10-01 14 min read Essays Marco

If you haven’t managed people before, management looks like a mystery to you. You don’t quite understand why your manager – or managers in general – choose to do and say the things that emanate from them. Management as a whole may look arbitrary, capricious, incompetent to you, as if there is a secret plot to take the hard work you do and turn it to dust. In particular, you may wonder how rewards are meted out, be it bonuses, salary increases, promotions. Sometimes it just seems that management has favorites, and that it’s always the favorites that get rewarded, while your contribution is ignored just because your manager doesn’t like you.

Well, I’ve got news for you: while there certainly are managers that are arbitrary and capricious, the vast majority of them has real logical reasons for doing as they do – you are just utterly unaware of them. Read on if you want to read one manager’s experience…

First Month

2005-09-29 1 min read Newsflash Marco

{moszoomimglink:The main entrance}The first month of ownership is over, and I felt the urge to go for myself and check things out. Good news: Brad is a brilliant contractor, and the work he’s done with the crew is amazin. Bad news: he’s barely had time to work on the house. After I left, he’s only completed the subflooring and done the lanai mauka, with the lanai makai on the way. One wall was put in (left of the main entrance) and a few window frames.

Back from Ninole

2005-09-27 1 min read Happened to Me... Marco

Ninole over the weekend was wonderful. You’ll find the pictures up tonight – for now a briefing:

The lanai mauka is in place, beautiful as could be
The lanai makai is rough, but should get done this week
The subflooring is done

That’s not much of a progress report, of course, but considering there were less than two full weeks of work on the house, it’s at least progress!

Quills (2000)

2005-09-19 1 min read Movies Marco

A movie about the Marquis de Sade? That sounds like a difficult proposition in the best scenario. And yet, here it was pulled off with great results. A sickly and lascivious Marquis de Sade plays the clown in a scenery dominated by Joaquin Phoenix and Kate Winslet.

The plot is inconsequential and irrelevant at best. What we are interested in is the man, and the beauties. The man, it turns out, is mostly frustrated behind bars. A lot of his pornography seems to have been the result more of wishful dreaming than of experience. Still, the Marquis succeeds in projecting himself into our presence even as the mere shadow of himself, until the very end.

Six times a week

2005-09-18 1 min read Spinning Marco

Recently, JP became a spinning instructor and has taken over the Wednesday and Friday slots that I avoided like the plague. I want to help him out in the beginning, since he’s got no takers yet and the guy that was there beforehand has sent everybody into the stratosphere in search of a class.

Of course, that means I am going to take his class for the first few weeks until he gets his own regulars. And I don’t want to leave the Tuesday and Thursday class, taught by Carol, who does a great job at cycling. Her classes really try to mimic what I’d do in the Great Outdoors.

Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka `Aina I Ka Pono

2005-09-18 4 min read Hawaiian Marco

“The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness” is the state motto of Hawai’i and allegedly the motto of the Great King, Kamehameha I. I have memorized the words of the original, but somehow the translation never seemed to make a lot of sense, neither as a sentence, nor as the motto of a king.

Now that I have been learning Hawiian a little, the translation makes even less sense, because I have the underpinning to understand a little more of the structure of the sentence. I’ll reveal my new tentative translation at the bottom, but give me a little time first to explain how I got there.

Learning Hawaiian

2005-09-17 2 min read Hawaiian Marco

While in Hilo last time, I decided to buy an 8 CD course of Hawaiian. It promised to be full immersion, so I decided to put it in the car CD changer and devote time to it on my way to work.

After a funny incident at the beginning, when I put in CD 6 after CD 1 and almost died of language shock (that’s what you get for being smug!), things are progressing well. The amount of time I spend with the course is not sufficient to learn the vocabulary, and it’s sometimes hard to really hear the exact spelling of words, but otherwise it’s helping me a lot.

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