This Man Stares At The Men Who Stare At Goats

I finally got around to seeing The Men Who Stare At Goats. The previews for this one had me thinking that it looked like a dark comedy that might be a bit too dark. Yet it still had something that kept me interested in it. One of the big concerns was the director, Grant Heslof, who previously directed George Clooney in three other movies I really didn't like--Leatherheads, Good Night, and Good Luck and Intolerable Cruelty. He seems to have become George Clooney's personal director. I'm going to assume they have some sort of partnership as his last three movies have all been Clooney vehicles as well as his next two upcoming efforts.

The Men Who Stare At Goats boasts a strong cast with Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey and the aforementioned Clooney. The story starts with McGregor's character, a journalist, desperate to prove to his estranged wife that she's made a mistake in leaving him. He concludes that finding journalistic success in Iraq will provide the means to win her back. Once arriving in Iraq he's sidetracked when he meets Clooney's character, a special forces agent, who reveals to McGregor the details of a secret psychic military unit tasked with using their mental powers to end all wars.

These men think of themselves as Jedi's which provides a nice funny inside joke given McGregor's turn as a Jedi in the Star Wars saga. The Jedi, it's said, all have super powers and they spend their training time honing their skills through various levels of achievement. Of course much of the success is, quite ironically, only in the minds of those involved and the journalist knows this. All the same it's a story he can't escape so he tags along with Clooney across the Iraq desert on a mission he's not even sure exists outside of Clooney's own mind.

The pacing is very slow. This is anything but a laugh-a-minute comedy. Much of the plot unfolds too slowly for my tastes but when the laughs do come they're funny and quite memorable. There are quotable moments throughout that could catch on if enough people see the movie. Clooney, for example, claims to be trained in the art of invisibility and can, when needed, employ the "sparkly eyes" technique. Later he talks about being cursed having been given the dreaded Dim Mak death touch. It all works because Clooney plays the character entirely straight. Ultimately McGregor evolves from all-out skeptic to believer and we go along, willingly, for the ride.

Jeff Bridges character seems like a solid replaying of The Dude from his past camp hit The Big Lebowski. Kevin Spacey's character provides us the antagonist though he really isn't fleshed out enough to make the most of it. Regardless both are excellent.

The story is entirely unbelievable but that doesn't matter. Seeing it all through McGregor we buy into it just as he does and it does give us just enough room to suspend disbelief to enjoy the experience. I'd spend more time working on the review but I'm hard at work focusing on the wall in front of me. I'm going into the next office.

Interpreting The Conservative Hate Talking Point

As I've mentioned previously many conservatives believe that the Democratic party is the party of hate. Specifically they feel that any conservative woman in politics is hated by the left. Take the case of Sarah Palin. All we hear from Sean Hannity and the other pundits is that everyone on the left fears her and hates her for all that she represents and has accomplished.

This is utter nonsense of course. I interact with a lot of different people in my daily life and the majority of them are liberals. Until this past Wednesday I'd yet to run into anyone that stated (let alone truly felt) that they hated Palin. I've not seen any sort of poll that reports the results of the question, "How do you feel about Sarah Palin?" I've seen her approval ratings but those don't have a breakdown for those who say they disapprove of her to identify to what degree that disapproval goes. I also have no doubt in my mind that if such a poll were taken very few liberals would actually say they hate her.

So why then do the conservative pundits keep hammering away on telling their listeners, viewers and readers that liberals hate conservative women politicians and, specifically, Sarah Palin?

Quite simple actually. It's all part of what they view as the ultimate mechanic for controlling any political concept. It's the Karl Rove plan. All anyone has to do is listen to any of the conservative punditry for a bit and you'll realize that they view Rove as the ultimate political seer--and for good reason. His ability to transform the message is legendary. For example, in a 1994 judicial race in Alabama, Rove showed just how powerful his approach can be. Rove's client, Harold See, was running against the incumbent Democratic judge Mark Kennedy. Kennedy was a pillar of the community and was a major force in causes surrounding abused children. His own campaign materials, of course, pointed out all of this work. His reputation seemed unimpeachable.

Rove's most classic approach involves taking the most positive aspect of any opponent and turning it upside down. Rove had his people start a whisper campaign that Kennedy might not have embarked on all these endeavors for purely altruistic reasons. They suggested that he, in all this work with children, might just be a little too close to them. Could it be that perhaps he was really a homosexual pedophile? The smear nearly cost Kennedy the election in one of Rove's rare defeats. Kennedy did win but only by a single point in a race that had looked like a runaway landslide at the outset.

Recall also this same tactic with respect to the 2004 Presidential race with John Kerry. One of Kerry's biggest assets, especially in a time of war, was his decorated service record. How better to not only negate it but to turn it to your advantage by suggesting he wasn't a hero at all but was instead a coward, traitor and liar.

Now think about this with respect to Palin. What's the left's biggest asset against her? It's that whenever she's asked just about anything the answers are either nonsensical or entirely devoid of any merit. How do you turn that into a positive? You do it by suggesting that just asking any questions and questioning the answers given is, in and of itself, proof of deep-seated hatred.

Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin what she reads in the now infamous interview. Palin blew this simple exchange. She didn't have an answer. Conservatives should have realized what a mistake had been made with her selection but were so vested in the process that they just couldn't do that. Instead Couric is now vilified by conservative punditry (and, as a result, conservatives) as a villain. How dare she ask that question. The only reason to ask it is that she must, like all liberals, hate conservative women like Sarah Palin.

The same thing is going on of late with Carrie Prejean. Here we have a woman whose chosen profession is to be a beauty pageant contestant. Everything about that world is artificial. The smiles are fake. The teeth are unnaturally white. The breasts are augmented. Clothing is glued in spots to appear just so. Their commentary is also fake.

Have you ever noticed that when sports athletes are asked questions that 95% of them give non-answers? It's because that's their job. Being controversial isn't part of the job. Beauty queens aren't asked questions in an attempt to gain some new previously unrealized solution to the world's problems. They're asked these questions to see if they're practiced enough to give a flawless, well-scripted answer. Carrie Prejean failed miserably in that regard. She was asked a tough question and it was so tough it took her off-script and she gave an off-the-cuff response. That's great in just about any social venue but not in the middle of a beauty pageant.

Prejean is proving during her 15 minutes of fame to be a stereotypical contestant. She's great to look at but don't expect her to be building rockets in her back yard. Instead of just accepting this conservatives have decided to make her an example by taking issue with the question itself. The thinking is that Perez Hilton (I still don't know who this guy is) just hates conservative women (did she have "conservative" tattooed on her somewhere?) and wouldn't have asked this question if he didn't. Any liberal who questions Prejean also is guilty of just hating conservative women. Now that apparently includes push-over Larry King for his interview of her where asking the most basic questions resulted in her telling him that he was being "inappropriate".

It is, of course, all rubbish that just keeps Rove smiling.

How Many Contibutors Does It Take To Write A Story?

Quite a bit has been said about a story put up by Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press. The story is a fact-check piece he did on Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue. The conservative blog Politico took issue with the story and managed to create an entirely new talking point that's exploded across the conservative punditry channels and now is showing up on the tongues of conservatives all over.

At issue is the story by Politico that the AP piece mentioned 10 contributors. The problem here is that even though this very story mentions why that isn't a big deal it became a big deal when Sarah Palin used it to rip the AP on her Facebook page. Of course the conservative punditry then ran with it and started passing around the canard that AP assigned 11 people to fact-check Palin's book but only has one or two people covering the much more important health care reform bill.

I've now run into this on various conservative forums and one where they posted a reference to this in The Wall Street Journal that has extremely dubious roots. That story tries to compare the pages of the health care reform bill to the pages of Palin's book to suggest the AP is biased. They're supposedly biased because they "assigned" more people to the fact-checking story than to investigating the health care bill.

Total lunacy people.

Anyone that knows anything about news reporting and publishing knows what a joke this story is. I've been on staff and made a living writing. It's all hogwash.

Do you ever see a story with more than one name at the beginning? That means they both worked fairly equally on it and shared the credit. When I'd be covering something and needed some input I'd send out an e-mail to others on the staff. If they came back with comments and I verified their information then I'd list them at the bottom as contributors. Their input was clearly not enough to gain them a by-line.

It's clear to anyone that wants to see this without conservative-colored glasses that Cal Woodward knew the staff people who covered the campaign and had first-hand knowledge of specific areas HE was covering. If all he did was e-mail them or pick up the phone and ask them their recollection then he likely included them as "contributing". These accusations make it sound like 10 people, who didn't do enough to earn a by-line, were working on this story night-and-day in a deep-rooted effort to destroy Sarah Palin. Total and complete NONSENSE.

It's far more likely that it went like this:

MA: "Matt Apuuzo"
CW: "Matt, this is Cal Woodward. I'm working on a fact-check story about Palin's new book and I'm trying to verify her views on going on Saturday Night Live. You worked on a story about that. Can you shed some light on it?"
MA: "Sure Cal. Hold on. Let me bring up my notes..... Okay, yeah, Steve Schmidt, McCain's campaign manager told us that Palin wanted nothing to do with going on SNL and provided an e-mail from her on (whatever date) saying (whatever she said)."
CW: "Thanks Matt. That's all I needed."
MA: "No problem. I'll send the notes over."

And Matt Apuuzo then gets a contributing credit. I guess he should be miffed no one's yet called him about the health care bill but then again since the health care bill doesn't involve stories that include countless different events it's not all that necessary to involve 10 other people to cover what's in it.

That someone would think that it carries ANY weight that the number of reporters "assigned" is equated to the number of pages involved shows just how biased the thinking here is. These are entirely different types of stories requiring entirely different approaches but let's not let reality screw up a really good talking point.

Jon Stewart And My Conservative Friends

I've been hanging out on a few heavily-conservative forums to see what the signal to noise ratio is on these sites and it's pretty much what I expected.

Understand that I see the same sort of examples on liberal sites as well especially on sites like Media Matters and Huffington Post. Liberals on sites such as these will often post all sorts of nasty messages aimed at the other side and the favorite conservative sites are no different except for the direction of their attacks.

I hang out on both in a, likely, fruitless attempt to bring some sort of understanding of the other side. I find it's almost impossible these days. Take, for example, the issue of hate. The liberals are absolutely without any doubt what-so-ever that the Republican party is the party of hate. They can list endless examples of this fact and get complete agreement among their peers. The same is also true of conservatives. They are just as certain and have just as much in the way of examples and agreement that the Democrats represent the party of hate. They firmly believe that conservative women in politics are treated far more harshly than liberal women in politics. I see both sides acting the same frankly.

What I've found interesting is in how they respond to Jon Stewart. Stewart is an interesting situation for them. He's been mentioned on virtually every show on Fox News with the latest example being his pointing out misleading video being used on Sean Hannity's Fox show and Hannity's subsequent apology.

What started out as a discussion of Fox's so-called fair and balanced claim spawned a thread I started called, "Stewart says it clearly." I find Jon Stewart has this way of pointing out, in cringing detail, the hypocrisy of the world of politics. When I post his segments conservatives go on and on about all sorts of things but they never address the video in question. When I finally pushed on this and pointed out how it just doesn't happen the response was to admit that essentially Stewart's stories are correct and none of them wanted to admit it.

What's great about Stewart's pieces is that arguing with conservatives has become a frustrating endeavor. Why? Because everything you say is met with demands for irrefutable proof. You cannot just say that George W. Bush vetted his audiences while discussing Social Security reform. They won't believe you. Instead you have to find several reputable links to stories discussing the facts about this. I find it all a bit like telling someone the sun is shining and being told that looking up doesn't qualify as good enough proof. With Stewart the video is all there as well as the perspective.

What happens next is the interesting part. The knock now is that Jon Stewart isn't being fair. He claims he's a comedian but he wants to be taken seriously when he presents pieces like this. He was recently named the most trusted person in news and this irks conservatives heavily as it suggests that liberals are idiots but also because they know he's got a way of pulling down the pants of the hypocrites for all of us to laugh at.

What they'd like to see is for Stewart to apply his rapier-like wit equally across the aisle. I've clearly seen him attack President Obama and any other Democrat but it's also blatantly obvious where his political views fall. He's clearly a Democrat and finds far more fault with the side he naturally is in opposition to. The real question is, does Jon Stewart now owe it to us to move beyond viewing himself as just a comedian? Would his show be as popular if it aspired to apply equal balance to his stories? Would he be even more respected if he did so? I believe this is one case where Stewart would insist on calling himself a comedian and the show a simple comedy.

The Daily Show is an amazing entity. The Hannity story was entirely missed by the mainstream media and this is far from the first time that Jon and his staff have beaten them to the story. In fact, you could say that The Daily Show is just what America needs most at a time like now when the rest of us are unable to have civil discussions about anything related to politics. His comic approach transcends a lot of the difficulty showing us all just how ludicrous our system has become today. Who else has been so adept at showing us this never-ending hypocrisy?

He just took the time to point out Rudy Giuliani's latest twist on this by playing video of him in 2006 talking about the necessity and power of our trying the failed 9/11 hijacker in our courts. Stewart, with a twinkle in his eye, then asks, "Yeah, who can argue with that kind of logic?" He then plays Giuliani from the other day talking about what a mistake it is to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in our courts stripping any semblance of respect from Giuliani in the process. He's applied this same approach to virtually everyone on Fox and sometimes to those on the left.

So the big question is does Jon Stewart owe it to us to reach for a higher goal now that he's crossed over from a simple comedy show to become the most trusted voice in news? If it's okay to ask if Fox News isn't a news channel is it just as fair to wonder if The Daily Show is now a news show?

Tuned Into Pirate Radio

This weekend found me catching the latest Philip Seymour Hoffman film--Pirate Radio.

The story is very loosely-based on actual events regarding a radio station broadcasting into England from a cargo ship out at sea during the mid-1960's. On-screen text tells us that the majority of England are fans except for British government officials who see the "pirates" as blights on English morality and a danger to the general well-being of the nation.

What I found most interesting about the story is that it so radically departs from the impression the previews gave. I suspect this might have to do with late editing. There was industry talk about the potential of this film to draw an audience and I believe it was delayed a bit getting out. In fact, it's another movie where a couple of key scenes from the previews don't actually appear in the finished product.

I'm not saying the unexpected course change is a bad thing. In fact, for me, I think it worked out just fine. What I did expect was a very big tug of war between the wily radio pirates and the well-funded government. There's actually very little of that anywhere to be found. Instead it's mainly a story about the general life of those on the ship when the driving force is rock and roll and everything that embodies. Free love, free thinking, endless possibilities and the reality that while all of that is just peachy it still takes place among human beings who are fraught with their own personal demons and needs. In that regard I think the film would have been better served keeping it's original title, The Boat That Rocked. It fits far better to what's presented.

The acting is superb throughout. Hoffman gives us a performance that I think he could have done in his sleep and yet it's still wonderful. The great Bill Nighy is here as well in the role of the general manager and plays his part spot-on though I wish we got to learn more about him. Another key role is that of a legendary DJ played by Rhys Ifans to absolute perfection. This guy impresses me more every time I see him. He played the messy roommate in Notting Hill so well that when I saw him here it took me quite a few scenes to realize who the heck it was!

The government side is covered well by Kenneth Branagh in the main authority role and supported by Jack Davenport playing a character with a name normally reserved for Bond film women--Twatt.

Keep an eye out also for a brief appearance by Emma Thompson playing the upscale mother of the main young character.

The film is far from perfect. The story isn't very deep. We get several paper-thin characters and a few scenes (like an entire wedding part) that don't do anything to move the story forward. That said I still enjoyed the film enough to say it's among the best films I've seen this year. To get to that plateau you'll need to be able to let go a few of the silly things some of the characters resort to and it's essential that you be a music fan. Just being a good music fan, in fact, will pretty much assure you have a good time here. The film is loaded with fantastic music.

Be sure also to stick around through a good chunk of the credits to enjoy a wonderful visual history of album covers spanning the entire history of rock.

In the end you get a film that can be a bit disjointed but that keeps you laughing and rocking and that's worth the price of admission.

The Droid Does

I previously covered the initial buying experience of the Motorola Droid and then posted about the physical make-up of the phone. Now I want to delve into actually using it.

Starting Out

After some brief setup where you need to provide the phone with a (seemingly) required Gmail account you can get into using the phone fully. It's here that the phone will really make it or break it for most people.

The first thing you should know is that, being an Android-based phone much of your experience is going to be in the hands of Google. If you don't like their software and approach to things you're going to probably have issues with this phone. If you're a Google fan then you're likely going to like what you see. I'm in the middle with respect to Google.

Powering up the phone presents you with a traditional Motorola logo followed a bit after by a textual Droid logo and finally an eerie Droid "eye" logo. You also end by hearing a very robotic voice saying, "Droid". My phone takes 46 seconds to power on which is pretty long to wait.

When it does come on it takes you to the main menu in "locked" mode. You get out of this mode by using your finger to slide a green lock icon from the left side of the screen to the right. This action takes place on a graphical "wheel" that is actually multi-purpose. On the right side of the wheel is a volume icon. If you push it left the volume goes from on to off and back again. You'll also get the time and date here.

Screens

The main screen is where much of your time will be spent. At the top is a menu bar that includes space on the left for all sorts of notifications (new texts, e-mails, calls, software updates and much more). The right side is reserved for the time, battery level, network strength and other related icons depending on your current use (like GPS signal, WiFi and more).

The actual main screen is where the core application icons are found. Across the top (just below the notification bar) is the Google "widget". Widgets are interactive icons that can be placed on the screen. This one allows you to type in any search criteria or to hit the microphone button to speak what you're looking for.

At the bottom of the screen is a little gray rectangle with an up-arrow on it. You can tap on it or slide it and it holds the icons, alphabetically, for every application you have installed. Much to my initial surprise this little rectangle also changes into a trash can when you hold down an icon on the screen. Drag it here to delete it from the screen. This doesn't uninstall the app. It just removes the icon from view.

Notifications

Interactivity is in heavy use in Android. The notification bar can be dragged down to open it revealing more in-depth information about anything appearing on it. You can also slide the main screen area left or right revealing two other (initially) empty screens. It's also interesting to note that wallpaper gets segmented into three sections giving the three screens a related rolling feel yet providing them with essentially their own look. I replaced the main basic wallpaper with a wooded picture that sports a path on the main screen, some flowers off to the right when on the right screen and a dark foreboding wilderness on the left screen.

Screen Elements

The screens allow you to place several different types of elements on them. These are broken up into four different types:

Shortcuts: These can include application icons, bookmarks, contacts (brings up all of that contact's info), direct dial (a specific number for a contact), direct message (texting to a specific number for a contact), directions, Gmail Labels, music playlists, settings and more!

Widgets: These are dependent on the apps you have loaded and allow for quick access to advanced functions or other features. For example, you could have an icon for Pandora or you can use the Pandora widget which takes more space (about the size of four icons) but gives you direct access to all the main features of Pandora while it's playing. Every app that supports Widgets is different.

Folders: These contain groups of related items like all your contacts, a Facebook phone book, Pandora stations, etc. If you use up all your space (and it happens faster than you might think) then Folders give you a way to get more out of the space costing you one extra click.

Wallpapers: This just replaces the background with pictures from any you've taken or from a specific wallpaper gallery.

I quickly decided that my main window would be used for the core applications I use most. The left window I'd reserve for the secondary apps I use often but not as much as the main ones. Finally, I use my right window for fast access to contacts (both full contact info and direct-dial ones).

Phone Use

The most important element of the phone is the ability to make and receive phone calls of course. Incoming calls changes to an incoming call screen. You just click the "Answer" button and you're on the call. When the phone is up to your ear the screen senses this an shuts off to conserve battery. When you pull the phone away (perhaps to respond to a menu prompt) the screen comes back on for just this need. Very nice. Outbound calls are made by either going through a contact icon or by clicking the Phone icon on the main screen. It brings up a touch screen dialpad along with icons for quick access to voicemail, a call log, contacts link and a Favorites button that lists your selected favorites along with frequently called numbers below those. It's all very handy.

Call quality has been exceptional. Callers say I sound excellent and they sound great as well. The Droid has an excellent microphone and speaker. Music even sounds acceptable on it in a pinch.

I should comment on voicemail. Verizon has forced it's Visual Voicemail applet onto the phone as a core application. If you use this it'll cost you $3 a month. Instead just install Google Voice and use it's free visual voicemail along with its superior features (like fully transcribed voicemails into interactive text).

Texting

Text messaging can be done either through clicking a contact or by clicking the Messaging icon. Everything about text messaging is pretty standard fare. You get a rolling history of each thread. Be aware that Verizon still has a 160 character "limit" on messages. If you send anything longer it gets broken up into multiple messages. This can result in some messages appearing on the other end out of order (one of the problems with Verizon's network). Since we're talking about texting let me mention the keyboard. I thought I'd insist on using the physical keyboard but, frankly, I'm finding the touchscreen one to be so workable that I haven't really used it. If I knew this going in I'd have probably waited a bit to see if another Android 2.0 phone was on the near horizon that matched the Droid in features but didn't have a keyboard. It'd save quite a bit of weight and size. Verizon currently is also selling the HTC Eris Android phone and it's a beautiful design but only has Android 1.5 and lacks many of the features I like most about the Droid.

E-mail

Gmail is here and works well enough. The applet gives you quick access to any of your mail. It's all synchronized so that what you see on your desktop matches what you see on the phone. Oddly I've found that my phone gets my messages faster than my desktop does! The phone app does lack support for some (all?) of Gmail's Lab enhancements. I had wanted to use the new multiple inbox feature but then I wouldn't see those messages on the phone.

Calendar

Possibly my favorite app is the Calendar that synchronizes with Google Calendar. I've tried to use phone calendars for years but their inability to talk with my desktop was a major hurdle. I don't live with my phone attached to me (yet) and so it did no good to remind me of an imminent doctor appointment while sitting in my coat pocket in the closet. With Droid I can see and interact with the same calendar I have on my desktop and get reminders in either location. Google Calendar also supports some nice touches like shared calendars between friends or partners. I had an item appear on my calendar and wasn't sure where it came from only to realize it came from a shared calendar. Imagine you and your partner being able to keep each other informed mutually. Very slick. It also sports several views and there are several great calendar apps out there with excellent widgets that work with all of this.

Maps

The Google Maps application is getting a lot of coverage and for good reason. It gives you direct access to this very useful and beautiful application. It also works well and faster than you'd expect. By default it shows you where it thinks you currently are. This can be hit and miss. If you're indoors then it uses a form of cell tower triangulation and that gets you within blocks. If you're outside GPS kicks in and you're where you are. You can zoom in and out, get directions including driving, walking or mass transit-based. You can apply layers to the maps including satellite views, traffic updates and street views. There's also something called Latitude. This is a Google app that allows you to see your Latitude-connected friends or family live. Basically the idea is that you can see that they're in the neighborhood and drop by. The reality isn't good as the concept. First of all most phones can't multitask so, for example, iPhone users would need to manually update their locations meaning their location is usually hours behind. Also, given the limitations above your ability to actually find a friend based on this is pretty unlikely.

Anyway, the maps and directions are first-rate. The navigation portion is simple to use and effective. Driving in satellite view or street view is really a treat.

Searching

Any Google project wouldn't be complete without a robust search paradigm and the Droid is no exception. The entire platform is built on it. Typing a search into the search widget or speaking what you want into the microphone apps ties into several of the applications. You can say, "gas" and Google provides you with a list of all the area gas and service stations.

It also offers to take you to Maps where it will pin every listing in your area or provide immediate directions there from where you are. Clicking on a station in the map offers to get directions, navigate there, shows their number, street view or add them as a contact. Other searches offer to take you to the browser and so forth.

One awesome thing about audible searching and the maps app is that you can say something like, "Navigate to the Titanic exhibition in New York City" without knowing where it is and Google will find it and navigate you to it. No other GPS will do that for you that easily.

Browsing

Speaking of the browser it too is excellent. It renders pages quickly, includes multiple tabs, bookmarks and ties into the searches well too. If you find an entry with a phone number just clicking on it sends it to dialer. It also remembers passwords and will soon support Flash.

Music

The Music app is decent but not exceptional. It works, supports album art and playlists but it could be a more intuitive interface and it

YouTube

There's also a YouTube app but I don't do much with YouTube and haven't even used it yet.

Android Market

One of the best things about Android is the open community that's thriving. thousands of additional apps of all kinds can be found in the Android Market. There's so much here that it takes a while to cut through the noise to find the good things but there are tons of "Best" lists all over the Net. Much of what's out there is free and what isn't is so inexpensive that it's all impulse buy-based and that's great. Upgrades are also a snap. You get a notification that an installed app has a new version and you just select Update and it's all done for you.

One note on the Market. The Droid is brand new and the first phone using the new 2.0 version of the Android OS. Some of the apps aren't ready for 2.0 yet and this includes some of the best ones that are now off the market awaiting an upgrade.

One of the first apps I grabbed was the Facebook app. This one is kind of special on the Droid because it includes full synchronization. When you run it the first time it offers to add all your Facebook friends to your Contacts list or, as I chose, just to update your existing contacts with their Facebook info. This results in a very nice end effect. Most of my contacts are also on Facebook so now most everyone in my phone has their Facebook profile picture on my phone and that's used for all shortcuts and such where a contact is shown. Plus if anyone updates their picture it's updated on the phone. The app itself is very robust. You can now post to anyone's wall by going to their entry in Contacts. You've got access to News Feed, Friends, Photos, your Profile, Notifications and more.

Pandora was another quick add. It sounds great on the phone and ties into all your existing channels with ease. It does eat the battery though so be careful with it. I had a great time using it at the gym on the treadmill.

Another great app is Where. Where, like many Android apps, is location-based. It knows where you are at all times and gives you information based on that. It's got exceptional movie listings and showtimes to area theaters, deep restaurant reviews, local news, weather, gas prices, local traffic info and even a social networking aspect that works a bit like Twitter.

One of the coolest things I'm doing with the phone ties into the use of barcodes. One of the first things I noticed while looking for apps were these funky square barcode graphics on the various sites that listed the apps. I found out that with a barcode app I could just point my Droid at the screen and, presto, it read the barcode and offered to take me directly to where the app is to install it. That's cool!

You can also get an Amazon app that supports barcode reading or generic ones that give you all sorts of information about anything you scan. I spent an hour walking around a Costco pointing my phone at things and finding out all sorts of info about the products. The Amazon app took a simple can of peas and showed me how much less I could pay for the can or how cheap they are by the case.

There's an app called Backgrounds which is actually a bit too simple for my tastes but still wonderful. You load it and it shows you various wallpapers--seemingly and endless supply of them and it offers to install them as your wallpaper and optionally set them up in a rotation (though I'm told this also causes battery drain).

There's a really compelling app called Locale that allows you to set rules based on where you are now. When it finds you getting near a theater it can turn off your ringer. I had it set so that at 11pm my phone went silent but then back on again at 9am.

As far as apps go I've only touched the surface of what's possible here.

The Rest

Other things that make this all fun is built-in WiFi support that's often faster than the built-in cell network (but not always surprisingly). Also, the phone and nearly all the apps support both on-the-fly portrait and landscape presentations. Browsing, for example, in portrait mode instead of the default landscape is very impressive.

The battery does take a hit using the heaviest features but this is a smartphone and we haven't found the magic breakthrough for battery technology and that means you should expect to charge this phone a lot. If you use the phone like you would a laptop you're only going to get a few hours out of it. If you use it as a phone then you'll easily get more than a day or so from it.

I should also mention that when you go to power off you get the option to go into a silent mode and also airplane mode. Nice to have those handy.

The biggest complaint I have with the phone so far is its non-intuitive design for some things. For example, it wasn't at all clear how to add your own ringtones or put music on the phone. Nothing in the documentation gives clear details. It turns out you need to create folders of specific names (like Ringtones and Notifications) to have those show up. Just getting them on the phone also required you to know how to "mount" the microSD card. You don't just plug into the USB. You need to tell the phone to "mount" the drive and then your PC sees the card allowing you to copy to it.

Other simple things like how to add a personalized ring for a specific contact could be easier. Almost anything you want to do you can do. It's just a matter of searching around. At least I've got the right phone for that task.

The Droid Physically Speaking

This is a more in-depth look at the make-up, layout and features of the Motorola Droid phone from a physical sense. The first entry covered the actual background and buying experience.

So how is the Droid to use? So far I must say I've been quite blown away by the experience. The things possible with this phone boggle the imagination at times.

Let's start with the physical make-up of the phone. Motorola has built a phone here that borrows heavily from their reputation (both good and bad). It feels like a tank. I'll be very surprised if this phone doesn't hold up well.

Aesthetically it's a phone you either love the look of or tolerate. I'm one who thinks it could look better. It certainly lacks the ..... grace of an iPhone. Everything about it says it was designed by an engineer who lives function over form. The slide-up screen isn't quite as long as the lower portion leaving a segment at the bottom that leaves room for a Verizon logo but begs the question as to what the reasoning for this extension is.

The screen itself is large and quite beautiful. I don't think there's a better one on a phone right now. The resolution is 480x854 and provides a sharp and clean image. It's a capacitive touch screen which is all the rage on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It's also a glass surface and not plastic. Some feel this means it's fine to use without a screen protector but I'm way too OCD for that. My phone manages to find itself next to keys far too often to just risk it.

Also on the main screen panel is four hard-buttons with dedicated functions. There's a Back button, a Menu button (for accessing settings and such in any application or the phone's settings), a Home button and a Search button. Both the Home button and Search button are dual-purpose. You can tap them for one function or hold them for another. Holding the Home button brings up a list of most recently accessed applications. Holding the Search button brings up the microphone to search by voice. These buttons light up in use but sometimes I find them off when I need them though after about a day you no longer need to guess as to where they are.

There's also a very small green light in the upper right corner. It lets you know that there's been some new activity that happened and this flashes even when the screen is off. It's subtle for the most part though it can be a bit distracting in a dark room with the lights out.

Along the top of the phone there's a 3.5mm headphone jack and a lock/power button. The headphone jack is a welcome addition because it's the standard size. No more needing to find my conversion cable. The lock/power button wakes the phone when it's sleeping or powers it down or up when held.

On the right side you find a volume rocker switch and a camera button. I can't say much about the camera button or the camera as I don't really use my phone as a camera and thus don't take many pictures with it (though I may now as you'll read later on).

The left side has only a standard micro USB jack for charging and data connection. This is nice given that many devices are now going in this direction saving me a bit on having to buy more cables. I am a bit concerned that it's in no way covered so I wonder about dirt getting in there over time.

The bottom of the phone is noteworthy as well. The camera is the biggest thing here and features a 5-megapixel camera with a 4x digital zoom, auto-focus (that seems a bit buggy so far) and a really nice flash. It also seems to take some pretty good videos. There's also a surprisingly thin panel that hides the replaceable 1400 mAh Li-Ion battery and the included 16GB microSD memory card. One of my main concerns with the iPhone was its lack of a replaceable battery. That means you can never upgrade to a longer-life battery or replace it easily if it becomes defective as all batteries do over time.

You can slide up the screen to reveal a physical keyboard. The keyboard is made up of four rows of keys. To the right of the keyboard is a direction pad with a center-select button. The keyboard, so far, has been a letdown which has been widely reported in most reviews. It's just not well thought out at all and hard to use. The top row is so close to the sliding screen that it's hard to hit those keys cleanly. The buttons also run together so it's easy to hit the wrong key and the feel of the keyboard is way too soft. The numbers on the keyboard aren't dedicated and are secondary so you sometimes have to resort to holding the ALT key to enter them. I say sometimes because, thankfully, any time you're in a field that is a number field the phone takes the numbers by default without hitting the ALT key.

The direction pad is a complete mystery. It's barely even mentioned in any of the documentation and in the several days I've used the phone I've not used this pad even once. Plus it takes up a lot of critical space that could have been used to space out the keys and forces your right thumb to have to reach farther over to reach the keys. Maybe I'll find a use for it in some game but for now I'd much rather have preferred not having it and giving me a better keyboard.

The phone is slightly bigger than an iPhone at 4.6 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches. In fact I thought looking at it that it was going to be much bigger than it actually is. Regardless, if you're used to a smaller phone like I've been then this is likely going to take some getting used to. The weight also is a bit up there especially for the small-phone crowd. It's downright hefty at 6 oz. Mine is a bit heavier as I protected it with a Body Glove cover (I love the look of Body Glove's).

In my next post I'll get down to how it all works from a software sense.

Next Up: The Droid Does

Disney's A Christmas Carol Is Worth Singing

I saw Disney's A Christmas Carol this weekend and wondered if this was the earliest a Christmas movie has been out prior to Christmas.

The movie takes the traditional Charles Dickens story (more or less) and augments it with every technological advantage we have today. It's animated in much the same way 2004's The Polar Express was done. That is, it uses live actors wearing tracking mechanisms to carry out the movements of the characters and then the animators add the look to those basic skeletal actions. The effect was novel in 2004 but also was a bit rough. Now it's quite polished.

I saw the movie in 3D and I have to say that it's the best use of 3D I've seen. It doesn't include very many, if any, "in-your-face" 3D moments but instead the entire canvas benefits from the added depth. Falling snow was so realistic that I caught myself reaching up a couple of times in a vain attempt to whisk it out of my view.

The story itself holds fairly tightly to the original, though I must say that it's been so long since I've read the story itself that I'm no longer clear on what was in the book versus the various detours the subsequent films have taken. Regardless, this story stands on its own as a wonderful variation.

The use of animation brings with it other benefits that fully tap into the imagination that I believe Dickens would have loved. This Scrooge isn't limited to older technology and grounded human actors. He can do anything, dream anything and experience anything without the constraints of the past. We get several wondrous scenes that could only happen with this type of approach. It all just works.

The only detraction I could find with the technology is one that was commented on in 2004. Many felt that this approach resulted in very creepy eyes in the characters. This issue still hasn't been entirely solved but here it appears it got some attention and the result is a softer look. In fact, several scenes look exactly like video of real people until you see their eyes. The lack of "life" in the eyes of the characters also, for me, meant a lack of conveyed emotion. You just don't feel their angst the way you would with real actors in a movie--but it's close.

One of the negatives of this version of the story, I believe, is tied directly to the missing emotion here. The entire impact of Tiny Tim is very much minimized here. In the movies much effort is taken to get the audience to buy into the heartache that his family and those around him feel for his plight. Here he ends up playing almost a minor role.

The ghost of Jacob Marley drives how the benefits immediately. He's bound by chains and weights that look amazing in animation but would have looked fake and limited in regular film.

The Ghost of Christmas Past is a highlight of the technology. Everything about it is magical. I shall not soon forget this character. I'm smiling as I write this.

The Ghost of Christmas Present also benefits greatly from the form. He's a giant in every way. The only knock is that he laughs a bit too much for some unknown reason. I also found it interesting that he looked almost exactly like one of the earlier actors to play the role in film.

Lastly the Ghost of Christmas Future--the Grim Reaper--shines as well. Having no lines is tough for a human actor but a breeze for an animated one. He can look endlessly menacing in every instance.

The actors themselves are almost not worth mentioning and I don't mean that in any bad way. They all do a great job here and most of them play several roles. What I mean is that they're not all that evident to you and that's a good thing here. You can just be immersed without constantly thinking, "Who is that?"

I also would caution parents not to bring their youngest children. We had several in our showing and they were clearly scared by this version. It's certainly dark, scary and boasts a lot of mature concepts that will be lost on them.

All in all I would say that this is my favorite rendition of the story now. I'm sorry I won't be able to view it this Christmas Eve.

I Join The Touchscreen Revolution

When it comes to cell phones I've pretty much been living in the middle ground of technology. I outgrew the most basic phones the various providers offer. I now demand certain minimal basics like easy text messaging, comprehensive contact lists, some access to games, etc.

Verizon has been a decent provider for me in that regard. Their phones haven't been the most cutting-edge but certainly more than good enough. However, I've noticed that lately they've left me feeling a bit wanting. The biggest failing is with respect to web access. Trying to do anything on the web with one of the so-called "feature" phones Verizon offers is an exercise in futility.

That was one of the only features of the iPhone that had me experiencing any envy. Well, that and a robust application marketplace.

So I'd been watching the recent "iDon't" commercials from Verizon. If you haven't seen them you're just not into phones, have been away or have no pulse (call 911 immediately). The commercials are about Verizon's newest phones and what they do that the iPhone doesn't. Frankly, they seemed directed right at me. Nearly every point they make is one I hold against the iPhone. Verizon's new attack comes in the form of Android phones. These are phones that feature the Android operating system created by Google.

The phone that caught my attention was the Motorola Droid. The features looked amazing and it included the kinds of things I wanted including a real keyboard, replaceable battery, lots of processing power and an open design community. I picked one up the day they came out on November 6th.

The first surprise was that my Verizon store had some sort of deal going on that many others didn't seem to offer. The Droid is $299 (with 2-year contract) with a $100 mail-in rebate. If you order it online it's just $199. When I told the clerk I was interested he started piling up other boxes and my assumption was that I was about to be hit with an up-sell pitch. Instead I found out that they re-priced the phone to $249 and then use the remaining $50 to give you a car charger, the $30 docking station, and a basic case/protector. There was no option to drop the accessories and just pay $249.

Another surprise is that even though this phone is dramatically different from Verizon's feature phones it still was able to get all my contacts and such ported over. Very nice.

In another post I'll put up shortly I'm going to talk about my experience with the phone itself but I want to mention a couple of basic things here.

First, the docking station and car mount look like neat ideas but only if you don't plan on using any kind of protective case. Using one means the phone won't fit into either of these so they're essentially wasted.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the charging/data cable is a standard mini USB connector and I already had plenty of these from my other feature phones.

Also be aware that if Verizon tries to give you a PRIVACY screen protector, don't take it. In fact, I think they can't now as they've been recalled. Why? Well, the Droid--like the iPhone--uses a capacitive technology that senses your finger electrically. The privacy screens are so thick that it heavily reduces this ability making the phone nearly useless.

All in all it's been quite a change for me. Time will tell if this was the right move but in my next posts about the phone I'll go over my experiences in detail.

Next up: The Droid - Physically Speaking

A Depressing Story of Indoctrination and Insanity

I encountered a story yesterday that took place a century and a half ago. The story is about a very successful businessman who finds himself surrounded, on all fronts, by laggards and layabouts. Everyone wants to take advantage of him. His workers are never thankful for the opportunities he has created for them. The only opportunity they care about involves those that will allow them to steal from the very institution they work for.

The community begins to change around him and moves inexorably towards communism. As it does the city starts to demand that the hero comply by a series of attempts to force him into redistribution of wealth.

As he continues the good fight the community resorts to a conspiracy of the highest order. They work together to bring the hero into compliance by spreading the harshest of lies about him to all who will listen. Finally, one evening, they drug his food and later that evening torture him with a series of ghastly enactments designed to finally break his will.

He's excoriated as a selfish capitalist out only for himself. The conspirators even distort his achievements while under the influence and twist them all into evil aspirations of a heartless capitalist. In the coldest of enactments he's ridiculed for not giving more than his share and is told that he is directly responsible for the likely eventual death of his own beloved assistant's child for lack of support for adequate socialized health care.

What starts out as an uplifting story about our hero fighting against the evils of Communism and Marxism ends deplorably as his will is broken and his sanity shattered. Everything he worked for is now adapted for the good of the whole and he lives out his final days in the ignorant bliss of calculated insanity.

This story is a rather popular one published in 1843 by well-known author Charles Dickens. We know it as, "A Christmas Carol". I saw the new Disney version yesterday (review soon to follow) and my viewing was partially ruined by my continual realization of how a dogmatic conservative would see this movie in a completely different, and frankly, sad and disturbing light. For him Ebenezer Scrooge is a hero and the tale ultimately one of failure and compliance. I can easily see how this wonderful story could be viewed by such people as an attempt to indoctrinate us via the evil arm of the MSM (mainstream media).

If you think I'm going too far consider that on several occasions Sean Hannity has decried Halloween as a leftist holiday designed to brainwash our children into socialism and the welfare state by teaching them that handouts are good and there simply for the asking. Through the eyes of such people I can easily see such a re-imagining of this timeless tale. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, with visions of death camps and re-education camps would have little trouble seeing this as a plot to steal the minds of our children.

It's from this perspective that I realize just how lost our fellow citizens have become. God bless us--everyone.

New York's 23rd Can Go Back To Obscurity

Unless you're from the New York 23rd district chances are that you'd likely never heard of it prior to all the publicity it received regarding input from Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and all the conservative talkers.

It was being called a referendum on President Obama but now that the Democrat, Bill Owens, has apparently won the race I suspect it's the last we'll hear of it from those sources. I'm sure the conservative radio shows will make much of the two Governor races won by Republicans. What I know I won't be hearing is how Owens victory in New York is still a referendum on the President.

It says more to me that major Republicans stepped into this fray and the result was that this district elected its first Democrat since the Civil War. If this was a referendum on anything it was one regarding the current state of Republican politics.