As my contribution to the environment, might as well recycle last week’s headline – thinking up a new one would probably require beer, snacks, and electrical power for the TV and VCR, so we’re talking non-trivial effort here. Should point out it only makes sense if you pronounce it right: “teer” not “tare”, but such is the price we pay for socially-responsible copywriting. Speaking of booze, first, a note on last week’s editorial on the subject of licencing laws here in Phoenix. Regular Swedish TC-er Sven Taveby writers:

“Sweden has always had a rumour for many rules dealing with the selling and serving of alcohol, at least among Swedes. And never minding the fact that we sell more Absolut to the US than we import any booze from the rest of the world. Interesting to read that Arizona has the same licence system Sweden had ’til 10 years ago. The restaurant had to have 25% of its income from food in order to get a licence for alcohol. So many restaurants served cheap lunches at noon, closed shop til evening and became a bar after sundown… I remember one place that was a bar, and nothing else. I wondered how that was possible until I noticed the small door leading to the pizza restaurant next door, obviously with the same owner. Rumour had it some restaurants wrote “pizza” on the cocktail check, trying to fool the county officials. When that didn’t work anymore, because they could show no record of buying flour, they started to bake pizzas and throw them away, just to make the books look alright.”

Thoughts on last night’s Oscars:

• It was mildly amusing, but not worth pre-empting Alias. Particularly not if it was a new episode.
• It was nice to see the mentally ill honoured last night. Not only in A Beautiful Mind, but also by Cameron Diaz’ hair-style, borrowed from a New York bag lady.
• What were Sharon Stone and John Travolta on? Apart from the brink of obscurity following once-promising careers, obviously.
• Jennifer Connolly really needs to eat something now and again. Once a month would apparently be an improvement.
• Never mind winning Oscars, did anyone out there even see Iris? Anyone? Anybody?

After last year, it was, however, largely back to business as usual, with political considerations supplanting anything artistic. With a black presenter and a black lifetime award winner, did anyone really doubt Denzel Washington and Halle Berry were going to win? And Peter Jackson’s chances were slim, since he’s spent the past three years toiling away in New Zealand, rather than on the talk-show circuit like Ron Howard.

The race issue perhaps merits more comment though, especially after Berry set a whole new standard for blubbering drivel in her acceptance speech, surpassing previous efforts by Roberts and Paltrow. Even before an Oscar-worthy performance (either that, or she needs to be committed to a secure facility), it was kinda hard to take Berry seriously since the reports – started by one of the movie’s producers! – that she was paid an extra $500K to spice up Swordfish by getting her tits out. Money wasted as far as I’m concerned; it’s been sitting round here on VCD for a year, and I still haven’t raised the enthusiasm to watch it.

Despite all the self-congratulatory back-slapping from the Academy, it’s hard to take their protestations of diversity seriously. How many Asian actors have ever been nominated? Indeed, how many non-English speakers? Equal opportunity, it seems, extends only as far as the Hollywood freeway. Denzel Washington is less suspect, since he has, at least, a track record of nominations, and no-one has ever claimed he dropped his shorts for money. But did Berry win because of her performance, or because of her skin colour? If it’s the former, then race is irrelevant, and she should be ashamed of herself for making it an issue. If it’s the latter, then it means nothing, and I would frankly be embarrassed to accept such an award.

I have my suspicions, but can’t properly comment, since I’ve not seen Monsters’ Ball. Once I realised it wasn’t a sequel to Monsters Inc., I kinda lost interest. And besides, if I want that sort of thing, I don’t need to go to the cinema, I can see Jerry Springer any afternoon. The thought does arise however: now that it has won an Oscar, will there be a sequel, The Monsters’ Other Ball?

Healthwise, it’s probably true to say that my lifestyle has not improved since I came to Arizona. I’m eating more, though the absence of Tesco Ready Meals is probably no bad thing, and I’m certainly exercising less – the occasional game of racketball (or racquetball – debate on that one rages in this house, along with correct pronounciation of vitamin: VITE-amin or VIT-amin?) is about all, and that largely consists of us trying to stay in one spot, and waving hopefully in the direction of the ball as it whizzes towards us.

One plus is that my alcohol consumption has also declined, and become…well, less regurgitated. In the 16 months since getting here, I haven’t once found myself contemplating the toilet-bowl from the inside. [Not something I miss, at the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious] The reasons for this are largely logistical, rather than any conscious choice. You pretty much have to drive everywhere in Phoenix, so either I’m behind the wheel, or Chris is, and it seems totally ungallant to get pissed while she sips on a Diet Coke. Besides, where’s the fun?

The only times we ever get moderately drunk is when we take a walk up the road. Though there are no dedicated bars in the immediate vicinity (not like Tulse Hill, where there were three within as many minutes), we have are a couple of restaurants with bars attached. The reason for this is, there’s a fixed number of bar licences available in Phoenix: you can only get one by purchasing it from the owner of a place that’s closing, which can cost $100,000. But if you get a certain amount of your sales in food, you can get a restaurant licence instead, and that’s only $2,000.

So most places allow you to combine food with alcohol – usually margaritas for Chris, beer for me (and it’s amazing how Mexican beer tastes ten times better when taken with Mexican food) – followed by a gentle stagger home. Occasionally, this meanders via Best Buy, for the purpose of cheap DVD acquisition. Though I’m not certain whether a bout of vomiting would be preferable to the Anna Nicole Smith double-bill, purchased on one such inebriated spree.

Our favourite haunt is Don Pablo’s Mexican Restaurant, most notable for the fact that we’ve never actually seen any Mexicans in there, either eating or (more remarkably) serving. This is in a state where virtually every low-paid service industry job (gardening, cleaning, etc.) is dominated by immigrants – legal and otherwise – from across the border. Yet Don Pablo’s appears to bar them from employment, at least in the front house.

This may be because it’s a Mexican restaurant, aimed at people who don’t actually like Mexico much (or perhaps, more pointedly, Mexicans). The interior is the sort of thing you’d see in Disneyland or a Las Vegas casino. Just as New York, New York is decorated to evoke the spirit of the city – without the rude residents, of course, so Don Pablo’s has a faux-Mexican style, designed to give the feeling of eating in a little provincial village – without the flies and subsequent bout of Montezuma’s Revenge.

My cynicism is, admittedly, from a point of view of ignorance, since I’ve never been to Mexico. But it’s not something I really want to do, and going by the face Chris makes whenever the topic arises, she doesn’t want to go either. Think it’s some kind of Hispanic caste thing, her being Cuban and all – the same way there’s a hierarchy of English speakers, with Scots at the top, naturally. 🙂

But I’ve heard too many horror stories – TC-er Andy Collins was mugged on a recent trip…not particularly unusual, perhaps, except in his case, it was by the police. He still loves the place though, but I suspect cheap tequila may be influencing his opinion. Me, I think I’ll be happier sticking to the fake version, available five minutes walk down the road.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

U.S. Constitution: Second Amendment

First, it’s free speech. Then – before anything about fair trials or unreasonable searches – it’s the right to bear arms. Thus wrote the founding fathers of the country in which I now live, and that’s why, more than two centuries later, I was at the Arizona State Fairgrounds, in the presence of more firearms than I had ever seen in my life before. And that includes the time spent watching John Woo movies.

As a Briton, I find myself vaguely troubled by the free availability of weaponry. We do very well without it in Britain, with our unarmed bobbies, and have a much lower murder rate there (and would you like a cup of tea?). However, in America, you’re much more likely to find your mugger or burglar has a gun, and the best defense against that…is a bigger gun. Which is where the gun shows come in, letting anyone with a driving licence – and I suspect even that would probably be superfluous for the private sales taking place at the fair – and money accumulate sufficient firepower to re-enact Columbine, Dunblane and Hungerford.

They say an armed society is a polite society, and certainly, an armed show is a polite show – despite the crowds, I’ve never heard “Excuse me” and “No, after you” used with such frequency. The guns were perhaps the least interesting things on display since, hey, you’ve seen one revolver, you’ve seen ’em all. I was more interested in the stuff around the edges, some of which was fascinating, some of which was, frankly, disturbing.

On the one hand, you could buy copies of the American consitution, and targets with Osama Bin Laden’s face on them, things which celebrated America, and all that’s good about it (the first amendment, for example, the one about freedom of speech). On the other hand, you could buy copies of Mein Kampf and even letters from inmates at Dachau. Those interested in owning that kind of shit are the sort of people who really should not be permitted to own weapons.

But yet, this is the dilemma. Who am I to judge who should and should not have the right to bear arms? There’s really no difference from censorship, where someone else says what you have the right to watch. As a firm believer in everyone taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions, people should have the right to own guns – but if they abuse that right, then the full weight of the law should come down on them immediately. Yet, with so many guns around, how do you keep them out of the grasp of criminals? Laws aren’t really the answer for those who have shown themselves happy to break them.

Part of me feels sure that if the founding fathers were writing today, they’d not be quite so liberal. Perhaps therein lies the solution: you get to have any weapon you like – as long as it was available in 1789. I think at the very least, we’d see a drop in the numbers of drive-by musketings.

A small victory, following last editorial – the Internet Movie Database has severely slashed the numbers of pop-up adverts. I’d like to think this would be the end of the matter, but it’s not the first time they’ve done it, and I suspect they’ll try again sometime. We’ll be ready for them. 🙂

This is the closest I’ve come to the Olympics; first time I’ve been in the same country where they’re taking place, just a state or two across in Utah. Despite this, I have been largely unmoved by it. This is the Winter Olympics after all, which are the poor relation to begin with, and it was obvious from the opening ceremony that rabid patriotism was going to be the order of the day. I trust the United States will say nothing, if the Chinese use their opening ceremony for political propaganda when the Olympics come to Beijing…

Coverage here has been in strict proportion to American medal chances. Thus, we get a lot of snow-boarding and ice hockey, and precious little curling or biathlon, but until they include basketball on ice, it’s never quite going to capture the imagination. It says a great deal about the Winter Olympics that the major scandal has involved, not drugs (or sex or rock ‘n’ roll), but the judging in the figure-skating competition.

This is a no-brainer. Any sport decided by a series of marks for “artistic impression”…isn’t really a sport at all. As the name suggests, it’s an art-form, and should be treated as one, not included in the Modern Olympics, unless you’re also going to let sculpture, landscape painting and freeform poetry in there too. Frankly, professional wrestling is equally worthy of a place as figure skating – and I’m sure Tonya Harding would be up for both.

Giving gold medals to the Canadians sets a very nasty precedent, and will likely open the floodgates for all manner of other challenges. Boxers, done over by points decision that went against them. The 1972 USA basketball team, who lost to the Soviet Union in the final seconds and refused their silver medals. Any sore loser with an axe to grind will be taking legal advice, for it’s virtually guaranteed that this is all going to end in the courts, and the only real winners will be the lawyers.

Bad decisions are part of any competitive pastime, as anyone knows who’s ever taken part. Sometimes you benefit, sometimes you don’t, but the fundamental principle of sportsmanship is that you have to accept the referee’s decision, no matter how “wrong” it may be. And that’s the case, even in sports with well-defined rules, let alone one where the judges are dealing out victory and defeat by trading in such nebulous concepts as “artistic impression”.

The Olympic motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius”, universally accepted to mean “Swifter, Higher, Stronger” – you’ll notice there’s no mention of “prettier”, or “artier”. There’s talk of the Olympics wanting to slim down, and they need to get back to basics, limiting themselves to competitive sports, not anything involving subjective assessments. And to anyone who disagrees, I have but two words: synchronised swimming.

The Internet Movie Database used to be a totally indispensable tool for all film writers. While its accuracy was not always without question, its comprehensive nature (at least as far as English-language movies went) meant that it was the first stop for anyone wondering “What else was that actor in?”, or trying to find out who wrote the script for an obscure Hammer flick.

But now, it’s all gone horribly wrong, to the extent where I will now go to extraordinary lengths rather than endure visiting it. What happened? One word: Amazon. In 1998, the colossus of online Amazon bought out what had, up until then, been a non-commercial site, and the decline has been inexorable. As proof, one need look no further than the IMDb itself, has no qualms about blowing its own trumpet with selective reviews. However, the most recent date on these glowing recommendations comes from back in 1999 – and that link is mysteriously broken…

What’s the problem? Any attempt to use the database now results in a constant fight against pop-up adverts, often multiple ones for the same company! A form letter from the IMDb Help Desk (gosh, do you think a lot of people are are pissed-off as I am?) reveals that, “We are currently experimenting with pop-up ads and other formats because some of our advertisers have expressed their preference for these alternative methods of promoting their products and services.” The more obnoxious the better, it would appear.

But why does it need these at all? The site was founded in 1990, so survived eight years as a non-commercial entity, largely without advertising, particularly of the intrusive nature we currently endure. But now, it is drowning in features which I find totally useless. Across the top of the IMDb screen, we have: Now Playing, Movie/TV News, My Movies, Fun & Games, Message Boards, US Movie Showtimes, Help & Guide and IMDb Pro. We’ll get back to the last-named shortly, but I can honestly say I’ve never bothered with any of the others.

All these irrelevancies take up server space and processing power; if they were dumped as superfluous (and the IMDb, trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, is going to master none), the need for advertising would largely evaporate. The IMDb form letter sees it differently, however: “our advertisers help us to continue providing you with great movie information, and thanks to them we can keep offering our popular service for free and continually improve our site with new content and features.” Oh, goody: more stuff we don’t want, didn’t ask for, and won’t use.

Oh, but I forgot, it’s now owned by Amazon, a company in perpetual, desperate need of showing a profit. The irony of the following statement, taken from the official IMDb history, will be obvious: “In Jeff Bezos [founder of Amazon], the people at the IMDb saw a kindred spirit, someone who understood the internet and its community, not just its potential as a marketplace.” Hence all the pop-up adverts, eh, Jeff?

This commercialization of the IMDb has been growing for a while. A lot of their movie posters now come with a stern warning that the images are copyright of the Nostalgia Factory – I wonder what the movie studios think about that? – and you’re not allowed to right-click and “Save As…”. While a minor inconvenience at worst (tech tip: ALT+PRINT_SCRN copies your screen to a buffer, from where it may be pasted to your favourite graphics package), it illustrates the creeping nature of such things.

Worst of all, the IMDb now wants us to pay. “We have also launched a professional version of our service called IMDb Pro, which offers many new additional features and is entirely pop-up free.” The sheer audacity of this is striking: take information, freely submitted by unpaid volunteers, then turn round and sell it back to them for $12.95 a month, by making the non-subscription version a total nightmare to use.

They can do this because, buried away in the depths of the IMDb, is the following nasty little paragraph: “If you do post content or submit material, and unless we indicate otherwise, you grant IMDb.com and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media.” I wonder how many of the people who contributed the information are happy with the way Amazon are exploiting it?

We need to strike back and reclaim the IMDb. At the polite end of the spectrum, we should flood them with feedback, protesting the pop-ups – the email address is help@imdb.com. Perhaps request that an advert-free, bare bones version should be available: no “Fun and Games”, no “US Movie Showtimes”, just information on the films. More effectively, Amazon are still largely too cheap to pay for their facts, and rely heavily on users. For example, one of the features of IMDb Pro is STARmeter (TM), which is really just a count of how many people look up a given celebrity. By repeated visits, we can render this feature useless; how seriously would anyone take it if the #1 actor was Shaquille O’Neal?

We, the Internet community, created the IMDb. And Amazon would do well to remember that we can destroy it, too.