MittelMitte

4 Stars (****) James Frey picks up right where he left off from his NYT Bestseller, A Million Little Pieces, and shows us no intentions of slowing down. While MLP focuses on the author's life in a drug and alcohol rehab center, MFL shows us the difficulties of starting anew. Frey's writing style is bold and unpretentious, without a doubt the fillet of the genre. Often compared to Hemingway, he mocks his critics and disses the giants of our decade, all while attracting a huge [middle-aged and female] fan-base.

NOTE: I always saw Lilly as being played (in the upcomging movie) by Helena Bonham Carter, despite their huge [ED: 19-year] difference in age.

NOTE 2: This is what he says about DE and JSF:

The big noise began with a now-famous New York Observer interview, two full months before the book's release, in which the 33-year-old Frey wasted no time sawing off the legs of his rivals. "I don't give a fuck what Jonathan Safran whatever-his-name does or what David Foster Wallace does. I don't give a fuck what any of those people do. I don't hang out with them, I'm not friends with them, I'm not part of the literati." Don't even get him started on Dave Eggers. "A book that I thought was mediocre was being hailed as the best book written by the best writer of my generation. Fuck that. And fuck him and fuck anybody who says that. I don't give a fuck what they think about me. I'm going to try to write the best book of my generation and I'm going to try to be the best writer."

From eonline, a new fact-finding mission concerning how much reality goes into LB:

It Is Real...Kinda, Sorta: This "dramality" is real in the sense that the these are actual high school students and what we see is actually happening in their lives. What's not so real, according to show insiders, is how, where and when these things go down. Believe it or not, the castmembers only "work" Thursday through Sunday (How do I get on this show?), so important "scenes" are often delayed and then set up by producers to make sure they're caught on film.

A few key examples: The now infamous bonfire scene where Jessica first sees Alex M. and Jason together was completely orchestrated by producers. Before the bonfire, the crew spent hours lighting the beach and the mountains in the background before the kids were allowed to interact with each other. When Jason finally arrived, they told him how to enter the scene and where to go. Similarly, the big confrontation in Cabo between Jessica and Alex M. was specifically planned for that night. Producers saw the situation and knew Alex M. would confront Jessica, so they instructed her not to go off on her "man-stealing slut"/calling-the-kettle-black tirade until the cameras were ready.

From the NYDN (and here)

Police cuffed 26 Satmar Hasidim and charged them with burglary and criminal mischief after they entered a Williamsburg synagogue office, officials said yesterday.

The intrusion appeared to be part of a continuing dispute between factions supporting two sons of Satmar Grand Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum for leadership of the community.

The arrests at 9:49 p.m. Tuesday came on the Jewish Holiday of Simchat Torah, which began at sundown Tuesday.[...]

They also charged private guards brought guard dogs into the synagogue.

"To bring a dog in a synagogue is unbelievable," said Abe Klein, 29, a follower of Aaron. "That's like a real, real, real bad thing - like you're bringing a dog on God."

• poor fashion taste (hat-bags)
• fighting in shul
• poor vocabulary

VS2005 full/release version is now on MSDN (for those of use with $1.5K accounts).

If you can't afford that, you can always download an express (ghetto) version for free!

If you ever find Visual Studio referencing an old version of an assemly, and you don't know where it is coming from (not in your GAC, BIN, etc), look at the C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\assembly\dl2 folder. And delete it.
Shadow copy cache "causes" weird debugging problems

Two words. It sucks. It took Z&Shervin 20 minutes and rebooting the cable box to get this blockbuster [barely] working.

We should have stuck to Bride and Prejudice...

As Tony likes to say, Forget about it. I give this crappy film a 1/2 out of 4 stars. If you want to know the true story of these kids, rent the 2002 documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys, directed by Stacey Peralta. The writing and acting was just too poor in this made-for-Hollywood version. Its as if they took the major plot points from the documentary and tried rattle them off as quickly as possible. Surfing, Skating, Urethane, Water-drought, Success, Coporate Sponsorship (sell out), Closing Credits...

Worst line: "Wow urethane wheels- they grip." "Awesome- they grip" "Urethane is cool!"
Best line: none