I watched Henry V the other night (directed by and starring Laurence Olivier as King Henry). I have not read much William Shakespeare, but I am entralled by Henry V.

My favorite adaptation is Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V. His performance as King Harry is inspiring.

The Price Dauphin has just sent Harry a chest of tennis balls as a gift, but really to mock him, Implying he is a playboy price, and he should spend his time playing tennis instead of making claims to france...Here is a piece of Harry's reply.

...And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones, and his soul Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows Shall this his mock mock of their dear husbands; Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down; And some are yet ungotten and unborn That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn. But this lies all within the will of God, To whom I do appeal; and in whose name, Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on, To venge me as I may and to put forth My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause. So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin His jest will savour but of shallow wit, When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.

Qouted from http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/shake/hv.html.

Will some one please tell me when it became part of the common vernacular to refer to technology as "sexy". This is one place where things are not, nor ever will be, sexy. There is nothing remotely sexy about a Trinitron 21 inch monitor. A creative and well implemented web site may be interesting and quite possibly even cool, but it will never be sexy. Unfortunately, even The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition finds inane things sexy. If I ever find myself becoming sexually attracted to a copy machine, I hope it will collate (if you know what I mean wink wink).

"There are no rules, but you break them at your peril." - Howard Suber

A few people I know have been or have started writing web logs. I find this phenomenon interesting, amusing and a bit disturbing. No one sends me email anymore, and I know everything about these people from their web logs. Seeing how people in general get on my nerves, and I am lazy and would rather go to a movie alone than with others, this web log thing could really pay off. How are you today Mark? I can just point them at bitterpill.org. How's Bob in accounting...go to www.bobinaccounting.org/blogger.html. Your Mom? marksmom.org/blog/. No need for conversation or interaction.

I do like reading people's web logs. You get to see a side of people you normally don't, and you get to see that most are smart and decent people. Just as long as they ain't calling me on the phone...

I went and saw The Professionals at the Oak Street Cinema last night. Talk about your cliche westerns. Jack Palance as the Mexican Bandit, and Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster as the not so good good guys. The dialog was a long list of tough guy one liners and cliches strung together. What's not to like?

It is clear to me now, if you want to be a tough guy that is tempered like steel and laughs in the face of death you must do everything with a cigar in your mouth.

I have one small problem with westerns. Every time I watch one I realize it is not A Fist Full of Dollars.

Oddly enough, I have a nice thing to say about winter in MN. The sky here in winter is breathtaking. It is so clear (I imagine because no water vapor has a chance of surviving in the frigid temps) on a sunny day you can see for miles. I was in a small plane once about fifty miles north of the city, and you could see downtown perfectly. The sunsets can be amazing in winter. Amber streaks of cirrus clouds dipped in purple and burning reds. It's too bad it tends to be too cold to stay out and enjoy them.

Lunch for today: a falafel sandwich. Falafel courtesy of Whole Foods in St. Paul, MN. It is a bad lunch day when it is hard decide if you are eating a falafel, or a dirt bomb.

I have been having a feeling lately that I have had on occasion in my life. The feeling that this piece or part of my life has completed, or is nearing completion. It feels like an era has passed. It is kind of like a concert has ended, and I am standing alone in the auditorium. I have had this feeling before.

When I was fourteen they hired a new vice principle at our school. He was a bit of a tyrant, like I suppose all vice principles tend to be, but this guy was a little over the top. He had worked in a juvenile detention center in New York City, and it seems he felt all kids were bad in some sense or another. Anyway, he proceeded to have all the "really bad" kids, who most of happened to be my friends, removed from school and placed in the remedial school across town. I "luckily" missed the inquisition of sorts by being hospitalized for most of the first half of school because of an injury. When I returned to school everything had changed. The doors were locked between classes, and teachers strolled the halls like prison guards. There were no kids smoking behind the gym garage doors, and all my friends were gone. The salad days were over, and I was alone.

After a few months of detensions and suspensions I moved to Queens to live with my Aunt and Uncle.

And so another exciting event in the world of CoWA: I have converted the entire (and that’s a whole lot I can tell you...just look at all the great design and html here) bitterpill.org site to CoWA components. No more messy html files to manage. This is the website of the future. Watch mom as she sits back and relaxes and watches CoWA do all here daily chores for her. Looks like Dad likes it too. He hasn't modified more than one html file in days. And little Suzy has gotten nothing but straight 'A's since CoWA was installed. Yep, just think what the future will be like with CoWA installed in all our homes and offices.

I promise this is the last rant about winter:

This has got to be the worst February in years. Every morning I wake up and hope it will be warmer, but it juts seems to get colder. The ice dams on my roof have reached iceberg proportions. I could have sworn I saw Sylvester Stallone hanging off of one of them yesterday. The gate in my backyard won’t swing because the ice has built up on the walkway high enough to freeze it to the ground. March seems like an eternity away.

I have had a head cold for what seems like three months now. It's like some one has an air compressor valve hooked up to my head, and they are slowly letting it fill up with pressure.

All I can say is, "what the hell are people thinking". I love you, and here is a Teddy Bear that looks like Andrew Dice Clay (WARNING: this link is both offensive and...well...why?).

I have implemented the new enhancement I mentioned yesterday on the "Pill". It is a component based context sensitive template system. I have dubbed it CoWA (Component Web Architecture). What is a development framework with out a stupid acronym? It hopefully will allow easy creation and management of UI components for a web site, as well as allow these components to be more dynamic and context sensitive in nature. An example would be the side nav here on the "Pill". The nav needs to change depending on the selection of schmancy or text version. With CoWA, I am able to create one template that manages both the look and feel of both menus, as well as define when either one is displayed depending on which version of the site you desire to see. I will hopefully explain in more technical and graphically enhancing detail later...

Here is a link to the template if you are interested.

I also added the obligatory links to blogs I read on occasion. :)

I Spent the weekend working on a new project. Its been a while since I've holed myself up for an entire weekend developing software. I figure its cold, and I have been watching way too much TV lately. It has shapped up nicely, and will be an enhancement to bitterpill and the like.

I Saw Down by Law this weekend at the Oak Street Cinema here in Minneapolis. A great movie: simple, beautiful, funny...

I love the old movie houses. I know people love the new google plex stadium seating movie theaters, but I just don't. Sure the sound is great and the seats are huge and squishy, but it doesn't compare to watching Rear Window in the balcony at the Uptown Theater so close to the projector booth that you can hear the sound of the ticking projector.

So I'm back in Minneapolis. I love this city. I have lived here about a decade, and it has been nothing but good to me. The spring is beautiful, and fall is quite lovely as well. I have made good friends here, and some of the smartest and nicest people I have met were born and raised in Minneapolis proper. But, the time has come for me to move on. I have tired of the winters, and most of my good friends have moved away.

The problem lies in where? Part of me wants to move back to New York. It’s where I was born, and there has always been a part of me that misses it. Another part says west. LA where it is warm? Maybe San Francisco, or points in between? The opportunities seem endless.

I flew back to Mpls today, and I asked to sit in an emergency window seat. More leg room, bla bla. I always find it odd that people don't ask for these seats. I came late to the terminal, and The plane was more that half full, but many of these prized and precious seats were still open. So here is a message for all you non believers...there are coach seats with more leg room out there. Oddly enough, you just need to ask for them. We are not airline cattle, to be poked and prodded into our seats of scrunched destiny. There are people out there who (sometimes) alter their traveling destiny for the better.

Warm and 70 degrees in Los Angeles...did I mention it was 20 below zero last night in Minneapolis. Must of done something bad in a past life...soon my sweet...patience...

Off to LA for a little vaction...