Entries from May 2005 ↓

Paul Carlos and Gina Di Bari tied the knot on May 21, 2005.

Congratulations to a cool couple!

For more photos of Gina and Paul’s wedding, click here.

Imagine a windowless room with no mirrors or reflective substances of any kind. Just four walls of drywall. In the middle of the room are three desks set up one behind the other in single file. There is a man sitting at each desk. For reference purposes, we’ll label the men, from front to back, A, B, and C. Now, by the way they are positioned in the room, man A can’t see anybody, man B can see A but not C, and man C can see both A and B. Now…

…a fourth man walks into the room. He reaches in his bag presents the men with five hats, three of the hats are red, two of them are white. He tells the men,

“I’m going to blindfold all three of you, put one of these five hats on each of your heads, and then hide the remaining two hats in my bag.”

So he proceeds to do just that — he takes out three blindfolds, blindfolds all three men, puts one of the five hats on each of their heads, and then hides the remaining two hats. He then says to the men,

“I am going to remove your blindfolds. When I do, you are not allowed to turn around or talk to each other.”

He then removes the blindfolds and says,

“The first man that can stand up and tell me what color hat he has on his OWN head will get a million dollars. If you stand up and guess wrong, I’ll cut your head off. In other words, no guessing.”

After a few minutes of silence, man A stood up and stated what color hat he was wearing. He was correct.

What color hat was man A wearing, and how did he know?

U2 has a concert that starts in 17 minutes and they must all cross a bridge to get there. All four men begin on the same side of the bridge. You must help them across to the other side in under or at 17 minutes. It is night. There is one flashlight. A maximum of two people can cross at one time. Any party who crosses, either 1 or 2 people, must have the flashlight with them. The flashlight must be walked back and forth, it cannot be thrown, etc. Each band member walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the rate of the slower man’s pace:

= Bono: 1 minute to cross
= Edge: 2 minutes to cross
= Adam: 5 minutes to cross
= Larry: 10 minutes to cross

For example: if Bono and Larry walk across first, 10 minutes have elapsed when the get to the other side of the bridge. Larry then returns with the flashlight, a total of 20 minutes have passed and you have failed the mission. There is no trick behind this. It is simple movement of resources in the appropriate order. There are two known answers to this problem. This is based on a question Microsoft used to give to all prospective employees. Note: Microsoft expects you to answer this question in under 5 minutes!

Good Luck!

Back on the island of Kauai and the rest of the Hawaiian islands, sports is a huge thing to people. Particularly in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, and especially baseball. Because the geographical distance from the mainland makes it impossible for Hawaii to host a professional traveling team, the local fans of the game to this day are forced to choose and adopt their favorite Major League ballclub as their emotional own, which is usually either the Giants or the Dodgers.

This did not, however, keep the folks from participating in our favorite pastime first-hand back in the good old days. This is before Hawaii joined the Union, mind you. Inter-island play thrived, and the Albao family of boys were something of legend.

From left to right: Uncle Eddie (OF), Uncle Willie (SS), Uncle Henry (C), and my Grampa and poker teacher, Cecil (3B). 1946. Kauai.

We lost the last of them, my Uncle Eddie, in September of 2003. As I look at this classic photo, I can’t help but imagine them all turning around, walking to the edge of the outfield behind them, and disappearing into the sugar cane field.

Happy Memorial Day.

My arguably unhealthy obsession with the exponential nature of time passing isn’t getting any better. My baby brother, Jonathan, and his new bride, Holly, were married on May 14th, 2005. I now feel my age.

Congratulations to the two lovebirds.

For more wedding photos, click here.

So I’ve been dropping by a neighbor’s house to feed the tortoise for a few days while they’re out of town. Weighing in @ around 40 pounds, the thing eats an entire head of lettuce per day. FYI. Yet another one of those useless, yet endlessy interesting, pieces of information.

Kona has just reminded me that we shall not forget to pay homage to those worthy of remembering. On that note, we’re off to the beach to burn off some steam.

Exactly what I expected; a piece of garbage.

Can’t say I was disappointed, though. After all, I got over that one back in ‘99. But really, it was simply too much of the same nonsense that ruined the saga in the first place: pointless Counsel meetings, Chancellors, Diplomats, Senators, Ambassadors, Republics, Democracies, Trade Federations, etc.

It’s like, where’s the bad guy in the black hat?

The first three Star Wars flicks were rooted in the very fundamental and universal theme of Dualism. Like any good western. It didn’t really matter *why* things were happening. All we knew is that the bad ass Vader was sending probes out looking for white-wearing Rebels on the snow planet, and it was critical that they not be found. Otherwise, there would be hell to pay.

So where did it all go wrong? How? Why?

Simple. In 1999’s “The Phantom Menace”, Lucas dumbed down the sense of evil so severely that you don’t even care if the heroes prevail or not. In fact, it’s not even clear what the threat is. In contrast, the first three releases (OK, two and a half) were driven by the undeniable presence of Badness, supplemented by the war that ensued between this dominating Badness and the Rebels who represented that which is Good.

While this all apparently hit rock bottom in 1999, the 2002 release of “Attack of the Clones” literally made it worse. Particularly in Lucas’s depiction of Anakin Skywalker, the man who would become one of the darkest characters we, or at least I, have ever seen in a movie. The casting of Anakin from Day 1 was a miscalculation of the saddest sort, and literally changed the character of Darth Vader into something less than what he is to true Star Wars fans.

Lucas’s depiction of Anakin, who is eventually supposed to evolve into the epitomy of that which is evil, seemed to come from a galaxy even further away. One of the first errors Lucas made was his choice introduce us to Anakin when he was eight years old. To do this right, Episode I really should’ve began when Anakin was the same age of Luke in Star Wars; just before college age, facing all the life decisions we make at that pivotal point in our lives. As Episode’s II and III unfold, we should’ve seen Anakin grow from a young man with lots of potential into a seasoned Jedi who’s been around the block a few times, making the thought of his turn to Darkness a realistically frightening one. It so follows that Amidala should not have been the hot babysitter figure in “Annie’s” life, but rather the young girl of royalty that the preoccupied Jedi Anakin didn’t really notice until *she* came of age and blossomed into a woman in Episode II. With all these pieces in place, this could’ve been one of the most beautiful love stories in cinematic history.

Anakin, as George depicts him in the recent three episodes, is simply incapable of the evil that Vader represents in the first trilogy. Age has a lot to do with it. What’s especially unfortunate is that the story of Anakin and his fall to the Dark Side is something that could’ve been one of the most powerful and representative stories ever told on film, if only the characters on screen were believable. I mean, the baddest I ever saw this Anakin kid get was to stay out past his bedtime and ride his minibike real fast.

Again, the threat isn’t there.

The Vader I remember, driven by his Master, was the most evil soul in the Universe. Evil for the sake of being evil, beyond any sort of rhyme or reason. My Vader was not the corrupt guy looking to weasel a tariff break from the Senator while moving his cargo through the Dagoba System. My Vader simply wanted to bathe in the blood of virgins.

As for the effects being good, well, sure. But after all these years, you’d think that Lucas would take what Spielberg learned from his tech difficulties in Jaws: It’s what you *don’t* see that ends up being the most powerful part of the experience. The art of implication is what tickles the imagination more than anything. Lucas fell on his face in my book with the Cheech Marin floating winged reptile mechanic guy, Jar Jar, the lizard horse from this one, the dog-skulled robot with laryngitis, and so forth. Completely ridiculous.

And Yoda. Don’t get me wrong, I probably enjoyed that light saber scene in Clones as much as the next person. But in a “Tom and Jerry” sort of way. Seriously, that scene was arguably closer to something you’d see in a Saturday Night Live skit than in a Star Wars movie.

And Samuel L. Jackson. Please. What, was Travolta not available? Come on.

Oh, and the opening title sequence for the final Episode III: The Revenge Of The Sith. That had the be the most unsubstantial piece of storytelling I’ve ever seen anywhere. Is that all George could give us? Horrible. It was the first time I didn’t get a chill up my spine in the beginning of a Star Wars movie.

Here I go. Ready to blog.