Sunday, December 21, 2003

 
LAST WEEKEND.
External link: http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/chappellesshow/

(Not this weekend that ends today, but the last one.)

On Thursday, I had tea with Joclyn G. and later went out for drinks with Steve K. and Heidi, and a couple of their friends. I got to see Steve's brand new apartment in Soho. It's right on Canal Street, but it's on the Soho side of the street. Yet, he keeps referring to it as being in Tribeca. Soho is more accurate, and I think it sounds better, too. But whatever makes him happy.

On Friday, I went to a lovely dinner party at Manny F.'s place. I maybe spent a little too much time conversing in Chinese with Manny's girlfriend, Mai X. I've been studying Chinese for a couple months. I'm still not very good, but I'm starting to come along a little. It was kind of neat to gossip about people in the room right in front of them.

On Saturday, I went to a TV show taping of the new season of Chappelle's Show up in Harlem, with Diana A. It was totally outrageous, but it was also really funny. The new season is going to be great. While we were up in Harlem, we had soul food for dinner, but I forgot the name of the place where we went.

I can't remember what, if anything, I did of interest on Sunday.

This is The Official Record. 1:59 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/last-weekend.html


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Friday, December 12, 2003

 
FOUND IN TRANSLATION.
External link: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2002_11_01_archive.html#85665566

Here is an excerpt from the article "UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR" that appeared here, in "The Official Record" more than a year ago, on November 12, 2002:

We have the following four things already:

1) Voice recognition software that converts speech to text.
2) Translation software that translates from English to almost any language or vice-versa.
3) Speech software that converts text to speech.
4) Small hand-held computers that can run all those programs.

So, hey, let's put all those things together, and create a hand-held device that I can talk into in English, and which will translate what I just said into another language, and which I then can have someone else talk into in their language, and hear what they just said in English. I'm sure that I would pay $10,000.00 for a device that could do all that. But there isn't any reason why it should cost more than a couple hundred, and even less than that if millions of us started buying them. Somebody just needs to put all the pieces together.

Here is an excerpt from the current (December 2003/January 2004) issue of MIT Technology Review, from the article "7 Hot Projects":

Automatic speech translator
Company: IBM
Status: Could appear in laptops or personal digital assistants by mid-2004

Some social pundits claim that communication via computer has hampered personal connections. But researchers at IBM are on the verge of using computers to bring people closer together with a system that translates spoken language on the fly. The speech-to-speech effort started a couple of years ago “as an adventurous research project,” says David Nahamoo, manager of the human-language technologies group at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. The group has now built a working prototype: a laptop computer uses speech recognition software to process spoken words into text; sophisticated translation algorithms convert the text into a second language; and then the computer uses text-to-speech technology to “speak” the translated phrase.

This is The Official Record. 11:27 AM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/found-in-translation.html


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LAST WEEKEND.
External link: http://www.simonandgarfunkel.com/

On Thursday, I went to the Simon and Garfunkel concert at Madison Square Garden. With Manny F. It was really great, and really special, I thought. I've always been a really big S&G fan, and I'd really thoght that I would never get the chance to see them perform together.

On Friday, Manny F. and I saw Bad Santa, which was pretty funny, and had dinner at Marlowe's on Restaurant Row.

On Saturday, Jess and I went to a book release party for the new book "Xero". It's a fun, flighty art book that is occasionally profound. My favorite part, from the reading, is the (pretend?) religion of "is-what-it-ism," and the line "My ass isn't everything that it's cracked up to be". We left before the end, and we went to dinner at some hoity toity French place in the Lower East Side, and then to Deep Dish Cabaret.

On Sunday, I had dinner in the East Village at Acme, with Jin K. Then we saw The Cooler, which was pretty good.

This is The Official Record. 11:15 AM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/last-weekend_12.html


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MOVIE REVIEW: THE COOLER (2003) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
External link: http://www.thecoolermovie.com/

I had a little trouble accepting the premise of this independent film, that the William H. Macy character is incredibly unlucky, and has the power to infect others with his bad luck by being around them, so he is given a job at a Las Vegas casino making sure that high rollers don't win. But once you accept that, the rest of the movie is funny and very dark, and ultimately very sweet in a satisfying way.

This is The Official Record. 11:04 AM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/movie-review-cooler-2003-3-stars-out.html


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MOVIE REVIEW: BAD SANTA (2003) * * * (3 stars out of 4).
External link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/bad_santa/

This anti-Christmas black comedy is very funny, and definitely worth seeing. It is outrageous and over the top, yet somehow real and believable. My only complaint is that by the end, the it turns into a boring, old feel-good Christmas movie, with no irony in the happy ending.

This is The Official Record. 10:56 AM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/movie-review-bad-santa-2003-3-stars.html


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Monday, December 01, 2003

 
LAST WEEKEND.
External link: http://www.macysparade.com/

This was a busy weekend.

Thursday morning, I had a bunch of friends over to watch the Macy's parade from my balcony, which overlooks Broadway. Then, I went to Helen Z.'s parents' house for a delicious Greek Thanksgiving dinner with her cousins Joe F. and Manny F., Joe's wonderful wife Carol H., and Manny's charming girlfriend Mai X.

Friday, I had to go back to serving on the Grand Jury for my last day. Friday night, I saw my very dear friends Bryan C. and Ami C., who are husband and wife, and came to visit me from Boston. We had dinner at Noche and saw Taboo which was pretty good.

Saturday, Ami, Bryan, and I had brunch at the Redeye Grill on 7th Avenue and 56th street, which was very good. Saturday night, I went to Chicago City Limits with Suzanne S.

Sunday, Suzanne picked me up and we drove up to Harlem for brunch at Copeland's. Sunday night, I had dinner with Manny F. and Mai X. at Jackson Hole.

This is The Official Record. 2:31 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/last-weekend_01.html


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THEATER REVIEW: TABOO * * * (3 stars out of 4).
External link: http://www.tabooonbroadway.com/

It seems to me that this show, the new Boy George musical produced by Rosie O'Donnell has been very unfairly maligned in the press for reasons that have nothing to do with the show itself. In fact, the show is a lot of fun and very engaging with a very good score.

This is The Official Record. 2:24 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/theater-review-taboo-3-stars-out-of-4.html


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AIN'T IT GRAND?
External link: http://www.udayton.edu/~grandjur/recent/hnygjw.htm

I just completed a two week term as a New York Grand Juror. It was full time every day, and we heard dozens of cases. Unlike a trial jury that decides whether a defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, we merely decided whether each suspect was probably guilty or not, and therefore should be formally accused of a crime. I'd really love to talk more about it, but it's a felony to violate Grand Jury secrecy. I can say that the experience was very interesting, and that I was very impressed with everyone involved.

This is The Official Record. 2:18 PM
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2003/12/aint-it-grand.html


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