Farenheit 9/11 took #1 on Friday, with a very healthy $9k per theater. It beat out the ever so eloquent White Chicks, despite showing in 1/3 as many theaters. I'm going to see it in a little under an hour, so I'll be sure to give my thoughts on the subject when I get back. We're going to Carrabas for dinner tonight; Sangria here I come!

The movie was extremely powerful. There were many moments when I wanted to stand up and shout at the screen. Not anything in particular; just anger and helplessness. At one point, a soldier maimed in Iraq said that when he returned home, he was going to become extremely active in the Democratic party. It made me proud, and hopeful that with people like him, the Democrats might actually live up to his calling.

Michael Moore is a master moviemaker. He skillfully wove first-hand interviews with soldiers, parents, congressmen with TV footage of members of the Bush administration. Sure it was one-sided, but it was a scathing indictment of their policies and their decisions to abuse the memory of 9/11 and to lead our country into this reckless war. The administrations defense of their actions is pitiful. They continue to repeat lie after lie: "Saddam had illegal weapons, and he was prepared to use them against the United States", or "There was a relationship between Iraq and al Queda". To those of you who would claim that these are not lies, then please show that they are true. I was done taking Bush's word on anything a long time ago, and I can only hope that you dont' claim "well, they must know something that we don't, otherwise why would they make such a claim?"

It didn't actually rain here, but nature put on a fantastic light show off to the west of Port St. Lucie, here in Florida. Its quite difficult to capture lightning on film, especially digital film for that matter. This is my best capture out of about 30 attempts. I had my camera on top of the car to reduce shaking, that's the reflection you see in the bottom. I think it adds an interesting effect to the picture. I put the camera in manual mode, but I'm not sure I got the exposure length correct. In fact, I'm not even sure you can set the exposure length on my camera.

I heard about this on the radio this morning. A (non-engineering!) grad-student hooked up a chalk printer to a bike which can print a message that it receives via SMS. The purpose? Bikers will ride the sidewalks around the Republican National Convention and print messages that protesters send to them. How soon will it be before I can get one hooked up to the back of my car?

Here's a trick I'd like to share with everybody. Lets say you tell your favorite browser Mozilla Firefox to remember passwords, because you can't possibly be bothered to remember your own passwords. Well, you take this handy dandy bookmarklet, stick it in your bookmarks menu, and when the time comes simply hit the bookmark, and out pops your password!

View Hidden Passwords

There are many more useful bookmarklets at this site as well.

So, a week or two ago, I got the chance to get a gmail account, thanks to Clay's generosity. Once you have an account, you occasionally get the chance to invite other people to join the gmail beta. I've had 6 such opportunities in the past 2 days, and having given away 5, I don't know who to give the last one to!

Why would you want a gmail account, you ask? Well, it provides 1 gigabyte of email space for starters. It has the ability to filter messages, apply labels and detect spam. It doesn't show you any ads, except some small text ads to the side of your messages. It even has a printer-friendly mode with no ads whatsoever!

It still has a few rough edges, especially when it comes to handling contacts. But knowing Google, I'm sure that it'll only get better. Its amazingly complete for such a new and innovative service. The first person to leave a comment gets the account! So be sure to leave your email address.

Updated: Well, that didn't take long. I knew somebody would want it. So, don't bother asking for it anymore! I'll post again if I get any more to give away.

Updated: Gmail is expanding like crazy. I've got another 4 to give away. Any takers?

Kerry finally chooses a running mate:

"In my search for a vice-president, I considered many qualified men and women," Kerry said, announcing his decision at Boston University. "But one man stood apart from the madding crowd as brave, honest, and full of life. One man displayed a true desire to change America for the better -- not through political maneuvering, but through hard work.

This is the exact model that our current Vice President was chosen. Cheney was in charge of the search committee that selected Cheney himself for Bush 2000. Once again proving that we really are living in a parallel satirical universe!

3 Years ago today, Laura made me a very happy husband. Somehow she's put up with moving 3 times (a 4th on the way), moving to new cities, and my general messy and forgetful self. She definitely deserves way more flowers than she actually gets, not to mention all the Coach purses that wants. Its only going to get better from here. So, Happy Anniversay to us!

Over the past week, I hit quads twice while playing $0.50/$1 6 person holdem. On the first one, I got paid off pretty well. The second one less so. Hand histories are below.

Updated Jun 9 2004: Okay, so the it keeps on happening. I got quads twice last night. Once with 999 on the flop (I had K9s in the hole). I would've had them three times, but I folded 77 before the runner-runner 77 on the turn and river. That's poker though.

Disclaimer: As an arm-chair economist, chances are I have no idea what I'm talking about, but lets have a brief thought-experiment about the economics of oil production.

Fact #1: We are approaching the limits of current oil production.

Number of barrels per day in April 2004 (in thousands).

Country	Production	Capacity	Surplus capacity
Algeria	1,200	1,200	0
Indonesia	970	970	0
Iran	3,900	3,900	0
Kuwait	2,300	2,300	0
Libya	1,450	1,450	0
Nigeria	2,350	2,350	0
Qatar	760	850	90
Saudi Arabia	8,300	10,000 - 10,500	1,200 - 2,200
United Arab Emirates	2,120	2,500	380
Venezuela	2,450	2,450	0
Iraq	2,300	2,300	0
Crude oil total	28,100	30,270 - 30,770	2,170 - 2,670

Via: MSNBC: OPEC to raise quotas as oil stockpiles jump
Source: Energy Information Administration Short-Term Energy Outlook -- May 2004

Fact #2: There are many important uses of petroleum other than pumping it into our cars. Many drugs could not be developed or produced without the use of petroleum. Plastics permeate nearly every aspect of our modern lives.

So, considering that the demand for gasoline is relatively inelastic to begin with (it doesn't reduce much in response to price increases), any future growth of petroleum demand will most likely be met with steep price increases, as pictured in the tiny graph to the right. This is as opposed to more supply coming online as it becomes more profitable to sell the oil in a free market.

What does this all mean? Well, for one the oil situation isn't likely to get a whole lot better in the short term. (i.e. My vacation this summer is going to be very expensive). And unless petroleum suppliers start bringing new capacity online, or there is some breakthrough in pumping or refining technology, its not likely to get better in the long term either. We may be witnessing the start of the gasoline crunch. If we had some good national leadership, we probably would've already started a crash program to develop some sort of alternative energy source. There are some promising possibities in biodiesel and hydrogen but so far nothing has really caught on. But given the fact that there are many vitally important non-energy uses of petroleum, its equally important to devote future petroleum reserves to non-energy uses.

Unfortunately it wasn't me. It was this maniac who would raise, and reraise with things like a flush with a 5 kicker. It was the second time I've seen a royal flush in live play, and given this guys table image he got a decent amount of action with an A Q T of hearts board.

I did do pretty well at the table. I doubled up to $60 after about an hour of playing. I'm almost back up to $200. Hopefully this isn't just a streak but my actual poker playing ability, so when I hit $200 or so I can go up to $2/$4.

Boston Area Street Sweeper

BostonSweeper is a free service designed to save you money and prevent parking headaches by automatically e-mailing you reminders to move your car before the street sweeper comes.

I got my first email reminding me today to move my car. And thank goodness, because its on the wrong side! Now all I have to do is actually remember to move my car at some point.