News You Can Bruise for 2005 July 4

(2) Mon Jul 04 2005 13:51 PST Unidentified Stationary Objects #2: This one's in Iran. Oil slick? Meteor impact crater? Parked alien spacecraft? Another weird volcano? I can't see this one in other sattelite photos so it's more likely to be a transient phenomenon.

(7) Mon Jul 04 2005 21:09 PST: Today we saw two similar movies, Double Indemnity and The Lavender Hill Mob. Double Indemnity was an amazing movie: original, strong theme, good acting from everybody. One thing I noticed is that Fred MacMurray is basically a more versatile version of Will Ferrell. Try it out sometime and you'll see that every one of Fred MacMurray's roles is one that Will Ferrell would like to have, and you'd think it would be great, but he'd probably mess it up somehow. I'm not a big Will Ferrell fan but watching Fred MacMurray actually makes me feel better about watching Will Ferrell.

The Lavender Hill Mob was okay but definitely the low point of the Alec Guinness comedies from Ealing. I believe we've seen them all now so I can say that. It started losing my interest after the caper was pulled off, and the ending was an interminable Laurel and Hardy-type chase sequence which made me not like the movie. But if I ignore that part it was definitely enjoyable. I was hoping there'd be more of a mob.