There are so many films I want to see over this 4th of July long weekend. Descriptions courtesy of my local Landmark theaters. If you're in the greater Berkeley/Oakland area and care for a movie buddy, contact me.

The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat)

This astonishing, epic film of good and evil takes place in a mythic time not before or after but outside our world. Made by and about the Inuit peoples of the Canadian arctic, it tells the story of a crime that ruptures the trust within a closely knit group, and how justice is achieved and healing begins. Based on collected oral versions of an Inuit legend from several elders and filmed as a collaborative expression of the group's memory. Among the lavish praise for this unforgettable film is the New York Times: "not merely an interesting document from a far-off place; it is a masterpiece. It is, by any standard, an extraordinary film, a work of narrative sweep and visual beauty that honors the history of the art form even as it extends its perspective."

Record heat. This has glaciers of snow.

Notorious C.H.O.

The movie version of Margaret Cho's critically-acclaimed stand-up show (from her 2001-2002 tour) features new takes on everything from feminism to self-esteem, with hilarious detours through the worlds of porn and S&M. Filmed at Seattle's Paramount Theatre, Cho's raw, honest and unapologetic performance brings the Seattle crowd to their feet for a rousing standing ovation.

Cho = laughter.

Men In Black II

Agents J and K (Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones) are back for more battles with alien rabble-rousers who take the form of a host of estrogen-charged extraterrestrials. These aliens are led by an arch nemesis played by Lara Flynn Boyle. Of course, the notorious worm creatures from the original film will return to wreak havoc as well.

Swashbuckling fun.

But I miss Linda Fiorentino. 

The Powerpuff Girls Movie

The popular animated TV series makes the jump to the big screen as the world's youngest superheroes fight to spoil the schemes of the evil monkey, Mojo Jojo.

Guilty pleasure. Tee hee! 

Pumpkin

Perky, perfect Carolyn (Christina Ricci) and her sorority sisters plan to win Sorority of the Year by coaching mentally challenged athletes. When Carolyn is assigned to coach Pumpkin (Hank Harris) she's initially terrified but soon sees in him a gentle humanity that touches her soul. To the horror of her friends and Pumpkin's overprotective mother (Brenda Blethyn), Carolyn falls in love.

Ricci.

Cinema Paradiso: The New Version

This beloved Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Languge Film is the story of a famous Italian film director who returns home to a Sicilian village for the first time after almost 30 years away. At home he is re-connected with the life and people he once knew and revisits the poignant memories formed in childhood. For him the journey brings back the highlights and tragedies that shaped his life and inspired him to pursue his dream. Giuseppe Tornatore's "director's cut" features digitally restored picture and sound and over a half-hour of never-before-seen footage.

in a newly restored movie palace.

Y Tu Mamá También

Set against the lush backdrop of director Alfonso Cuarón's native Mexico, this sexy road trip movie stars Diego Luna (Before Night Falls) and Gael García Bernal (Amores Perros) as teenage best friends. Their lives, ruled by raging hormones and a headlong rush into adulthood, are interrupted by a stunning Spaniard named Luisa (Maribel Verdú). Fueled by alcohol and her beauty, the boys ask Luisa to join them on a road trip to a remote and romantic beach, though their destination becomes the mysterious place where innocence, sexuality and friendships collide.

I stopped reading after "sexy."

The Emperor's New Clothes

In this fanciful take on French history, a secret cabal of loyalists hatches an ingenious plot: Emperor Napoleon will return to Paris, while a double takes his place in exile. Trading identities with a dissolute sailor, Napoleon is spirited back to France to reclaim his throne. Yet, the plan goes awry when the double refuses to stop playing, thereby stranding the former Emperor in Paris. Friendless and alone, he meets and falls for a beautiful widow (Iben Hjejle). Ian Holm portrays both the humbled Emperor and his grandiose imposter.

Holm. Alternate history. Liberal theft from The Prince and the Pauper, Le Comte de Monte Cristo.

If a posting is a zip-zip, should it just quietly fold its tent, wonder off into the desert - the dog seeking an elegant death? ... Geez, only the strongest and most confident personality could survive this with ego unscathed.

Some posts don't find an audience right away. So don't go into withdrawal.

Can you imagine how rich blogspace will be in five years? A billion posts?

Automated thread discovery may be required to find your way through your own posts, let alone the whole blogsphere.

With automation, human volition, paying attention by linking and chiming in, will become relatively scarce and more precious than ever.

Conversations may go on for a very long time, even lifetimes.

Talmud. Asimov's Psychohistory. Threadneedle.

Olivier Travers' Web Voice on Powermingle:

"A great network is a valuable asset: It secures a steady flow of opportunities - it's the typical way of finding a new job - and it's a personally stimulating way to get to know a lot of nice, interesting people. It is therefore hardly surprising that building a good network is important to us all."

This networking site uses .Net Passport to manage sign-on (here's a directory with more sites doing so). Powermingle takes a different approach than Ryze: they take a long time explaining how great they are, instead of letting you "taste" and use the site as fast as possible. But Powermingle might be more of a competitor to Meetup than Ryze, as an online complement to offline events. And since the web is a fun place, Powermingle's CEO is giving Ryze a try.

It is very early, lots of room to serve different psychographics. Experiment with features cautiously until you get exponential uptake. community sites have been tried and most have died. We'll see how well Ryze and Powermingle do.

My spot @Ryze.

Simple is good.

Stephen's home page guides you to Stephen Voss Design, where "as a web designer and developer, I pride myself on creating professional, usable, and unique sites for my clients that meet their business needs and exceed their expectations."

Or to Stephen Voss Photography, where he creates "pictures that meet and exceed my client's expectations, often under tight deadlines and in strenuous conditions. I specialize in the outdoor/nature, documentary, editorial, travel and photojournalism fields."

The mild two color scheme makes his colorful photography and screenshots jump off the screen. He is selling his keen eye and this helps make that point.

His information architecture is also clean.

The images sub-site has editorial, documenary, outdoors, bio, and contact sections.

The design sub-site has portfolio, services, FAQ, resume, clients, and contact sections.

Note the parallelism. And the order: from "What you get" to "Why me" to "Take Action".

The contact pages have the same form on them, but they preserve your local context (image or design) and quietly let Stephen know which side you're calling from. email, phone, postal info all prominent.

The two sections fit the different buyers' needs and buying processes for the two businesses. Photography is richly visual with a short, personal/professional bio. The design portfolio offers up lots of screenshots with tour navigation and narration. The design FAQ brings you into his process, common client concerns, business relationships, etc. In both sites you get the comfortable sense he's done the job before and you can trust him.

Integrity is about everything fitting together, being of one cloth.

When one person offers two professions, the design challenge of serving each profession while preserving your identity and integrity is no small thing.

Stephen's site does this superbly.

[aka bloggers for hire]

Denis writes from Tassajara with news that Philip Whalen, another dharma lion, passed away this morning at Laguna Honda Hospital in S.F.

[aka obituaries a la blog via homo ludens]

The thinking-out-loud style of writing a K-log journal of project activities allows every part of the process to remain available during and after the project. This allows detailed review and enables latecomers to the project to get up to speed. The dead-end attempts that provide the best opportunity for learning are documented and kept for others to learn from.

more great language for your team briefing...

Here's a little slide show you can use.

Klogging 101: What, Why, and How.

Talking points for 15-20 minutes.

Not included, but may be useful: a demo session.

• Bring your favorite blogging tools (some of the slides mention UserLand products).
• Write to the web
• Open an edit page.
• Write a post.
• Publish it.
• See the results on the web.
• Comment on incoming news and data
• Look at the news aggregator.
• Comment on one.
• Publish your comment and see the results.

Suggestions? AIM Y! @Ryze

Radio UserLand has an optional RadioPoint tool that converts outlines into slide shows. Over the last month I've tweaked the default template to my liking. Here is my #template.txt file (just save to your "www\slides" folder after installing the tool) and my "Klogging 101: What, Why, and How" presentation.

What I tweaked:

• Removed white space from the top
• Four zones on the page:
• slide title on the left
• slide body
• slide navigation on the right.
• footer with navigation stuff duplicated for when you scroll the slide down.
• The horizontal rules = hotlinks to the next page
• Adjusted type styles to my taste
• Set the blockquote style to indent less on the left, nothing on the right, and to get smaller with each indent.
• border: 0.05em #003; MARGIN-RIGHT: 10px; font-size: smaller

RadioPoint wishes:

1. Build Speaker Notes
• Have an alternate rendering with hidden comments rendered
• This would let me write a bullet, followed by what I'd say to that bullet. Build Slide Show would ignore the comments, and Build Speaker Notes would include the comments with their own style, using a different (black and white) template.
2. A slide show table of contents.
• The show is a folder with slide html files starting with slide0001.html.
• Add an index.html with slide0001's title, and a list of all the titles in the show linked to their pages. Helpful for navigating longer presentations. Don't change the last slide wraparound link to the first. Just a "contents" macro linking to index.html.  
3. An alternate template for slide show home pages.
• Useful to lay things out differently on opening and closing and occassionally sectional slides in the middle of the show.
4. GoToSlideNumber macro
• So I can create on one slide linking me to another. Argument should either be the slide number (user counts from the start) or relative (+2 goes forward two slides, -4 back two slides).