Jason Clarke

Here are my picks for the upcoming week 4 of the NFL season.

Last week: 6-8 (yikes- how embarassing!)
Season to date: 27-16 - Good for 62%

Atlanta
Buffalo
Dallas
Kansas City
NY Jets
Carolina
San Diego
Houston
St. Louis
New England
Cleveland
Jacksonville
Seattle
Philadelphia (37)

Want to supply your own? Leave them in the comments!

Last year at this time, I reflected on my first anniversary of owning my mobile phone by providing some usage stats.

Now that I’ve owned the phone for two years, I thought it might be fun to compile the stats for this past year (2005-2006) and then compare them to last year’s. Here we go:

4953

Writing in The New York Times over the weekend, Jennifer Senior lays absolute waste to Louis Lapham’s new book, Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration, and in the process makes a truly fascinating and satisfying point about not just Lapham, but about a sad majority of President Bush’s harshest critics:

People who are serious about politics don’t just preen. They report, explain, explore contradictions, struggle with ideas, maybe even propose suggestions. If they do none of these things, they’re simply heckling, and if the best Lapham can do is come up with 50 inventive new ways to call Bush an imbecilic oligarch, that’s all he’s doing: heckling. Like his worst counterparts on the right, he compares those he doesn’t like to fanatics, as when he refers to David Frum and Richard Perle as “Mufti Frum” and “Mullah Perle,” adding, “Provide them with a beard, a turban and a copy of the Koran, and I expect that they wouldn’t have much trouble stoning to death a woman discovered in adultery with a cameraman from CBS News.” Possibly, but provide Lapham with a blond wig, stiletto pumps and a copy of “The Fountainhead,” and I suspect he wouldn’t look much different from Ann Coulter. He’s just another talk-radio host, really — only this time by way of Yale and Mensa.

(Via Glenn Reynolds)

I’m pleased to announce the launch of mobile.jasonclarke.org, the mobile-friendly edition of this very website.

The mobile market has taken some pretty signifigant leaps over the past year and I think it will break out in an even bigger way in 2007. That’s why I’m getting the jump today in experimenting with the process, benefits, and challenges associated with launching a mobile version of a website.

mobile.jasonclarke.org is a stripped-down, graphics-free, text only version of this site, with full posts and should read well on a mobile device such as a Blackberry, handset, smartphone, or etc. The site is essentially a web-based RSS feed, except much of the same metadata (about, copyright, search) present on the full version of jasonclarke.org.

To render the mobile edition, I’m taking a slightly non-optimal approach. That’s to say, rather than utilizing the existing content manager for this site (WordPress) and figuring a way to grab its data and display it on my mobile domain sans styles, instead I’ve opted to use a third-party service to grab my RSS feed, convert it to HTML format, and re-display back on the mobile site.

This approach presents two major drawbacks: One, the third-party service (the highly-recommened FeedDigest) I’m using does not update the mobile site instantly- there will be a lag time of anywhere from 15 minutes or more between when I publish a post and when it hits the mobile version. Secondly, because I’m not using my native content manager to display data on the mobile site, I can’t bring in helpful tools such as my archives and/or categories.

Obviously, my next step will be to overcome these disadvantages by integrating my content manager more fully with the mobile edition of my site. But for now, I’m pleased to be able to offer my urban-dwelling friends a chance to take this site with them wherever they go.

UPDATE: The mobile site has now moved to http://jasonclarke.org/m

Some books I’ve read lately, in approximate reverse chronological order:

Starlet, Robert B. Parker - 4 out of 5 stars My favorite Spenser novel so far. Again, a slow start builds to a thrilling, surprising, and organic conclusion. The fun of Spenser, combined with the constant literarly jabs, plus a usable plot make this an outstanding read. I’m reading two more Spenser books right now.

The Widening Gyre, Robert B. Parker 3 1/2 out of 5 stars A short Spenser novel, but a good one. Like the Flynn series, Parker seems to trust the reader enough to not focus obsessively on giant plot/set pieces- instead, we get to keep our focus on Spenser, which can be most enjoyable, if at times static.

Thin Air, Robert B. Parker - 3 1/2 out of 5 stars My first introduction to the Spenser series of mystery novels and my first experience with Parker. At first I started off groaning at the dialog but once it got going- and it took a bit- I was captivated by the thorough investment in the character and enjoyed the contrast of the apparent cliche of the character with the countless clever references. By the end, I had lodged several similarities between Parker and McDonald, though Parker’s Spenser and McDonald’s Flynn are nearly polar opposites.

Flynn’s In, Gregory McDonald 3 1/2 out of 5 stars The original Flynn book. A midly interesting plot, but Flynn and his pal Cokie shine as uniques in a world of corruption. Worth the read, for sure.

Flynn’s World, Gregory McDonald 3 1/2 out of 5 stars A newer Flynn book- and a good one. Once again, the character crackles while the story feels limp and almost pointless. Still though- great character.

Digital Fortress, Dan Brown - 3 out of 5 stars Slightly better than Deception Point, but still long and exhausting near the end, this book foreshadowed Brown’s action+conspiracy+gadget template but didn’t reach the heights of DaVinci.

Confess, Fletch, Gregory McDonald 4 1/2 out of 5 stars A most unknown and underrated Fletch book- my favorite of the series.

Fletch, Gregory McDonald 4 out of 5 stars An unmissable classic of the detective genre. Harder, sharper, and much more dramatic than the (classic) movie, this is how it’s done.

Deception Point, Dan Brown 2 1/2 out of 5 stars Brown’s most movie-like, least interesting book.

Over at ActiveTopic, my hobbyist blog network site, I’ve announced a new direction for Moorelies.com, the site that I founded and ran from April 2003 through today.

Today, I made the decision to send off one of my oldest friends. Moorelies.com, the political weblog that began in April 2003 and which launched a bestselling book on its way to 5 million visits, is now officially out of the hands of me and ActiveTopic and is now an entirely separate entity.

Chris Hata and Mike Faulkingham, the two bloggers who helped relaunch the site with me this past July, are taking over the reigns of the site and I think it’s in great hands now. Chris is a bright young college student and Mike is a bit more seasoned in terms of years, but they’re both excellent writers and well deserving of readership and success.

It’s not easy to let go a product that I built- figuratively and literally- up from nothing during a warm spell in the early spring of 2003. Though, while it may not be easy, it certainly is time. Much has changed for me since I began the site, and I find myself now with, graciously, little time or energy to run the site and with personal and professional interests that lie elsewhere.

I leave Moorelies.com in the capable hands of Chris and Mike and I hope you’ll join them as they continue to make it a success by their own rules, with their own words. Best of luck, Chris and Mike.

Here are my picks for the upcoming week 3 of the NFL season.

Last week: 11-2 (2nd place in my pool-lost in the MNF points tiebreaker)
Season to date: 21-8 - Good for 72%!

Buffalo
Green Bay
Indianapolis
Tennessee
Minnesota
Cincinatti
Tampa Bay
Houston (upset of the week)
Baltimore
Arizona
Philadephia (lock of the week)
Seattle
New England
Atlanta

Want to supply your own? Leave them in the comments!

While browsing my local university’s bulletin board, I noticed this line in an ad for the campus Amnesty International chapter:

If you want to take an active stance against human rights then this group is for you!

We gave up on the summer of junky movies and turned to Blockbuster’s cheapest DVD rental plan instead. For just $8/month, we get two movies delivered and 2 more in-store rentals for free. Thankfully, we’ve uncovered some real gems using the service lately. Here’s a rundown:

Brick - 3 1/2 out of 5 - Joseph Gordon-Leavitt carries this bizarre, amazing, dark, comic, and inventive modern noir tale set against the backdrop of high school.

Lonesome Jim - 4 1/2 out of 5 - My pick for the most criminally under-rated film of 2005. Casey Affleck gives another great performance in this hilariously bittersweet tale of a small-town family. Liv Tyler is as good as always and some excellent supporting performances, crack writing, and wise pacing make this movie a rare, totally enjoyable and redeeming night in a pretend-land that is cringe-inducingly close to reality.

Pride & Prejudice- 4 out of 5 - The millionth re-telling of one of my favorite books, I hesitated to watch this really beautifully-shot period piece, thinking that the classic BBC mini-series was the final say on the material. I was really wrong, as this version stands on its own as a well-written interpretation. Possibly- possibly- better than the BBC mini-series.

Inside Man - 3 1/2 out of 5 - Denzel Washington and Chiwetel Ejiofor crackle in this engrossing, truly original caper. Forget the mediocre or pandering reviews and make this a double feature with my next recommendation.

Confidence - 3 1/2 out of 5 - A slick, intelligent thriller that will keep you guessing from the first scene to the very end. Plus some great performances from stellar actors like Dustin Hoffman, Paul Giammatti, Ed Burns, and Rachel Weisz.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic - 3 1/2 out of 5 One of the filthiest comedy concert movies ever made, but one of the funniest in recent memory as well. Don’t watch this before familiarizing yourself with Siliverman first- then, watch it soon after.