February 2001

My first question was, it wasn't too bad in Portland, but was it worse elsewhere? My sister phoned from Seattle WA to say that she and Bill did not suffer any ill effects, other than having to evacuate their workplace as a precautionary measure. The initial American news reports talked about Washington state, but didn't tell me anything about the next-door Canadian province, British Columbia. Luckily, the CBC News website let me know that our friends in Vancouver and Victoria were probably safe.

• CNN: Quake leaves 17,000 without power in U.S. Northwest
• CBC: State of emergency declared in Seattle following quake
• CBC News In Depth: Earthquakes
• The Richter Scale

Portland got off lightly this time, but the event has the city assessing its quake safety readiness. There are many vulnerable old brick buildings, bridges and elevated freeways downtown. Having to worry about The Big One is the price of the mild winters here, I guess.

• The Oregonian: Prepare for earthquake or other emergency

• Hockey Day in Canada
  Video clips and transcripts of broadcast features
• CBC's Hockey Day is no rinky-dink, one-time shot
• Hockey Day scores with assists from MacLean, Cherry
• Hockey Day In Canada: What does the game mean to you?
  A CBC Sounding Board discussion

I started looking into a new computer in late January, after finally giving up trying to revive "Toshi", who in late November had succumbed to a motherboard problem with the video display (the most frequent cause of death for laptops). It became apparent that local retailers in Portland only had older technology in stock (their fastest available chip was 850 MHz), so I turned to the Web. As a result, this has probably been my most educated and best computer purchase. Links I found helpful:

• InfoHQ.com: Laptop Buying Guide
  This is a very down-to-earth, no-holds-barred explanation of what to look for. Particularly helpful to me was the page that categorizes CPUs as "Current", "On the Way Out" and "Obsolete", and the explanation that a notebook has a useful life of about 3 years before it reaches its salvage value. It helped me come to terms with the fact that it would be best to let Toshi go peacefully rather than make further repair attempts.
• ZD Net: Notebook Buyer's Guide
• C|Net: Notebooks
• Understanding notebook specs made easy!!
• Intel Pentium III Processor Performance Brief

My past computers and what I have learned from them:

• Macintosh LC: "Elsie" (1992)
  16 MHz, 2 MB HDD 512 KB RAM
  My first computer! It was on sale (soon to be discontinued, as I later found out), a desktop unit. Why a Mac? It is what my computing friends the O'Brien brothers had. Soon thereafter, I started working at real jobs where a) I spent long hours at the office, and so couldn't use a computer that was sitting on a desk at home; and b) the workplace domination of PCs and Microsoft began to take hold. If I put files from home on a floppy, I couldn't work on them at the office, and vice versa. Mac software was (and continues to be) more expensive than the PC version.
  Lesson: Mobile people need mobile computers. And sorry Steve Jobs, but PCs are the way to go.
• IBM ThinkPad 701: "Madame Butterfly" (1995)
  75 MHz, 720 MB HDD, 8 MB RAM
  With this unit, I crossed over to the PC "Dark Side" and also joined the legions of laptop computing road warriors (actually there weren't that many -- laptops were very expensive back then). The unique "butterfy" keyboard allowed this unit to be small, but it was also too fragile. It wasn't much longer for this world once injured in an accident I documented on my Runker Room Debut page. IBM has discontinued this design.
  Lesson: If buying a laptop, get something sturdy.

  Moores Law (1965): Computer processing power will double every 18 months Gordon Moore was a co-founder of chipmaker Intel

• Toshiba Satellite Pro 460CDT: "Toshi" (1997)
  166 MHz, 2 GB HDD, 32 MB RAM
  This unit was built like a tank, and was about as heavy! But that was the state of affairs back then. It served me well for 3 years, the average useful lifespan of a laptop. The only downside was that I bought a 166 MHz version, when the 233 MHz version was available. Shortly thereafter, the 333 MHz version was released, and the price of a 166 MHz unit dropped significantly.
  Lesson: Buy the fastest processor available, or push for a discount on older technology.

• Languages mean job opportunities! Gladiator's female lead Connie Nielsen knows seven! She is the second Danish actress we have seen in an American film lately (the other was Iben Hjejle in High Fidelity last month)
• The more things change ... Ancient Rome employed people from throughout its empire: Spanish generals, African and German gladiators. The parallels with modern-day America are obvious.

• Profile: Greg Higgins
  Chef supports Oregon growers and promotes responsible and sustainable farming practices. His favorite restaurant in the world is Ryutei in Kyushu, Japan, for its "mind-boggling" kaiseiki-ryouri, a traditional, formal meal based on nature and the seasons.

Dorami-chan rented this video thinking it would be a safe courtroom drama antidote for the scare What Lies Beneath gave her, but the actual documentary film footage of Nazi concentration camps entered as evidence during the trial proved to be more horrific than the special effects ghost scenes in WLB. The video format we saw is just over two hours long; as a television miniseries it originally played over four hours -- we saved a lot of commercial time!

Nuremberg ends with a character saying (something like), "What we have done here will prevent war atrocities from happening again." Unfortunately history has proven that statement wrong: Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo. Given that the United States had such a prominent role in the Nuremberg tribunal, it is ironic that today it was reluctant to ratify the establishment of an International Criminal Court, a new global institution dedicated to handling cases of genocide and war crimes. (Eventually it did, on the 31 December 2000 deadline, with specific reservations)

• Coalition for an International Criminal Court
  Though called for in the 1948 Genocide Convention, efforts to establish a permanent court have been delayed for decades by the Cold War and refusal of governments to accept an international legal jurisdiction
• Facing the World Court
  Washington Post editorial position on the establishment of a world court
• UNA-USA and the International Criminal Court
  The United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan national organization dedicated to enhancing U.S. participation in the United Nations system
• International Court of Justice
  The principal judicial organ of the United Nations set up in 1945 to replace the Permanent Court of International Justice (1922-1946).

This was director Zemeckis' "keep busy" project while Tom Hanks was losing weight for the second half of the filming of his current hit Cast Away. Maybe his divided attention accounts for the goofs in WLB.

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(09 February 2001)

• 2001 NHL All-Star Game
  The greatest current players in the "Coolest Game" got together in Denver CO for the 51st NHL All-Star Game. Dorami-chan got to watch her favorite player, Paul Kariya, just back from an injury and in a setting that suits his game perfectly. He made a nice pass to set up a goal in the first period, but the big story was former Edmonton Oiler Bill Guerin, who scored a hat trick to earn the Most Valuable Player award.
  • AdCritic: Powerade: School Bus
    My favorite ad of the broadcast. This is how taiko groups should get psyched up!

  North America prevailed 14-12 over the World Team in an all-offence contest that bore little resemblance to how hockey is really played, especially come playoff time. The All-Star Game is one of the few occasions the NHL gets national coverage in the United States, but this kind of play isn't going to attract the attention of Americans. More of them watched the premiere of the XFL -- football WWF style.

• Mochitsuki 2001
  A staple Japanese New Year food is mochi, rice pounded into a sticky, chewy mass. Mochitsuki - mochi making - was historically part of getting ready for new year celebrations. These days in Japan people buy prepared mochi at the grocery store, but here in North America, Nikkei communities are keeping the mochitsuki tradition alive. This year's event was much like last year's iteration. Dorami-chan got to try her hand at mochi pounding. Portland Taiko played a short set, including Onkochishin, a song about the culture gap between first- and second (and beyond)-generation immigrants. Storyteller Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo's performance was slightly darker than last year's -- a recounting of the bullying he experienced as a child because of his appearance, which ends on a upbeat note when he and the bully find commmon ground.