"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen--I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unpricipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that its aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there is a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."
--Samantha Black Crow in "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman

We used to swap shots between drinks or drinks between shots.

Last night was movie night at Mike's (the owner of Hifi) place with Jesse and Aria. We watched "The Big Sleep" (the original with Bogart and Bacall). I'd been wanting to see that since I read the book a few years back and Mike happened to have it. I'm actually going to let him borrow my copy of the book next week since he hadn't read it. The movie was pretty much excellent. Bogart played Marlowe pretty much spot on the way I'd imagined him while reading. My favorite lines from the book were pretty much all in the movie but they did change the ending some and edit a few scenes to make there more of a love connection between Vivian and Marlowe than there was in the book. Overall, I thought it was fantastic though.
After the movie, we all went over to Hifi together and had a few drinks and Mike, Jesse, Stephen (from the Scrabble game the other night) played a few games of pool while Aria spent most of her time on the phone. We grabbed a cab and dropped Mike off and then headed back to Brooklyn where we went to the Country Club for a while. Jesse and Aria ran around and took photo booths while I sat at the bar and chatted with Reggie and this guy George about horror movies. At one point Jesse shot me with a water gun. Then we went home and called it a night. I stayed out entirely too late though. Movie night is supposed to an early night but last night was definitely not. Good times though.

Perfect DRM

This is an excellent article on Digital Rights Management. Everyone who has any interest in media, sharing, copyright protection et cetera should read it. It basically discusses the mistakes that the MPAA and RIAA have made in trying to protect their media and how they should take a hint from the book publishing industry in the way they deal with intellectual property protection. Good read.