My new toy — I finally admitted that I needed a road bike when Erica kicked my ass on every hill during our last ride together.
I rode a closeout 2004 Cannondale T800, the Trek 1000, the Allez Sport, and the Allez Elite. I was also interested in the Felt F80 but didn’t get a chance […]
Welcome to my all-new, all-not-broken website! I’m currently using Dreamhost until it’s decided what will become of the venerable zeppox.ath.cx. Needless to say, some site bits might not be working quite right for a little while.
Update: Now’s as good as time as any to say goodbye to my old http://zeppox.ath.cx/~jackson/ URL — So if you […]
We went out to Lake Crabtree County Park and did a practice swim for the Triangle Triathlon next month. To my surprise I swam the 1/2 mile course in 13:20 and 14:20 (we did the course twice). I was expecting about 15:00 to 16:00 so I’m really psyched that I might actually be able to […]
I Know This Much Is True has been sitting in my pile for a few months now — my mom sent it to me to read after she got it from my aunt. My expectations weren’t particulalrly high, though I’m not sure why — but once I started reading I found it increasingly hard to […]
Reading over the AFI 100 greatest movie quotes of all time I realized why I loved Casablanca so much — there are seven quotes from the movie in the list. I’m glad to see that they didn’t stick to dramatic lines, the comedies find their way into the list as well (see #79):
Striker: […]
Compared to Batman Begins, this Batman is pretty slow and stiff (I bet that batsuit weighed a ton). I love the look of this movie: the batmobile, Gotham City, the Joker. Michael Keaton does a decent job of playing Bruce Wayne but can’t really pull of Batman. He’s just not enough of a presence and gets swallowed […]
I liked Christian Bale as Batman, but a bit less as Bruce Wayne. I know he’s new to the superhero game, but don’t you think you should be a little more circumspect with your secret identity? Also, his growly Batman voice needs some work. Michael Caine was great as Alfred. The batmobile was a lot cooler in […]
I was looking over the results from the 2004 Triangle Triathlon in order to assuage my fears that I won’t be able to finish in under two hours. I’m pretty sure I can do it if a few things happen:
I don’t take another three weeks off from training I don’t waste all my energy on the […]
The only thing I knew about George Patton before watching this movie was that he was somehow related to tanks and the Battle of the Bulge. Having admitted that I know very little about the man, I felt like Patton strove to show both the positive (his tactical knowledge) and the negative (his abrasiveness) in […]
In an interesting twist of fate, the JCDL conference has been (or will be) hosted in the three cities (or at least right next to them) that I’ve lived in since my family left California when I was 5. Tucson (ages 5-15). Denver (Boulder, ages 15-24). Chapel Hill (Durham, age 24-present).
I think it’s a testament to how much I miss living in the west and in Colorado in particular that everytime someone I know travels there, I get all excited and grill them on where they spent their time, where they ate, even where they drove. I like living in North Carolina and Durham, I […]
Better written than The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons (a book which I read in one night only because I disliked it so much and wanted to finish the damn thing), to which it will certainly be compared. Really they don’t have much in common, The Dante Club is fairly straight literary historical fiction […]
Living in North Carolina has given me a new perspective on hurricanes (I was waiting for the bus when out first hit), which probably made this book all the more engrossing. When I first started reading Isaac’s Storm, I was mostly annoyed by the author’s constant recriminations against the hubris of the era (ca. 1900) […]
I remember learning to line dance in middle school, in particular I remember the electric slide and something that required country music (Billy Ray Cyrus to be exact). In high school my spanish class learned an amusing new dance from Spain called the Macarena (we also watched a little film from Mexico called El Mariachi […]
There are movies you appreciate for the way they are made or acted, yet would never want to see again. I’m going to add Midnight Cowboy to my list of such movies. The performances are fantastic. I usually loathe Jon Voight but he’s fantastic as Joe Buck. I find it a little hard to believe […]
We accidentally started this movie at the half-way point (I hate DVDs that are poorly labeled) and didn’t even notice till it ended rather suddenly. Starting over from the start didn’t improve things much. It’s possible that the book Oliver Twist is as poorly plotted as this movie, but I doubt it (I have more […]