From michael, here is the list of all the open questions on "Veronica Mars." Some of these will obviously not be dealt with this season (for example, we haven't seen a single shot of Veronica's mom this season, so it would be odd for her to show up now), but we figure a good portion of them will be resolved in the two remaining episodes. Have we missed anything? Leave a comment and let me know.

bus crash
-what was the motive?
-who put the rat under the seat, why?
-who detonated the bomb?

kendal
-what is she doing with liam fitzpatrick?
-why is she keeping a separate house?
-what was on the hdd?
-did she play a role in the bus crash?

cassidy
-why does he have intimacy issues?
-how will his business partnership work-out?
-who was sally?

aaron
-will he be convicted?
-what role does he play in everything?
-how does his cell-mate fit in?

curly
-why was veronica's name on his hand?
-who killed him?

woody
-what secret is he hiding?
-how did the girl end up passed out in his hotel room?

lucky
-what does he know about woody?
-what did he hope to gain from stalking woody's family?
-what is his relationship to the mannings?

jackie/terrance
-who outed terrance's gambling, why?
-who planted the explosives in terrance's garage?

meg/the mannings
-what is wrong with that family?
-why did meg want the baby raised by duncan?
-why was meg's sister trapped in the closet?
-what was written in the note meg gave duncan?

-does veronica really have chlamydia, from whom?
-how will the PCHers/fitzpatricks gang war resolve?
-will lam stay sheriff?
-who stole cliff's notes?
-where is veronica's mom?
-who is the rapist at hearst?

The main mystery of the season is the bus crash. michael and I came up with a pretty compelling solution ot that mystery last night, but I don't want to post it here for fear of spoiling people.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 27 April 2006 at 10:10 AM

I wonder if the hiring of Tony Snow as White House Press Secretary will drive home the connection between Fox News and the GOP? It will certainly be harder to argue that the network doesn't have a bias when the former host of Fox News Sunday -- Fox's Sunday morning political round-up -- has been tapped to join the administration. Not exactly a nonpartisan move.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 26 April 2006 at 8:13 AM

So I've started watching "Big Love" on HBO. This is the show on HBO about the polygamist. It doesn't paint a pretty picture of polygamy. All the wives seem rather unhappy and the husband seems like he doesn't have a good handle on his three families (although I guess he would argue that he only has one family). But it does make for compelling drama, so if you have HBO I recommend you add it to your schedule. If you don't have HBO, try your favorite bittorrent site.

Another interesting thing about "Big Love" is that they seem to have borrowed all the teenage actors from "Veronica Mars." The oldest daughter on "Big Love" is played by Amanda Seyfried who played Lily Kane in he first season of VM. Her best friend is played by Tina Majorino, who guests as Mac on VM. And her brother's friend is played by Kyle Gallner, who plays Beaver on VM. It's just a bit weird.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 25 April 2006 at 5:01 PM

As some of you know, I'm not the biggest fan of Lost these days. I strongly feel that the writers and producers have no idea what they are doing with that show. Of course, I haven't seen the show except in bits and pieces this season. Based on this, you might surmise that I'm not the biggest fan of JJ Abrams, the producer of Lost. However, I'm pretty excited that JJ Abrams has been tapped to direct the next Star Trek feature film. I think he'll bring fresh ideas and a fresh perspective to what has recently felt like a worn-out, tired franchise. For that same reason, I'm glad to see that Rick Berman, the long-time Trek producer, is not involved in this new project. Star Trek needs new people and new visions if it wants to successfully transition from its TV series successes (TNG) and failures (Enterprise). Abrams will bring vision in spades.

The new movie "will focus on the early days of James T. Kirk and Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and their first mission in space." This is an idea that's been floating around nearly as long as they've been making Star Trek movies. After the somewhat unsuccessful first Star Trek movie, it was proposed that a Star Fleet Academy movie be made that involved the characters from the original series, but featured younger actors. Which sounds just like what we're getting. An although the concept is an old, it's one that I think will succeed. The recent movies have felt too much like ego boosters for the former TV show casts. (At this stage Data has explored his emotions on screen more than anyone I've ever met has done in real life.) This new concept will, I hope, blend what I liked about Enterprise -- fewer gadgets and technical mumbo-jumbo -- with established characters that fans are familiar with.

I have high hopes for this movie.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 24 April 2006 at 10:19 PM

The game last night was great. Albert's HR was the 1,000th hit of his career and the Cardinals pounded on the Cubs. The image above is a composite of a bunch of shots I took from my seat at the game. There are more shots from last night's game on flickr.

While the game was great, I'm still not sold on the new Busch Stadium. Before last night I was on the fence regarding it. And while I'm still reserving final judgment until the construction is complete, I am now leaning toward not liking the new stadium very much. While I think the stadium is rather attractive, I do not find it to be very fan friendly. I was sitting in section 265 last night. Third base side, loge level: not exactly primo seats. And yet you couldn't go anywhere without having to show your ticket. If you wanted to use a restroom that didn't have a huge queue, you needed to go up or down a level. If you wanted food from one of the standard concessions, you needed to go up or down a level. And going up or down was a pain, as it involves climbing lots of stairs. And nothing is well labeled. Jeremy and I made the mistake of trying to take the wrong staircase down from the terrace level back to the loge level. There was no sign indicating that this was the case, but unless you were a member of the "Red Bird Club," that particular staircase didn't have access to the loge level. So back up we went.

I'm hoping that when the construction completes more options will open up on the upper levels, especially the loge level. But until then, I 'd recommend that you buy your food at the ground level before making your way up to your seats.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 22 April 2006 at 1:14 PM

So I'm still undecided about the new Busch Stadium. It's still a work in progress and I think that affected my take on it. The main problem I had was that I didn't have a good view of any of the scoreboards, so it was tough to keep track of balls and strikes. This is probably because they don't have a scoreboard installed on the third base side of the stadium yet and the upper deck blocked my view of the main scoreboard and I was sitting beneath the first base scoreboard. So that was my main complaint.

The park itself has a different feel from the old Busch. While much has been made of the openness of the new stadium, I didn't get that impression at all. Just the opposite, in fact. In the old Busch there was a great deal of light and air let into the concourse as the sides were wide open. The new stadium is wedged up against the highway and the lower-level concourse feels like it is in a cave. Admittedly, the concourse is much wider and easier to move through than the hallways of the old Busch. And there is more variety in the concession options, at least on the lower level. Of course, the prices are ridiculous. My dad is a fan of the pitching and batting games out in center field. Personally, I wasn't keen to part with a dollar to test my pitching prowess, but to each his own.

It may be that I just need to get used to the new environment. I'll certainly have plenty of opportunity: I'll be at tonight's game against the Cubs and a game the following weekend against the Nationals. Then I'll be seeing the Cardinals play the Reds for the second time in early June.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 21 April 2006 at 8:36 AM

I have the best job in America according to Money Magazine. In terms of "growth, pay, stress-levels and other factors," Software Engineer is the top job in the US. Runner ups include college professors and financial advisors.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 19 April 2006 at 10:12 PM

The movie critics don't seem so keen on Lucky Number Slevin, but I thought it was great. It's fast paced with lots of twists and turns. You spend the whole movie wonder who works for whom and how everything fits together. Then things come together and it's awesome. Roger Ebert complained on his show that he thought he'd been misled by some of the stuff they told, and therefore had trouble putting the pieces to together. I think he didn't give Lucky Number Slevin a fair shake both while watching it and while reviewing it. I highly recommend it.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 19 April 2006 at 12:10 AM

I'm pretty enamored with NPR's Mixed Signals blog. It's a great mix of insider information, news, and insight. That's pretty much all you can ask for from a blog.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 12 April 2006 at 7:46 PM

I guess I should go ahead and post about this. A few weeks ago, the desktop computer I bought for about $250 three years started freezing up. At first it happened once every couple of days, but as time went on the frequency increased until it would lock up two or three times per day. This is, obviously, less than ideal and I decided to do something about it. Having decided that I had more than gotten my value out of my old PC, I decided to bite the bullet and see what the whole mac thing was all about. Since I already have a decent laptop, I decided to get a Mac mini.

The mini came last week and so far I'm perfectly happy with it. True, I haven't done much more than browse with it, but it does that admirably well. And while it took a while to get used to the non-Windowsness of OS X, I seem to have adapted fairly quickly. So far so good, anyway. But if you mac users have any tips or not to miss features you'd like to point out, please do so.

Comments: 7 Posted by david on 10 April 2006 at 7:45 PM

JMW Turner is pretty popular these days. Last year, the British public voted his "Fighting Temeraire" as the best painting ever. And now one of his paintings, "Giudecca, La Donna Della Salute and San Giorgio," has sold for a record $35.8 million, more than twice its estimate. Just for the record, I've been on the Turner bandwagon for years and have had a print of "The Burning of the Houses of Parliament" in my living room since I lived in Apartment 12 more than three years ago. I'm glad to see so many others agreeing with me on this.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 7 April 2006 at 9:55 PM

Spanish wines are all the rage these days. The aficionados believe that bargains can be found in Spain and much is being made of the Rioja wines. However, if you had asked me a week ago for my take on the Spanish wines, I wouldn't have been able to recommend them. True, I've had a stellar, inexpensive sparkling Spanish wine (NV Segura Viudas Cava Brut Reserva, $10) that was made in the traditional French Champagne style and compares favorably with the French Champagnes, which are normally > $30. But the table reds had been rather disappointing. I've had the '01 Torre Muga that everyone loves (the NY Times gave it 3.5 stars and their top rating in a Rioja evaluation and Robert Parker gave it 95 points) and a well respected '02 Juan Gil Jumilla (91 points from Parker), but hadn't liked either. I found the Torre Muga to be super, overly tannic and the Juan Gil was way out of balance and reeked and tasted like straight alcohol. So two rather dramatic failures, given the reputations of the wines.

However, something about this seemed fishy to me. I could live with the Torre Muga being overly tannic -- that may just be a taste preference -- and at $60 - $80 per bottle I'm not expecting I'll have the chance to taste it again. But the Juan Gil is only about $15 and is available at World Market, so it was fairly easy to arrange a retasting. Last night I put that plan into action and Jeremy and I split a bottle of the '02 Juan Gill Jumilla. The Juan Gil is 100% Monastrell grape grown on 40-year old vines and aged in French oak. On second tasting Jeremy and I were both impressed with the wine. It had a rich, deep, dark, fruit taste and an intriguing aroma. There was no sign of the out of balance, burning taste of alcohol that we had experienced with our first bottle. So with that success I'm back on the Spanish wine bandwagon. But watch out for the Torre Muga. I think it's been over-hyped.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 7 April 2006 at 10:31 AM

A week ago I was despairing about Cardinals tickets being so much harder to come by this year than they've been in the past. I had no tickets and was beginning to think that I'd have to buy some SRO tickets if I wanted to see the new Busch. But what a difference a week makes. I've now got tickets to three games over the next two months, and I didn't have to pay excessive fees on ebay to get them. Two of them came straight from the Cardinals normal website, and got me some into Outfield Loge Box seats (section 268) and Outfield Terrace Box (section 334). I also managed to nab some field level seats (section 133) from the Prime Seat Club.

The main thing I've noticed about getting tickets this year is that it seems like the middle tier of tickets are a lot more expensive than they were last year. The past two years I was lucky enough to get some tickets at field level, 12 rows back of the screen. They ran me just a bit more than $40 per seat. This year, while the field-level tickets still seem to be in that price range, the middle tier like the Outfield Loge and Outfield Terrace seats, are also approaching $40 per ticket. True, Outfield Terrace Reserve is still cheap ($13 normally, $18 for premium games), but there aren't nearly as many Terrace Reserve seats in the new stadium as there were in the old. Take a look at the new Busch Stadium layout. Terrace Reserve only goes around the bottom third of the stadium. In the old Busch, Terrace Reserve seating was available almost all the way around the stadium (the only exception being three sections in the middle where the scoreboard was located). The Terrace Reserve sections were also the biggest sections in the stadium, with more than 25 rows in each section. The new Terrace Reserve sections have only 11 rows.

The new Busch Stadium has about 7,000 seats less than its predecessor (50,000 at the old Busch vs. 43,000 at the new Busch). And the real disservice to fans is that reductions seems to have been almost entirely done at the cheap end of the spectrum. Going to a baseball game is not something that can easily be done casually or inexpensively any longer, and that's too bad.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 April 2006 at 11:33 AM