On Tuesday Beckie Scott and Sara Renner of the Canadian Olympic team won a silver medal in the Cross Country Team Pursuit event. This was the first time the event was held. The event involves two skiers on a closed loop track. Each skier completes a loop then tags up with their partner, who then proceeds to ski the same loop. Repeat three times. Not quite as exciting as hockey or even the ski jumping events, but still interesting from the athletic perspective.

The gold medal winners (from Sweden) completed the course in 16 minutes, 36.9 seconds. Beckie and Sara completed the same course (at the same time) in 16 minutes 37.5 seconds, or a 0.6 second difference.

For reference, the average human blink lasts for about 0.3 second. Two blinks difference over sixteen minutes.

For me this is probably the most amazing thing about Olympic-level competitive sports. These people come from all over the world to participate in these events after four years of practice, they race side-by-side for many minutes, and the difference between first and second place is the same as two blinks. And for sure its not just cross country skiing, or even just the Winter Olympics. The Summer Olympic events often see close races, especially in the swim events where first and second place might be separated by a hundredth of a second.

Eleven more days of Olympic events. Go Canada go!

The Winter Olympics started this weekend in Turino, Italy. This year the event is of particular interest to those of us here locally because the next time the Winter Olympics are held will be 2010, right here in Vancouver. Cool.

Prior to the Olympics my total sum knowledge of Turino was that it was the location of the famous Shroud of Turin. Took me a while to connect Turino and Turin but apparently its really the same city, different spelling due to differences in language. Probably the same way that Peking and Beijing are really the same place too.

I sort of expected that the Shroud might play a role in the opening ceremonies but instead a Ferrari Formula One racing car drove out onto the stage, rev’ed the engine then did a few donuts that left tire marks sort of like the Olympic ring logo. Weird, but what can you expect? As far as I can tell the goal of any opening ceremony is to be weird enough to make people wonder what the heck is going on. Should be exciting in four more years. I wonder if we’ll all be slightly embarrased by whatever looney show is put on here in Vancouver?

The humorous thing about the Shroud of Turin: its a fake and yet people still cling to hope that it somehow proves the Biblical stories of the death and resurrection. It doesn’t prove anything except how gullible people can be. The most reliable testing shows the cloth was painted in the 14th century. Likely it was a fake prepared for profit. Holy relics had good profit margins during this time in history, and there is a long record of such items being bought and sold all over Europe and especially Italy.

Its a pretty good fake but more impressive is the unrealistic defense offered against scientific test results. Especially silly was the testing supposedly performed to show that a fire in the 16th century could alter the results of carbon dating. Turns out the evidence about how this can occur was completely faked the the “scientist” behind the testing is a fraud as well. As for the evidence about the unique origin of the pollen grains, well this seems to be a completely bogus argument as well. Seems the pollen samples wheren’t actually collected from the cloth in question. Opps.

Want to know more? Read the CSICOP summary article by Joe Nickell. Be sure to read his book Inquest on the Shroud of Turin too. He talks about the relevant examinations on both sides of the argument and shows why the logical conclusion shows the Shroud is a fake. Good reading!

This year’s Superbowl has now come and gone. We had a few friends over again, its become traditional to host a small gathering at our place every year. The reason? We have digital cable which allows us to tune into a U.S. station to see the commercials. Most of the “good” commercials don’t air on Canadian channels, so normally unless you like football there isn’t much reason to watch. But we get to see the ads in all their splendor.

My favorite this year was the Magic Refridgerator. As usual, I don’t recall what it was for; probably a beer company, since it seems beer companies buy more ad space than anyone else. Most other ads weren’t very exciting although the GoDaddy.com ad sparked a lot of interest. I still have no idea what they do and don’t really care. :^)

This year I cared who won the game, so I watched the football almost as intently as the advertisements. I was rooting for Seattle (nearly local team), and I think they were capable of winning. A couple of bad calls didn’t break their way, although at least one other questionable call did. In the end though it was clear that the Steelers battled harder; their defense did an amazing job to shut down the Seattle game for the second half. Even so, the Seahawks didn’t help themselves with two missed field goals, bad penalties and an interception. I guess there is always next year!

We watched Serenity last night. This is the fifth time I’ve watched the movie: twice in the theatre, twice on DVD and now again with our friend Alan. He was visiting last night, he was curious to see it again, and of course I was happy to oblige.

I really loved the original Firefly series. I wasn’t a huge Joss Whedon fan before, and didn’t watch Buffy or Angel regularly at all. But Firefly was really interesting; maybe because it was set in a dark, space-faring future it was more appealing to me than vampire hunting.

There are lots of reasons why Firefly never took off (it only lasted half a season) but none of it had to do with the quality of the story, or the quality of the acting, or the quality of the directing, or the quality of the photography. You can blame FOX if you want: they didn’t run the pilot episode first, they put it into a late Friday night time slot, they didn’t do enough promotion, etc.

My opinion: the story is too sophisticated for the audiences that tune into FOX, or any broadcast television programming for that matter. Compare Firefly with the new Battlestar Galactica. Both have large casts, extensive sets, special effects, and complicated story arcs. But if you put BSG onto FOX (or NBC, for that matter) it would flop. Broadcast television simply does not attract the type of audience that wants stories like Firefly.

Anyways, I digress. What I really wanted to write about is what I thought was good and bad about Serenity. Its easy to start with the good stuff. The direction is very good, its revealed in every shot. Sets are complete. Dialogue is just right. Lighting is perfect. Actors deliver the emotional punch on cue. Everything is correct.

The entire movie is filled with great dialogue; the actors are good (not great) but the dialogue smooths over the points of bad acting. The original casting was really good. A whole bunch of unknown actors, but each was well matched to their role. And clearly the cast gets along well.

Mostly you have to appreciate the photography. In the first scene where you see Mel and the ship’s crew, its a four and a half minute continuous hand-held shot. No cuts. You are introduced to all the characters on the ship as well as the ship itself in one long walk-around tour. That is very atypical: most shots are 30 seconds max, and often much shorter. The classic technique calls for quick cuts to keep up pacing and often used to create a frantic setting.

Yet this shot really works. The Serenity ship set is huge and complex. During the walk-around the interactions between characters are established immediately. You see the contrast to the Alliance world (first portrayed in the opening scenes). You feel the hectic pace as the ship is shuddering through its landing cycle. You sense the depth and complexity of the crew’s relationships. And its funny. The dialogue is sharp, witty and clean.

The camera work is good; there are plenty of interesting shots from interesting angles and nothing feels out of place. Joss Whedon used hand-held work to maximum effect in both the original series and in the movie. Many of the special effects shots are done with the same feeling. You often will see the “camera” focusing in on the external view of the ship hanging in space. The shot is entirely computer-generated. The ship doesn’t exist, the “camera” isn’t a real camera, and yet it still feels like a wobbly just-coming-into-focus hand-held shot. I’ve noticed the same thing happening in BSG. It adds a sense of realism too.

Now for the bad. The concept of Mr. Universe was terrible, as it provided no real value to the story. As a plot device, was full of contradictions. Supposedly ships couldn’t be observed descending into the planet’s atmosphere, yet somehow communications signals were able to travel in to and out from the planet’s surface without interference? Planet-side there were very large structures, a landing strip, etc. and yet the whole place was inhabited by a single person (plus love-bot)? Mr. Universe is an unsophisticated character, a simple and shallow plot device that doesn’t fit with the rest of the story. Dumb.

The ending was decidedly poor. Mel had no reason to let The Operative (the villian) live; out of character for Mel in my opinion. The Operative had no real reason to “see the light” even after watching the video about Miranda and the effects of the Pax. As a deadly instrument of the Alliance, he already accepted that extreme measures where often required. He certainly had no motivation to allow the Serenity crew to escape. He should have ordered the Alliance forces to take prisioners. And he certainly should not have visited Mel prior to the ship’s departure. But all of that was completely unnecessary for the storyline.

The crew could have escaped without running into the Alliance at all. It would have left the story in the same place it started: the crew was on the run at the start, the crew should have still been on the run at the end. Essentially, the movie could have gone from the big “River vs. the Reavers” fight directly to patching the ship and flying away. Let The Operative die, or let Mel kill him with his own sword, that would have been better, and move on.

Oh well, no movie is perfect. This one was very good though. Likely there are people who disagree with my opinions. But they are wrong. :^)

Friday night I cooked dinner again, beef steaks from the local butcher with Bernaise sauce and a tomato salad. We opened a bottle of Cambria 2004 Pinot Noir which was worth remembering. Yummy!

We were pretty lazy on Saturday. I did some design work on an electronics project (a custom USB device for robotics) while Eileen cleaned her office and worked on her next book. Later in the afternoon I caught an episode of the new BattleStar Galactica. It was the third episode of the second season, and excellent as expected. I’m still not exactly sure where the religious storyline is going but I’m willing to hang in there to find out. I also realized I missed episode two. I was quite unpleased I had missed that episode. I was willing to buy the episode, I figured it was worth a few bucks for the instant gratification. The iTunes Store does carry BSG episodes, but its not for sale in Canada. Stupid. So I set off to find a viable download online. It took all night to get the episode using a BitTorrent feed (that link takes you to the software, not to the torrent download, but whatever). I eventually watched the missing episode and it was really good. Better than I expected, and I had high expectations. Also let it be known that its time to bring television show downloads to Canada. Are you listening, Apple?

Meanwhile Eileen went out to dinner and a film with our good friend Allison while I stayed home to watch the Canucks. They went to see Memoirs of a Geisha and raved about it. I want to go too so she’ll have to sit through it again. Apparently this won’t be a hardship at all. Eileen got home in time to see the end of the hockey game. Enough said about that ugliness!

Sunday was a bit more ambitious. I made breakfast: scrambled eggs with cream cheese and scallions, turkey sausages, toast and tea. We read the New York Times and phoned my mother to catch up on her news. Seems everything is going well with her despite an injury to her spine (two damaged vertebrae that will take some time to heal). I worry about her as she lives alone, but seems to be doing ok. Eileen and I are planning a visit in May. We’re waiting for the end of winter; spring arrives late in Michigan compared to Vancouver. :^)

In the afternoon we attended the first birthday party for Tobias’ and Sharon’s daughter Isabel. They served monkey cake (not made from real monkeys) and we had lots of fun catching up with them and their friend Pidge. We met lots of other nice folks too. Eileen and I realized it’s been a long time since we’ve seen either Sharon or Isabel and she is getting big (Isabel, not Sharon). She already tears around the house like she owns the place, and just about ready to start walking. Just great!

Sunday evening was spent watching The Constant Gardener. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are wonderful actors that bring true passion to very passionate roles. Its a deep story but the pacing is off, at least in the first two thirds of the film. Still worth viewing though, as the last third is simply amazing. The background scenery is simultaneously stunning, frightening, intriguing and inspiring. Eileen rented the DVD this time and I’m really glad she did. I probably would not have rented it, as you might remember I was always going to prefer using the video on demand service. I found the DVD extras really informative especially the section that described how and where it was filmed – they filmed in Kenya, often in places that were not “dressed” as sets. They filmed real people in their real villages as part of the backdrop to the actors in the foreground. Stunning, unique and welcome.

And then it was Monday, and back to work.