The Dow Is Up!

On last night’s episode of 24, Jack’s family has returned. Fortunately, it does not include Kimberly (hopefully destroyed in the nuclear bomb in Valencia) or his former wife Terry coming back from the dead. This week we meet his brother, Graham. Except we’ve already met him. He was the evil mastermind behind last season’s escapades. And now we find out that he’s Jack’s brother. How awesome is that? And of course, the episode ends with Jack punching his brother in the face (man, I liked that scene), tying him up and starting to torture him. To my surprise, he didn’t do it by putting his finger in Graham’s face and saying, “I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you. I’m not touching you.”

In other family news, we meet Graham’s wife and son. It’s revealed that the wife had an affair with Jack. And wouldn’t you know it, the kid kinda looks like Jack. Perhaps his nephew is really his son. (Man, I hope him name is Luke. “No, Luke. I am your father.” “NOOOOOOOO!”) Anyway, that’s what the internet buzz I’ve seen has been indicating. And we all know what internet buzz is good for. Coming up next week, we meet Jack’s father, played by the inimitable James Cromwell. (You know I have too much time on my hands when I start adding links to my blog.)

I wrote about the likelihood of having two black presidents last week. But last night I was watching Wayne Palmer and I realized he would NEVER get elected president. Not because he’s black, but because he’s bald. And he has facial hair. The electorate doesn’t like baldness. And it sure doesn’t like wispy goatees. Ironically, they don’t place must emphasis on intelligence, but they feel very strongly that there should be hair on your scalp and not your lip.

You have to go all the way back to Eisenhower to find the last bald president. (Note, Ford doesn’t count because he was never elected president. And Nixon might not have been very hirsute, but he was only mildly bald when he was first elected.) You have to go all the way back to William Taft (1909-1913) to find one with facial hair. That’s almost a hundred years! Now you’re telling me that a philandering, bald, goateed, black man with no political experience is going to become President? Yeah right.

Another item of note is that Regina King (playing Sandra Palmer, the president’s sister) is apparently taking over the role of annoying bitch, formerly played by Kim Bauer. Sandra is a lawyer and her client (a muslim leader) is unfairly being detained in a, um, detention center. (So that’s why they call it a “detention” center. I thought these guys just got in trouble at school. I think high schools should call their “study” halls detention centers. They should also post armed guards at the door. And have water table torturing. But I digress.)

So all episode, every episode, Sandra Palmer is saying “this is unconstitutional” and “I’m his lawyer” and “you can’t DO this.” God, shut UP. We understand that these detention centers are illegal. We understand that you’re trying to shine a light on the actual detention centers being run by the U.S. government and that they are illegal. Fine. Now go walk off into the woods, get caught in a trap, and get attacked by a cougar. Hopefully Kevin Dillon isn’t around to save you this time. (And yes, this actually happened to Kim Bauer. Worst. Side-story. Ever.)

Rage Against the Machine is reuniting for the Coachella music fest. I'm a pretty big fan of RATM and this is definitely exciting news. Nowhere near as exciting as hearing that the Pixies were reuniting a couple years ago. It's unclear at this point if this is a one-off concert, if they'll do a follow-up tour, or if they'll even start recording new music together. I'm hoping that the last two come true, because there's no way in hell I'll be able to make it to California in April to see the show. And frankly, the world needs more Rage music.

The Wife and I rented The DaVinci Code Saturday night, and it was a rather boring, drab interpretation of the book. (I know, this is an incredibly timely review, given that the movie came out almost a year ago. But that’s how long it takes me to finally see movies. Being a parent is awesome that way.)

The problem I had with The DaVinci Code is that I couldn’t get into it. I had a hard time figuring out why. There’s the natural problem that this is a movie adaptation of a best-selling book. Those never go off well. Even a great movie like Jurassic Park pales in comparison to the book. And yes, Jurassic Park really is a great movie. If you didn’t know there was a book by the same title, you’d probably think it’s one of the best of all time. But the book was SO good that the movie is really just a shadow. It can’t possibly live up to the excitement that the book generated.

And sure, that’s part of the problem with The DaVinci Code. In the book, the characters are racing all over Europe, solving problems as they go. There simply isn’t enough time in the movie for them to solve all the problems. But I think the producers actually did a reasonable job of marching the characters through the puzzles.

The problem was with Tom Hanks. He was woefully miscast in this movie as Professor Robert Langdon. Tom Hanks is a great actor, one of the best of his generation. But only in particular roles. He tends to be great in roles that make you smile. (Think Philadelphia. That gay lawyer was HILARIOUS.) He’s not really great at being cerebral. Try listening to him debate Sir Ian McKellan about the Priory of Scion. Boring.

And because of how the story is set-up, you can’t help but think of how much better it’d be with Harrison Ford as the lead. (Of course, the author, Dan Brown, poisoned our minds by describing Robert Langdon as “Indiana Jones in a tweed jacket.”) Now that Harrison Ford is getting up there in years, he probably wouldn’t be all that great in the role. Besides, it’d draw too many comparisons to Indiana Jones, which I’m sure Ron Howard was trying to avoid.

But the movie did draw comparisons to Indiana Jones. In fact, it made me realize how great of films they were. And one of the reasons was the musical score of the film. Just listening to John Williams’ music raised your pulse a couple of beats. The music on The DaVinci Code? I think it was written by John Tesh. And the truth is that John Tesh would be embarrassed to have his name associated with it. It was that bad.

Back to the poor casting. Harrison Ford is out. Tom Hanks is out. So who should gotten the role of Robert Langdon? Here’s my list of who I think would have played done a great job. Please feel free to forward this list to Ron Howard in case they go ahead and make Angels and Demons (a much better book, in my opinion).

• Peter Scholari – the smarter half of Bosom Buddies. He could easily pull of the cerebral part.
• Gary Sinise – he’s clearly able to find killers in CSI:New York. He should be able to find the last living descendant of Christ. Just use some forensics. Hello DNA testing!
• Harry Hamlin – good looking. Obviously needs work. I’m concerned he might want to wear a toga and pretend he’s Perceus at some point. You know he’d keep making jokes about Medusa whenever they passed a statue, particularly David.
• Gary Coleman – who says that Robert Langdon has to be white? Or tall? Or smart? Or talented? Gary Coleman fits perfectly! "Whachoo talkin' 'bout, DaVinci!"
• Keifer Sutherland – The DaVinci Code is on a tight timeframe. We know Keifer can work miracles in 24 hours. He’s good with a gun. He knows how to get information. (Granted, he’d have to torture books to get anything from them, but still. “I will burn your pages unless you tell me where Mary Magdalene is buried!”)

I’ve never been a big proponent of investing. Or rather, I’ve never been a big proponent of beating the market. In my actuarial studies, I read numerous research reports about investing. Basically, it’s a crapshoot. If you look at all the money managers in the world, half of them beat the market, about what you would expect. And just because you beat the market one year, it doesn’t mean you will the next. Basically, you just have to get lucky. And last week, I finally did.

I’m a cautious investor. Generally, I like to put all my money in index funds and let the market do what it may. But I had a certain hunger in me. So I decided to be a little risky. And wouldn’t you know it? Last week, my investment almost TRIPLED! Because of the cold weather in California, the cost of oranges has gone through the roof. And I’m the proud owner of a whole bag of them!

I had to laugh when I heard that the price of oranges would be going up 2 to 3 times. Literally days earlier, I bought a bag of 10 oranges. It was an impulse buy, I have to admit it. I thought, “These oranges look tasty. And I think California’s due for some abnormally cold weather. I should buy a bag.” Now they’re sitting in my fridge, just getting more and more expensive with each passing moment. I’m sitting on a gold mine, I tell ya! Or an orange mine, as the case may be. This totally makes up for buying Nortel at $70 in 2000.