3 posts tagged “angelina jolie”

Like Facebook and Twitter, our company has been under DOS attacks for the last few weeks and, as I write, we are under one right now. As for the “Joe job” that the Russians are suspected of having done to a Georgian blogger, I’ve had them, too—just that last year, I had no idea that this was a targeted campaign aimed directly at me or our company. I always thought it was random: like I am important enough to have a coordinated email attack against me. Yeah, right.
   It makes me wonder about the motive. The latest attacks come from the US east coast, which is interesting. The Joe jobs last year emanated from servers in Russia, Poland, Greece, and the US, but the coordinator could have been anywhere.
   You don’t get to 22 years in business without pissing somebody off. The Twitter attack last week was, according to some of the media, from the Russian government, and I can’t think of anyone at that high enough a level to even give a darn about what I do.
   As you know, there are some nut bars out there who have accused me of quite a few far-fetched things (remember the posts about my being racist, against homosexuals, etc.) just because they are too stupid to read what is on the page and imagine I had written something against their point of view. Well, folks, your imaginations might be active, but they diverge too much from reality.
   And if their grasp of reality isn’t that great, then I somehow think they wouldn’t be clever enough to mount an attack.
   So, who would be that keen to waste time on me and has the brains to pull this off? Tongue firmly in cheek, here are the top 10, in no particular order.
   1. Red China. They may be after anyone who has descended from family members who escaped in 1949. Each time I dis Chinese companies about bad behaviour, I will get a negative blog comment, or even a series of them. Seems pretty well coordinated—considering I don’t attract that many blog comments. Never mind that I say nice things about other Chinese companies who don’t do stupid things.
   2. Technocrats and anyone else who wants to get their hands on New Zealand’s remaining state assets. But I am not alone on opposing them and there are more worthy targets.
   3. Sen. John Kerry. It’s to get back at me for my decision to stop buying Wattie’s products because of the company’s overseas ownership. And the occasional quip about how the Forbeses made money in the opium trade. The latest attack did come from Massachusetts. Hmm.
   4. Elle magazine. Its parent company had French defence contracts that were a little incompatible with the fashion image. (It still holds a percentage of EADS.) Folks, I find this funny—and it always gets a laugh in speeches.
   5. Labour leader Phil Goff. I think his latest brochure photo sucks. And it’s probably not cool of him to brag about a free-trade deal with Red China to a roomful of expatriates who left because of 1949. Related to (1).
   6. The ACT Party. Related to (2). Known for sending me spam in 2001 and on numerous occasions afterwards—so they’re definitely a tech-savvy bunch there.
   7. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. I’m not the one who talked about being under sniper fire in Bosnia. But I blogged about this a lot last year.
   8. Toyota. So I bring up the war every now and then. However, I eat a lot of Japanese food.
   9. Angelina Jolie. I am living proof that not all heterosexual men find her attractive, keeping her from a perfect hotness score.
   10. Facebook. What I write about what is happening internally must cut pretty closely to the truth.

A lovely American fan has sent me all the episodes of Mr & Mrs Smith, a 1990s TV series that was never shown in full in the US. I believe seven episodes aired there. Australia was the only country that showed all 13 (I understand from Wikipedia that Norway did, too). I have a feeling we only showed seven, at some ungodly hour (New Zealand programmers often do not make very wise calls).
   It was very hard finding the title sequence on YouTube, although it’s an American show. There’s this translated Czech version, though the actress dubbing Maria Bello sounds pretty close to the original:

   The plot: Mr and Mrs Smith are rival industrial spies. After the pilot, the Factory, Mr Smith’s employer, has hired Mrs Smith as well. The second episode sees them posing as husband and wife in suburbia but work on the same side, though with some rivalry and the usual sexual tension that you see in series of this nature (‘Will they? Won’t they?’).
   The split-screen effect was used on all episodes usefully, and the show was very stylish with nice, self-contained stories.
   When a movie with the same name came out a few years later, about two rival spies living in suburbia as a married couple, it was very easy to think that it was a big-screen version of this TV series. The writer claims there was no connection (after all, it wouldn’t have been the first movie with that name), though it does cut the series’ concept very closely.
   Bakula and Bello, however, were far better than Pitt and Jolie.

I read some disturbing news: Hollywood is thinking of remaking Bullitt, one of my all-time favourite films, and putting Brad Pitt into the Steve McQueen role.
   I don’t have much against remakes. I am looking forward to Life on Mars set in Los Angeles, unlike a lot of my Brit friends who have not been this aghast since the Germans bought Rolls-Royce. I even went to see 2003’s The Italian Job set in Los Angeles, and told my Brit friends, who had not been that aghast since the Germans bought Bentley.
   But Bullitt?
   I’ve nothing personal against Brad. I like the social causes the bloke is getting into. But even he must be smart enough to know that there will be a certain proportion of Earth’s male population who think that this is sacrilege. We are talking Holy Grail stuff here. And there are more reasons against this idea.

10. Most straight men (and let’s face it, most gay men) would prefer Daniel Craig in the role.
9. The bad guys will not look as menacing in a 2008 Dodge Charger.
8. You cannot re-create the scene where Jacqueline Bisset drives Steve McQueen back into the City on 101 because they would be stuck in gridlock.
7. Because of his personal interests, Brad would spend too much time filming the architects’ office scene.
6. The crew would be distracted when Angelina comes to visit on set.
5. Bullitt and Delgetti would be arrested as terror suspects at San Francisco Airport for leaving their car and running inside.
4. That annoying creaking sound heard on the soundtrack (it’s the noise of Steve McQueen turning in his grave).
3. ‘Hotel Daniels’ on Embarcadero is now the site of the HQ for the Gap, and it would be seriously bad publicity to kill the witness there.
2. The serious risk that Robert Vaughn’s character will be played by Tom Cruise as a Scientologist seeking respectability.
1. No dude who has worn a skirt (Troy) can replace Steve McQueen.