Senior Editor at PC World Killed in Targeted Attack

Life repeatedly remains stranger than fiction. It should be interesting to hear how this unfolds.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
Pittsburg man shot dead in home invasion/Police say editor at PC World was involved in illegal narcotics trade
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

(01-10) 13:37 PST PITTSBURG -- Four masked men burst into a Pittsburg home, pistol-whipped a woman and fatally shot her husband -- a senior editor for PC World magazine -- in what police believe was a targeted attack because they said the victims had been involved in narcotics activity.

Rex Farrance, 59, senior technical editor at PC World in San Francisco, was shot in the chest and killed shortly after the assailants forced their way into his home on Argosy Court at about 9 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said today.

Farrance's wife, Lenore Vantosh-Farrance, 56, was pistol-whipped in the head during the home-invasion robbery, authorities said. She called 911, but the assailants fled on foot before police arrived. No arrests have been made in Pittsburg's first homicide of 2007, said Pittsburg police Inspector John Conaty.

The couple was apparently targeted because they had been involved in the narcotics trade, Conaty said.

"We have substantial reason to believe that the victim and his wife were involved in the possession and, potentially, the distribution of illegal narcotics," said Conaty, who declined to specify what type of drug. Farrance turned 59 on Sunday, and his wife has been a registered nurse in California since 1983, public records show.

PC World editors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Police today were still searching the couple's home, which abuts Willow Cove Elementary School.

Herculano Darosa, 54, who has lived on the street for 24 years, said he often saw Farrance jogging or exercising in the neighborhood. "He looked nice to me," said Darosa, who expressed shock at the police assertion that the couple was involved in drugs.

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com
Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle

The Cameron Can

[For my members receiving posting notifications: please access the blog at http://jromi.blogspot.com, as the Google Groups environment won't let you see or access the multimedia content I include with the posts. Email me if you have questions, and thanks for reading!]

What looks to be one of the coolest movies for 2009? James Cameron's Avatar, that's what. You may remember such Cameron films as: The Terminator, Aliens, T2, The Abyss, and the $1.8B grossing monstrosity, Titanic. According to wikipedia, it's about:

Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na'vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture. Avatar is written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade. "For me, as a lifelong fan of science fiction and action, 'Avatar' is a dream project. We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The story is both epic and emotional." It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival. In December 2006, Cameron described Avatar as "a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence... an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience... [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling...

Also interestingly enough, as part of the new developments in the theater industry, we will be watching it in 3D...as most theaters at that time will have digital 3D projection systems (per anticipatory remarks made by James and Fox Entertainment.)

Peter Jackson's WETA effect house will be doing the...effects. Jackson, in case you hate LOTR and never watched the Oscars, and didn't know that his three films swept award nominations and winnings for three years in a row from 2001 to 2003, was the director/producer of one of the most sucessful film franchises (other than Star Wars): The Lord of the Rings.

Why Why Why WHY!!!!

Why do people leave their poo unflushed in the toilet?

At work?

With the bathroom stall door open?

Is it so hard to flush?

It's like the poo-er was proud of the mess he made and wanted all who enter to know what he was capable of pooing. I walked in the bathroom today and was accosted by this horrible product of someone's crap factory bobbing like shattered ochre-hued dinghy remnants. Ew I say!

I work in the healthcare industry, and you would think that these people, some of whom are PhDs and RNs and the like, would know that 1) it's frickin disgusting and 2) it's unhealthy to leave that putrid butt slop floating in the bowl that I may have to use.

If you poo at work, please flush the toilet and lavish us all with your good manners. From one poo-er to another: it's the right thing to do.

Sand Castles

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid sent Bush a letter today advising that the surge of troops he has planned is not a wise course of action.

I'll be the first to admit that I think invading Iraq and overthrowing the government, albeit a corrupt one, wasn't in the best interests of national security. Of course, at the time we were told that there were WMDs in country. The UN representative never found any, but we invaded in March 2003 nonetheless.

Fast forward 3 1/2 years and we're still in Iraq and the new Cambodia: Afghanistan (shhh...top secret.) The country and surrounding region is destabilized, and the Sunni/Shite conflict is rapidly growing worse. Some have said that the vacuum of power left by Saddam Hussein's demise will pull more violent and dramatic factions into the fray, resulting in more deaths of innocents and soldiers alike. I tend to agree with this point.

Frame this in the context of troop deployment: if we leave now, then that country and surrounding region will be, for lack of a better word: effed up. Seriously eff to the yew to the cee to the kay effed up. Worse than it is already.

So. What are we to do? The Democrats are saying that Americans are tired of the fighting. I know I am. I'm tired of hearing about kids over there dying or becoming maimed by IEDs and sniper fire because this war isn't about survival - it's about political gains ultimately motivated by a personal vengeance.



I also think that one of the underlying motivations for being there is to create a base of operations and permanent American presence in the Arab world: 1) win hearts and minds to foster a new democracy, 2) then remain in country to help maintain and legitimize the new government while discreetly maximizing American economic petroleum-based interests. I may be oversimplifying this here, but it doesn't seem to be too far-fetched.

Bottom line: we can't conduct mass demobilization of our Iraqi-based military presence now. The Bush administration effectively committed the American people to remain in the region for at least a decade, most likely 2 maybe 3. It was a calculated ploy. Once we destabilized the region, we're morally obligated to stick around and assist in building a new government and society that we helped significantly destruct for nothing less than ensuring that the U.S. will be able to position itself in the Middle East. This isn't partisan politics. This is Manifest Destiny and an extension of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine unfolding before our eyes.

Is That a Pole in Your Tent?

Hollywood tentpole productions explode on the summertime movie battlefield. In 2007, we'll have a movie version of a cartoon program popular with folks who were around 11 years old in the early-mid 1980s. OK...I was one of those kids, and yes I played with the Transformers. I could never figure out how all the Autobots could fit inside of Jetscream on the cartoons, while the real-world action figures didn't seem to have a shrink feature.



I'm looking forward to seeing the film, yes. The story is basically one where it's man vs. evil man-like machine (Decepticons), where man is assisted by good man-like machines (Autobots). It's one of your basic 7 plots, but not exactly because you have the Autobots helping us defeat the innumerable hoards of Decepticons. Rumsfeld is doing Megatron's voice, while Condi is providing vocals for Starscream. You should fear the merchandising onslaught that will no doubt erupt in tandem with its theatrical release. Every 10 year old boy will want a Soundwave for Hanukah in 2007...ok, maybe just me.

Please note that there doesn't appear to a single triple A actor in the film, as the budget was most likely spent on the effects. OK, they dug up Jon Voight, John Turturro is slumming, and what the hell is Bernie Mac doing in this film? AMERICA! I hope Bernie Mac's character gets to make an Autobot invoke its mechanical har-har unit. No doubt Tyrese is considering this one big step up from his role in Baby Boy. Hopefully a few dollars were spent on making the screenplay halfway decent.

Also coming out this summer:

May 4: Spider-Man 3
(Vegan Spider meets that 70s show actor)

May 18: Shrek the Third
(fur fook's sayke, ee-noof with tha green troll...ack!)

May 25: Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End
(didn't#2 just come out?! Sheesh!)

June 8: Ocean's Thirteen
(enough already Clooney!)

June 15: Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer
(yes, Jessica Alba is in it)

June 22: Evan Almighty
(Carell: the new Carrey?)

June 29th: Live Free or Die Hard
(next in line is: "Dead Already")

July 4: Transformers
(sweet)

July 13: Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix
(British kids act better than Americans)

July 27: The Simpsons Movie
(mmmm....movie)

August 3: The Bourne Ultimatum
(Damon...the new Shatner)

August 10: Rush Hour 3
(yaaawwwwwwnn)

I'm going to have to go with Netflix on most of these, assuming they don't significantly throttle my rentals.

Holiday Movies That You Didn't Watch

I love the holidays for 2 reasons: more time spent with family and friends, and the time made available for movie-watching and gaming.

I was blessed to be able to hang out with a lot of wonderful people this year, and in spite of James Brown and Gerald Ford passing at the end of 2006, there were still some good times to be had. Moments that come to mind are of mid to lowbrow (mostly low) entertainment: watching Day of the Dead and The Descent, both on DVD.

Day of the Dead (DOTD), in case you didn't know, was George Romero's 3rd installment of the Dead trilogy, which later became a quadrology with Land of the Dead. There were a number of spin-offs (read Return of the Living Dead, et al), but George officially only directed four, with the most recent starring Dennis Hopper and John Leguizamo. DOTD has cheesy acting for the most part, but what was cool about it, and what probably killed its success at the time was the fact that it "humanized" the zombies, and actually made the living seem more like the volatile and dangerous element of a society. Scientists and soldiers live in a missile silo in Florida, and the stereotypes are plentiful (read egotistic egghead scientists, overzealous infantrymen scoring a few IQ points higher than Lucy, and one Jamaican helocopter pilot.) The zombie ballerina at the end is wonderful. Fans will be interested to know that a remake starring Mena Suvari and Ving Rhames is planned for this year. Bah'leeve eet mon!

The Descent was a brilliant film from English director Neil Marshall. 6 bad ass spelunking women go into a cave, and their plunge into the dark is physical as well as a *wink-wink* descent into hopelessness. It's a straight-forward film that runs lean and tense. This movie was edited to keep viewers held captive until the end of the film finally cuts the bonds and shoves you outside where you finally get to appreciate the trees and sunlight...if you saw the U.S. verison. I recommend the U.K. version you can now find on DVD in the states.

If you want to see something really disturbing, though, you can check out Saddam Hussein's execution which a person present at the event recorded on his (I'm pretty sure it's a He...Iraq may be secular, but I'm betting they don't have the equivalent of Nancy Pelosi over there) cell phone. Say what you will about its content, but the proliferation of this leaked video was inevitable, as everyone has a morbid fascination with "how did he die", especially The Butcher of Bagdad.

Let's hope that his demise will bring as much peace and prosperity as his life brought death and poverty. Let us also not forget that the U.S. helped put him in power in the 80s (hunt around on the 'innernets' for the classic photo with Rumsfeld and Hussein shaking hands), which was when Hussein effectively destabilized the economies Iran and Iraq: actions for which the world is still witness. Perhaps this will be a lesson from which we can finally learn that puppet governments based on provisioned/outsourced warfare will unravel in the hand of the puppetmaster.

MC Redmonkey and Footie Crew

Just wave your hands in the aye-ur
And wave 'em like you just don't cay-yur
And if you like fish and grits and all that pimp isht
Ev'rybody lemme hear you say oh yay-yur

(Outkast)