The EFF holiday party was held in two parts tonight: the first was a collective viewing of
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on opening day and then your nice holiday party at a house with Christmas tree, firplace and all.

When Seth told me that the movie was nearly 3 hours long, I rolled my eyes and whined for like 10 minutes because I have attention issues and 3 hours seemed like way to long for one sitting. Near the end of the movie, Seth leaned over and told me that the movie was about to end and this time my eyes widened and I thought to myself : “no way I can sit here for like 3 more hours watching the great visual weaving that is the movie.”

I am not going to spoil the movie so I won’t reveal much except that I loved the “hobbit” hairdo, especially “Frodo’s” a quasi-70s head of modest curls, the bad guys all have horribly ghastly teeth, while a bad-ass fighting team is composed by mutli-specieis boyzzzzzzzzz (an elf, dwarf, and hunky-as-hell human).

So I have to admit the stark good vs evil that is typical of these movies makes me somewhat uncomfortable but I also have to admit that I let it go to watch these types of movies. I was told about a Salon article by David Brin that explore the moral representation in the movie although I have yet to read it. Maybe tomorrow.

Speaking of stark moral representations. I ordered an “educational kit” from the Business Software Alliance which came in the mail today, shipped One Day UPS Express (they certainly have money to burn because this is not something I would qualify as “urgent”). Anyway, the packet included a movie “Software Piracy: A Costly Mistake.” Should be an interesting to see and heck, order your copy today for holiday viewing, or to bemuse your hacker friend. Here is how you can get your free package:

info@bsa.org: mail us here if you would like to receive a BSA information packet, educational material, BSA audit software in disk form or information via mail that cannot be found on the website. Please include your post al address.