Will Herman reminded me that Speed Racer the movie is arriving on the scene on May 9th.  Speed Racer is the cartoon of my childhood.  A few years ago I bought all the episodes on DVD and watched them one after the other one weekend until my head exploded.  I used to be so hot for Trixie and Racer X was like the big brother I never had.  I can’t wait for the movie.  I am so pleased that the Wachowski Brothers created it.

My mom just hung a new exhibit of her photographs titled Japan and India: Faces and Places.

The images are spectacular – take a look at the slide show if you have any interest.  The show is up at the Mesquite Art Center, 1527 N. Galloway, Mesquite, Texas (972-216-6444) until May 3.  Congrats Mom on a beautiful looking show.

I’m about to head out for a loop around Central Park and I thought I’d leave you with a few things to look at on the web before I split.

• PLT Scheme: Since my I Love Lisp post, I’ve been wondering when a version of Scheme would pop up into my consciousness.  It has.
• Trapster: Real time speed trap Google maps mashup.  This could be useful for those of us that have cars that go over 150 mph.
• Vermont Telecommunications Authority Residence Connectivity Map: Speaking of Google maps mashups, this one is awesome.  This is a user-generated map by Vermont citizens of their Internet connectivity.  Not "what they could have" but "what they actually have – self reported."  Fantastic.
• Why Am I Passing: I’ve been referring plenty of folks to my Why Am I Passing post lately (usually in response to the question "can you tell me more about why you are passing.")  Larry Nelson recently interviewed me about this in case you’d rather hear it in my own words (buried in the middle is the story of our investment in Dante Group and my partner Seth telling me I was being stupid.)
• MIT in Transition: A Student Advisory Report Worth Revisiting: If you are an MIT grad (or more importantly, an MIT professor, administrator, or member of the MIT corporation’s board), please read carefully the report from Joost Bonson, Barun Singh, and Harel Williams titled MIT in Transition: Student Perspectives on MIT’s Legacy Strengths, Emerging Challenges, and Future Directions.

If you are really bored and have access to a physical copy of the New York Times, take a look at the two page ad on pages A10-A11 headlined Save the U.S. Patent, Now!  It’s The Heart and Soul of America’s Economic System.  Take special note of how the nice people that put the charts together singled out the IT industry.  Then go reconcile the thoughts in your mind.

Today’s article in the NY Times titled Ping-Pong as Mind Game (Although a Good Topspin Helps) is dedicated to all my ping pong friends at TechStars.  When I was young (say – 10 – 14) and played a serious game of tennis, I was also a dedicated ping pong player.  While I’m left handed, I learned to play tennis (and ping pong) right handed.  I was once really good and it shows about every ten shots (in both sports.)  Every now and then I’ll pick up a ping pong paddle and give someone that plays all the time a run for their money, but I’m too inconsistent a player to do anything other than make my opponent bring their real game to put me away.  As a result, I’m going to stick to Gnip Gnop.

I’ve been told that my blogging pace is often a hint as to what I’m up to.  When my pace stalls, it either means I’m on vacation or deep into a deal.  To those that notice, I say "good observation."

I’ve spent the last three days running around Dallas with Amy and my parents looking at art.  Amy and I are patrons of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College where Amy went to college.  Every year they have a Patrons Trip to a major city to see private collections as well as the local museums.  This year’s trip was to Dallas (where I grew up) so we "patronized" my parents and included them on our trip.

Amy has a nice post up about what we did on Wednesday.  Yesterday was a trip to Ft. Worth to see the museums – we skipped out on the tour and did it ourselves.  Today was an awesome visit to the Rose’s house and the Hoffman’s house – two of the three amazing collectors and Dallasites who have donated their entire collections (over 800 pieces) to the Dallas Museum of Art when they die.

That’s my dad and Amy at the Rose’s pump house.  In addition the great art, we got to see some incredible architecture.  We’re now both wasted (I’d take a picture of Amy fast asleep in a chair next to me at the Admirals Club waiting for our two hour delayed flight from DFW, but I might wake her up) from a whirlwind three days as we get ready to head to NY for the weekend. 

Thanks to my friend Bruce Wyman (who is rapidly turning into my "discoverer of cool things") I have experienced a major back to the future moment with the Mosaic Communications Corporation web site.  The "Founders" page was fun as was the "What is the Internet?" page.  There are some "scary looking" pictures on the "Homepage Central" and none of the old FTP download mirrors seemed to work (or maybe Firefox is just programmed to reject downloads of Netscape 0.9 beta.)

Best of all, the Search page brings up Architext.  A search (say – on "Feld") then brings up a query.cgi page.  Ryan – do you think you can get that working for me by tomorrow?

Time to get back to getting ready for April Fools Day.

Amy and I went to see 21: The Movie today.  It’s based on the phenomenal book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich.  I met Ben and had sushi with him a few months ago – he was really psyched about the upcoming movie and the relaunch of the book as 21.  Ben – congrats!

Amy and I had a blast.  One of Amy’s ex-boyfriends had been part of the MIT Blackjack Team (1989-1990) so I’ve heard plenty of stories about it over the years (and vaguely remember it when it was going down.)  MIT is a remarkable place and a fantastic backdrop for a "smart people" morality tale (similar to another one of my favorite movies – Good Will Hunting.)

There were a lot of "MIT inaccuracies" during the movie that resulted in nudges and whispers between me and Amy.  Following are the ones I can remember.

• Ben’s "4.0" average.  MIT is on a 5 point scale – so his 4.0 average is a solid B rather than "perfect."
• The 2.09 competition.  This is really the 2.70 competition.
• Building 4 Hallway.  The door frames are black, not blue (i.e. this isn’t building 4.)
• Pre-Med.  There is no "pre-med" at MIT.
• "A’s".  In the movie, people talked about getting A’s. MIT-ers don’t talk about letter grades – they focus on getting "above class average" which would translate into an A or B.
• MIT Scenes.  With the exception of a few scenes outside the great dome, all of the MIT scenes were somewhere other than MIT (apparently MIT didn’t allow filming on campus.)

One of the treats was seeing Colin Angle (a frat brother and co-founder / CEO of iRobot) in a cameo role give the award at the 2.09 contest near the end of the movie (presumably modeled after Professor Woodie Flowers.)

I’d love to hear any other MIT inaccuracies that anyone notices in the movie.  MIT grads – comment freely.

Finally.  I can watch Kenny die over and over again.  For free.  On South Park Studios.  I never again have to illegally download the Underpants Gnomes to teach people how to make a profit.  I am so deeply pleased this morning.

Thanks to my friend Bruce Wyman – the Director of Technology at the Denver Art Museum – I bring you a picture of the Apollo 11 Landing Site overlayed on a baseball diamond.

Click on the image for a larger version of it on the NASA site.  Fiercely cool.