Jan 30, 2007
Jan 29, 2007
Verizon Turned Down iPhone
Doh! I don't want an iphone, but a few million people do, and I'm sure they'd switch to Cingular/AT&T to get it. Plus, Verizon just changed their text messaging plan, which means they broke the contract, which means any verizon customer can get out of their contract (until March 1st). Oops.
Jan 25, 2007
Jan 23, 2007
First Person in the History of the World to Dance
I don't know why I laughed so hard at this. It's really obvious, it's a one joke skit, but I was dyin'. NBC is bringing the videos down right quick, had to find it on myspace, get it fast!
Jan 19, 2007
Colbert & O'Reilly
I saw the first half on Colbert last night, it was pretty funny. But Colbert on O'Reilly is awesome!
Jan 17, 2007
Immigrant Superheroes
So this is interesting. Guy did an exhibit of immigrants dressed up as superheroes in their every day jobs, listing what they do and how much money they send back to Mexico. Yeah, it's not exactly subtle. But still, for every bullshit anecdote of a guy who crosses and steals something because it's easier than being a grown up, there is a bullshit anecdote of a guy living here working as hard as possible to send money to his family. So who wins? Straying from the details, and only as a general guiding principle, I'm gonna choose people over laws, accepting that that let's some bad people slide.
Jan 16, 2007
Belief-o-Matic
This test is awful. Bad, bad, biased test. It asks you lost of questions (god, death, souls, etc), all of which were "I don't believe in that" for me. Then it askes a bunch of social questions - abortion, gays, environment, etc. And my result? Unitarian Universalism - 100% match! What the hell?! UUs are great, amongst religious groups they are tops. But nontheist got ranked fifth for me, 76% match! Which basically means all my atheistic beliefs all earned me 76%, but my socially liberal beliefs lost me the last 24% because atheists are godless heartless monsters. I call bullshit! Secular Humanism (also cool), Liberal quakers, and "mainline to liberal christian protestants" were all ranked higher! I'm probably taking it way too seriously, but gosh dangit anti-atheist bias is hard to overcome in this world.
Petition Against The Escalation
Normally I don't really like these crap political acts that have no real impact and are just so we can feel good about ourselves. But this one will be tied up with John Edwards' run for office, and even if it only gets him support, I'm for it. If it has the tiniest bit of impact on congress, that can't hurt. Go here to sign.
Burkini
Gee, why advanced your culture, your society, and the rights of your people. Instead, invent new clothing to adapt to your 1st millenium views! Score!
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
The Black Dahlia - Y'know, I'm not sure. There's something about any movie in America before 1960 that wants to be interesting just by context. But this movie didn't really hook me. Came off too cheesily dramatic or too convoluted or something. I can't really point out anything that was especially bad, yet I wouldn't call the movie good. *shrug* Dunno. Also, I have a question for Scarlett Johannson: Is this all you can do?
Night at the Museum - Aw it's cute. It's exactly what you'd expect, and as long as that's all you want - silly goofy cheesy comedy that makes you giggle - then you'll be happy.
Black Christmas - Jesus. Not that anyone expects it to be good. But I can enjoy crap horror movies, and still I fastforwarded through this piece of crap.
Rocky Balboa - Yer not gonna believe this, but this movie is good! I mean, it's not good. But it's good! It's mostly what you would expect, yes he drinks eggs, yes he runs up the steps. Nonetheless, I was impressed, it seemed to have a bit more of the classic Rocky heart than the last movies. Sure, it's not wonderful writing, no actors are winning an oscar, but Rocky knows how to play Rocky, and you are absolutely on his side again.
The Illusionist - Meh, this movie not so good. I feel like it had some promise, like it coulda been good, but somehow it failed. I hated the way it was filmed. The whole movie had this weird soft on the edges, 1980s soap opera dream sequence thing going on. And a weird, not sepia, but somehow still glowey orange-brown tone to it. The acting wasn't necessarily bad, but Norton's accent annoyed me. The tricks were cool, but the drama was not exciting. I dunno, just not so good.
Children of Men - On the other hand, WAY GOOD! I wasn't sure about this at first. For the first 30 min maybe, I was unconvinced. But the longer it went the more I was wrapped up in it. As predictable as many parts, including the end, were, I was impressed. Besides, the only thing better than an apocalyptic setting is a dystopian setting, and this pulls that off wonderfully. It's dirty and grimy and hopeless and oppressive and complete and hopeful. Yes I know I said opposites! It was good!
Jan 15, 2007
Best Martial Arts Moments
By Maxim. Clearly, Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa, and Jet Li are badasses. But look at #3! Dooder #1 has NO ARMS and dooder #2 has NO LEGS!
Jan 12, 2007
Wickerman Clips
I heard this movie was awful, and I believe it, but these clips are awesome! OH GOD!! THEIR IN MY EYES!!!
Jan 10, 2007
Daily Lit
Do you like books but hate holding things? Do you like reading but hate paper and ink? Do you prefer to enjoy a story over a period of 8 million years? Then this site is for you!!
Right, so it's a site that emails you a few paragraphs from a book you choose every day. The idea being that you spend more time at email than w/ a book, so you'll get it read bit by bit each day. Seems sorta silly to me, but whatever floats yer biscuit.
Jan 9, 2007
Box in a Box
Okay, I'm behind on this one, I actually saw it on Olbermann before I saw it online *gasp* Still, it's hilarious. 'member I pointed to the SNL skit Dick in a Box? Well there's a million parodies, of course, but this is the funniest I've seen is Box in a Box! Ha!
Jan 7, 2007
Great Big Sea Redux
Okay, I don't think I could possibly love this band anymore. I've been listening constantly for the past couple months and everytime I wear out a favorite song I find 2 more. I just bought a couple albums, one is a live one (not road rage) w/ a DVD of them. The performance is awesome, of course. But more than that, they put their crazy videos on the DVD, including karaoke versions of ordinary day, goin' up, and MARI-MAC! ha! how cool are they?! Closest they are getting anytime soon is wisconsin, I wish I had an excuse to fly there in march :)
Jan 5, 2007
Child's Play Update
So that charity I like, Child's Play, started by the webcomic guys, broke one million dollars! That's crazy! Small compared to most charities, of course, but still, game players and companies raised one miiiiiillion dollars. That's awesome! And I was uhh... 0.01% of that! :)
Jan 4, 2007
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
Apocalypto - Hollllly shit. I can't say this movie had much of a chance, I went in expecting it to be pretty bad, but still. Yikes. There is some good action and all that, but the rest, jeez. There's lots of details that could be used as examples, but I found myself wondering something else: which of these categories is sadder?
1) The movie makers are sorta racist and stupid - i.e. the white people are clean, the brown people are dirty and savage, etc.
2) The movie makers expect us to be sorta racist and stupid - i.e. really colloquial dialogue, a whole opening scene that I would absolutely believe was copied out of a sitcom script.
3) That we actually ARE racist and stupid - i.e. the people in the audience laughing just because a brown person w/ crazy tattoos and piercings made a face. That's not a joke! That's just different than you! Jesus! And, no, I don't give the guy who said "woah, that was badass, man" the credit of thinking he was laughing at the filmmakers.
Anyway, it's worth seeing just to know how crazy it is. But I sorta wish I hadn't given Mr. Gibson 10 bucks.
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World Trade Center - Who's the fuck idea was it for me to watch this while I was feeling crappy? Dumb! Anyway, it was what I expected and good for that. You have to expect it to be a microcosm, it's not about the whole thing (except that it, of course, is). It was done well enough, hard to judge, emotional movie, emotional state of mind, not the best perspective to analyze film making skill, I suppose.
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Monster House - Eh, I guess. It was cute and funny. Not as much as people seemed to say though.
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Blood Spell - Off the beaten path, here. This is a machinima, filmed in Neverwinter Nights. It's not all that well acted, written, or filmed. But still, it's a huge effort for a new art form and for that reason alone I wanted to watch it. In 5 years when some amazing movie is filmed entirely in a video game, we'll have seen its roots :)
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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Wow, strange strange movie. Very good, but very strange. The first 30 minutes are pretty amazing. I dunno how you make smell into sight, but it's dirty & visceral and does the job. Then it gets into sort of a normal (albeit twisted) murder story. Then it goes batshit insane. But it's really quite good.
Jan 3, 2007
Jan 2, 2007
NRA Handbook
Granted, the contents are awful (animal rights people are terrorists, brown people are gang members, liberals are evil, etc). But, y'know, the art in this thing is sorta cool!
Trailers
Fantastic Four - (I think everyone already saw this, but oh well) Wow, the silver surfer looks pretty damn slick. How can the same people who made the Thing look like a lump of papier mache dog crap also make SS look cool? Oh, right, computers, but still!
Smokin' Aces - Just now saw this. I like gang movies, hope this will be good!
Grindhouse - Wth? Is this going to be awful or awesome? Both I guess?