As part of my 101 in 1001 project I set myself a goal to see at least 100 of the top 250 movies of all time as voted by the seething masses at IMDB. In taking stock it would seem that I’ve already seen 73 of them meaning I have 27 left to watch in roughly 27 months leaving me with an entirely manageable cadence of one a month.
A quick glance through the collection shows I have 8 of these movies unopened in my collection so those will be first up on the viewing list:
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Juno (2007)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Magnolia (1999)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
The Shining (1980)
Which leaves 168 remaining movies to select from, listed in the full post. If you have a suggestion of a favorite movie from below that you particularly like and think I should prioritize onto the list leave a comment and let me know!
(Continued)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Yesterday Apple released the AppleTV Take2 software update. Of course upon getting home I immediately installed it and started playing with some of the shiny gooey goodness and I have to say I’m impressed. I really liked the first version of the AppleTV and they really have knocked it out of the park this time.
The entire user experience is re-envisioned to be more flashy - much more fun to use. The fact that the AppleTV can now independently sync podcasts, buy music and TV shows on the iTunes media store, and rent movies makes for a most delectable icing on an already moist and delicious media cake.
For some strange reason I decided upon Hairspray as test of the new HD rental service. The rental experience was a breeze - two clicks of the remote (plus a one-time password entry) and the HD movie was playing with surprisingly good quality within two minutes.
I went into Hairspray with low expectations and came away impressed. The movie is fun, engaging, and oddly thought provoking. Don’t get me wrong - it’s completely campy and over the top, but really well executed. The music and choreography is well thought out and the cinematographer did a great job of showcasing some of the dance moves without distracting the viewer with too much camera movement.
Featuring fantastic performances by John Travolta, Christopher Walken (it had been so long since I’d seen the Weapon of Choice music video I’d almost forgot how good a dancer he is), and new to film actress Nikki Blonsky who leads the film with confidence and flair.
For the record: John Travola in drag is just plain wrong, but wrong in the kind of way that I can get behind. Travolta in drag for President 08!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Like the good little media consumer I am I finally broke down and shelled out $4 on Amazon to check out The History Channels ‘Life After People’ and I have to admit I’m impressed. It’s a 90 minute presentation about mans influence on the planet and exactly what would happen if people were to mysteriously vanish.
The show covers everything from the more immediate effects in the days and weeks following our disappearance, and continues on for 100’s and 1,000’s of years showing the effects of natures reclamation and the collapse of the great works of man. The special effects are surprisingly well done and do a great job of illustrating how important day to day maintenance and a good coat of paint are at keeping the global landmarks of today from turning into rusted heaps of metal.
While the concept is neat there is one thing about Life After People that bugs me: the lack of people. While the whole premise of the show is about what would happen if people vanished in an instant I can’t think of a good scenario which would bring this about. There are no dead bodies, no damage, nothing to explain it in the show - people (although not their pets or any other animals) just vanish. There are plenty of ways that people could vanish from the earth, but none of them would leave no trace of our destruction like the show proposes.
All in all a highly recommended watch though - check it out if you like thought-play, engineering, or ecology! Such a visceral depiction of mans greatest achievements and technology facing the true test of time really does provoke thought and give the brain something to chew on.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Funny how getting my car detailed can kick my auto-passion into high gear. Tuesday evening I picked up my A6 from Mirrorworks from having a full detail and some paint work done. It’s shiny and like-new again - I’m swooning all over my precious car again!
Aside from the car life has been good. Traskpro has his a solid and stable 0.9 (and graduated from alpha to beta) and is rocking my task list right and left. I even have acquired a few other heavy users which is oddly gratifying. I’ve still got 31 remaining features/tweaks to make, but those can happen gradually over the next few weeks as I continue to ramp up on JavaScript.
Also in the world of good things Scott came over last night. He hadn’t experienced a proper viewing of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End so we did dinner and a showing of that. As silly and overly-Disney as the film is I really do enjoy watching it. I really do hope that big budget swashbucklers never die - they are just so much fun to experience.
Right - back to work now. I have to finish up a ton of stuff today and tomorrow to be ready to take off a few days to be home for Christmas!
Saturday, September 8, 2007
I’ve actually been enjoying myself quite a bit the last few days. My project shipped at work, and although it was a rough couple of days it’s done now and I’m feeling much more relaxed as the result. From Friday night through to this fine Sunday afternoon I’ve been distracting myself with the Red Dwarf Complete Collection on DVD. I’d always loved the PBS Red Dwarf telethons as a kid, but am discovering I must have missed episodes as particularly some from the later seasons I hadn’t seen before.
Today I woke up early for brunch at the B&O with Brien (mmm Beni Thai Crabcake Benedict!) and then to go for a photo walk. I had to pick up some food for Skype so I decided to start out in my car and after picking up the food went back to my perennial favorite location to shoot: the conservatory.
My favorite shot of the day - a backlit palm frond in the conservatory. I actually shot it specifically with an iPhone wallpaper in mind (and tried to frame it correctly for the overlays at the top and bottom) and am quite pleased with the results. You can check out the iPhone specific version here, and the rest of the shots I liked from todays walk can be found here in my Flickr archives.
“Sunlit frond” by sparktography
Through a happy little coincidence I have been able to acquire a copy of Adobe CS3 Production Premium! I had a license for a previous version of Photoshop, but running under Rosetta the older version was getting to be a bit of a drag. Now I will not only get to enjoy the Intel version on my Core 2 Duo iMac, but I’m getting the rest of the CS suite to boot! Now I not only have still capabilities through Photoshop, but full blown video production, audio editing, and rich content authoring. This weekend I’ve already chalked off two days of the three day weekend to just start exploring the other apps and see what kind of cool things erupt forth from the depths of my creativity!
This weekend was action packed with wizardry of two types: the literal and the handyman. Saturday brought the literal kind of wizardry in the form of watching the new Harry Potter movie in 3D at the Seattle Science Center’s IMAX with Brien. It’s a very well done movie, and likely in a tie for my favorite with The Goblet of Fire so far. The 3D was kind of cool, however we were sitting at the back (the ideal seating location for 2D IMAX presentations) and the parallax for the 3D is balanced for the middle of the theater so there was some fringing going on. 3D issues aside I was rather impressed with the wizards battle at the end - keeping an audience engaged for 20 minutes of people shaking wands at each other is no minor feat and the director managed to pull it off quite nicely.
Sunday brought the handyman wizardry, along with all the trials and tribulations that home ownership brings. I awoke Sunday morning and stumbled into the bathroom only to splash my naked feet into a large puddle of water. Upon discovering that my toilet had sprung a leak (and after finishing the oh so gay ‘I got toilet water on my feet’ dance) I managed to get the water turned off and started looking for a solution. After consulting with some friends and the Internet I determined that my best plan of action was a quick trip to Home Depot to get replacement parts for the interior of the toilet.
An interesting note about the repair kit is that on the box all of the instructions clearly show the user tightening everything with their hands, yet upon getting home I discovered that clearly some tools would be required. Luckily for me Brien was able to provide some tools for loan and I got things started. Once I got everything apart the reason for the leak became instantly clear: the toilet was very old and every single rubber gasket had all but disintegrated. Every time I touched one of the gaskets it fell apart in my hand, leaving inky black stains everywhere.
After about an hour of man to toilet fighting I was able to get everything back together and working again. The new inner workings of my toilet are even quieter which is a nice bonus for having spent several hours of my day splashing around in dirty water and sweating in my bathroom. I was feeling quite triumphant and domestic until I stepped outside of the bedroom and discovered that my air conditioner was leaking all over my bedroom. I managed to get the leaking in the bedroom stopped and discovered that the condensation pan at the bottom of the unit had sprung a leak on one of it’s welds. For now I have a pan under the air conditioner, but until I can get in touch with the manufacturer I’m scared to run the thing while I’m out of the house.
I miss the renting days when this kind of problem could be solved by a quick call to the landlord.
