ever so gently rambling, rambling at my chamber door
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Your Movie Buff Quotient: 88% |
 You are a movie buff of the most obsessive variety. If a movie exists, chances are that you’ve seen it. You’re an expert on movie facts and trivia. It’s hard to stump you with a question about film. |
Response from anyone who knows me:
well, duh. of course you’re a movie geek.
I’m not sure how to describe Joost aside from on-demand, internet tv clips from the crew that put together Skype and Kazaa. A while back I managed to land an invite from Joost for their private beta test, and have enjoyed running it on my Macbook Pro (they support Windows and Intel Macs at this point). Very little lag when you first fire up a program, and haven’t had any issues once a show starts. They seem to be landing more and more content every time I check in with it. They’ve got all sorts of channels:
Anyway, it’s turning into a pretty cool source for free tv goodies as long as you’ve got a decent net connection. Some stuff relies on advertising, but it hasn’t been as obnoxious as what you’d find on regular tv so far (e.g. 10 minutes for ads in a 30 minute show on real tv).
Since it’s still in beta, you need an invite to get in. They’ve apparently scaled to the point where they can handle faster growth of their user base as they’ve given everyone “unlimited” invites at this point. So if anyone wants and invite, let me know.
So the Simpsons are headed for movie theaters everywhere toward the end of the month. Supposedly it’s good, but I think I’ll wait for the rental. What prompts me to write this post however is one of the features available on the movie website… create your own Simpsons avatar! Reasonably well done Flash affair where you select body type, hairstyle, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, etc. There’s of course only a limited number of each of these, but you can achieve a fairly reasonable likeness and save it out as a jpeg. I took a stab at making mine and here it is:
To be honest, I think it’s pretty cool and might use the head as my new IM icon and maybe slap it at the top of the right column of the blog where people sometimes put a “photo of the author.”
In case you’re wondering, I didn’t select the blowfish due to its connection to the Simpsons (does it have one? many of the shirt options seemed to, but I don’t know what it is for that one). In fact, I selected it because I the other choices didn’t “speak to me” and cartoon blowfish always make me think of the OpenSSH mascot.
And yes, Virginia, I realize I’m a dork.
Took a vacation of sorts down to SoFlo (hey, SoCal’s accepted, why not SoFlo for the sunshine state?) with Amanda to visit the folk this past week for Thanksgiving and Birthdays and so forth. Really spent a fair portion of my time going through the crap in my room from my childhood. Not so fun and I’m surprised Amanda didn’t kill me for wasting her limited vacation time in this manner, but at least we got to go to Monkey Jungle. I assume I’ve mentioned this place previously (although a brief search of the blog says I haven’t), but it’s a pretty cool zoo-type place where the people walk around in little caged in walkways with the monkeys roaming free on the outside! You can buy little boxes of dried fruits (raisins, cranberries, apricots) as well as sunflower seeds and feed them by placing the treats in little metal food dishes that dangle from the ceiling of your cage on little chains. The monkeys sit up there and reel in the bowls by pulling up the chain and grab all the treats. It’s really a cool place. Check out the photos I took the last time we went. We also had an outstanding Thanksgiving dinner thanks to Amanda, chef extraordinaire. This included a tasty italian-style turkey roll (stuffed with italian sausage, prosciutto, olives and sage… from the “Everyday Italian” show), mashed potatoes, stuffing, fancy green beans, cranberry-pear relish and pecan pie for dessert. Yum. While I was down there I snagged some movies from my Dad… namely some old Bogey stuff (Big Sleep, Key Largo, Maltese Falcon) and Day the Earth Stood Still (one of my all-time favourite sci-fi flicks out of the 50s).
Came home to find my pre-ordered Calamine CD (“What We Forgot To Remember”) had arrived. For those not in the know, they did the theme song for Adult Swim’s Sealab 2021 which just happens to be one of the damned funniest things on tv. This album’s been in the works for some time (saw on their website it was slated for release last Spring). From what I’ve read, I guess they’ve had some trouble nailing down the sound for the album and had a fair bit of life getting in the way (eg Julie had a baby). The official release date is not till January, but I got it now since I pre-ordere direct from the band. Mmmmm… indie pop. Good stuff.
Another November, another couple of birthdays for Amanda and I. I’d given Amanda a necklace right before we left and she gave me a workout bag to take the gym (there’s plans for a lens for my camera, but until I can figure out exactly what I want…) While we were down in Miami my folk gave us some cool stuff they’d picked up on their trip to Egypt (suppose I should upload some of the pics from their trip since they aren’t likely to do so). Came home and had a more traditional turkey dinner for our birthdays with Amanda’s family. They gave me a guide to digital photography (which I can most certainly use) and the movie Garden State. Had the chance to watch it for the first time yesterday and I have to say that movie’s most enjoyable. Excellent writing/directing debut for Zach Braff (you might know him from the show Scrubs). Thanks a bunch Rachel!
Holy crap! There’s an Aeon Flux movie in the works! Live action no less! Used to watch this way back in the day on MTV’s Liquid Television in the middle of the night… Wild, bizarre, risque stuff.
Be sure to go check out the trailer. I really don’t remember the show having quite that much plot.
Just decided to go poking around the web to see if there was any news about a DVD release of Kenneth Branaugh’s Hamlet. Turns out there is! Warner Home Video is slated to release a 10th anniversary special edition DVD in 2006! Kick-ass!
Finally got around to integrating my movies page with the rest of the site. It’s definitely hacky at this point (made a custom wordpress page style containing most of the php code and simply created an empty page that uses that style), but at least it works. Still need to refine it some. I stripped out most of the db fields from getting displayed since I’m don’t have as much screen width to work with, but I should fine tune what I display. Should also decide whether I want to link to my own custom entry for each movie when you click on it in addition to providing the IMDB link, or if I should just simplify my db substantially and only provide the barest necessities locally. Oh, and I suppose it would be slick if I provided a “I’d like to borrow this movie” button so that friends/family that are local can easily notify me when they’re looking over the list online. And perhaps get searching working again. But my tinkering is never really done. There’s a number of backend fixes I should probably consider at some point for adding new entries (ability to select alternate english titles for international films, fix the IMDB lookup to reflect changes made to their interface, …).
Star Wars: Episode III is out! And it’s supposed to be good. Very dark, but good. I’ve heard it actually does a good job wrapping things up and bridging the new with the old. Hopefully I’ll get to see it before too long (headed out of town to go to Amanda’s cousin’s wedding tomorrow and my folks will be here next week). Of course, I’ve heard a fairly high quality work print has been leaked.
Looks like the trailer for Joss Whedon’s Serenity (based on the series Firefly) is finally online! Looks pretty tight. How am I gonna make it till September 30th when it’s finally released? Makes me want to go back and rewatch the show again.
Went to the Castle Theater in Bloomington yesterday with Amanda to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Really outstanding theater setup. Instead of the usual uncomfortable, cramped stadium seating, the Castle has a set of squishy couches and loveseats. Much more enjoyable experience. Raiders is such a classic.
