Eternal Sunshine Of The Hopeless Knight
Posted on | July 20, 2008 at 5:23 pm | 2 Comments
It’s the return of Movie Review Sunday! Yippee!
Watched two Blu-Ray discs last night: one a purchase and one a rental.
The purchased one was Batman: Gotham Knight, an animated movie released to cash in on the theatrical release of The Dark Knight. It features six vignettes that tie into that movie somewhat (as a sort of prequel), as well as tying in with each other. The six stories are directed by six Japanese directors in anime style. They were all written by one guy, although the screenplays were from different people, including some DC Comics writers. The stories range from mildly interesting to deeply weird, but there’s always something entertaining to see. The action scenes are very well done. A few Batman foes show up: Killer Croc, The Scarecrow, Deadshot, but there’s no real costumed rogues gallery villainy like we’re used to seeing in animated Batman flicks. So in that sense it plays more like Batman Begins. The voice of Batman is Kevin Conroy, who voiced the Caped Crusader in the 90s Batman animated series (still the best of the lot) as well as in the various Justice League cartoons. He’s the best. Although sometimes his Bruce Wayne voice doesn’t really fit the Bruce Wayne portrayed in these stories (who looks more like a high school kid than Christian Bale).
I have to say I was a bit disappointed. The animation style didn’t vary much from story to story, even though they had different directors. I guess they wanted a consistent look. The stories were not very well developed, and I don’t think it was just because of the short length of them. What development there was tended to be confusing at times. But it was definitely pretty to look at, and I’m sure I’ll be watching it again. Not a bad way to waste 75 minutes.
The rental was Sunshine, a science fiction opus directed by Danny Boyle of 28 Days Later and Trainspotting fame. It takes place in the near future and features a crew of astronauts on a mission to reignite our dying sun with a really big bomb. (It’s never really explained why the sun is dying. I guess we just have to go with it.) In the course of their mission, they run across the first spaceship that was sent out for the same job 8 years earlier, but which never completed its mission and which hadn’t been heard from since, and hilarity chaos ensues.
First, I have to say that this movie looked really, really good. The special effects were amazing, the set design was good, and the cinematography made you really think you were headed to the sun. The HiDef Blu-Ray picture really made the film shine, so to speak. The acting was pretty good too, although Cillian Murphy creeps me out even when he’s playing a good guy. He’s got those weird piercing eyes. Chris Evans redeems himself somewhat from the Fantastic Four movies, and Rose Bryne and Michelle Yeoh are as enchanting and believable as always. The first two thirds or so of the movie are really good. It’s one of those “bad day” movies, where everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and you wonder how the crew is going to cope or survive. But they keep using their human ingenuity to get them out of sticky situations and closer to achieving their goal. It raises the usual moral questions about how far “normal” people will go when faced with an untenable situation, and follows the consequences of those actions. So far, so good.
But then an element is introduced into the movie that is just plain goofy, and not very well explained. This causes the film to lurch slightly into another direction that just feels wrong and like it belongs in another movie. You really have to wonder what the filmmakers were thinking. I think something was lost in the translation from script to screen. I really, really wanted to like Sunshine, and was really getting into it, and then… blah. Off the rails.
Though I haven’t seen anything to confirm this, I have a sneaking suspicion that Sunshine is an homage of sorts to the John Carpenter movie Dark Star, a favorite of mine. In Sunshine, the captain of the first mission is named Captain Pinbacker, and in Dark Star, the main character is Sgt Pinback. Both movies feature missions to bomb planetary bodies, take place on claustrophobic spaceships with a small crew far from Earth, and both are about the crews having a Really Bad Day. They even end in a very similar fashion. And in their own way, they both bring up issues of existentialism and what it means to be human. So I wonder…
Although since Dark Star was a precursor to Alien (even though it was essentially a comedy), and was even written by the same guy, it could just be that Sunshine is drawing from the same well a couple of levels removed.
Latre.
Sweat On My Brow, Fiberglass Insulation Under My Feet
Posted on | July 19, 2008 at 6:12 pm | 3 Comments
I love subjecting myself to torture. It’s 100 degrees outside today, so I figured it was a good day to go into the attic, in the middle of the afternoon during the worst heat, and reposition my TV antenna. I need the antenna in order to get over-the-air digital HDTV from the local Denver stations. I already get most of them in HD over the Dish satellite, but I like having a backup as well as a third tuning/recording option. (The satellite receiver has two satellite tuners and one OTA tuner.) I’ve been meaning to do this ever since the Denver Metro Supertower went online, since I haven’t been able to get the local ABC station OTA any more, even though the antenna is pointed in the general direction of Lookout Mountain (as I reported in this blog entry). Strangely, I could get the NBC station just fine, and they’re supposedly in the same place. I figured all I would have to do is point it a little more to the north and I’d be in business.
The problem is that the antenna is bolted into a rotator that I installed awhile ago in order to rotate the antenna between the two transmission positions: Lookout Mountain and Downtown Denver. The rotator did not allow the antenna to move any further north. Plus, there was an attic beam in the way. My plan was to remove the antenna from the rotator, since I didn’t need it any more, and keep it pointed in one optimal position toward Lookout Mountain all the time, even if that meant moving it to a different place in the attic. The attic is very small though, and there aren’t very many places to move it to.
The entrance the attic is on the ceiling, and I need a ladder to get to it. When I first opened it, I was hit by a blast of hot air that almost knocked me off the ladder in surprise. I think it must’ve been at least 130 degrees up there, especially with the bare light bulb on. Unbolting the antenna was not easy – it was hard to position myself for optimal tooling. I was dripping sweat profusely. I had to wear gloves because the metal on the antenna was too hot to touch with bare hands. But finally I managed to get it out of the rotator and move it. I had to keep coming down and drying off and getting cool before going back up there for the next phase. I know I should’ve waited for a cooler day, or started earlier in the morning, but once I get something in my head…
Anyway, I finally got the antenna into a stable position that cleared up my ABC problem, and also made most of the other stations come in better. I was hoping it would also clear up my problem with the local CW station, which has had borderline reception for a month or two. They transmit from Lookout Mountain also, but not from the new Supertower. But no – no matter where I move it to, I still have reception problems. I just gotta hope they pump more power into that thing or reposition the transmitter or something. It’s a bummer, because that’s not one of the HD stations I get on the satellite. I hope Dish adds it.
When I was done with the operation, my t-shirt and shorts were completely drenched. I think I lost about a gallon of water. But I’m glad I did it and got it over with, even if it was undoing all the work that my friend Phil and I did to install the rotator (and run a line for the controller from the attic to the garage) in the first place. But I always knew that was a temporary thing anyway and that the Supertower would go online eventually. It actually took a lot longer than I thought it would, so I did get a lot of use out of the rotator!
In other news, I’ve been watching Dr Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog the past couple of days. Strongly recommended for fans of Joss Whedon and his crew, and for others who enjoy good, clean, disturbing entertainment. The songs are catchy and cute, although they remind me a bit too much of the tunes from the musical episode of Buffy. Neil Patrick Harris is great as the title character and it’s cool to see him as part of the Whedon Gang. And Nathan Fillion is spectacular as Captain Hammer, a real superjerk. The story is very funny, although it ends up going to an unexpectedly dark place. And most people, aside from supervillains, probably won’t think the ending is a happy one. Definitely worth watching, especially for free. However, the three acts (which total 45 minutes in length) are only available for free viewing on the website until midnight tomorrow (Sunday), so do it quick or pay later!
Latre.
Pet Peeve of the Day: 100 degree heat.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “herb that tastes like cilantro”.
The Light Kmorning
Posted on | July 18, 2008 at 10:49 pm | Comments Off
Ah, the middle of summer… the morning light is in flux… the queenly flux, eternal light…
Don’t know if I’ve ever brought this up here before. Seems like I must have, since I enjoy talking about my sleep patterns so much. Forgive me if this is a repeat. After over 4 years of blogging (and nearly 9 months of continuous daily blogging) it’s sometimes hard to remember what I’ve talked about and what I haven’t. Sure, there’s the Search function and all, but it’s hard to know what to search for, and too many entries come up no matter what I put in. And who wants to go back and read through that many entries? Certainly not me. They make me cringe.
Anyway, this is that weird time of summer when the days are getting shorter again. I kind of liked how it was back in June when the sun would come up really early. That way, when I woke up and saw the light, I could still pretend it was going to be a long time before the alarm was going to go off. (I set the alarm for 5:25a on most work days, so that I can go running. Or so that I can get up and do other things like avoiding running.) But now with the shorter days, it’s getting so that if I wake up and there’s some light, the alarm is going to go off real soon. And then I can’t fall back asleep.
When I wake up in the night/morning, I don’t like to know what time it is (even though my superpower usually lets me know). I always like to think there’s plenty of time left before I have to get up. This is especially easy to do in the winter when the sun rises long after I get up. I can more easily fool myself and my exquisitely honed senses. But in the spring and summer, it’s vexing. I hate thinking it’s the middle of the night and then opening my eyes and seeing the light. I have blackout blinds in my bedroom, but that doesn’t stop the light from poking in around the edges. Plus I usually have the bedroom door open at night and light seeps in from other parts of the house.
I especially don’t like those early light summer mornings on weekends, when it’s been light for awhile and I know I should be up. Makes it hard to rationalize sleeping in. I wish we had more cloudy days in Colorado, but cloudy mornings are even rarer than cloudy afternoons.
At least the pre-alarm phantom music seems to have stopped. So either something in my psychological makeup has changed and the audio hallucinations have decided to abate for the time being, or it really was something like my neighbor playing music loud in the car as she left for work in the morning. The neighbor’s house was foreclosed on some months ago, so no one has been living there for awhile.
Okay, I really should be going to bed soon…
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 64°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Get Your Hands Off My Woman” (The Darkness)
- “Tangled Up In Plaid” (Queens Of The Stone Age)
- “Wooden Legs (Reprise)” (Trotsky Icepick)
- “This Scene Is Dead” (We Are Scientists)
- “First Of The Gang To Die” (Morrissey)
- “The Song (We Go)” (Ultravox)
- “Michael Caine” (Madness)
Pet Peeve of the Day: People asking me if I’ve seen The Dark Knight yet. No, I haven’t. Just because it’s the movie I’m most looking forward to, that doesn’t mean that I went to the midnight showing last night. I’m getting too old for that. Heck, I may not even see it this weekend, as there are some roadblocks to that (work issues and other things). But I don’t mind. Anticipation makes it all the sweeter. I also sort of want to watch Batman Begins again first, and I just got the Blu-Ray of that. And if I can talk N into going with me, which looks likely, she’s never seen BB and would want to see it first also. So it may be awhile before I can answer “yes” to everyone. It’s nice to have things to look forward to.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “alien probing games”. Note: 35% of the searches lately have been either “taco bell coupon” or “taco bell coupons”. And this just started the last few days, even though that blog entry has been up for weeks. Anyone know why people are suddenly searching online for Taco Bell coupons?
The Takeout Tip-Toe
Posted on | July 17, 2008 at 9:36 pm | 5 Comments
Question for my readers: Do you tip for takeout? And if so, how much? I always tip for delivery or dining in, of course, but I’m always unsure what to do in the various takeout situations. Tipping didn’t used to be much of an issue for me. I’ve always been a generous guy and would usually tip (too much) for pretty much every circumstance. But lately with the economy the way it is, the high price of food and gas, and an uncertain job situation, I’ve been pinching my pennies and making lifestyle changes.
Say, for example, you call your local pizza joint and order a pizza for takeout. You go down there to pick it up. There’s a tip jar on the counter. If you pay by credit card, there’s a line for tips on the slip. What do you do? I usually don’t add anything if paying by credit card, though sometimes I’ll add $1 if I’m in a good mood. If paying by cash, I’ll usually throw the change in the tip jar. And then there’s the case where you order takeout from a chain like Domino’s or Black Jack, and there’s no tip jar on the counter, and yet they’ll still have that tip line on the credit card slip. I figure that in this scenario, it’s not unreasonable to throw in a little extra money above the price of the food, because I called in the order and it was prepared in advance.
Or what about when it’s your turn for Treat Day at work and you phone in a big order of breakfast burritos to the local Mexican joint the night before? I figure if the order is there and waiting (and still hot) in the morning at the time you specify, you should probably kick in some extra dough. But how much? If the order consists of different types of burritos, and the workers labeled each one, then that probably deserves some extra bills as well.
Okay, but what about when you’re just dashing into your local Chipotle or Starbucks or some chain place like that for a quick burrito or coffee or something. You stand in line at the counter. You make your order, you get your food, you leave. There’s no other contact with the employees. Do you tip in that situation? I don’t think Chipotle, for example, puts a tip line on their credit card receipts, but they do usually have that tip jar out. And sometimes I’ll throw some change in there if I pay in cash and get some back. But it doesn’t feel right. It almost feels like tipping at a grocery store or 7-11 or Target or something, even though I guess the various food-preparers involved go to a little extra trouble to serve you personally than your standard store clerk. But you certainly don’t tip at fast food joints like McDonald’s or Taco Bell, so why should you tip at these slightly more upscale eateries? Even though I just don’t feel the burning need to tip in those situations, I’m sometimes willing to tip when there’s a tip jar present if the people are pleasant to me. But with all the people involved in preparing the order, how do I know who the tip is even going to?
It gets even more complicated when you go to a restaurant that is not really fast food, like Chili’s or California Pizza Kitchen or some place like that, and where you didn’t call in the order and you have to wait a little while for your takeout. I always feel a bit odd standing or sitting there waiting 10-15 minutes for my order. Again, there’s no tip jar but there is that line on the credit card slip. I don’t order takeout from those types of places very often, but in the past I don’t think I’ve added much of a tip, if any.
If it’s some place I go to often where they may start to recognize me, like the local pizza joint in the example above, I’m more likely to tip in the hopes of the food being ready faster or prepared better the next time. Or to prevent the employees from spitting or peeing on it the next time.
I’m sure I could look up the opinions of numerous anonymous web denizens and etiquette mavens, but I’m more interested in what my buds do. So, how do y’all handle the takeout tipping dilemma?
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “what do roses smell like”.
The Ballad of Johnny McC
Posted on | July 16, 2008 at 8:36 pm | Comments Off
Katy Laveaux and Johnny McCain
Used to play on the hallowed ground
Back in the time you could find peace of mind
And not be down
Johnny McCain, a growing boy
He never felt this way before
He told pretty Kate they were now on a date
As he pulled her to the hallowed floor
She said “That ain’t no way to behave now, Johnny
That ain’t no way to behave
You got a dirty mind but I think you’re kind
And it ain’t no way to behave”
Well, Johnny McCain, a growing boy
They packed him off to war
They taught him to kill, they gave him a will
And for what he did, he’s haunted still
When he came home, rattling bones
He tried his best to fit right in
But the hippies were high, the government lied
And the hiring man wouldn’t let him in
He said “That ain’t no way to behave now, Johnny
That ain’t no way to behave
You got a worried mind and you’re in a bind
But it ain’t no way to behave”
Now Johnny McCain was sick of the pain
Of being turned down everywhere
So he made up a plan and sat in the van
‘Til the cashier went to fix her hair
He grabbed all the loot and only started to shoot
When the cop came on the scene
The judge sent him down with a sigh and a frown
And as the cell door closed, the inmates screamed
They said “That ain’t no way to behave now, Johnny
That ain’t no way to behave
You got a busted mind, now you’re doing time
And it ain’t no way to behave”
Katy Laveaux and Johnny McCain
They got married in the spring
Two little boys, one little girl
A little bit of everything
He’s working one night, she gives him a fright
And pins him up against the door
She looks in his eyes, he’s touching her thighs
As she pulls him to the kitchen floor
He said “That ain’t no way to behave now, Katy
That ain’t no way to behave
You got a dirty mind but it sure feels fine
And it ain’t no way to behave”
She said “That ain’t no way to behave now, Johnny
That ain’t no way to behave
I’ll be your loving slave ’til I’m in my grave
And it ain’t no way to behave”
–”Ain’t No Way To Behave” by Ian McNabb, from his 2002 solo album The Gentleman Adventurer*, which I just recently downloaded off of eMusic. (Note that eMusic says the release date was 2006, but it really came out in 2002 originally.) I am not making this up. I couldn’t find the lyrics online, so the above is my own interpretation, but I think it’s right. McNabb sure likes putting little twists into the last verse of his story songs, and this one is certainly no exception. I’m having trouble figuring out the point of it, but that’s not why I posted it…
(McNabb was the main guy in the 80’s band Icicle Works, whose big hit in America was “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)”. Since going solo, I think he aspires to be the British Neil Young, even going so far as to have Crazy Horse backing him up on an album. Despite that, or maybe because of it, I generally like his stuff a lot. * – The Gentleman Adventurer is a great album title! It fits McNabb well. It also sounds like an album title Bill Nelson would use. It would make a great band name too.)
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 62°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Master” (Graham Smith)
- “Live For Now” (Velvet Crush)
- “The Popular Choice” (The Wonder Stuff)
- “Nobody Knows” (Jason Falkner)
- “Homeland” (Stellastarr*)
- “Not Waving But Drowning” (Julian Cope)
- “No One’s Watching My Limo Ride” (Loud Family)
Pet Peeve of the Day: I got cut off in traffic on the way home today by a blond woman driving a convertible BMW. She then proceeded to make several turns without using her turn signal. The cool thing was that “Pampered Pop Star Millionaire Miserabilist Blues” (from the McNabb album above) was playing on my car stereo at the time.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “phobia of spines”.
Eee! Fanboys!
Posted on | July 15, 2008 at 11:13 pm | 1 Comment
This is the week of E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, being held in Los Angeles. It’s the big American video game trade show of the year, and it’s when all the video game companies make their upcoming hardware and software announcements. Many sites, like Joystiq, are publishing reports from the show floor.
One of the big announcements was that Sony is going live with its video download service tonight, with support from many major studios. So now you can download SD and HD movies and TV shows directly from the PlayStation Network (PSN) to your PlayStation 3 hard drive and watch them from either the PS3 or the PlayStation Portable (PSP). There are different pricing options for renting and purchasing. Seeing as how it takes me a very long time to download game or firmware updates from PSN due to my apparently slow wireless and DSL connections, I don’t see this as a service I’m going to be using any time soon. The thing would be downloading all night. I’ll stick with NetFlix. But it’s an interesting idea and undoubtedly the wave of the future.
It looks like Microsoft and Sony had a lot of interesting things to announce, but Nintendo not so much. They’re resting on their Wii and DS laurels. There’s still not much in the way of interesting third-party games coming out for the Wii, and their announcements do nothing to nudge me any closer to purchasing a Wii. The most interesting (and unexpected) Nintendo announcement was the unveiling of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS. Nintendo finally gets a GTA game, and it’s on the DS instead of the Wii! Bizarre. It’s likely I’ll be picking that up when it comes out, especially if the gameplay and use of the stylus is innovative.
Which brings me to a Pet Peeve of the Day: The useless divisions in video game fandom. People, especially younger people, seem incredibly invested in supporting a single company, to the point of endlessly slagging the others. Really, you people reading this who have no exposure to the video game world (probably most of you) wouldn’t believe how strong the vitriol is. I’ve never quite understood it. If I could afford to, and had time to play more games than I do, I would own a Nintendo Wii and a Microsoft Xbox 360 as well as my Sony PS3, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Xbox (I recently traded in my PS2, since my PS3 will play my PS2 games). The main reason I bought a PS3 instead of a 360 or a Wii was because of the Blu-Ray drive. The second reason is that despite the lack of games, it seemed to me like it had the most potential and longest lifespan. That doesn’t mean I don’t see the value in the other machines. The 360 has an incredible library of games and the Wii has some really innovative and fun gameplay. I did actually consider the 360 before I made my PS3 purchase, because it was also going to get GTA4 and Bionic Commando like the PS3. And though the PSP is a more powerful handheld machine than the DS, I still find myself playing the DS more often because of the interesting design and because there are more of the kinds of games I like to play on it.
But you see a lot of very immature and vulgar rantings in the forums and blogs and such about how one particular box is the best and the rest are crap. It doesn’t make any sense. It takes brand loyalty too far. They’re all good systems. It’s like someone’s choice of a video game system is a reflection of who they are, and so they have to defend it to the death. Well, we are talking about teenagers here, for the most part, and they’re still trying to find their identity.
I pay particular attention to the Sony announcements because my main machine is the PS3. But I also keep track of what’s interesting in the other worlds. It’s all connected. Someday there may be a killer must-have 360-exclusive game that will make me run right out and buy a 360 system. Heck, I bought both a PS2 and an original Xbox. And if Wii’s ever become readily available, I may pick one up to use as a party machine. It’s all good, as someone once said.
So, can’t we all just… oh, never mind.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 69°F), though it was a short run with no tunes since the iPod battery was dead. It’s been awhile since I last ran because I managed to pull some leg muscles or something when I was doing yardwork, pulling weeds, on the 4th of July weekend. Yes, I’m pathetic.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “hate my prius”.
« newer entries — older entries »