Though weather.com somehow claims that it hit 40 earlier this week and while I do believe technically it hit 35 yesterday (which I don't count since it snowed in the early evening), today I mark the end of Strongsville's below-freezing weather which started on the 14th (and this post) - that is 16 days where the high never got above freezing and most days much colder than that. Currently the sun is out in full force and the melting has begun. The next week should have highs a little above freezing and no precipitation in sight - just what I want to hear since I'm starting a new job with a 20 mile commute thick in rush hour traffic.
Due to my recent stretch of busyness, Hide and Seek is the first movie I've seen in the theater in a while (at least by my standards) and my first for 2005, which is hopefully not a harbinger for the year.
Why did I see this film? Well, Fox has a track record that if they show a commercial for a program enough times, I am bound to watch it. Additionally, as I've always said, there is nothing scarier then a kid in a horror movie (though there was some loud debate from the crowd upon leaving the theater whether this film was a horror movie or a suspense/thriller, I'd go with the former) and Dakota Fanning's performance might have been the scariest ever. Admittedly, it wasn't as much her acting as the cinematography, makeup, and pacing, but in the pantheon including The Ring, The Sixth Sense, and The Exorcist, her performance is near the top. Additionally, I have a soft spot for Famke Janssen and Elisabeth Shue - I mean, any woman who would reject the advances of a future Duke professor...
However, the tipping point was the discovery that Fox was shipping the final reel of the film after the rest of the film (Coming Soon via Movie Blog). It turns out that if only Fox had lost that reel that would have had a pretty good movie on their hands.
Midway through the film I was planning on writing about the terrific camera work and shot composition and the meaning of the glassy eyes and mirrors, but then once the suspense reached a crescendo, the ill conceived ending actually ruined all the story points that proceeded it. I have been debating if the ending can at all be salvaged, but I have yet to hear an argument that changes my mind. Seriously, I would not suggest seeing this film since knowing a film is terrible doesn't mean it can't be fun, but discovering it's disappointing can only be infuriating. If you do see this film, LEAVE THE THEATER BEFORE DENIRO ENTERS HIS OFFICE NEAR THE END. You'll be glad you did.
The folks at Duke provided one answer to this age old question by using the funds to pay the "government levied fees" incurred as a result of a box social that got a little bit out of control. As for myself, I think I would put the money towards 1/30th of this little gem of a read. What would you do with $150? The question boggles the mind.
Though I guess it was announced a few days ago, I'll put down some of my takes on this year's Oscar nominees. I actually don't give much credit to the Oscars, but hey, they are something to talk about. I know this is a down year for best picture nominees in terms of box office, but being no box office snob, I was shocked to discover I had only seen one of the films, Ray. Admittedly, I wouldn't have mind seeing 3 of the other nominees, but I never made it to the theater. Misremembering my personal history I thought it was typical for me to see only one of the nominees, but after a little research I discovered that last year that I definitely didn't see two or more of the films in the theater before the Oscars was in 1989 when the nods went to Rain Man, The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning, and Working Girl. In fact, I'm not even positive that I've ever seen any of those films in their entirety, though I do remember most of Rain Man and Working Girl.
Surprises: Thought The Passion of the Christ would be up for more things like best picture and best actor. I'm not sure if it was hurt more for its religious story or the fact that it came out in March and if a film doesn't come out in December, than it really doesn't want the Oscar. Also in my mind I kind of thought Spider-Man 2 deserved a nod for Best Picture. Yeah, it was a summer popcorn movie, a sequel, and visual effects are almost always a sign that you aren't a serious movie, but the emotional subtext of the film dealing with Parker's struggle to find himself matches those of the other nominees.
Pleasant Surprises: The lack of Fahrenheit 911 on this list, though Moore didn't even submit it for best documentary. This really isn't due to the subject matter, but more to the fact that it was a really horribly assembled movie with no direction. I think someone with an eMac, iMovie, and some home films could put together a better documentary. Though I didn't see the other nominees in the category, Super Size Me really deserves to win the Oscar. Terrific movie.
In case you missed it, a soccer announcer was fired since apparently some soccer fans are known as the toon army and he made a pun referencing the tsunami in Asia. I hope he was fired for the right reason. Not for his insensitivity, but for making one of the worst jokes I've heard in years.
Some of our few regular readers may have noticed the occasionally off-topic comments on this site touting Texas Hold'em or various drugs that usually are quickly deleted. A couple of magnitudes of similar comments never make it to the site due to Jay Allen's MT-Blacklist Plugin. The major problem with this method is that an oddly formed or new topic will make it through until it can be evaluated for its comment worthiness. To combat this problem, another system has been put in place. I looked for a similar plugin months ago, but apparently never hit upon the appropriate terminology. When looking at a story on Blue Sky On Mars today, I noticed it used images to prove that human beings were reading the site (or at least, that script kiddies have some significant image parsing know how). Thus KissaBoo now uses the SCode plugin created by James Seng to verify comments. If it does the trick, the blacklist may be eliminated or if it turns out that a thousand monkeys from around the world are reading and posting on this site to possibly make a few cents, it will go the way of a Chyler Leigh television show.
Mia Kirshner, who turns 30 today. Currently, I associate her with the incestuous sister / Sarah Michelle Gellar Cruel Intentions knockoff she played in Not Another Teen Movie, but others may know her from one of her other films or her current Showtime show, The L Word. She also starred in a film called According to Spencer which I will have to see. Happy Birthday, Mia... and happy birthday to anyone else who may have been born on this day.
We are ever closer to a winner to the personal contest I postulated in this post - the first affordable, wide-screen, large, high-resolution LCD monitor (yes, we like specific titles). Earlier this week there was a lot of discussion on these forums that Dell was close to coming out with the 2405FPW, a 24 inch 1920 by 1200 LCD monitor, for less than a thousand. If this does happen, there is a good chance I'll pick one up within the first month it is out, depending on my exact financial position, despite many proclamations of bad experiences with the 2005FPW. I will be the guinea pig.
I am a sucker for reality tv shows (not all of them, but I am a Survivor and Amazing Race type of guy) and most things Fox (especially during the World Series, they must play more commercials for new shows than all other channels combined). The combination of those two factors did lead me to watch Playing It Straight and My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss - don't judge me too harshly though, I managed to restrain myself from watching any shows with midgets, fiances, or millionaire marriages. While I wasn't a huge fan of either show, the girl on Playing It Straight had a JLH quality and the show had a ridiculous take on sexuality, while the latter did have moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity, though usually not when they were angling for it. Apparently though, I was one of a select few who watched either of these shows, leading both shows to join the ranks of girls club, Skin, That 80's Show, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Undeclared, Glory Days, Opposite Sex, FreakyLinks (wow, I probably could keep going) at the bottom of Rupert Murdoch's vault.
However, nothing is cheaper to broadcast than a show that has already been shot, so reality blurred informs us of the details of their second lives. I'd probably be willing to pay $10 to see one of the most pathetic injuries in the history of arm wrestling, but only if I got to keep it forever. Only 30 days? This show already has almost no value, how much is Fox going to make on it after July 9th? The price for My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss on Fox.com though hits the sweet spot - free! Hooray, we will all soon get to discover the actual boss who is deciding the outcome. Our lives can be complete.
Now if only they'd show those three un-aired episodes of girls club.
To all those that like to be bleeding edge, an announcement on SuprNova.org lets the world know that a public beta of eXeem should be released this week. For those not in the know, the current killer p2p protocol for distributing anything large is BitTorrent. The problem, at least to those who may be using it for possibly illegal circumstances or who just have trouble finding files, is that central sites are needed to alert users to files/torrents and to operate as trackers. eXeem claims to solve these problems. I'm a big fan of cutting myself on new software, but I'll probably use it for Linux ISOs until I know more about how it works.
Longest ... title ... ever. But I do love that quote.
Though you at the moment cannot see it, this is marked as a weird Ohio story. The high temperature today in Strongsville according to weather.com is 63 (though if you have your own thermometer I bet it was higher) as it was yesterday. It was actually warm enough to melt all the snow (minus the huge mounds compacted together in the mall parking lot) - a feat I didn't think would happen until late March or April. So what is the weather like now? Yes, it is below 30 and snowing and the 10 day forecast shows not one moment of temperatures above freezing. What happened?? How can the high temperature drop 40 degrees in one day (and 50 degrees in "feels like" terms)? KHAAANNNN!!!!!!!!
I'm a couple of days late, but I'll join the chorus in singing that when I first saw Apple's Mac Mini the first thing I thought was that it would be a great machine for those relatives I would like to get/encourage a Mac for but don't want anybody breaking the bank. The second thought, after my recent struggles to build a quiet PC that isn't really that quiet anymore, is that this machine would be a great base of a homebrewed PVR, Home Theater PC, or whatever you want to call it - and I speak with some experience of Apple design since my PowerBook is unbelievably quiet. The Mini is really only missing a few things.
First, the only video output is VGA/DVI and if you are like me, you don't have a TV yet that accepts DVI. However, I'm so sure that it ain't no thang but a chicken wing, that I won't even look to make sure there is an adapter that will allow one to use these outputs with the SVideo and/or composite inputs on your tv.
Second, 40 or 80 gig hard drives might be a little small, but honestly, if you are not saving HDTV they should be fine (I've been surviving with 40 for a while) and I'll bet that it isn't too hard to upgrade the hard drive on the Mini's, even if they are small.
Third, yes, even with RSS/BitTorrent and the possibility of ipTV, one still probably wants to record programming from cable or over-the-air. There are a number of hardware solutions to this problem, but I'll point to Elgato's eyeTV Wonder since it was recently announced (and I'll give eHomeUpgrade the credit for pointing me to it). Another problem of course is the remote, but there are plenty of USB / IR solutions to this or you can splurge for a product that costs as much as the mini and get the wireless Philips RC9800i.
Fourth, while Mac OS X is terrific and the Elgato software for example may be good, I wonder if a linux distribution like Yellow Dog can be tailored to be the perfect PVR OS.
Update: While there are probably a 100 articles about the same topic in that blog universe, I will add a link to this ehomeupgrade article, which I read after publishing this story though it mentions some of the same ideas, for two reasons. They actually mention a S-Video/composite adapter made by Apple and have a link to MythTV on Mac OS X.
Since I didn't watch Sportscenter today, I am unsure whether this story was worth a bit (it wasn't mentioned on PTI), but you might have missed the fact that ESPN (their story) and Conference USA (their press release) reached a deal involving televising basketball and football games for 6 years starting in 2005. The odd thing is that the ESPN Story mentions the current C-USA members, which if they were paying attention last year to their stories, they know they are not getting.
ESPN will be televising classics among these schools: Central Florida, East Carolina, Houston, Marshall, Memphis, Rice, SMU, Southern Miss, TCU, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB
Quite honestly, are even students of these schools going to watch these games? If recent history holds, Marshall will be decent in football with Southern Miss and TCU occasionally being able to hold their own. Memphis should destroy this league in basketball. I imagine some decent matchups will arise, but this conference is only slightly above a 1 bid conference in the NCAA tournament unless Houston can get the Dream and the Glyde back from the early 80's. I would love to know how much ESPN is paying to televise these games, or is CUSA paying ESPN?
My recent travel experiences and searches for headphones with a suitably long cord has one again left me desiring a quality bluetooth stereo headphone (as vaguely referenced before). I am just hoping that the new Toshiba headphones mentioned on Engadget fits the bill. Now someone only has to invent a two prong stereo bluetooth adapter to make my flights complete.
I love me some law & order (jerry orbach may you rest in peace) but i wouldn't go quoting episodes in a court of law. i mean, there just has to be a better precident than a fictional TV show. even if it is ripped from the headlines...
I just wouldn't want such an important case overturned because of it.
Happy Birthday to January Jones who turns 27 today. She made it out of pedestrian Sioux Falls, SD (who would choose to live there?) to make it to the big screen in three films I've seen (Love Actually, American Wedding - she was Stifler's love interest, and The Glass House) and one I probably will one day (Anger Management) - though I'm sure she has many more in her future.
Yes, Happy, Happy Birthday.
Partly due to the trials and excitement of the holiday season and party because I am a cheap man, I did not pull the trigger on purchasing a new monitor / TV. Part of the reason is that technology always gets cheaper, as demonstrated by even Apple cutting their prices on Cinema Displays, though $1800 for the 23 inch one I crave still seems a little much.
Since it got posted to /. after I saw this article yesterday, I'll mention that I, of course, am excited about the possibility of purchasing an OLED TV. My questions about this model being "what exactly is the price?" and "Can I use it as a monitor (aka DVI)?". Since Samsung claims this TV can be produced using their current plant and LCD process, hopefully it will not be much more than the $1000 range their 22 in. LCD HDTV can be purchased for. Also, since this is primarily being sold as a TV apparently, it might be the first one I've heard of that has a native resolution of 1900 by 1200, especially in this size. Sure sounds like it would be a great computer monitor to me, though a couple of inches less than my ideal.