When I can't think of something to write, I often don't write anything. And then I pretend it's a style.
Tim Minear
24th August 2008

Ponderings For 2008-08-24

  • Shorter post for today. I’ve sufficiently distracted myself with other online projects this weekend, and didn’t do as much posting to make up for all my down time as I had intended. I did get one movie review posted, and will hopefully do a number more soon.
  • Eeeeek, I say, EEEEEEEEK! Rounder Records has announced a delightful surprise for us Buffy nerds (of which I am without a doubt definitely one) - an actual, official release of Christophe Beck’s splendiferous score material from his seasons on the show. Sure, much of it has been available on the long circulated composer promo CD’s of his stuff for seasons 2 & 3 for the show, not to mention the few score cues included on the CD release for the musical episode, but it’ll be great to get an official release, not to mention the new stuff that’ll be on the disc.
  • You know, it really makes me sad to see a fantastic movie destroyed by one fatal mistake. Such is the case with Sunshine, which I was re-watching on Blu-Ray recently. Up until the end of the film, this is an utterly fantastic movie. Then it all goes right out the window when the up-till-this-point brilliant script takes an overdose of stupid. Even still, I love watching the movie up until that point. Where is the studio to step in and ask the writer what in the world he’s thinking? I mean studios love to get involved for insanely dumb reasons all the time. Where were they when they really NEEDED to get involved and fix this otherwise great film they were pouring money into?
  • Ruh-roh. Warner Bros is doing the typical studio-exec stupidity with their Superman franchise. After the perceived failure of Superman Returns (which I quite liked), and the success of Dark Knight, Warner is doing the unimaginative thing of “rebooting” the Superman franchise, this time darker. Now, let’s not start on the fact that Superman as a franchise isn’t meant to be dark. If you wanna do that, make another Batman movie. Second, I’m one of the few people that thinks that Ang Lee’s Hulk was far better than the new Incredible Hulk film from this year that did the similar “reboot” of a franchise after a luke-warm performing previous film. This all points to a disaster of a Superman film to come.
  • Ah, fun with optical illusions

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6th March 2008

Ponderings For 2008-03-06

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27th February 2008

Ponderings For 2008-02-27

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21st February 2008

Ponderings For 2008-02-21

  • Congrats to the navy for a great shoot down. No, seriously. Here’s the video. Anybody who thinks that is an easy thing has no idea.
  • Speaking of which, they are starting to see broken up pieces of the bird entering the atmo.
  • To add to the fun, the satellite shoot-down took place just as the moon was going through an infrequent lunar eclipse. I took a look at it during a few phases of the eclipse. A pic of the eclipse I took with my nifty new Canon PowerShot S5 IS camera is featured on this post. I know I could have taken a better shot, but I’m still kinda getting used to the controls on the camera, and it was frickin’ freezing out (nearly zero degrees). Still, the pic turned out pretty good for being only a partially manual shot.
  • Lunar EclipseOccasionally, The Onion will have a news story that just strikes my funny bone perfectly. This is just such a story. I was tearing up, laughing so hard while reading it.
  • Oooooh, David Fincher is directing a graphic novel adaptation, Black Hole. I’m there.
  • Then there’s word that Leonardo DiCaprio is involved in a LIVE ACTION remake of Akira. I’ve got no idea if they can even come close to making it work. I like Akira, and I’ll admit that the last act of the movie makes zero sense. I have to imagine them reworking it, somehow. But if they could somehow bring the first 30 minutes to life, with anywhere near the style that the animated film has, I’ll wanna see that.
  • More and more cast members are being added onto the roster for the Buffy Paley Center event. Now Alyson Hannigan and David Boreanaz have joined in on the fun. But hey, if Alyson is going, where’s Alexis Denisof?
  • Coolness… ;-)
  • Was your science fair project better than these? Too funny…
  • The HD-DVD walls continue to crumble. The major remaining HD-DVD supporting studios, Paramount and Universal, have officially jumped ship as well.
  • Help Stop Darth Weinstein. I haven’t actually seen Fanboys yet, though I’ve wanted to for some time. The reason I really want to see it just goes to underline the true nature of Fanboys in general. I want to see it because it stars Kristen Bell. Doesn’t hurt that it’s about Star Wars/fans. But yeah, this movie has had a stupid, tumultuous history trying to get to an actual release.
  • Here’s an amusing little entry in the GMail Team Blog
  • Congrats to Monk for a seventh season pickup
  • iPaper - a hopeful new attempt to kill the PDF. It’s certainly a faster platform (what isn’t?).
  • A nifty presentation of the newest version of the $5 bill (and some cool pics and info on previous versions)
  • The Sharper Image has filed for chapter 11
  • Gotta love code developers (credit for this one goes to Drupal’s always-excellent and fun Jeff Eaton)
  • Meanwhile, Juno continues on it’s steady run

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12th February 2008

Ponderings For 2008-02-12

  • OK, I think I’m just gonna have to go to LA next year in March. I don’t travel much, but to attend the 20th Anniversary Quantum Leap convention (”The Leap Back”) that has already lined up both Scott Bakula & Dean Stockwell as well as dozens of other guests is just something I don’t think I’ll be able to resist. Hmmm, wonder if I can line up any other fun things to check out during that time frame.
  • Speaking of Bakula, he was great as the guest star on today’s Boston Legal episode. He easily dropped into the swagger, speed and insanity of the show, going toe to toe with James Spader. They got to take advantage of Bakula’s music skills, too (as many shows and movies do). And Shatner, as always, was fantastic. Man, what that show gets away with…
  • Oh wow. These are the greatest cat pictures. Ever. Man, I was laughing at some of these pics so hard my eyes were watering. That green butterfly one……
  • Some behind-the-scenes footage on Quantum Of Solace.
  • Here’s two awesome photos.
  • Check out one of the only charitable things cocaine has ever done.
  • I’d think twice before going for a swim
  • An interesting article relating to the fickle nature of the tech world
  • Charisma Carpenter has joined the list of guests for the Buffy panel at the Paley Center series. I’d still like to see more writers/producers join in on the fun than just Joss. And where the heck are Alyson & Alexis?
  • I was reading the High Def Digest review of the Blu-Ray release of The Invasion, kinda for the heck of it since I already own the disc. I’ve always found it interesting how one can like a movie despite the fact that you are fully aware of its flaws (I can, anyway). As I read through the review, which accurately assesses the successful elements of the film as well as the failures, I come to realize that doggon it, I still quite like the movie. Yeah, the second half clearly suffered some misguided tinkering. Heck, perhaps some day, a version closer to director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s original intentions will be edited together and released. Stranger things have happened. Yet still, I like the movie. Perhaps the tinkering they did was cool enough on its own that I found it entertaining for entirely different reasons. He’s right, it doesn’t mesh with the original setup of the film. And perhaps if I didn’t hate the changes enough, I can still like the undercurrents of the original intentions. I can’t just chalk it up to the fact that I’m a fan of Nicole Kidman, cause she certainly couldn’t save the boring mess that was The Golden Compass (nor could her Invasion co-star Daniel Craig). I’ll take The Invasion over The Golden Compass in a heartbeat. But that’s the fun thing about it. Somebody could argue the facts and point at the successes and failures of either film, and argue whatever point they wanted to, but it wouldn’t change the fact that I still liked The Invasion and didn’t like The Golden Compass. Funny how that is. I gotta at least figure Hirschbiegel knew what he was doing originally, cause his previous film is pure brilliance. The movie I speak of is Downfall. If you haven’t seen it, do so. That one’s not just me liking it cause I like it. That one is truly fantastic.

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4th February 2008

Ponderings For 2008-02-04

  • Windows Vista SP1 & Windows Server 2008 RTM’d today.
  • A retro arcade gaming fan heaven. This is *SO* very cool. Man, I wanna go check that place out. Check out the official site, too.
  • Speaking of retro, check out this set of pictures, of one lucky dude unpacking a new, previously unopened Apple IIc. Ah, for the days where I actually liked Apple. I loved my IIc.
  • As somebody with interest in WWII history, this discovery of 3 scuttled German U-Boats is a cool bit of news.
  • The Buffy cast/crew reunion is starting to shape up for this year’s Paley Festival (of the formerly Museum Of Television & Radio). Good to see the cast lining up, but I wanna know how many of the writers will attend (please, at least get Jane Espenson). It’ll be cool to see the video of this event. Here’s hoping that more will continue to sign on to appear on stage at the event. The Paley Center always does nice Q&A sessions for their festivals.
  • Here’s the first teaser for M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie, The Happening. While I don’t think Lady In The Water was particularly great, I’m a bigger fan of Shyamalan than most people these days (I quite liked The Village). Anyway, this teaser looks great. I also like the one sheet pictured in the post. Nice, subtle references in the tag lines.
  • Good grief. That Toshiba HD-DVD ad from the Super Bowl didn’t actually run in HD?
  • Speaking of Super Bowl ads, I haven’t watched any of them from this weekend, but I did watch a few of them that were pointed out on somebody else’s blog recently and found this E*Trade ad that I didn’t remember seeing previously quite funny.
  • So, looks like the state of HD downloads is about what I’d figure.
  • Check out this awesome performance of Smells Like Teen Spirit by the Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain. Check out the related videos while you’re there to see some of their other great/hilarious performances.
  • Here’s a great commercial for Absolut.
  • I mentioned the fun of massive rails guns in a recent posting. Check out this mind-blowingly-insane video clip of a 32-megajoule shot. The description of the incindiaries you are seeing in the video is truly insane.
  • I’ll close out today’s post with a cool political survey web site. This’ll list out a bunch of the current hot issues and you answer if you are for or against, and your level of interest, and it’ll calculate your ideal (and less-than-ideal) candidates to vote for. Here’s my results (including the top pick, then 2 next-best, then 2 middle-of-the-pack, then the 2 bottom-of-the-barrell). The 0% for Obama is amusing, to say the least. I do feel dirty that there was actually 35% to match with Hillary. Try it out and see what you get. Their scoring methodology actually seems pretty fair to me.
    • 87.04 Huckabee
    • 70.37 McCain
    • 64.81 Romney
    • 63.89 Ron Paul
    • 41.67 Gravel
    • 35.19 Hillary
    • 00.00 Obama

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22nd November 2007

Ponderings For 2007-11-22

  • So, did you have a happy Thanksgiving?
  • I’m SO far behind on movie reviews, I’ve got more than half a dozen partially completed and have trouble getting myself to just choose some to finish and get on with it. I’ll quit promising to have them up soon and just cross my fingers and hope I’ll get ‘em posted over this long weekend. Until then, here’s a list of the 11 pending with my score out of 10 with each. I also added each to the 2007 film list (which, btw has passed 100 for the year now - and climbing). So, here are all the ones with pending reviews: The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (7), Gone Baby Gone (9), 30 Days Of Night (8), The Darjeeling Limited (7), Dan In Real Life (8), American Gangster (8), Rendition (9), Martian Child (9), P2 (8), Hitman (6), The Mist (6). Hmmm, guess there haven’t been much by ways of bad movies that I’ve seen since my last reviews (though there was Good Luck Chuck & The Heartbreak Kid just before this streak).
  • Was discussing Buffy The Vampire Slayer with somebody who had never seen it, and was clearly unlikely to ever be convinced otherwise. As Joss once referred to it, and I completely agree, “those who can’t get past the title aren’t invited to the party.” Actually, I also like his very first concept title for what would eventually become Buffy - “Rhonda The Immortal Waitress.”
  • Speaking of Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar apparently changed her last name to Prinze in honor of their 5 year anniversary. This sounds like a pretty logical practice in Hollywood, where marriages rarely last that long…
  • Here’s an amusing approach to cracking MD5 encryption hashes.
  • “The Vampire Angel” - a completely chronological history of Angel, which is quite cool simply for the effort alone. It’s split into twenty-something parts thanks to Youtube limitations, but quite fun. Can’t imagine this’ll last long before it gets yanked due to copyright restrictions…
  • What if everybody in the U.S. flushed at the same time? Interesting. A tad obvious, but interesting.
  • That’ll do for now. Back with more soon.

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