Facta Sunt Facta

Cinematic Titanic - Legacy of Blood

2008-09-16T23:39:00.001-07:00

Cinematic Titanic: Legacy of Blood drops on October 9.

A Colossal Waste of Time

2008-09-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a colossal waste of time.

Of course, nowhere in those 4800 hours of training or that large stack of impressively sized books are they taught critical thinking or the scientific method. Double blind experimental protocols are also right out.

Scary Trousers

2008-09-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this recent clip from Neil Gaiman's appearance at San Diego Comic Con 2007 in which explains how he got the nickname "Scary Trousers."

"Dinner with Alan Moor e is always interesting." -Neil Gaiman

Indiana Jones KotCS

2008-05-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

So, I watched Indiana Jones IV at the theater last night and am considering asking for about $8 of my $10 ticket back from Lucas/Spielberg/Ford. I was a technicality away from walking out of the theater. At one point I turned to a companion and said, "If they [do a specific ridiculous and unreasonable thing] then I'm walking out of the theater." And they technically did not do that thing, but only technically.

I would go down the laundry list of ridiculous and unreasonable things about this movie, but I don't want to ruin the big reveals for you.

I think you should certainly see it just to know that kind of pain and prove to yourself that you're alive. You should try not to spend $10 on seeing it, though. This is a Netflix.

Temple of Doom notes

2008-05-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

The following casting notes were made while watching Temple of Doom:

Ric Young, who plays one of the Chinese henchmen in the movie, is also the Chinese General from American Gangster.

Philip Tan, who also played a Chinese henchman, has done a lot of other stuff. Including--most exciting to me--the gorilla in Congo.

Now on to Raiders.

Indiana Jones pregame

2008-05-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've traveled back east for the weekend. We've just started watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and plan to follow that up with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade before heading off to the theater for a viewing of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It should be pretty awesome. I love the musical number that opens Temple of Doom. I expect there to be an "Indy can barely reach [something]" moment in the new movie.

If my last name were Manning, I'd be awesome.

2008-02-03T18:57:00.000-08:00

While I'm disappointed that the Colts did not win the Super Bowl this year, I have to say that the Manning family genetics are freaking amazing. That game was fantastic. Go Giants!

Randi will discontinue the prize in 2010.

2008-01-03T23:39:00.000-08:00

According to the most recent Swift newsletter, James Randi will discontinue the $1M paranormal challenge in March of 2010 in order to free up the funds for other endeavors. There is no word yet on what those endeavors will be. The would-be psychics out there still have two years to make their attempt.

I have mixed feelings about this. It's certainly become clear to me that having the prize around does little to deter woo woo. On the other hand, there's something very satisfying about jumping into discussions with, "Well, I've got $1M that says you're wrong."

Cinematic Titanic Lives!

2007-12-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

The first episode is available. Enjoy!

Consider again, that dot...

2007-12-20T12:13:00.001-08:00

Today is the 11th anniversary of Carl Sagan's death.

I want "The Pale Blue Dot" to be read at my funeral.

World Magic Awards

2007-12-15T00:12:00.000-08:00

When I turned on the TV tonight, I found that the World Magic Awards were on, and half over. I have no specific comments except to pose the following question: Why do stage illusions need to be so needlessly complex? Like... almost comically so. "There's this thing. And then we do this, and this, and this, and, look, still empty! And now we shoot flame throwers at it and take a chainsaw to it and hit it with some sledgehammers and, TADA!" I like a simple presentation, and I think that most people are with me on this.

In unrelated news, and purposefully tucked secretly at the bottom of this post, I've turned to the dark side and registered a WoW account. Having now done my part to immanentize the coming zombie apocalypse, I will see you all in hell.

The Humdinger Windbelt.

2007-12-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

The Humdinger Windbelt is a device that utilizes the property of things to flutter in the wind (things like laundry lines and bridges) to generate power. It's a type of wind generator that doesn't use turbines. (I think I remember reading in a Bucky Fuller book his assertion that we need to improve efficiency by moving away from rotating mechanisms.) The Humdinger website claims at least an order of magnitude improvement in efficiency over current micro-turbines. I think it's super cool and eagerly await independent confirmation by way of the soon-to-be-released developer kits.

Cinematic Titanic has landed (at ILM).

2007-12-12T00:18:00.000-08:00

By way of the Star Wars Blog comes a review of the recent Cinematic Titanic live-action premiere at Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco. The review is positive. I'm really looking forward to the release of the pilot.

In related news, Slashdot reports that watching movies in groups is more fun.

Cinematic Titanic update

2007-12-05T23:26:00.001-08:00

I got my first email through the Cinematic Titanic mailing list today. It included a poll to gauge the interests of those who are on the email list as well as assurances that the first installment is on its way. Things I learned from the poll include:

There might be a new release every month.
You might be able to get it in a ridiculous number of formats (DVD, flash viewer, download, iPod)
The actual film of the month might be a secret until you actually watch. (So you don't know what you're getting until you fire it up.)
There might be a yearly subscription option.
And you should join the mailing list because there might be neato freebie extras.

For those of you who like toys...

2007-12-04T23:50:00.000-08:00

And who among us does not like toys?

I direct your attention to the A.V. Club "Cheap Toy Round-Up 2007."

I need to track myself down a "Stretchghetti & Critters" for $1, which I will leave unopened and tuck away somewhere so that 10 years down the road it will bring me dividends of joy through the magical speechlessness of rediscovered crap that I spent $1 because it was funny. Dividends of joy!

Or, you know, I could spend my $1 on a soda. Which will pay off in dividends of tooth decay.

Nothing new under the sun...

2007-12-03T20:26:00.000-08:00

Uri Geller is claiming that he started blurting out dates when challenged by Criss Angel to reveal the contents of one of two sealed envelopes by psychic means on live television. He furthermore claims to have been close to revealing the contents of one of the envelopes.

Unfortunately the whole challenge was, you know, broadcast live and is now available online for everyone to see. And I certainly didn't notice Geller "blurting out dates" when I watched it.

Also, there's another envelope... funny how he nearly divined the contents of the one that he now knows the contents of... (an index card with "911" written on it)

What about envelope #2? I won't hold my breath.

Do schools kill creativity?

2007-12-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

Another TED talk today. I'm a sucker for TED talks, I guess.

Ken Robinson discusses the topic of "Do schools kill creativity?" There are a lot of great ideas in here. Enjoy.

Did you see Highlander 2?

2007-12-02T22:04:00.001-08:00

If so, I'm sorry. But remember how they put a shell around the Earth in order to protect it from the sun? Well scientist David Keith pretty much proposed just that at his TED talk. He even name drops an alien invasion. (Of immortals from Zeist?)

"This improved science and engineering will, whether we like it or not, give us more and more leverage to affect the planet, to control the planet, to give us weather and climate control. Not because we plan it, not because we want it, just because science delivers it to us bit by bit with better knowledge of the way the system works and better engineering tools to affect it." -David Keith

Not a Ninja: Chung Ling Soo.

2007-12-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

Chung Ling Soo was a famous stage magician in the early part of last century. His name was actually William Robinson, but he took the stage name Chung Ling Soo and started dressing "Oriental" and only speaking in Oriental-sounding nonsense words while in public to the point that, despite his huge success as Chung Ling Soo, very few people knew that he was actually just a white guy in a costume and some makeup.

His ability to pull that off makes him sound kind of like a ninja.

But ninjas don't get shot while trying to do the bullet catch trick.

Only Ozymandias can actually catch bullets. (And live.)

Chung Ling Soo was definitely not a ninja.

P&T News.

2007-11-29T19:42:00.000-08:00

A few fun Penn & Teller news items:

Mr. Randi chronicles the story of how Penn & Teller formed on this week's "Amazing Show." Penn frequently says that there would be no Penn & Teller without James Randi, so it was pretty cool to hear Randi's side of it.
Penn will soon publish a biography on James Randi called "My Name Is Randi And Today I Die." It's already up on Amazon. I'm really excited.
A group of Canadians who I can only assume are otherwise really awesome decided to play P&T's unpublished Sega CD game "Desert Bus" for charity. For those of you who are not familiar with the genius of the video game that is "Desert Bus," I will explain. The premise of the game is that you are a bus driver on the Tuscon, AZ to Las Vegas, NV route. This trip takes about 8 hours. All you do is drive the bus through the desert. Nothing else happens except that the bus hangs slightly to the right, so you have to continuously steer left to avoid driving off of the road and your mileage keeps ticking upwards. The bus tops out at 45 mph, and you cannot pause the game. Upon reaching Vegas you are awarded with 1 point. Nothing else occurs except that you get to turn around and drive back to Tuscon for another point. And so on. The contestants drove for 109 hours straight and raised $22.8K. (Each hour cost an increasing amount in donations.)

Phenomenal sigh of relief. It's finally over.

2007-11-21T19:51:00.000-08:00

I hope that the "people watching TV to avoid talking to family" ratings bump doesn't encourage any execs to ever repeat this awful show format.

They seem to have turned "What's in Criss Angel's envelope?" into a major point of the show. I think that's interesting. It suggests that people are responding to the challenge with, at least, interest. This also provided the impetus for Criss Angel to really explain why, which I think was kind of missed in the original encounter.

The first trick of the show was with all four remaining contestants. They were randomly handed one of four flags, and each was discovered to be wearing the same colored shirt underneath a black jacket.

Jim Callahan (the guy whose super power is talking to dead authors who can't spell) is in the audience. They cut to him right before the commercial.

They're doing a "countdown of unexplained phenomenon," I guess to keep the woo angle of the show healthy. Five was the Loch Ness monster.

Guy Bavli was voted off of the show. I guess that Randi's not psychic. Randi would agree. Criss and Uri both commented on Bavli. Watching Geller speak is like watching a train wreck. Involving a lot of dead puppies.

The first performance was by the Raven guy. He started by doing that "I can't push my arm down" trick that I explained to my students when I was a substitute. But in fairness, that wasn't really the point of the trick. He then put the gay intern from The Tonight Show (I think? I don't actually know how that guy is.) up on two chairs and broke a cinder block on his belly.

Number 4 "unexplained phenomenon" was crop circles. Unexplained? Seriously?

The "Deal or No Deal" models came up and were regaled with tricks from all the previous contestants. There was a "how many coins in your hand" revelation, a "lie detection" trick, a guy who broke a razor blade between his fingers (I wonder if he wanted to eat the razor blade but they wouldn't let him), a revelation-in-cola trick (interesting), a guy who broke a light bulb "with his mind," and, finally Jim "I channel dead authors who can't spell" Callahan who carefully walked the line by doing a silly kids' trick while still claiming to have real super powers.

Number 3 "unexplained phenomenon" was Stone Hinge. Again, I say, really?

The next contestant was Mike Super. He has a great personality and good stage management. I feel like the trick was needlessly complex, though. He had some cards that were shuffled and dealt by the assistant match the serial number on a dollar bill selected by the assistant in a windy booth. He then produced a chocolate chip cookie after it was thought of by the assistant. And, as a finale, showed that he'd placed a classified ad in USA Today that predicted the serial number and chocolate chip cookie.

Number 2 "unexplained phenomenon" was Area 51. I notice that most of these aren't actually phenomena so much as "stuff." They also aren't really unexplained. Or very interesting. I think I'll come up with my own list of "unexplained phenomena." Look for that later this weekend.

Angela Funovits, wearing a lot of black leather and carrying a chainsaw, had the guy from The Tonight Show hide in a box. She then sawed through them one at a time until his remained. Very girl power... ?

The Raven guy was voted out.

The #1 Phenomenon was the Bermuda Triangle. (WTF?)

One of Criss's envelopes contained an index card with "911" written on it. (The point being that if anybody had real psychic powers then the asshats should have told somebody on Sept. 10 2001 about what was going to to happen the next day.) The other will be revealed on the first episode of the new season of Mindfreak.

And Mike Super won. Wahoo.

Happy Fakesgiving.

2007-11-20T20:19:00.000-08:00

It's Fakesgiving here today. We're eating fake turkey with fake gravy and watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on TV. I know how many of you feel about the topic, but Tofurky is actually tasty. And I can feel less guilty about eating stupid amounts of it. Also, Silk brand "Pumpkin Spice" is really good.

I'm driving to the Bay Area on Thursday to visit friends for real Thanksgiving and the rest of the weekend. Blag posts may or may not be erratic.

In not unrelated news, I present to you an ancient Greek potty train er.

Colts Win Superbowl XLII! (7)

2007-11-20T01:30:00.000-08:00

I have very little to say about this week. I was unable to watch the IND v. KC game on the TV, so I didn't really watch much football at all. Indiana won 13-10. The Patriots unnecessarily ran the score up to 56-10 against the Bills. I still think we'll beat the Patriots in the playoffs. There's a lot to be said for having your offensive line intact.

Kevin Smith->Seth Rogan->Zack and Miri Make a Porno

2007-11-20T00:08:00.000-08:00

Kevin Smith has announced that Seth Rogan will play the title role of Zack in his new movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I have no guess as to how good this movie is going to be--both Smith and Rogan have done things I liked and things I didn't like--, although I will consider seeing it in the theater. The point of this post, however, is to direct you to the interesting and twisted tale on Kevin Smith's blog of how Rogan was snagged for the part. (Indeed, the part was apparently written for Seth Rogan.)

Interviews with Randi.

2007-11-17T19:26:00.001-08:00

Also via iTricks.com comes "The Amazing Show starring James Randi." It's a series of audio interviews with the world's favorite skeptic. He tells the story of the time he was arrested for speaking up about his skepticism as a young man and also has some really great stories about Isaac Asimov and Richard Feynman. I won't spoil the stories for you, but there's some information about Asimov than any fan (which should be everybody) will really find interesting.

(Incidentally, Asimov's Guide to the Bible is a great read. You should pick it up.)

A tour of Teller's home.

2007-11-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

Via iTricks.com comes this like to an USA Today article profiling Teller's home ("The Bear Bones"). There are accompanying pictures. It's a really cool place. It's also kind of interesting how Penn and Teller each basically built the houses that their 12-year-old selves would want, and the ways in which their personality differences come out in the result. (For those who don't know, Penn's home is called "The Slammer" and looks like the bastard child of a prison and the circus. It includes an electric chair, double chain link fence surrounding the compound, mandatory mug shots upon entry, lookout towers, and a barbed-wire toilet seat.)

Wired's Game|Life seeking writers.

2007-11-16T18:41:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite news sources, Wired's Game|Life, is hiring for two part time positions. One is for someone to cover the MMO beat and the other for "something else." I have a lot of friends who are really into MMO's and/or RPGs, are pretty articulate, and could really benefit from a job that allows (indeed, requires) them to spend most of their time at home playing games and surfing the interwebs.

This is a notice to those people. If you are them, consider applying. If you know them, pass this along.

Local News Still Sucks.

2007-11-14T21:52:00.000-08:00

"A Disneyland mystery. Are there real ghosts haunting a ride? News at 11."

I actually just heard that on the TV...

The woo woos are really coming out of the woodwork this week...

Phenome-nobody cares.

2007-11-14T20:00:00.000-08:00

This is the "finals." Not the final show, unfortunately; that's next week. The girl and the guy with the spiky blond hair are performing first. There's a third "guaranteed" contestant (I don' tknow what that means) who will be announced later in the show. I'm guessing it'll be Guy Bavli.

The girl did a birthday and name revelation. The birthday was revealed by selecting a birthstone. The name was revealed in a Polaroid. It was not awful, but not very entertaining.

The guy ("Mike") did a prediction. The three celebrity guests spray painting things, then they were revealed both in words and in the form of a motorcycle. Then for the stinger, the license plate on the motorcycle was the same number as one generated by three audience members. It was actually original and he has a good personality.

The last "guaranteed" spot (I still don't know what that means) when to... not Guy Bavli. Ah, I see. The remaining two get to "face off" for a spot in the finals, and only Criss and Uri get to pick which will stay.

Ugh. There was seriously an astrology commercial.

The third contestant was Aaron Raven. He kind of looks like a young, not as awesome Max Maven. he's the one with the "guaranteed" spot. He was blindfolded. He then avoided stepping into a thing full of broken glass, razor blades and scorpions before avoiding falling on a bed of nails. It was... not death defying in any way.

Guy Bavli performed fourth. He bent silverware. Uri looked kind of pissed. (Bavli, remember, does not claim to have real super powers. Unlike Uri, who made his name by fucking up some flatware. Why is bending silverware so impressive to people?) Then he threw in an interesting twist and bent a pole with a stop sign on the end, which is like a big fork except with better leverage. It was not Banachek, but it was not bad. (Banachek, incidentally, is a consultant on Phenomenon.)

Gerry McCambridge performed last. He's the guy who did the paint ball trick last week. I like him. He laid out a bunch of cards. The one chosen by the celebrity assistant was the only one with anything written on the back. It was also a postcard for Paris, and the second celebrity assistant had drawn a picture of the Eiffel Tower. The stinger was that a bunch of cards drawn on by audience members, when combined all stadium style, also had a picture of the Eiffel tower.

Guy Bavli gets to move on. That's the show.

I think I'm going to go download Derren Brown's scifi show off of iTunes (That's right. Check it out.) to see some really good magic. Peace.

MST3K Fans Rejoice! Cinematic Titanic.

2007-11-14T17:50:00.000-08:00

I learned from today's S*P (though it was apparently Slashdotted a few days ago) that Joel Hodgson and company (by which I mean most of the original cast of MST3K) will soon be launching a new movie-riffing project called Cinematic Titanic. The first show (done for a live audience) will be Dec. 7 at Industrial Light and Magic (non-Lucas Films employees and VIPs need not apply). They will reportedly release one "episode" per month for the next year, available for download or on DVD. Charlie at the Parry Game Preserve pointed me to this interesting article at StarWars.com. (Note the multiple references to cinematic masterpiece, Zardoz.)

I wonder what, if any, relation this project has to Mike Nelson's RiffTrax. It seems like they are non-competing products: whereas RiffTrax can basically use any movie without worrying about licensing and with quick turn around, Cinematic Titanic is much more like the original MST3K in conception. But the similarities do seem to raise some questions.

Georgia governor prays for rain.

2007-11-14T02:02:00.000-08:00

From the LA Times:

ATLANTA -- Bowing his head outside the Georgia Capitol on Tuesday, Gov. Sonny Perdue cut a newly repentant figure as he publicly prayed for rain to end the region's historic drought.
"Oh father, we acknowledge our wastefulness," Perdue said. "But we're doing better. And I thought it was time to acknowledge that to the creator, the provider of water and land, and to tell him that we will do better."

To think that after smallpox, dwarf wheat, and the space program there are still people who want to appeal to their gods for rain. And on the taxpayers dime. What year is it again?

Cargo Cult Museum.

2007-11-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

Photoset: A Visit to the Creation Museum.

Hat tip to Michael who correctly pointed out that it's not really a cargo cult museum: "The people who framed this don't necessarily believe any of it. They believe in this equation here. They believe that social corruption--murder, homosexuality, abortion, genetic engineering, and the terrible slaughters they will lead to--is the direct result of a loss of faith. And that this loss of faith can be countered only by convincing people of the literal truth of a religion's precepts."

Worst. Superpower. Ever.

2007-11-12T23:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the James Randi Educational Foundation conducted the preliminary test for a $1,000,000 prize claimant. The applicant, Rosemary Hunter, claimed that she had the ability to--I cannot make this up--psychically induce people to wet themselves.

Let me repeat that. The applicant claimed to have the ability to cause people to piss their pants by the power of her thoughts alone.

The whole test was captured on tape and posted to YouTube. Enjoy!

(1 of 4)

Prior to today, I never would have suspected that I'd spend 15 minutes watching a grown man actively not wet himself. It pleases me to have shared this experience with you.

Michael Shermer videos on YouTube.

2007-11-12T17:49:00.001-08:00

Michael Shermer (founder of Skeptic Magazine) has posted a bunch of videos on YouTube on a range of topics. Of interest, for example, is a couple of videos on cons.

Three Card Monte.

Pigeon Drop.

Colts Win Superbowl XLII! (6)

2007-11-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

First some housekeeping: Apparently the titles to these football posts are confusing to some. Let me explain that they are anticipatory. I expect that the Colts will win Superbowl XLII (this year), so I'm just getting into the habit of saying it.

That said, this week's matchup between the Colts and the Chargers was the tiniest bit conflicting for me. As you may recall, I've adopted the Chargers as my second favorite team (Giants are third) just so that I have something interesting to watch when the Colts games are preempted on TV in my market. But, of course, I'm always for the Colts.

In preparation for the game, I went to Vons to pick up some beer (Flying Dog's "Road Dog" ale... good stuff). I was wearing my Manning jersey, and the bagger was apparently a fan. We had a semi-conversation about the Colts. (I only understood about half of what he said.) I gleaned that he was super pissed about last week's game with the Pats, he doesn't like the Chargers at all, and he's looking forward to seeing the Colts beat the Pats in the playoffs.

The Colts offense was super limited in players this week with only 17 total; Harrison, Clark and Gonzalez were all out with injuries. The Chargers started off strong with a kickoff return for a touchdown. Then they pulled down an interception at the goal line on the Colts' first drive, but the Colts defense stopped them from getting a first down so the offense got the ball back near the 40... and then the Chargers tipped an intercepted another pass. Things were not looking up for the Colts at all.

The Colts got it back but then punted from their own goal line for a Charger touchdown return. Ouch. The Colts blocked an attempted 2-point conversion. San Diego was up 16-0. Damn it.

And then the Chargers intercepted again. Then the Colts intercepted except that the goddamned refs blew the whistle "inadvertantly" (because it looked like the ball hit the ground, but it actually bounced off another player) so the huge return by the Colts was invalid. The Colts got the ball as a touchback. San Diego then challenged the interception. (I guess they weren't looking at the same replays that I was...) They lost the challenge.

End of the 1st quarter. And then the Chargers intercepted yet again. Are you keeping track? That's four interceptions. The Chargers drove into the endzone. 23-0.

The Colts finally scored a touchdown with 2:42 left to go in the 2nd quarter. It took them long enough. Halftime (and me running out of beer).

The Colts managed a 4th and 2 conversion to Moorehead, which was awesome. But then the next play was an interception... What the fuck? That's five. Manning has set a new record that will live on in infamy.

I took a phone call and the Colts were scoring when I returned. It was 23-15 Chargers with 15:00 left in the 4th. Luckily I got back in time to see Rivers (the Chargers QB) fumble the ball on the end zone for a Colts recovery and TD, which was extremely awesome. The Colts attempted a 2-point conversion but were shut down. 23-21 SD.

With 5:52 left in the 4th, Indy picked off an SD pass! This was really Indy's big chance to finish off this ballgame. They managed to work themselves way down into field goal range with just over 2 minutes on the clock. The Colts were at the 9 yard line at the 2-minute warning, no SD timeouts left. If the Colts could get a 1st down then the Colts could run the clock down to a game-winning FG...

It was super close, and went into official review. It was an intense few minutes. Addai was down just shy of the 1st down. Literally inches. 4th and inches. The Colts drew a five yard foul ("simulating a snap") while attempting to draw SD into a violation. Adam Vinatieri came out with 1:34 left in the 4th for a 29 yard FG. Which he missed.

Seriously. I thought we we got rid of Vanderjagt. Why the fuck is he suddenly on the field?!

The Colts got the ball back with 22 seconds left and Manning threw another interception. That's 6. The mind boggles.

There was no excuse for the Colts to have lost this game. I'm kind of pissed.

Who's going to believe a talking head?

2007-11-11T00:52:00.000-08:00

Jascha at The Flying Jellyfish has an interesting proposition for medical students.

"So, West, what kind of medicine are you involved in?" "Death."

Another non-Phenomenon.

2007-11-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot about watching Phenomenon this week, which should give you some idea of how much I was looking forward to the show (not much at all). I didn't start until about 10 minutes in. (I think) The first act did a voodoo doll PK (psycho-kinetic) touch routine. It was well presented although some of the methods were transparent (as indicated by two of the guests figuring out how to avoid getting "stabbed").

I wonder if I missed the part where they culled last weeks contestants... I think I did. Wikipedia is reporting that Jim "I can channel an unknown dead author who writes in reverse and can't spell" Callahan was voted off the show. I like this show a little more already. Perhaps this will send a message to the networks about our disinterest in such woowoos. Probably not. Good times.

The next contestant did a stunt with "dangerous snakes." Why do the paramedics look like body guards. The trick was to set out four vases, hide an object in one vase and a snake in the other three, then find the object. On his first attempt he was "bitten" by the least dangerous of the snakes. After being "attended to" by a paramedic, he found the object. I think his acting was a little cheesy, but he did a really good job of building suspense within the time limit.

The third contestant was the only female. She wore a really sparkley dress. She giggled a lot. Giggling is pretty unusual in magic performances. (At least it's original.) I don't think it was an accident that her psychic revelation included hiking up her skirt, holding a flame to her butt, and then having the revelation appear on her thigh. I guess she's trying to go after the sex appeal votes.

Contestant four used paintball guns. (Apparently he has a show in Vegas since he dropped a reference to it... Gerry McCambridge. I'll have to look him up.) A model shot him in the balls. Then some other models shot him. He then revealed that he had predicted where the splatters would land ahead of time. I thought that it was really good, actually. He had great stage presence, and it was really very original and entertaining. The reveal was almost an afterthought. It was more just an excuse for him to get shot, which is great.

Guy Bavli was next. He had a bunch of beakers with hydrochloric acid. One was randomly exchanged for water. (My roommate in high school almost washed his face with HCl one day after a run. Always read the labels before tapping tanks behind physics buildings.) It was actually kind of original! Kudos.

At the end of the act, Geller said that last week Angel got the last word and asked if he could buy him a drink. Angel (in good humor) said that Uri could buy him a drink any time. I think that the way in which he said that little line made me like Criss Angel a whole lot more.

So, another week down.

Tips for shopping at GameStop.

2007-11-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

I get all of my video games at GameStop / EBGames. I know the games cost a little more than I'd pay on Half.com, usually, but I appreciate the ability to inspect the used games for quality ahead of time. I also sell back games despite the net loss because it's a sure thing (as opposed to selling on Half.com, where they might never sell) and I can generally write it off as cheaper than renting. I have also had universally pleasant interactions with their staff at both the locations in my old home town. The staff were always knowledgeable and eager to help me make a good purchasing decision. I've seen them stop in the middle of checking somebody out and say, "That game looks fun, but it is not. You don't want to buy that game." (I've scoped out my local GameStop here in LA but have not yet patronized it... so who knows if the customer service will translate.)

But apparently a lot of people on the intarwebs don't like GameStop. So a shift manager has written a sort of rebuttal / users guide for the store. It has some really interesting and useful information in it such as the unadvertised 7-day trial period for used games. If you ever shop at GameStop, you should give it a read.

Games are fun. I like games.

2007-11-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

There's a pretty neat game shop around the corner from my new place. I dropped in the other day to take a look. The man behind the counter was both friendly and knowledgeable. He asked me which games I played. (Munchkin, Scrabble, D&D, Apples to Apples, Kill Dr. Lucky) "Yup. We play all of those here." And he actually meant that they play them. About half of the establishment (totaling about 2,000 sq. ft., I'd guess) was dedicated to active gaming of all sorts. There were miniatures, word games, card games, etc. With the full gamut of ages and genders actively playing games. It was both neat and terrifying. I will be patronizing this establishment in the future (like to pick up Cthulhu Munchkin).

I'd love to know if any of you have recommendations for good games to pick up. I'm looking for things in two categories: 1) things that are good for two people that my girlfriend and I can play or 2) things that are good for groups of 4-8 that require a minimum of explanation. I will consider Perquacky and Settlers of Catan as givens.

Movie Review: Logan's Run.

2007-11-04T18:30:00.000-08:00

Logan's Run is a canonical dystopian film about a future where everybody is young and beautiful and gets ritualistically sacrificed at age 30. The protagonist Logan escapes from the computer-controlled city when he is prematurely aged in order to infiltrate the resistance of people who have reportedly escaped the city prior to their scheduled executions. He discovers that he is the first to do so. (All previous attempts were foiled by a psychopathic robot named "Box" whose timeless charge it is to freeze things.)

Once outside of the city, Logan, along with his necessary female companion, encounters an old man with a lot of cats who has never heard of the city or of any people other than his parents. They take him back to the city to "prove" the habitability of the outside world and "free" the city's inhabitants from their lives of drugs, sex, and carefree youth. The old man is not able to join them because he's too fat (I'm guessing), but Logan manages to destroy the city by presenting the patriarchal computer with what passed for a paradox in the 70's.

Paradox: bane of all 23rd century computers designed before 1977!

This was actually an entertaining movie. It's the movie that Zardoz wanted to be. If you haven't seen it, you should.

There looks to be a remake in production. Extrapolating from the track record for remakes of perfectly good 70's films (**ahem**ahem**), this one will probably suck.

Colts Win Superbowl XLII! (5)

2007-11-04T17:07:00.000-08:00

That was a close game today. I was sure that the Colts would take it until the QB strip by New England late in the fourth quarter while the Colts were making their (what should have been) game winning drive. Joseph Addai totally cleaned up today, with more than 100 yards in each rushing and receiving. I'm obviously disappointed that the Colts didn't win, but I think they've put an end to the predictions of absolute Patriot domination right through to the Superbowl. When we see them in the playoffs, we'll have Marvin Harrison back, which means we'll have a much easier time connecting on those big-yardage plays that crippled us today. That will also be a really exciting game.

NaNoWriMo (4)

2007-11-04T12:22:00.000-08:00

Ok. I give up. (I know... it didn't take long.) There are a lot of other things I'd rather be doing than writing 2,000 words per day right now. Blagging, for one of them. I'm also like 4 days behind at this point, and I want to go visit friends for Thanksgiving rather than sitting in front of a taunting word processor trying to hammer out 20,000 words to catch up.

So I figure it's better to do the things that I actually want to be doing rather than just not doing anything because I haven't met my word quota. Maybe next year.

NaNoWriMo (3)

2007-11-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

2% done. I wrote about 1,000 words today (700 short of the goal). My case wasn't helped by the nap that I had to take because I stayed up to watch Penn & Teller on Letterman last night. I have a good handle on how fast I write now. I've also completely exhausted my "plan" for the book. I'm going to give it some thought tomorrow and come back strong for the weekend.

Penn & Teller on Letterman.

2007-11-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

The Penn & Teller Bulletin Board promised that the guys would do a trick that they've never performed on TV before. I was super excited. They did Teller's goldfish trick. I've heard about it before, but never seen it. It's really awesome. He basically does miser's dream into a fishbowl and then produces a whole bunch of goldfish. It was extremely well done, of course. Teller is an excellent magician.

The Phenomenon plot thickens...

2007-10-31T23:09:00.001-07:00

It has come to my attention that contestant-number-five in the previous post (the one who claimed to have super powers) is the same Jim Callahan who announced his intention to win Randi's $1,000,000. He certainly didn't seem interested in Criss Angel's $1,000,000.

The story appeared in the last Swift. (I'm sure Randi saw it coming.) Here's an excerpt:
"It is my sincere intent to make $1,000,00.00 off of James Randi and his foundation." This is then followed by a bunch of demands. James Randi does not respond favorably to demands.

Maybe Criss Angel was more anxious than nervous. He must have been waiting to do this for weeks.

Edit: Here's the JREF forum post on the topic.

Edit2: Noting the bias of the poster, who might be associated with Jim Callahan somehow, th e clip is now available on YouTube.

Phenomenon recap. So you don't have to.

2007-10-31T22:12:00.000-07:00

The following was written more or less all on the fly while watching the second episode of Phenomenon:

They picked up the pace at the start of the show again today with most of the contestants doing a quick trick right in the beginning. They varied from poor presentation and a dumb trick to poor presentation and a good trick. The trouble (and the cool thing) with magic is that everything is in the presentation. Try to find a video of the nail gun trick from last week's Phenomenon. Then go find the essentially identical (in magical effect, at least) Russian roulette routine that Derren Brown did. It's all about the presentation; it has nothing to do with the trick.

I feel like Uri Gellar is trying really hard to "gain legitimacy" by making it impossible for anybody to believe that he's doing anything other than cheesy tricks (whereas he has historically claimed, at tremendous legal expense, to have super powers). He did a trick that amounts to an interesting math problem.

It was more than half an hour into the show before we even heard from Criss Angel. It wasn't until last week's contestants had been culled and the first of this week's contestants had given his performance. The first contestant actually had really good stage presence. He did a good NLP-style trick (like Derren Brown's advertising trick). Except that he got a tat (or claimed to get a tat) of the reveal. It was well done. I just wish people would come up with their own angle. Like I said, all magic tricks are identical... I just wish that they would come up with their own material... (I think it was the noted ninja Ricky Jay who said, "There's nothing new under the sun.")

The second competitor--the only female--was a little awkward on stage, but still had veru good presence. She did the hidden knife routine. You've probably seen it done by Criss Angel on his show. He does it better. For some reason, she used these metallic bases to hold the knife, that you could see under the covers. I don't know why. I've never seen the trick done like that, and I don't think it's a good change. Most viewers will assume that there's something about the bases gives away which one has the knife. It doesn't... at least, that's not how the trick is normally done. It really detracts, and I don't understand it.

Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I've just seen too much magic, so I've started to recognize tricks that other people have probably never seen before. The third contestant was Guy Bavli, who Randi said would probably steal the show. He appeared to stop his heart. You have probably seen this trick done before by Criss Angel on Mindfreak or by Derren Brown in one of his previous stage shows. It was very well done, actually, and originally presented. Angel's criticism was that it might not have been the best trick choice given the time constraint, but I think he did a good job of doing the setup and building suspense within the time constraint.

The fourth contestant was Belgian. I actually have not seen this trick before. He gave everybody in the audience a numbered matchbook, had them remove some of the matches, and then throw the half empty box onto the stage. He had the celebrity assistant choose an unrevealed card. He then "used a pendulum" to find the box with the same number as on the card. He then also revealed the number of matches in the box. It was actually extremely well presented (and presentation is everything), very original, and he had great personality. The trick was actually not that impressive in the abstract, but he really gets props from me for coming up with his own presentation (rather than, say, doing Derren Brown's routine). Criss Angel agreed (after making sure to not let Geller get away with suggesting that divining actually works).

The fifth contestant did a spirit writing routine. It had an interesting presentation through the use of a sort of trippy AV track in the background. It was well acted insofar as it is difficult to write backwards while pretending to have a panic attack. Some of the audience members appeared disturbed, so that's a good sign. He was apparently "the most controversial" contestant I guess he claims to actually have super powers.

And Angel called him on it. Criss Angel pulled out an envelope and offer both contestant-number-five and Geller a million dollars if they could tell him what was in the envelope. Angel was bleeped twice (he said "bullshit") and he and the contestant approached each other. The contestant looked a little belligerent and fought off the host saying something about "being an ideologue" or something. Angel just kept saying, "tell me what's in the envelope" over and over again. I've gotta say that Geller's coming out of this looking like a reasonable (if untalented) guy. It's a live show: they cut to commercial. Good times. I expect Randi to lay the smack down on this guy tomorrow in his newsletter, as promised.

There was then a canned homage to Houdini and Angel followed by a plug for the 4th season of Mindfreak. Then there was a little blurb about the bullet catch trick, the point of which I didn't really understand because contestant six did not do a bullet catch.

His name was actually Mike Super. He was young, with spiky hair, fun, and a little crazy. I liked the presentation. He definitely established his own character. He did a sort of fill-in-the-blank murder mystery routine that ended in a slate revelation. It was an entertaining routine in the style that's usually referred to as "comedy magic." It was actually really entertaining and well done. I fear that Mr. Super will not be in the running because he's not going the straight-man mentalism routine route. Host: "Chris, what do you think?" Criss: "Well, you didn't claim that you have real psychic ability, first of all." Contestant: "I don't." Criss: "I think it was entertaining. It was a hell of a lot more entertaining than the last act." Followed by some notable groans from the audience.

The Ghost Hunters commercial during the break was a nice "fuck you" to rationality.

End of show.

I was really disappointed that Angel didn't do any tricks. I also don't know what to think about the little blow up between Angel and contestant-number-five (he doesn't need a name). I didn't even know that the contestant was claiming real super powers until Angel called him out. I also think Angel came out of it a little dirty; people don't like people who upset the apple cart. I think he maybe played it a little poorly. He seemed a combination of nervous and angry just before making the challenge. It could have been done more calmly.

But I would have been just as nervous and angry. On the other hand, I'm not a professional performer. He could have faked calm.

More NaNo. More Phenomenon.

2007-10-31T18:24:00.000-07:00

So my night out was canceled. I'll be watching Phenomenon tonight and reporting back. Also, I think that Penn & Teller are supposed to be on Letterman tonight. Their long tradition is to do something mean to Dave, so you should definitely watch.

I wonder if we'll get trick-or-treaters...

P.S. Phenomenon is apparently 2 hours long tonight. WTF?

More NaNo. Less Phenomenon.

2007-10-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'll be spending tomorrow night hanging out instead of watching Phenomenon. This way I can actually spend Thursday night writing my first 1700 words for NaNoWriMo. I'll try to catch Phenomenon online somehow so that I can review it. I still encourage you to not watch.

Time... is on crack.

2007-10-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

It was brought to my attention today that Time named Shaun of the Dead the best horror movie of all time in its list of the Top 25 Horror Movies. Seriously? The best horror movie of all time?

NaNoWriMo (2)

2007-10-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

It's officially Wednesday, Oct. 30 here on the West Coast. Tomorrow is the day before the start of NaNoWriMo. I'm starting to get a little anxious. There are so many projects that I have on the table. And even though I haven't been actively working on them--full disclosure: I spent the weekend playing FFXII--I'm the kind of person who constantly thinks about the projects that I'm not working on rather than the one that I am. Unless I'm really focused on my current project.

So I think that'll be my only hope. I have to spend the next month being super focused on writing this novel. It's only 1700 words per day. I just have to stay focused. If I fall even a day behind, I know I'll start to be discouraged... 3400 is a much bigger number than 1700. And I don't think that using the weekends to catch up is a winning proposition at all.

Man oh man.

I hope my novel doesn't suck.

Worst. Movies. Ever. DOA: Dead or Alive.

2007-10-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

Synchronicity is a familiar experience to fans of movie and game arcana. The story of my exposure to DOA is kind of a subplot in my journey to LA. I stopped in New York for a few days to visit the homestead during the great cross-country journey. While hanging out with a friend, we decided to rent a movie. He had a small pile from Blockbuster. I don't remember what the other options were, but we decided on DOA: Dead or Alive because it looked like it could be really awesome or really bad (and therefore possibly awesome).

So we sat down to watch the movie. Starring Jaime Presley from My Name Is Earl and Devon Aoki from Sin City, this film is mostly an excuse for semi-attractive B- through D-list celebrities to wear bikinis and engage in poorly executed wire-fu. I was also immediately struck by how much the movie CG looked like the character intro sequences for one of those Mortal-Kombat-knockoff fighting games. In fact, the whole movie felt like it was a play-by-play recreation of one of those games.

You see, I didn't learn that DOA actually is a Mortal-Kombat-knockoff game until halfway through my cross-country trek when we stopped for the night in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the home of two extremely serious video game players. Over the course of conversation, I told them about this awful movie that I'd just seen. Their eyes lit up as they loaded the disk into their X-Box! The movie, it turns out, was a painfully faithful reproduction of the game (with a shitty, nonsense plot slapped on).

And then, last night, through some old college friends, I found myself at a party full of animators and game designers, and what topic should arise but awful movies! It was tremendously validating for me to hear, not just experts, but video game professionals agree that DOA, the movie, has no redeeming qualities.

I cannot recommend this movie under any circumstances. You will not like the movie if you are a fan of the game. You will not like the movie if you are a fan of kung fu films or bad movies in general. The fight scenes are slow and unimpressive. There is no plot. Even the eye candy is not that interesting, an homage to late night movies on the USA Network, likely to appeal only to 15 year olds (which, to be fair, is probably the target demo).

That said, this movie will always have a special place in my heart. It will remind me, in a twisted way, of some of the better parts of this adventure of the past month. It's like that smell smell of omelet and CK1 (remember CK1?) that reminds me of playing my new Sega Genesis on a great Christmas morning. The stench of this movie will remind me of friends, couches and conversation stretching from one coast to the other.

This movie, with all my love, jumps to #4 on the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list.

NaNoWriMo (1)

2007-10-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

I've been giving a lot of thought to the impending start of NaNoWriMo 2007; such things as strategy and plot have occupied some cycles the past few days. I've already stupidly scheduled a night out for the first day of competition, so I'll probably be starting behind. I kind of have a plot in mind in the sense that I have some characters worked out and some things for them to do in the beginning. I guess I'll just start there and see what happens, and if a story develops naturally during the process like Neil Gaiman says it does for him. I figure that if I get super stuck, I can always just start writing song lyrics for pages like I used to do when forced to "free write" back in Jr. High.

I've also been giving some thought to my mode of writing. I have a big clunky desktop that makes a lot of noise and runs a little slow (because I haven't yet bought an upgrade for its measly 256Mb of RAM). I have a few laptops in various states of disrepair. I've been saying for years, though, that all I need is a bare bones laptop with a word processor. I was hoping that the XO Laptop would be, in a sense, the machine I've been waiting for, but the discovery (in this NYT article) that the keyboard is too small for adult hands (although I have little tiny hands, but maybe not tiny enough), along with my desire for a new iPod (though mine works fine... it's just super old) has led me to question my eagerness to purchase a $400 "$100 laptop."

Then I remembered / was reminded of AlphaSmart, a company which produces what are essentially portable keyboards with calculator displays and a few Mb of memory--bare bones word processors. They have a 700 hr battery life on 3 AA batteries and can store a few hundred pages of text. They are also, conveniently, distraction free, so you can get all the speed of touch-typing without the constant allure of Nethack. The new ones look to go for about $250, but I've seen some older models (which are still perfectly adequate) go for around $50 on eBay. I think that this might be the way to go, although I won't be able to get one in time for NaNoWriMo.

I'm also a little curious if NaNoWriMo creates an inflation in the AlphaSmart resale prices on eBay, although I'm not as patient as some to watch the ebb and flow of outdated technology prices.

The Enemies of Reason

2007-10-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

Dawkin's miniseries, The Enemies of Reason, is now on Google Video.

Special secret bonus: it features Derren Brown!

Enjoy!

Here's Part 1. "Slaves to Superstition"

Here's Part 2. "The Irrational Health Service"

Praise to Google for making it super easy to embed these videos.

Fire fire everywhere...

2007-10-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

And not a drop to drink.

You may have heard already that SoCal is on fire. My little patch of this bigass, awful city is not on fire in particular, but we're surrounded on pretty much all sides by flames. Well, honestly, this whole bigass, awful city is surrounded on pretty much all sides by flames. Here's a map.

We're getting a little haze, there were ashes on my picnic table yesterday, and throats have been a little scratchy, but we're missing the bulk of it. (I've been eying the air quality reports, which convinced me to walk home instead of bike and not play ultimate today.) There is a huge natural area near here that has avoided the flames thus far, but I'm told that it catches fire every couple of years just as a matter of course. So my girlfriend and I discussed what we'll take with us if we have to evacuate. It pretty much came down to 1) pets, 2) guitar, 3) computer, 4) maybe some books. I might shed a little tear for the PS2, but you've gotta draw a line somewhere.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it won't come to that. At least not due to fire. I might have to flee from the culture before long, though.

And, for those who were wondering about the Ancient Mariner reference, LA actually doesn't have a drop to drink. Apparently when 100 million people move to the desert, plant grass, and water their lawns in the middle of the day, it leads to water shortages. Who'd have thought?! The mind boggles.

Train wreck!

2007-10-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

The first episode of Phenomenon was pretty bad all around. Uri-3-trick-pony-Geller did a stupid trick ("27% of respondents have picked the circle and 28% have picked the star, and I picked the star!" Was that possibly embarrassment or shame that I saw creep across his face?). The actual performances by the contestants ranged from inane to not entertaining. None of the acts really had much of a stage presence. The first guy did a PK touch routine that he presented really woodenly. The second guy stuck his hand in a bear trap after assaulting an audience member. The third guy ripped off Derren Brown and did so extremely poorly (which is a shame because nail guns are cool and he had every opportunity to make his act not suck, but it did). I think the best performance was probably the last guy with a book test; it wasn't very interesting, but at least the method wasn't transparent.

Overall, the show was super boring. I advise you to not watch it (especially if you're in a ratings household). Kid Nation is much more interesting (in the same time slot except on CBS), which is saying something because Kid Nation is a pretty awful show. I will continue to watch and report back because 1) I don't want you to need to watch out of curiosity and 2) I hate myself, apparently.

At least, I think, nobody will walk away from this show thinking any of these yahoos have real superpowers... but they might start to really hate magic.

Train wreck?

2007-10-24T18:23:00.000-07:00

It's about T-1 hours to the premiere of Phenomenon. I was doing some blog reading to prepare myself mentally (not psychically) for the event. Rebecca at Skepchick.org has an interesting post on the matter. My new prediction, based upon what she's said and what I saw in the online videos, is that the show will not be a full frontal assault on my rationality, but will it be entertaining? I think it will basically be like American Idol for magicians. And there are a lot of really awesome, entertaining magicians--Derren Brown, Ricky Jay, Penn & Teller, etc.--but there are also a lot of bad magicians. The difference from Idol, in my opinion, is that when a singer sings badly, it doesn't ruin the song for an audience for the rest of their lives, but when a magician does a trick badly, it really can just ruin that trick for everybody. I hope that doesn't happen.

Edit: The show is already on in other markets. The few comments I've seen on it so far have indicated that it is pretty boring. That sounds about right.

Story problem.

2007-10-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

Q: If a successful, talented entertainer is traveling south at 50 mph and impacts a stationary, talentless, disingenuous hack, what is the resulting reality TV show? Please neglect the mass of their egos.

A: Phenomenon, the new reality television show that pairs up Criss Angel and Uri "3 Trick Pony" Geller in a search for the "next great mentalist."

This sounds like it'll be a huge train wreck to me. Criss Angel is a known skeptic with the support of the likes of Penn & Teller and James Randi (who, I've heard, gave Criss Angel his stage name). Uri Geller, for those of you who had better things to do in the 80's, is a litigious hack who claims to have gen-yoo-wine magical powers.

But apparently when an NBC exec hears that a television show was officially declared a disgrace to the Israeli people--an official declaration made in reference to Geller's last TV project where he "searched for an heir" on Israeli TV--he has no alternative but to recreate the mistake in America. It doesn't even bother me that much that the show is likely to be awful. Lots of shows are bad. What bothers me is that Geller is getting a payday out of this.

I can only hope that Criss Angel (with Banachek, it looks like from the promo webpage) smacks 3-Trick-Uri down at every turn and is not undermined by the Enemy of Truth and Reason that is the cutting room floor.

So, here's what I think we should do...
The show premieres tomorrow night. If you live in a ratings house, don't watch it. I'll watch as much as I can stand, and give you a verdict. I want to give Criss Angel and Banachek the benefit of the doubt, but I don't want to encourage this kind of reckless behavior on the part of studio execs.

NaNoWriMo (0)

2007-10-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

I've known about NaNoWriMo for many years now. I've always wanted to compete, but I've always been a student with no time to spare. So this year I'm going try it out: 50,000 words in just one month. I don't know what's going to happen to the blag over that time. I will definitely continue to post (even at the expense of finishing my novel), but the posts might be unusual. Maybe a little short. Maybe a little strange (if I decide to post excerpts). Or maybe I'll post more and longer for the sake of procrastination. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Stealth Banjo!

2007-10-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

As I've always said, banjos make good music bad and bad music awful. But maybe this one will be able to stay in tune. Probably not.

Baseball is boring.

2007-10-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

And, yet, I'm watching it on TV.

Because I hate Cleveland.

The Metalocalypse DVD has arrived (and other items).

2007-10-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

I figured that title would get your attention...

The Metalocalypse - Season One DVD has, indeed, arrived. It looks to be $22 on Amazon.com. I won't be buying it, not because I don't think it'll be awesome, but because I don't buy many DVDs and am saving my money for an XO laptop. But I will probably catch it on Netflix at some point. And if you were or weren't going to buy it already, my stupid opinion won't change anything. (Also check out the Dethalbum for $11 and the Deluxe Edition for $77.)
I'm tempted to give declare Richard Branson a "Ninja of the Week" because I think this idea (a company that organizes and administers loans between families and friends) is awesome. Not that he thought of it. But he did have the foresight to buy it...
And, commence the nerding: "Worldwide Final Fantasy Concert Tour Announced"

Customizing Nethack.

2007-10-16T22:02:00.001-07:00

I just discovered last night (because it's been a long time since I read through the Nethack guide) that you can save your favorite options for Nethack by creating a file called ".nethackrc" in your home directory. For years I've been turning autopickup off and turning autoquiver, autodig, color and time on manually with every new adventurer. I have it down to about a 5 second procedure, but that can add up to minutes--tens of minutes even--over all the adventurers that I've played over the years. Now I don't have to do it manually because all of those preferences are in my .nethackrc file and load automatically when I load the game.

You can apparently get pretty fancy with your preferences, doing such things as assigning colors to specific categories of object in your inventory or changing the colors that things have in-game.

(Just for fun, I think I'm going to cross into the dark side and give Slash'EM a try. Wish me luck.)

Lessons Learned: local news sucks everywhere.

2007-10-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter what city you're in--thirty thousand people or thirty million. Local news sucks everywhere. You've been warned.

Movie Review: Caveman

2007-10-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

Mea culpa. I almost put this movie in the running for the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list. In my defense, I saw it after a long night of beer and both Conan movies. I gave it another chance, though, and sprung for the DVD of Caveman starring Ringo Starr, Shelley Long, Dennis Quad, Jack Gilford and John Matuszak (who you may remember better as Sloth from The Goonies).

Caveman is really a great movie. You have to be prepared for a certain amount of camp to really enjoy it, but it's actually a well done comedy, made extra interesting by the fact that most of the words spoken in movie are caveman language grunts and "ughs." Imagine the caveman segment from History of the World spread over a whole movie and with jokes about Ringo Starr's nose, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what's in store.

Movie Review: The 'burbs

2007-10-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

It seems like a month ago, because it was, when Charlie from the Parry Game Preserve and I got together for what (we didn't know at the time) would be our last hurrah before my harried sprint across the country. Among the many movies we watched that night was The 'burbs, featuring a truly phenomenal lineup of stars: Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman, Bruce Dern, and the ubiquitous-and-awesome-but-little-known Henry Gibson. This movie was awesome from start to finish. The premise is that new neighbor moves in who various people in the 'burbs suspect to be evil. The ending could easily be predictable and awful, but it really keeps twisting in interesting and hilarious ways. If you haven't seen it yet, I strongly recommend this film for the next time you're craving a comedy.

Sunday Catchall (10/14/07)

2007-10-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard by now, but continuing in the rich tradition of Hollywood shitting on my childhood, they're going to make a fifth Karate Kid movie--a "remake" of the original--starring Will Smith's 9-year-old son. The fourth Karate Kid movie was a mistake; there's no way that this one will be any good. The I Watch Stuff blog closely reflects my feelings on this issue.
Sylvester Stallone is making a new Rambo movie. I have to admit that it sounds like it might be awesome.
I have a friend who does a lot of graphic design and photography work. He's been a Photoshop whiz for as long as I can remember. But after I recently introduced him to OpenOffice, which he determined was better than MS Office, he's decided to try to give up his multi-hundred-dollar Photoshop software in favor of GIMP. I warned him that back when I followed such things (maybe 5 years ago), GIMP wasn't quite as useful to hardcore users as Photoshop. I was pleased to see this article on Slashdot indicating that the newest release of GIMP will be stepping it up.
And, finally, The Space Jesus Has Landed. "I died for your sins. Now you will."

One of the (very few) perks to living in LA...

2007-10-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

Is that we pick up something like 50 broadcast channels. Most of them are in foreign languages or about god(s), but we also get ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. I'm glad we didn't spring the $60/mo. for "basic" cable. (Is cable that expensive everywhere? Or is it just another example of LA trying to violate me?)

Of course, the real excitement is that I'll get to watch football on the TV tomorrow instead of
following it via the NFL.com GameCast that never updates properly. I won't get to watch any Colts games because they'll all get preempted by San Diego, Oakland, San Fransisco or Arizona games. But, you know, football is football. I even watched some USC on TV today and some Boston Red Sox yesterday despite having pretty much zero interest in baseball or college football. Maybe the constant allure of passing out in front of the TV after work instead of pursuing any of my ever-growing pile of projects will lead me down the baseball path. Or maybe I'll just "leave it on in the background."

Another perk of living in LA is that I can take capoeira lessons. I used to take lessons back in my freshman and sophomore years of college (when the grad student who taught them graduated), and really had a good time. Since I sampled the local ultimate scene and wasn't tremendously impressed, I'm going to try to redirect my energies into capoeira. There's a local class in the angola style, meets 3 times a week. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. I'm looking to starting that up next week. It's going to be an adventure since I'm not very flexible anymore and super out-of-shape, but I'll keep you posted.

Colts Win Superbowl XLII! (4)

2007-10-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Don't think for a second that I forgot. I didn't have internet or TV on Sunday because I was still moving. But I called my friend after the game and he informed me that the Colts absolutely dominated despite having about half a dozen starters out of the game completely. Go Colts!

Thought of this on my way to work... (1)

2007-10-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

They Call Me Bruce is an awesome movie. And a quick IMDB search reveals that there's a sequel. Half.com says that the sequel is only on VHS, though. Yet another reason why I should make a lot of money and start a film label to rescue awesome things from oblivion.

I doubt it, but it's entirely possible that They Call Me Bruce was a dig on the 1977 Filipino film They Call Him Bruce Lee, which also turns up in the IMDB search. Here's a short review. Definitely also needs to go on the list of things to see.

Movie Review: Superbad.

2007-10-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

I caught Superbad in the theater more-or-less on a whim. I'd certainly heard a lot of the hype leading up to it, but since I didn't really like Knocked Up, I ignored the shouts of "Seth Rogen is The New Awesome" and went on my Zardoz-loving ways. I've gotta say, in this instance, I was wrong to ignore the din. This movie was awesome.

It's a movie about some nerdy high school guys who are trying to get booze and get laid. And I will pretty much leave it at that except for one small observation that I expect will get a large portion of the readers to this blog off their butts and... over to Netflix.

The observation is this: throughout much of the movie, the main character ("Seth") sports a Richard Pryor t-shirt.

I was not able to find the same shirt online. Yes... that's a challenge.

I have them intarweb(net)s!

2007-10-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

The internet guy came today and hooked us up. And we're mostly moved in, insofar as all of our stuff is occupying the same space as us for the first time in weeks. Most of it is still in boxes, though. I'll try to catch up on my news and post a review of Superbad tonight and on into tomorrow morning. Thanks for your patience.

-The Mgt.

Water is awesome. Yay water!

2007-10-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

Quick post: from Randi's newsletter comes these two interesting articles about cool things that people are doing with water.

Note: My move is not yet entirely over. I'm still very frazzled. I've been sleeping on a friend's floor all week, and over the weekend I'll be moving all of my stuff about an hour up the road into the new apartment. My job seems like it'll be a pretty consistent 9-5 gig, so I expect real posts to resume early next week.

Don't be that guy.

2007-10-03T00:16:00.000-07:00

So a new town means a new group of ultimate players. I've found that it's pretty standard that when playing ultimate with a new group of people, no matter your age or level of experience, they automatically assume that you have no idea what's going on.

Now, I understand that it's just pickup. It doesn't matter. You can play like a douchebag if you wish. But I really can't stand the guy who plays like a douchebag and then turns around and gives me unsolicited advice on how I play. Either play stupid and keep your mouth shut or actually play and I'll happily accept criticism.

What do I mean by playing like a douchebag? I specifically mean throwing more than 20% hammers and looking past an open man 15 ft upfield and throwing a no-chance huck into the endzone. Don't do that. Don't be that guy.

Colts Win Superbowl XLII! (3)

2007-09-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

The Colts and Broncos were only a point apart at halftime today. And then what did the Colts do? They did what the Colts do: scored two touchdowns in the first six minutes of the third quarter, and then held that lead (plus some) for the rest of the game, winning 38-20. Go Colts!

Rich Man. Poor Man.

2007-09-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, my girlfriend and I have had several potential landlords take one look at us and assume that we can't afford to rent the apartment in question. Mind you, these were not high end apartments. They weren't in the ghetto, but we're talking 1-2 bedroom places at less than 1,000 sq. ft. and a healthy 2 miles away from the best parts of town. Pretty middle of the road to low end of the middle of the road. It's a college area, and most of the people in these apartments were students. So we apparently look poorer than students. (Not that we aren't, but...)

On the other hand, we were driving around today and saw a sign that said "open house" and decided to go look at it. This was an expensive part of town. The house listed at $2.5M. I think a house down the road recently sold for over $12M. But despite the fact that we were dressed basically the same as when we went to look at apartments, the broker automatically assumed that we were potential buyers. Of course, we didn't disabuse her of that notion. I think it also helped that I had to "take a business call" halfway through the tour. ("Oh. Is he a doctor?" the broker asked my girlfriend.) It was a really nice place, and we wanted to look around.

It was an interesting experiment in psychology. Apparently once you're in a certain tax bracket, you can dress however you want. And why the hell would we have been walking into open houses in that particular neighborhood if we really had no business there at all?

For those who are keeping track, the "business call" was to get a friend's address so that I can crash on his floor because I can't afford a hotel room. Ha!

Movie Review: Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

2007-09-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

I never actually saw this movie until I caught it on TV the other night. I've got to say that it wasn't as bad as I had expected. Nicolas Cage, as ever, did a fantastic job of playing Nicolas Cage. And the movie was actually entertaining. I mean, it's not going to go down in history as one of the great films ever. It's not Predator... but it'll do for some entertainment. It was certainly better than Ghost Rider.

Note: The best way to watch Ghost Rider--in case you were curious--is to just fast forward to all the parts with CG effects or Sam Elliott and skip the rest.

Ridiculous shit landlords ask for...

2007-09-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

So, I've been looking for apartments close to my new job. I've decided that I hate landlords. I've never had to pass a credit check to get an apartment before, but it's standard operating procedure out here, so I begrudgingly give up my social security number for this purpose. (Even though it angers me.) However there are some things that I've been asked for on rental applications that I just won't answer. Here's a short list:

My bank account numbers and estimated balances.
My mother's maiden name.
Whether of not I've ever been on welfare.

Aside from that I've had many (like 80%) of the landlords and property managers that I've spoken with take one look at me and my girlfriend and immediately ask if we can afford the rental in question. One just went ahead and said that he didn't like us and our money would be no good with him. (At least he was honest... he was also a sociopath.)

Maybe I'm just jaded because my last landlord was more like a mostly pleasant retired neighbor to whom I wrote a check every month in exchange for an occasional lawn-mowing. But I don't think it's just that. I mean, seriously, my bank account numbers and balances? I don't think that's even legal.

Remember History of the World Part II?

2007-09-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well, this is kind of similar. What what's funnier is that Randi predicted the problem over a year ago (and lambastes it better than I ever could).

The Wilhelm Scream

2007-09-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

For those of you who consult IMDB trivia entries as frequently as I do (even if you won't admit it in public), you'll no doubt have seen a handful of "Wilhelm Scream" notations. I just thought I'd point out what the Wilhelm scream is for people who can't be bothered to open a new browser tab and enter a Google search. This is what Wikipedia has to say:

The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the movie Distant Drums. Actor-singer Sheb Wooley is considered to be the most likely voice actor for the scream, having appeared on a memo as a voice extra for the movie.

The Wilhelm scream has been featured in many movies and television programs since. Alongside a certain recording of the cry of the Red-tailed Hawk, the "Universal telephone ring"[1], the Goofy holler and "Castle thunder," it is probably one of the best-known cinematic sound clichés.

You won't really appreciate the Wilhelm scream, however, until you've heard / seen it repeated about 1,000 times in a bunch of movies, as it is in this compilation video from the YouTube.

Final Fantasy XII's best feature(s).

2007-09-26T15:44:00.001-07:00

Despite the recent volatility of my life, I've remembered what is important and made time for video games. I'm about 18 hours into Final Fantasy XII. I'm enjoying it tremendously, probably more than FFX. Although, it has been pointed out to me, and I agree, that given the game play changes it is "not really a Final Fantasy game." I don't mind. A fun game is a fun game.

There are two particular features about this game that I like a lot over previous games. They are as follows:
-Paused time does not get included in your cumulative playtime.
-You can skip cut scenes.

Where the hell was the "skip" option for cut scenes in goddamned FFX?! That whole game was a cut scene!

Lebowski moments.

2007-09-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

I'm judging my assimilation into LA culture by how many "Lebowski moments" I've experienced. My first was grabbing a meal at the In-N-Out on the way into town. I think my second real Lebowski moment was today when I acquired my Ralph's shoppers club card...

Is this your only form of ID?

Worst. Movies. Ever. Silent Trigger.

2007-09-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Every year, a group of my friends gets together on the same Friday in May and watches Silent Trigger while consuming a beverage that they refer to as "the silent trigger" (Rumpelmintz and vodka... because it tastes like scope). And despite my fond associated memories, this movie is extremely bad. There are really only three characters. The most complicated of them can be summed up entirely as "horny drug addict." Dolf Lundgren really steals the screen by playing the sensitive type of hired assassin sniper. A lot of dynamic range went into that one--second perhaps only to Arnold's breakout performance in Conan the Barbarian. There is, of course, a love interest. And the fourth and final character is a poor man's Kevin Spacey. The extremely few and far between fight scenes make heavy use of the "if we put them in helmets with dark masks, we won't have to pay for as many stunt people" technique and are otherwise unremarkable.

The only redeeming quality of this movie is how unapologetically bad it is. Silent Trigger will jump to (wait for it...) #1 on the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list!

One Laptop Per Child: mark your calendars!

2007-09-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

The NY Times is reporting that the "$100 laptops" that form the centerpiece of the One Laptop Per Child campaign be on sale in the U.S. from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26 at a price of $399 each. "Why," you may reasonably ask, "does the $100 laptop cost $400?" Well, the laptops are a little more expensive to produce that original envisioned (so they renamed them "XO laptop"), and then double that because every laptop purchased in the 1st world also buys a laptop for a child in the 3rd world. The donated computer is also tax deductible.

I'm not an early adopter of technology. I waited until just this year to buy a PS2. My first iPod was like fifth generation. I didn't have a cell phone until they were nearly ubiquitous. But, that said, and knowing that the first version of the XO will have a lot of problems and that the price will probably come down significantly inside of a year, I think that I'm going to go ahead and order one right away. I just love this concept so much on so many levels.

And I encourage you to do the same. Or at least give it some serious thought.

For the children.

Update: This article in Slate is critical of the XO laptops. I include it here for completeness, though I couldn't disagree more.

W.M.E. landmark.

2007-09-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

So you may have noticed that I've filled all 10 slots on the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list in the sidebar. Never fear! This feature will remain. I have purposely undershot the mark and have a lot of really, really bad movies lined up for review. They will then displace some of the films already on the list. And, of course, as I see new and terrible movies, those will also find themselves on the list. The idea is that over time, I will asymptotically approach the platonic top ten list of bad movies.

Colts Win Superbowl XLII! (2)

2007-09-23T12:56:00.001-07:00

So as 1:00pm started rolling around today, I got excited about football since the place I'm staying temporarily has access to actual television programming. But then I remembered that I'm 3 hours behind where I used to be so football here starts at the ungodly hour of 10:00am! But it's not like I can watch the Colts in LA anyway, so I flipped to the Green Bay San Diego game, which was close and awesome. Green Bay picked up an interception after the 2-minute warning and bumped their lead up from 3 to 10, pretty much ending the game right there. Well played.

That said, I think that I'll have to become a San Diego "fan" for the purposes of my continued football viewing pleasure. So I will, of course, always cheer for the Colts, but also cheering for the Chargers when they aren't playing the Colts will give make my football experience more interesting every week.

Also, the Colts beat the Texans today. Go Colts!

Update: I think I'm also going to have to become a Raiders "fan" just because they completely schooled the ill-favored Browns in the last seconds with a field goal block.

Worst. Movies. Ever. Terminal Rush.

2007-09-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

Don "The Dragon" Wilson and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper team up in this nonstop suckfest that you have to see to believe. Terminal Rush is another of the "Hoover Dam held hostage" motif that was pretty popular in the early 90's for reasons that I'm not at all clear on.

Piper has, for no apparent reason at all, a bandit-style raccoon mask painted on his face for the entire film. He also exhibits extremely poor gun discipline for a character who's supposed to be some sort of ex-military bad ass. The fight scenes were unimpressive. The plot was missing more often than it was found.

I can think of worse action movies--and will certainly be sharing them with you in the future--but the list is short. So I think that Terminal Rush will actually occupy a very mascara-wearing #6 spot on the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list.

Perhaps the laziest in Los Angeles county.

2007-09-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

Moving is hard. I had three days from the time that I found out that I was moving across the country to the time that I actually had to leave my apartment. So I had to load everything into a truck and drive it across the country on about that much notice. The drive took Saturday through Thursday with a stop in Indiana on Sunday to visit family. My travel companion and I also took Wednesday to visit the Petrified Forest / Painted Desert and Meteor Crater in Arizona. The Painted Desert is freaking phenomenally awesome. You should definitely go to see it. The entrance fee is $10 per vehicle (which is completely reasonable) and you never even need to get out of your car to see the coolest views if you don't want to. Schedule a minimum of 3 hours, but you could easily spend all day. Meteor Crater, on the other hand, kind of anti-climactic. You should definitely see it just to see it if you're a huge space nerd like me. But it's honestly just a big hole in the ground. Also, the admission fee is $15... per person... to see what is essentially a big hole in the ground. And you don't actually get to go into the hole, just stand and look from the windy-as-shit (thank you Bernoulli) observation deck that they've constructed along part of the rim. All said, however, Arizona is the most beautiful of the states that we drove through. The scenery changed completely every 50 miles, and it was always awesome. The last leg of our trip was from Phoenix to LA, which took us through the most unoccupied stretches of desert that I've ever seen. There were literally exits to nowhere, off ramps that lead straight into the desert. Then crossing LA around rush hour took pretty much twice as long as getting to the edge of LA from Phoenix. My companion for the trip had never been to LA before, and by the end of our trek, we came up with a pretty succinct exposition on the LA experience (which I'd like to put on a t-shirt): "LA... Yup, it sucks."

Friday was spent in Little Tokyo eating some amazing sushi from Mitsuwa and picking up a few (very) odds and ends. Today we went apartment hunting. I've got to say that I've never had such an awful day of apartment hunting ever. We got to deal with complete disingenuity on the one hand ("I know that's what it says in the lease, but this is how it actually works." "Ok, so write that in the lease." "I can't do that." "So why are we having this conversation? Do you know anything about how contracts work?") to sociopathic assholes who I'd honestly rather hit in the face with a baseball bat than ever have to speak to again.

Unfortunately, you know, I kind of need a place to live. Hopefully we find something or figure something out. Maybe I'm being a little naive given the housing market here as opposed to where I used to live, but I don't want to do business with anybody who I met today.

The Dude is a lazy man.

2007-09-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

I have completed my trip to LA, but The Move is still in progress. I will attempt to resume one-a-day posts, but don't expect consistency for the next week or two.

P.S. Arizona is goddamned gorgeous. More to follow.

Another interruption for travel.

2007-09-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

So I'm moving across the country and have to leave by Saturday morning. I'll probably be super busy and/or broken down on the side of a road in the middle of a desert for the next several days. Expect sporadic (i.e. no) posts for the next week.

Famous Trials

2007-09-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

I watched Inherit the Wind last night (no review will be forthcoming), which reminded me of this Famous Trials web page that I found a few years ago hosted by a professor at the UMKC School of Law. I think that I've read through probably three quarters of these trials over the years and found most of them to be interesting. Although I also have an idle interest in law, generally--put it this way: I think I'd enjoy law school a lot if it weren't filled with law students--a foible that I don't think many others share (excepting law students).

Worst. Movies. Ever. Signs.

2007-09-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

This movie has been heavily panned elsewhere, so I won't bother. Suffice it to say that an alien race whose weaknesses are water and blunt force trauma result in instant death decides to invade a planet covered in oceans and baseball bats. And if you haven't seen it yet, I haven't ruined the ending for you because the film does a fine job of ruining the ending on its own by virtue of it being awful.

Signs will take the #9 spot on the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list.

(I'm also declaring The Village--same crap, different movie--a sequel and therefore ineligible to make the list.)

Movie Review: Red Dawn

2007-09-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

I think that most American men have had daydreams that play out approximately like the movie Red Dawn. The Russians (or, generically, zombies) invade the U.S. and a small cadre of football players (including Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen in his feature film debut) and attractive females (Lea Thompson of Back to the Future and Jennifer Grey of Ferris Bueller's Day Off) hide out in the mountains and fight the invasion.

This movie was pretty awesome. I was skeptical going into it (because the choice was between this and The Monster Squad), but when the action started less than two minutes into the film, I knew that I was in for a treat. Apparently this movie set a record for the most acts of violence of any film up to its release (2.23 per minute), and there is actually an "acts of violence" feature on the DVD that keeps a running tally (which is a poorly disguised drinking game if I ever saw one).

Worst. Movies. Ever. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

2007-09-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling where you have extremely high hopes for something that will be an almost certain failure? That's the feeling I had about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.

And I felt so bad about not liking the movie because my best friend paid for the ticket to see it in the theater. We're both huge fans of the books. But the movie just wasn't funny.

And it would be bad enough for something to be not funny, but it was also not funny in a way that shit on my childhood like that explicit fan art of Flintstones characters. And I also felt like it shit on the work of a great artist, Douglas Adams.

So for managing to take one of the single funniest books ever and turning it into a movie at which I didn't laugh a single time, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy jumps to #7 on the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list.

Predator RiffTrax review.

2007-09-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks, though a sponsored link on The Agony Booth, I learned of a new Mike Nelson--of MST3K fame--venture called RiffTrax. The way it works is that for $2.99 you download an mp3 of Mike Nelson et al. riffing on the movie of your choice. I was instantly intrigued because I watch a lot of movies and think Mike Nelson is awesome, so I arranged to watch Predator with Charlie from the Parry Game Preserve, and this time with RiffTrax!

Early on the day of the viewing, I went ahead and purchased the Predator RiffTrax. The transaction went smoothly, and did not require me to register an account or anything like that. The site was a little sluggish during parts of the checkout process, but the download itself went very quickly. What happens is that after you check out, you're given a link to your mp3 download. You're given the choice of NTSC (for North America) and PAL (for Europe) formats, which I assume accounts for regional variations in the releases. The download was in the form of a 33Mb zip file that expanded to just under 75Mb and included the mp3 and a txt file with movie-specific syncing instructions.

While a syncing guide is included, you won't really need it. Everything is explained perfectly in the first few minutes of audio. Because of this, you're going to want to cue up the audio before starting the movie. The mechanism for syncing in this instance (and I don't know how it varies for other films) is that Mike gives instructions to pause the mp3 at a specific point, play the movie, and then un-pause the mp3 when the name of the production company vanishes from the screen prior to the opening credits. We were able to get perfect syncing on the first attempt.

Now how did we know that we had perfect syncing? Well, occasionally a somewhat digital voice (called DisambAudio) on the mp3 will recite a line of dialog from the movie at the precise moment that it should occur. This allows you to know if the mp3 and DVD have drifted apart in timing at all (which can happen if the DVD player doesn't switch chapters smoothly). We had to re-sync at one point during the movie, which we did by pausing the mp3 immediately after DisambAudio said his line and pausing the DVD immediately after the same line and then un-pausing both at the same time. It was a little clumsy, but we managed to get a very good sync this way.

The sound quality was very good. The voices were extremely clear. We did have a little trouble hearing Mike over a few of the battle scenes, but I don't consider this to be a problem with the audio itself. Rather, I think it resulted from a combination of our playback equipment (the computer speakers, while pegged, were not very loud) and the dramatically varying sound level of this particular movie.

As for the quality of the actual riffing on the Predator RiffTrax, we had no complaints at all. My friends and I do a large amount of kibitzing while watching movies anyway, and the RiffTrax experience gave us the uncanny impression that Mike Nelson was sitting in the room watching the movie with us. Charlie and I have surely seen Predator more than 100 times between us, and the RiffTrax definitely added new joy to what we already consider to be one of the best movies ever. When we were done with Predator and stuck Fright Night in, I was disappointed that Mike Nelson wasn't next to me on the couch adding his witty observations.

My RiffTrax experience was completely positive. It was simple and user friendly from end to end. I love that this allows us to have an MST3K-like experience for films that are modern and classic. I think that the price is exactly right. I plan to purchase more RiffTrax in the future. I will also recommend RiffTrax to others with the single caveat that it will probably be a better experience for movies that you've seen a number of times (both because it will probably be funnier and because Mike Nelson and friends will effectively be talking through the entire movie). Enjoy!

(I'm looking forward to watching the Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory RiffTrax which features both Mike Nelson and Neil Patrick Harris. Aside from being awesome, Mike Nelson apparently also has awesome friends.)

Ninja of the Week: Stan Lee

2007-09-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

I was torn on the ninja feature this week between Alexander the Great and Stan Lee. Whereas Alexander the Great had been an Olympic champion, conquered the known world, and died before the age of 35... Stan Lee created Spider-Man.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about Stan Lee:

With several artist co-creators, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and many other characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. He subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

He also had an awesome role in one of my favorite movies, Mallrats, and he has a game show where he gets otherwise healthy adults to run around in shiny underpants pretending to have magic powers.

Stan Lee is a ninja.

Worst. Movies. Ever. Rollerball.

2007-09-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

Now, I know what you're thinking to yourself right now: "Rollerball is a freaking amazing movie! It has no business on this list."

Well, yes. You're right. The iconic 1975 version of Rollerball starring James Caan is an amazing movie.

The 2002 version of Rollerball starring Jean Reno, LL Cool J and Rebecca Romjin, however, was total crap. Rather than being a movie about the only sport in a corporate controlled distant future where the computers are made of water and people wear a lot of shiny clothes, it is a movie about a violent and internationally known sport that is only played in a post-Soviet Kerplakistan that inexplicably has an amazing communications infrastructure and where people get teardrop tats of their jersey number. The actual lead, Chris Klein, is no-name and can't act. There's a cameo by Slipknot for no good reason.

However, the presence of Jean Reno and what I remember to be a decent final action sequence will save this film from a place in the top 5. Rollerball (2002) will now move to the #7 spot on the "Worst. Movies. Ever." list.

Colts Win Superbowl XLII! (1)

2007-09-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, not yet. But they will. Their strong start to the season last night against the New Orleans Saints (41-10) highlighting that both the offense (a perennial best) and the defense (steadily improving) are both really top shelf at this point. I think this is a better Colts than we saw win the Super Bowl last year.

And on a not unrelated topic, why the hell can't I subscribe to online streaming video of NFL games?! I don't want to have to pay for cable and NFL Sunday Ticket just to see the Colts play outside of their market. I would gladly pay a few dollars per game to watch live on the internet. C'mon free market! Don't fail me now!

Movie Review: Halloween

2007-09-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

Ok. I'm done traveling... this week. It's time for a movie review.

I actually saw Rob Zombie's Halloween on opening night. I showed up early to buy tickets ahead of time because my partner-in-crime had heard of a lot of people who were going to see it. Unfortunately, we waited too long to actually enter the theater (which was sold out) and had to sit in the second row, which gave me a headache and a several-days neck cramp. And everybody else in the theater appeared to be under the age of 15 and completely unable to stop talking, which gave me a headache and the rage.

Headache notwithstanding, I thought that this movie was awesome. The critics are all idiots. Anybody who can watch Danny Trejo sharing his prison wisdom with a young, asylum-bound Michael Myers--"You need to withdraw into your head more."--and not instantly extrapolate that the entire movie is full-throttle excellence... well, that's why I don't listen to critics.

While I will concede that Halloween is not as good as The Devil's Rejects, I think that Zombie has really captured the genre perfectly. The full-grown Michael Myers is an anti-hero worth cheering for. Dr. Loomis is engaging and well played. And there's an excellent cameo by Sid Haig, who you may remember better as Captain Spaulding.

I almost hit a cow yesterday.

2007-09-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

So I almost hit a cow yesterday. I was about half an hour from home, out in the country, when I saw what looked like loose cows about a quarter mile up the road and just around the bend. My first impression was "loose cows" anyway. Then I convinced myself that they were either cows inside a fence or horses being actively ridden. But, low and behold, they were loose cows attempting to feast on an evergreen in front of a dairy farm.

I slowed down a little, but they were both in the grass so my plan was to whiz by with a minimum of rubbernecking. But just then one of the cows decided that she wanted to stand in the middle of the road. I slammed on the brakes, which startled her enough to turn around and go back into the grass, her massively engorged udders jumbling comically. I think I almost got rear ended by a pickup.

As I sped away I could see the farm hands in my rear view mirror, sprinting out to the road.

Man wins lotterly. Blames crap.

2007-09-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

A Maryland man claims to have won between $32M and $82M on the lottery over the weekend. (I say "claims" because it has not yet been officially verified.) Don't get me wrong; I'm happy for anybody who can score a few mil without hurting others. More power to him. I will, however, attack his bullshit beliefs.

He's wiccan (crap) and works at a new age (rhymes with sewage--crap) bookstore and does reiki (double crap). I'm a little offended that the headline refers to him as a "teacher." If I had to go teach eighth graders biology or physics tomorrow, I'd be completely pissed about it. By the logic that would make this guy a teacher, then a dope pusher is also a teacher... of how to be addicted to crack (almost rhymes with crap).

He says that he won because he made a deal with his gods. (*ahem* crap)

Full disclosure: I don't play the lottery. Ever. Or gamble against the house. Because I know math.