Friday blogthing: Doh!!

You Are Homer Simpson

You're just an ordinary, all-American working Joe... With a special fondness for pork rinds and donuts. You will be remembered for: your little "isms" and philosophies on life Your life philosophy: "Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals ... except the weasel."

The Simpsons Personality Test

tagged: Simpsons, Homer Simpson, pop culture

Movie Mini Review: Life Aquatic

I'm going to try to start a little series of movie reviews. Why? Well there are some movies I like and some I don't like, and what the heck, maybe by reader will get something out if it. If nothing else, we can start a discussion about how off base I am with my assessments.

So here's the first installment.

Title: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Cast:
Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum

Plot summary:
While making a documentary, the famous oceanographer Steve Zissou (Murray) loses his dear friend, eaten by a mythical jaguar shark. He raises funds for an expedition in his ship, the Belafonte, to hunt the shark and make a new film. The journalist Jane Winslett-Richardson (Blanchett) and a pilot that claims to be his unknown son, Ned Plimpton (Wilson), join his crew in their journey, planned by his wife Eleanor Zissou (Huston). While making the movie, they are attacked by pirates and left without any money to finish their work. (credit to Claudio Carvalho)

My thoughts:
I remember being keen to see this movie when it was released in theaters back in '04. I didn't get to see it at the time (we don't get out much, what can I say), but the film didn't seem to do that well commercially.

Too bad, because it's a great movie. Although I can see how it would be difficult to market. It doesn't fit neatly into the genres that movie marketers seem to rely on.

It's not really a comedy, although it has some hilariously funny lines as you would expect from a movie staring Bill Murray. I found myself laughing out loud many times.

It's not a drama either, though there are some dramatic moments, like Owen Wilson's poignant death scene.

And this movie certainly didn't have a big special effects budget. On the contrary, the effects seemed to be deliberately low-tech, as if the director Wes Anderson were trying to make the underwater scenes kitschy in an attempt to poke fun at those high-dollar, CGI-enhanced blockbusters.

In the end, this movie is a great example of how you don't need formulas or special effects or billion-dollar budgets to make a great film. You just need a great story, excellent writing and solid directing and acting.

Unfortunately in Hollywood, those things are rarer than money.

Favorite quote:
"Son of a bitch, I'm sick of these dolphins."

tagged: movie, Life Aquatic, film, culture, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum

YouTube Tuesday: Not so cold

The KC metro area, and much of the central midwest, has been in the grips of icy temperatures for the last few days.

I heard one of my coworkers say it was time to move south, that it was too cold to come to work or even get out of bed.

I suspect there's some other motivational problem with my coworker because, while it is indeed cold, it's not THAT cold. I mean you wouldn't want to go have a picnic in the park when it's 8 degrees Fahrenheit outside. But let's face it, it could be much colder.

Just take Alaska for example, where it gets really cold. So cold that water, thrown outside, evaporates in midair.




tagged: movie, YouTube, video, weather, cold, Alaska, freezing

And that settles that

When I was grade school, a good friend of mine was the first kid in our town to get a video tape player.

His dad was kind of a gadget guy, an "early adopter" as the marketing gurus say. They were also the first family to have a video camera, and a cell phone (which, back then, came in the form of a small bag that you would sling over your shoulder, and you had to put an antenna on top of your car for it to work).

Anyway, they spent hundreds (maybe even a thousand) of dollars on this video tape player and we all thought it was so cool how you could watch a movie at home without commercials. You could rewind, fast forward. It was all very cutting edge. But eventually, we got tired of watching the same movie over and over again.

That's when my friend's dad realized he had invested in the wrong technology. We had been watching a Betamax player, and it didn't take long to see that VHS had won the format war.

I bring this up because we technophiles were facing a similar showdown until today.

The war was between which high-definition video format would succeed the standard-def DVD. On one side was HD DVD, on the other was Blu-ray. Sure, there were efforts to work together to come to a consensus. But like the battle between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, no solution was forthcoming.

Until today. The multi-billion dollar porn industry has stepped in to put and end to the destructive conflict by adopting the HD DVD format for your late-night wanking pleasure.

The importance of this development would be difficult to overestimate. Despite the lip service (pun intended) paid to morals and family values in the US, Americans were estimated to spend as much as $8 to $10 billion on pornography in 2003.

And it's axiomatic that, from a technological standpoint, where the porn industry goes, the rest of American follows. Arguably, the porn industry deserves credit for most of the advance in high-speed internet content delivery technology, and possibly the internet itself.

So here's a twenty-one tissue salute to the porn industry for solving yet another social problem.


tagged: technology, culture, video, movie, porn, industry, Blu-ray, HD DVD

Friday blogthing: Are we not men?

Your 80s Theme Song Is:

Whip It by Devo

What's Your 80s Theme Song?

tagged: 80s, music, Devo

Pump you up

Clusterflock linked us to a NYT Magazine article interview with Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (note: I'll stay clear of the obvious joke about how Dick Pound sounds like a porn actor's name. I mean, that's just too easy even for me).

Here's that passage got my attention:

Performance enhancement is like any other kind of underground activity: the participants are the only ones who know for sure what they’re up to. Anabolic steroids were for weight lifters, home-run hitters and sprinters and would never help an athlete in an endurance event like the Tour de France, right? Yet that’s what Landis tested positive for. How that might have helped him climb mountains is unknown — except, if he took them, by Landis and any enablers. Everybody thought pitchers never used steroids because they value flexibility more than strength. Then baseball started checking for steroids, and about half the positive tests came from pitchers. In university laboratories across the world, and in places like the United States Department of Defense, scientists are dreaming up yet new ways to enhance human beings — steps that may very well be taken by elite athletes before they are perfected or even considered safe.

Hey, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. What do you think the whole stem cell thing is about. It sure as hell isn't about curing Parkinson's Disease, I can tell you. That's just the public propaganda that "they" want us to buy.

And who is "they" you ask?

Well, I have documented proof that a cabal of conspirators including the Defense Department, George Steinbrenner, GlaxoSmithKline, and the University of Oklahoma is conducting a secret research project to create super enhanced collegiate curlers using stem cells.

Of course this is just the first step. The technology will eventually be used to create a race of super soldiers, kind of like Kurt Russel in that movie Soldier.

Which is really okay. I mean, we're going to need somebody to fight the machines when the great robot revolution begins.

tagged: steroids, doping, Floyd Landis, culture, sports, stem cells

Rome (if you want to)

I got an email from my good friend HBO the other day letting me know that Sunday the second and final season of Rome will commence.

The new season picks up on the same day that last season ended, the Ides of March. Ceasar has been stabbed to death by the Senate (I can hear you Democrats squealing with glee), and Niobe, the exotic and beautiful wife of centurion Lucius Vorenus has just committed suicide after her husband learned the truth about her son.

Despite the raft of great shows on network TV this season (Scrubs, The Office, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica) HBO has almost single-networkly been responsible for the best programming on the idiot box.

Shows like The Sopranos, Deadwood and Rome (all of which are ending this year) show a true artistic vision, with snappy writing, realistic scenarios and amazingly beautiful cinematography (especially in HD). They pull no punches and challenge the viewer to pay attention to the complex plot lines. For some views, the complex story lines and inconsistent time lines were a turnoff for Rome in particular. But the payoff is worth it.

Unfortunately, historical dramas like Deadwood and Rome can be pretty expensive, what with building the period sets, procuring costumes, going on location and whatnot.

So it's been a great ride with some amazing programming. It will be sad when it's over, but I look forward to the next big thing they come out with.



tagged: Rome, HBO, TV, pop culture, Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica, Scrubs, The Office

YouTube Tuesday: Blueman

Yesterday, Tony took exception with a recent column by The Star's Steve Kraske about the sorry state of so-called news reporting in this city.

Evidently Tony gets off on tales of car accidents, house fires, east-side shootings and Larry Moore. He's sick like that.

Personally, I had my fill of it two years ago and stopped watching the so-called local so-called news. With a DVR, there's no need to watch trash that doesn't feature Alissa Milano.

Anyway, this little YouTube video expresses my thoughts on the subject better than what you've read to this point...



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Network, blueman, pop culture, news media

Okie City Penguins?

I've been following the story line of the Pittsburgh Penguins' search for a new arena over the last few weeks.

Sure, they'll probably never materialize in KC, but it's still much more interesting than following the inept Chiefs.

Anyway, for you other five people in Kansas who are interested in NHL hockey, I thought I'd pass along this story Pittsburgh Tribune-Review breaking the news that Oklahoma City is considering offering a competing bid for the Penguins.

Oklahoma City is considering extending an invitation to the Penguins to visit the Ford Center this week.

Bob Funk, founder and CEO of Express Services Inc. and owner of the minor-league Oklahoma City Blazers hockey club, told The Oklahoman on Saturday, "We have always had an interest in the NHL ... I think the NHL has a good future."

Funk and Brad Lund, CEO of Funk's Express Sports, met with Oklahoma City leaders Thursday and tabled for the weekend a plan to invite the Penguins, the newspaper reported.

"It's Pittsburgh's team to lose, and Kansas City is well ahead of us," Lund said.

Not sure what kind of offer the Okies could make to the Penguins organization. If the funding of professional athletes at the University of Oklahoma is any indication, laws and common decency get about as much regard in OKC as they do in KCMO.

tagged: Kansas City, Oklahoma City, hockey, Pittsburgh Penguins, Lemieux, sports

The cure is worse than the illness

It's a shame and a travesty.

A Kansas City, Kan., nurse's aide pleaded guilty to the other day to first-degree murder in the 2005 stabbing death of a 77-year-old man who had once been in her care.

Turns out she had been embezzling money from him for years. When he finally caught on, she stabbed him 40 times to keep him from spilling the beans.

What a waste. I think we can all agree that this kind of elder abuse, while all too common, is completely uncalled for and causes untold loss to our society as a whole.

The elderly, such as my friend Xavier Onassis, shouldn't be harmed or abused, they need to be isolated and studied so that it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.

tagged: Kansas City, nurse , stabbing , elderly