archive for January of 2006

media Bubble and Brokeback Mountain

Posted January 24, 2006 • Comments Off on Bubble and Brokeback Mountain

A friend of a friend put up this excellent post about movies, with Bubble, a fascinating experiment, as a jumping-off point.

From his own comment to the post:

All I’m saying is, rather than piss and moan about DVD releases, movie theaters should work on having a service that is functionally different from buying or renting a DVD. Live music clubs don’t complain that CDs are unfair competition, because they know that they’re not selling just a band performing music, but an experience that the CD doesn’t provide. If movie theaters focused on making the theater experience an enjoyable and special one, one that was significantly different from watching at home, they’d have a better chance of luring customers in without resorting to current brute force methods. But as it stands, there is absolutely no reason to see most movies in the theater.

I disagree with that last bit; the reason to go to the theater is to see the movie first—namely, before anyone can spoil it for you. Other than that, he’s right on. And this reason doesn’t exist with simultaneous release.

I went to the theater last week and saw Brokeback Mountain. I loved this movie. Besides being heartwrenchingly sad and deceptively simple, it was actually one of the sexiest movies I’ve ever seen. It was something else.

I had a good theater experience. Few commercials, many trailers, only about six other people in the theater, all of whom kept quiet during the feature, and a good, comfortable seat where I could make the screen take up my entire field of vision.

And the theater I go to actually does have a bar, where I watched “American Idol” and chatted up the bartender before the movie started. You can’t take drinks into the theater, and it was a little chilly during the movie, but all in all, it’s a good theater, and it was a good experience. I didn’t wish for my two hours back, and I didn’t wish for my ten bucks back.

But, given the choice, and all other things being equal (timing and whatnot—something happens in the movie that I was glad not to know ahead of time)…

Given the choice, I still would have watched it at home.

other Washington Post Sunday crossword, December 18 (contains answers)

Posted January 23, 2006 • Comments Off on Washington Post Sunday crossword, December 18 (contains answers)

Cw-051218

Title: What’s Their Line?
Theme entries: first names that are homonyms of regular words that imply job titles. Finally, the puns came back!

23A, Marc?: COPY EDITOR (mark)
25A, Moe?: LANDSCAPER (mow)
52A, Gail?: METEOROLOGIST (gale)
86A, Belle?: CAMPANOLOGIST (bell)
118A, Jules?: GEMOLOGIST (jewels)
120A, Minnie?: DRESSMAKER (mini)
39D, Jean?: BIOENGINEER (gene)
43D, Cher?: STOCKBROKER (share)

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

1A, Salten classic: BAMBI
37A, Business advisers, slangily: RABBIS [this is the best I can do]
50A, WWII battle town: ST. LO
82A, Styne collaborator: CAHN
84A, “David Copperfield” wife: DORA
94A, Mars: prefix: AREO
99A, “Other sea-cities have faltered and ___…”: Doolittle: STRIVEN [I can’t find the whole poem, but it’s hers]
108A, Mohs scale mineral: APATITE [the Mohs scale was among the first things I looked up when I started posting these]
32D, Hoops org.: ABA
44D, Tillstrom dragon: OLLIE [I didn’t know Ollie was a dragon, and I didn’t know Burr Tillstrom’s name. I feel I must make it clear I did know what “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” was.]
56D, Tandoor, e.g.: OVEN [I had Indian food for the first time not long after learning this]
100D, “Valse ___”: TRISTE [I figure this must be a more general term, not just this piece?]
107D, Elementary: BASAL
111D, First Alaska governor: EGAN
113D, Russian-born painter: ERTE [ohhhh, this guy.]

Overall:
I messed up zero squares in this one (along with the puns, my pwoers came back) and got no letters outright wrong. This was a welcome return to form all around. Eight theme entries (average), 15 things I had to look up (high).

general furniture

Posted January 20, 2006 • Comments Off on furniture
I just assembled my new nightstand, which is made of two of these.

Images Components 275X275 400104S1

There’s metal feet on the bottom one (you can see if you go to the site), and I didn’t put the door on the top one. Each one has an adjustable shelf inside, and they’re bolted together so they look like one unit. It looks very nice.

Especially considering my old nightstand for the last three years was a red and blue pressboard footlocker I’ve had since I started college, turned on its end.

It was purchased at Rose’s (a discount store in Blacksburg*) and spent a year chained to my desk in the architecture lab, holding rolls of paper and rulers and projects and such. Some of that stuff is probably still in there. I open it once every few years to see if anything I’m missing is inside. I know it contains my Super Soaker, the broken putter from miniature golf on my high school senior trip, and the X-rays from when I broke my foot in 1992.

15992 1 1?&Op Sharpen=1&Qlt=80,1&Hei=249&Wid=249

It looks sort of like this one, except it doesn’t have wheels, or handles on the ends where they’d be useful, and instead of purple with chrome trim, it is bright blue with bright red trim. And of course you must understand that it is certainly much more cheaply made than this one. It’s awful, and the reason it’s awful is that Allison (my first friend at college) and I didn’t get to Rose’s until the rest of the freshman architecture majors had cleaned them out of black and brown and navy blue footlockers. I think hers actually was purple, but I’m not sure.

*One of the few mentions I can find of Rose’s online is here, in this delightful reminiscence:

The first Post office in Blacksburg was located opposite the N&W. property where the feed store is now. The second was in the old Lancaster house opposite Brown Bros. Store, it was then moved to the location now used as Blue Grass Meat Market, from there it was moved to the location that is the Greek restaurant, later to a store building by the William Preston Hotel, from there to side entrance of Rose’s 5&10, thence to its present building.

The post office in Blacksburg when I lived there was on South Main Street, not far from the Underground.

web PostSecret

Posted January 19, 2006 • Comments Off on PostSecret

I just made some postcards.

You can see this one

Postsecret-Hungersite

and you can see this one (which I made pretty much just to get rid of the window sticker they sent me that I don’t know what to do with and don’t want to throw away)

Postsecret-Pandas

but you can’t see the other two, one of which has me sitting here breathing a little too fast and amazed I’m actually going to send it, and if they show up on the site (and I’m pretty sure that one will), I’m not going to tell you they’re mine or admit it even if you figure it out and ask me. Ironic, isn’t it, that sending something to PostSecret would actually cause me to lie?

technology OS X wish list (items: 1)

Posted January 18, 2006 • Comments Off on OS X wish list (items: 1)

All I want is to have my network location show in the menu bar. Why can’t I find this? Why is this so strange an idea?

general Random photos and a movie

Posted January 18, 2006 • Comments Off on Random photos and a movie

I took this at the mall the other day, part of the Christmas decorations they’re packing away. Moose in bubble wrap.

Cimg0206

Mostly for Wayne: Doesn’t this license plate remind you of someone on TV? At least if you add an N?
Cimg0207

I also have a video of the Cubees in action. I had to buy new button-type batteries for the cat and the duck (six of them), and these batteries are NOT CHEAP. What a total scam and awesome toy. If you can’t see the movie, I can email it to you if you ask for it. The movie is rotated because I’m a moron and because I can’t figure out a way to fix it. Just tilt your head, or use VLC or another player that allows transformations. My camera won’t take MPG movies, but iSquint converts the AVIs just fine. God bless the video iPod for the great software it caused.

flickr Flaming Eater

Posted January 18, 2006 • Comments Off on Flaming Eater

Tiffibunny posted a photo:

Flaming Eater

Halloween night, 2005.

media To displace the spider picture on the homepage

Posted January 17, 2006 • Comments Off on To displace the spider picture on the homepage

I just got the greatest advertising email ever. Hopefully these images will be less disturbing than the tarantula.



“Jawdropping, highly detailed, smoothly executed…”
Movie-Vault.com

Enjoy Great Sci-Fi Movies Delivered Every Month
Discover Unique Titles and Underground Hits
Own Movies for Less than the Cost of a Rental

web Tempting ad on Boingboing

Posted January 16, 2006 • Comments Off on Tempting ad on Boingboing

Posted today, and actually quite tempting, as a Pet That Stays Mostly In A Box But Isn’t Likely To Scratch Or Reproduce is the type of pet my lifestyle can handle. I do think tarantulas are cool. I like the careful way they move.

Adopt one of Steve Lodefink’s adorable, furry, gargantuan tarantulas:
Mark Frauenfelder:
Steve Lodefink has two tarantulas up for adoption.

Static Images Articles Spider1

If you would like to adopt one of these fuzzy friends, just complete the following checklist, then leave a comment to this post that describes your interest in tarantulas, and affirms your desire to adopt one:

Research tarantulas and their care thoroughly.

Don’t be a creep who just wants to have a scary bug.

Be someone who is truly interested in these beautiful, interesting animals

That’s it!

Successfull candidates will need to payPal me a $20 USPS Express delivery charge. I would prefer to send them to the Western United States only, to reduce the chances of loss during transit. Shipping may be delayed for cold weather.

Link

web Linkspam

Posted January 10, 2006 • Comments Off on Linkspam

Boingboing today: Try to look at this photo without moving your eyes up and down a LOT. Oh, it hurts. (It isn’t gross.)

Some kids at GW got busted for serving underage students when the cops found out about their party via Facebook. So they publicized another one, and when the cops showed up, all the “beer” was actually cake. Cake pong. Cake stands. Too cute.

A one-eyed, no-nosed kitten was born on December 28 but did not survive. It looked exactly as you suspect and is really not disgusting in the slightest.

I just applied for this job.

Mostly for Deborah: this is a really interesting blog conversation about a guy who uses a bone-conduction hearing aid and bemoans the lack of new developments in the technology in the last 20 years. I never thought about the special hearing-aid needs of people who don’t have outer ears.

The new Intel logo is just the latest in the southwest-to-northeast slanting oval takeover.

The coolest keyboard ever may actually be available soon.

This Bluetooth mouse charges and stores in your PC card slot. That’s really neat. Really neat.

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