pres.umptuo.us

I went in expecting the same kind of dry, quirky humor I’ve come to expect from Wes Anderson and wasn’t disappointed. The story and emotional connection wasn’t on par with his previous efforts though, and definitely won’t go above Rushmore as my favorite of his films. The scene with the shark was nicely done.

Interesting post I found asking why the number 11 was used so prominently in the film.

Recommended only if you really “get” Wes Anderson’s films. That means not Basil and Gilbert, who wanted their money back.

In 12 years he’ll be 11 1/2.

It’s a bit odd, being awake at 2 in the morning and reading about an 8.9 magnitude earthquake hitting way out in the ocean near Indonesia, only to go to sleep and wake up 9 hours later to find out massive tidal waves have hit several countries.

I’ve heard the death toll is anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000, although I’m sure the number will be leaning towards the high end. I’m not gonna try to keep up with any of the coverage that’s been going on, but Wikipedia has very comprehensive coverage of it, and Boing Boing has been doing a good job of it too.

Finding Neverland tells the story of author J.M. Barrie and the family that inspired his most famous play, “Peter Pan”. Played by Johnny Depp, Barrie runs into the Davis family in the park one day, and leads into a long-lasting relationship with Barrie and the widow Davis and her four children.

The movie uses a wisely chosen technique of merging real-life with the imagination, appropriate given the subject matter. The fact that the story was about a writer finding his inspiration probably reached to me more than it would to anyone else, although I doubt I’ll be running into a family of fatherless children anytime soon and playing cowboys and indians with them.

I think I’ve grown up too fast.

Recommended for a student ticket. Be prepared for tears if you’re that type.

Watching Napoleon Dynamite twice in the span of one week is flippin’ sweet! The video transfer on the DVD is a lot sharper than I would have expected, and the deleted scenes explain the “delicious bass” at the very end.

Merry Christmas everyone, and a happy birthday wish to Andrea. I didn’t get a whole lot this year in the way of gifts (Not that I don’t appreciate what I did get), but I swear sometimes I get more excited about other people’s presents than my own. Like my cousin Audrey, who received an iPod.

IllItsaud: yay for ipAUD

Kingdom of Heaven. Looks really good, and maybe this one won’t disappoint like Troy did. What’s with Liam Neeson being in all these movies nowadays, I swore he announced he was going to retire way back.

I’ve been waiting all season for the opportunity to use that great Norm MacDonald quote. Surviving Christmas is available for purchase on DVD. This thing just came out in theaters on October 22nd!

Yesterday:

ThusSpokeBacchus: i got an email this morning about applying for a phd, and foregoing the masters thesis
ThusSpokeBacchus: so i figured what the hell
ThusSpokeBacchus: im sure i wont get accepted but might as well try
ThusSpokeBacchus: now i have to write some serious bullshit resume

Today:

ThusSpokeBacchus: think of some good bs for me
valloq: Be like
valloq: I want a Ph D
valloq: because my license plate says Dr Love
valloq: and I don’t want to be a liar
ThusSpokeBacchus: LOL
ThusSpokeBacchus: fucking idiot!
ThusSpokeBacchus: you are
ThusSpokeBacchus: OFFICIALLY
ThusSpokeBacchus: a dumbass

Positive eBay ratings prove useful. People are using eBay ratings to show how reliable and trusworthy they are. Clever.

Giant robots in the backyard. I want a mecha.

City Lights Design Competition. 1st and 2nd place both look really good.

I best put in a happy belated birthdway wish to Tim before he gets angry about unfair treatment on my site and complains about not being linked in the header of my site instead of being in the “wannabes”. Inside joke. It was fun talking about changing the world and the end of the world though.

Firewheel Rubber Band Gun. This thing is so sweet.

On a related note, I really need to get around to redesigning my site, in particular to accomodate these daily links I always pop up that don’t necessariily warrant an entire post. Maybe before the New Year?

I got a chance to try out Karaoke Revolution Vol. 3 this weekend, which features the ability to duet with a friend on songs. Now, I really have no right to be griping about this since I have no singing capabilities at all, and honestly I don’t think I should ever attempt to karaoke again, but I’ve got an issue with this supposed “duet” feature.

First off, there isn’t a single song by Peter Cetera, Lionel Richie, or Peabo Bryson. How the heck can you have a karaoke game with duets without them in it? Instead, it’s just normal songs that are usually sung by one singer, with the verses split up to allow two people to duet. Hoobastank’s “The Reason”, Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds”, Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me”, none of these songs are meant as duets.

Where is “Tonight I Celebrate My Love” by Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack? I can’t play Peter Cetera to Cher on “After All”? And I know I’m really hoping here, but where is “Nothing Better” with Ben Gibbard and Jen Wood?

I know that the game is intended to be played by only one person as well, but a second set of songs for duets would’ve been really nice. Other than that, the duet feature is just lacking in the song choice, which would have made it far more enjoyable.

Home-Brew IPod Ad Opens Eyes.

Golden Globe Nominations. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind got nods in best musical or comedy, best actor, best actress, and best screenplay.

A belated happy 23rd birthday wish to Brad “My Audi Is A Wonderland” Vassar, with who I attended the Saturday, December 11th show of Kroq’s “Almost Acoustic Christmas”. All eleven bands that played, aside from a couple of exceptions, played an excellent show. Six and a half hours of music with 40 minute sets from each artist = muy awesome.

We showed up a little late, so only caught the end of The Music, but it didn’t sound like we had missed much. Snow Patrol gave an excellent set next, and were my favorite if only because I love their album Final Straw and they sounded just as good live.

Keane is one of the many bands where I was only familiar with their hit song, but they were a pleasant surprise. The band is only drums and keyboard and a goofy singer that dressed like he was in the 70’s and dances around the stage with a lot of enthusiasm. They had a really good sound and sold me on checking out more of their music.

Shins came up next, and I still think they’re overrated. From what I gather, they’re considered one of the best indie bands, and their popularity grew after being featured in Garden State. Their singing voice is on the verge of annoying, but they did give a great performance of “New Slang”, which I shall forever call the “Natalie Portman Song” after the way it was used in Garden State. I believe this was the only acoustic performance of the whole night, shame the show didn’t follow the namesake.

Nothing to say about Taking Back Sunday since they sucked and I didn’t stick around to watch their performance, nor did most of the audience that walked out to stretch right after the Shins finished up. Now would be a good time to discuss the venue though. The stage was this sweet revolving setup, so that while one band was playing, on the other side the next band up was prepping to go on. Not sure if this is some Universal Amphitheatre specific dealie, but a very smart idea.

Muse is a musical genius. The guy’s guitar and keyboard playing are on the verge of virtuoso, although can’t say much for the vocals or lyrics since I couldn’t make them out. Modest Mouse was disappointing just cause their performance got boring after a while. Franz Ferdinand’s music was okay, but had the most fun of any of the bands. The Killers apparently were very good, but I’d gone near deaf by that time and couldn’t make out jack crap. And I still don’t see what all the hype about Interpol is.

Jimmy Eat World - awesome. They played “Last Christmas” and that just sealed the deal for the night, although the acoustic version is far better than the way it was played live.

And finally, to bring up the lowest of the lows: The special, unannounced guest that came on after Modest Mouse was none other than Gwen Stefani. Note to Gwen: You’re not Japanese and you need to go back to making music with your band.

Not very well done. Like how I get right to the point? The plot and story were all over the place this time, and it just wasn’t very satisfying at all. A lot of the twists I could see coming a mile away, and it just becomes a matter of, “Alright, tell me how you did it already.” The movie was far too predictable and not exactly enjoyable, but didn’t exactly hate it either. I had to think it over and analyze it more before I came to that conclusion.

Oddly enough, I don’t feel cheated out of my $8.75. If I could go back though, I’d try for a matinee, and this definitely isn’t something worth getting on DVD.

The highlight was the new Batman Begins trailer, where people gasped and were excited when Batman’s mask was shown, and applauded at the end. Haven’t see that kind of a reaction to a trailer in a long time.

Around this time of the year when college apps are due, I’ve taken up the hobby of editing papers.

MyBodyIs4Sale: i could just see the interview “So, this script is pretty nice”
MyBodyIs4Sale: “yeah, a chinese guy fixed my grammar”
valloq: …
valloq: “then he had to leave to make the rest of his deliveries”

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory teaser. It looks downright creepy, but it’s gonna rule.

  Thursday December 9, 2004

The international Batman Begins poster is far better than the domestic version.

Guinness “Surfer” commercial. They’ve got other good ones on this site as well.

Tool Time at Pixar. A special program was developed just for Brad Bird so that he could sketch over computer images and have them viewable over the intranet for the animators to work off of.

Ninjas killed my family. Way too funny. According to Boing Boing though, this sign has been spotted before.

Are you a good speller? I got an 18/23. A little rusty, I missed ones that I thought I knew for sure.

I chuckle everytime I see the new Jack in the Box Burger King commercials for the Sponegbob watches, playing off the old “I’m Spicy!” commercials. “What time is it!”

As Mr. Vassar kindly noted in my previous entry, I’m playing around with this new Konfabulator application, which inspired the Apple Dashboard.

It allows you to run several applets, and have them hidden away until a keystroke (in this case, F8) is pressed, bringing them all into view.

Konfabulator comes preinstalled with a picture frame widget, which conveniently points to the “My Pictures” folder and randomly rotates a photo every so often, and the “My Pictures” folder on my computer conveniently holds my unsorted babes collection. It’s like everytime I go to look at it, I get a new babe. Mandy Moore, Keira Knightley, Catherine Bell, Natalie Portman. It’s a surprise everytime! Desktop shot of Konfabulator in action for anyone interested.