05 .28 .02
Over the weekend I was finally able to see Series 7. It's one of those movies I wanted to see when it came out but it probably didn't play in a theatre this side of Toronto. The concept for the film is that it's a twisted and morbid (but not that far off) view of the reality TV shows that fill the channels. People are chosen at random, given weapons, and a list of people to kill. The last contender alive goes on to play the next round of the show, and the public just lives for this type of thing.It was pretty strange and disturbing but it was also damn funny. It was shot on video (as far as I can tell) and looks exactly like you're watching TV. You even begin to anticipate commercial breaks but thankfully there are none.
05 .27 .02
What you are looking at is my new Mac setup and having this makes me a very happy boy. The guy I bought it from paid 11 grand for this 6 months ago and he sold the whole thing to me for $3200. Dual 500Mhz G4 with two internal drives (30 and 40GB) and a DVD-RAM drive, 2 LaCie Electron 19 Blue monitors, a 20GB FireWire drive, a speaker system with an Altec Lansing subwoofer, and a bunch of extras.
It's running smooth and, most importantly, it's running fast. It's such a nice change to be working on a speedy machine. And Photoshop is going to fly with the dual processors, not to mention Final Cut Pro.
'Tis sweet.
I went to see a play Charlotte and Kira were in tonight at the Jubilee. It was the big finale to their drama class at Three Oaks and I was surprised at how well done it was. I'm not much for musicals but it was pretty fun to watch.
All I know is I'm glad I didn't have to take drama because there would have been a whole bunch of me not showing up for that class.
05 .22 .02
This is my first entry into what I shall call "The Dog Shit Diaries." When I would walk to work I would literally need to sidestep a deposit of canine feces at least every 60 seconds. That usually meant 6 or 7 spots on the sidewalk had to be avoided on my short jaunt to the office. Then factor in coming home for lunch and the walk home, and you can see how much of a problem this can be.
Thankfully, I'm prone to keep my eyes earthward when I'm out and about so I did not fall victim to the by-product of lazy dog owners' negligence. Now I bike to work and it's not quite so bad having to worry about this stuff but I'm still swerving and veering as much as I was sidestepping a month ago.
Pick up after your fucking animals, you bunch of bastards! If I end up stepping in dog shit and find out where that dog's owner lives, I'll be making my way to their house and doing something unpleasant with what remains on my sneaker—or worse.
05 .21 .02
I did not step foot into the office all weekend so the 3-day break was especially nice. Plus yesterday was probably the nicest day we've had so far this spring. The perfect amount of wind and temperature all the while being bright and sunny. I was going to spend my day off working on my site but it was just too damn nice to be indoors all day long.
Ok, so after 9 years of being a devoted fan of the show, The X-Files has succeeded in disappointing me yet again. The past 4 seasons have basically been a gradual, deteriorating experiment leading to the ultimate preparation for a complete let down of a series finale.
Reminiscent of the series ender for Seinfeld, the first hour was a nice recap of the main plot but it really wasn't anything overly revealing and then just led to a ho-hum ending that left me without any sense of satisfaction.
I know it's only TV but I spent an hour every week for almost a decade watching this show so it would be nice to at least enjoy the very last episode ever. It just didn't have any oomph or shocking revelations like it should have. It was just very blah.
Chris Carter could have done so much with the show but the stories were becoming too thin and lost all of there suspense. And the writers were infusing the stories with too much stupid humour and lame dialogue. The series should have wrapped up after season 5 and concluded either in season 6 after the movie or with one last movie.
It would be nice if they made one more movie to put some finishing touches and polish off the plot but I'm not holding my breath, nor am I expecting much if they do release one.
05 .20 .02
I saw the midnight showing of "Star Wars: Episode II" last Wednesday night and I thought it was well worth staying up so late. But it's not something I'd stay in line since New Year's to see, unlike some idiots. I thought it was good and fun to watch, and it was better that Episode I but it still doesn't top any film from the original trilogy.
Acting was still weak from a lot of characters and the movie was filled with cheesy and corny lines. Someone else should be writing these scripts because the dialogue is just too hard to stomach in a lot of spots.
The digital was completely overused throughout the movie (as would be expected) and I don't think they used the Yoda pupptet even once. What does George Lucas have against using puppets!? They look so much better than some of the digital spew he creates and make things much more believable.
The diner scene was not well-placed at all. The same scene could have been played out in any number of locales and, most appropriately, in the cantina. It was just too close to what I could find downtown, and not in a galaxy far, far away.
Overall I liked it though. Christopher Lee was awesome and so was Ewan McGregor. It was cool to see the story unfolding, the whole clones thing, and insane war scene. And let's not forget the Yoda/Dooku lightsabre duel; to me that was the funnest scene in the whole film.
I'll probably go to see it again some night this week if I can get out of the office at a respectable hour. Maybe I'll go see "Spider-Man" first and then "Star Wars," and make a full night out of my visit to the theatre.
05 .14 .02
Hooray for 13.5-hour work days. They're just my favourite. Lately it's been nothing but long days and short nights because work has been so crazy. The time I have when I come home is not enough to warrant beginning any project. And then I'll just end up squandering my damn weekends. I really have to stop doing that.
And in the last week I've had to attend two dinner functions for work which is always a "blast." Fun, fun. The first was at the Delta for the IT Week Gala. It was a pretty big affair, I guess, but it wasn't exactly fun. Good food, though, and two live bands played. There was a jazz band that was playing some Miles Davis when we walked in for the reception then a band played at the dinner and Chas was on bass. It was strange but made the dinner more enjoyable anyway.
Then last night I went to the Premier's dinner at the Legion. A much more scaled-down event, what with its western theme. But it was a free lobster dinner so who am I to complain. Plus, Elmer was the emcee for the night and at times I had to fight back the urge to laugh.
Classic.
05 .08 .02
Me and Mark bought a bunch of junk tonight and rented "Metropolis." This isn't the Fritz Lang movie but a recently released anime flick that was pretty neat. I don't know exactly what is was about but I got the gist. The visuals were amazing but it's hard to take it all in when you're reading subtitles.
I don't know if it was based upon the old movie or not but even if it wasn't there were certainly a lot of references borrowed from it. Though I never saw the Lang version fully, the whole Art Deco, swing, and retro cartoon look was used and gave it even more of a early 20th century feel even though it's set far into the future.
It came from the same guy who made Astro-Boy so it had some rather cutesie characters but some of them had a really neat look. Plus the soundtrack was really great and actually quite weird in spots. One song was like this jazzy swing industrial tune. I may try to find the soundtrack.
They mixed traditional animation with 3-D animation but it was painstakingly coloured so that the digital stuff had a look very similar to the analog animation. And the 3-D was pretty insane in parts because of the really strange engineering they used for the technology, city scapes, and such.
I don't think it's a movie I'd buy but I'd definitely watch it again so I can take some more of it in.
05 .07 .02
My birthday was swell. I had dinner over at Kira's with a bunch of people and got quite full on Greek pizza and homemade cake. Charlotte and Kira made a whole bunch of food and later they brought out the clothes bins and people engaged in a strange round of "dress up." Needless to say, Shawn in a dress is funny and disturbing at the same time.
Tonight I went to Charlottetown with Mark and one of his Swedish friends, Anika. We strolled around the city while Mark pointed out landmarks and such to her while I wished I had been taught more about my damn country and not just the Acadians.
Later we went to get some food at D'Arcy McGee's and they served some house breads which were pretty good. They actually tasted like these peppercorn crackers I bought once except that the bread was better because it was warm and doughy. Then we all got dessert and stole handfuls of complimentary mints and candies from the washroom before we went to play pool.
It was fun and it was damn nice to get out of the house after work. Maybe I'll go see "Spider-Man" again tomorrow night. Or maybe I'll be working until 10pm.
05 .05 .02
I worked Saturday and today, and that really sucks and completely ruins a weekend. But the fact they I got to see "Spider-Man" on Friday cancels out the bad with a whole bunch of good. Add to that the fact the 60s theme song was played at the end of the credits and everything is all good.The movie didn't disappoint at all. I enjoyed every minute of it and even the discrepancies, both minor and major, didn't bother me. I think the Green Goblin's suit is a lot better in the comics but the one in the movie seems to make a lot more sense. Not that I actually followed the Spider-Man comics closely but I know enough and watched the cartoon religiously when I was a kid.
And sure there was a ton of corny lines in the movie but that's what's to be expected from Spidey and from that genre of movies anyway. At least it was tolerable cheese.
I'm going again for sure some night this week because repeated viewings are required for this film. It was pretty damn fun to watch. I've been waiting for this movie for a long, long time and Sam Raimi did the perfect job. Toby Maguire was a great Peter Parker, Willem Dafoe fit Norman Osborn/Green Goblin exactly, J.K. Simmons couldn't have played a better J. Jonah, and no complaints here on a red-headed Kirsten Dunst for M.J.
05 .02 .02
To the right is what's sitting on my desk at the office right now. Today we brought home from The Little Mac Shoppe a 800MHz QuickSilver G4, and a 17" Studio display. The flat panel made me melt in my seat as I sat watching the OS X screensavers. It's so clear and bright. And the new G4 is not only a speedy item, it also looks about a 1000 times cooler than the earlier model I have sitting next to it. The design is so much sleeker and elegant looking, and nothing beats that new Mac smell. Mmm, polycarbonate resins.But as fast, stylish, and cool as these items are, they're PRICEY. We had to drop about five grand for this new system but it's worth it. OS X runs smooth and is fun to toy around with. Too bad I won't be using this on a daily basis since most of our software is non-Carbonized. Plus I don't really feel like being in Classic mode all day long. Maybe we'll be able to spring for GoLive 6 and Photoshop 7 upgrades for all of the Macs and switch to OS X office-wide. That would be nice.
OS 9.2 boots blazingly fast and now I just have to get this puppy the way I like it before I hand over my trusty 466 model to the new guy on Monday.
I may be at work setting up the new system but it sure doesn't feel like work.
05 .01 .02
I was able to launch the re-design of Back Alley Discs' site tonight. I've been working on this for a few months now but it's taken a while to finally see the light of day because Chas and myself have been so busy. I just hope the response is good and that there is a good level of participation from people around here (and maybe even off-island).It's too bad I don't have any background in programming because this site could really use some dynamic features. It would certainly make my duties as webmaster much easier.
I got my DV cam back from being repaired today but I have yet to test it. Knowing my luck the problems still won't be fixed and I'll have to send it away for another month. They put $400 worth of repairs into the thing, I don't know why they wouldn't just replace the damn thing altogether. Now I'm just using a refurbished piece of equipment.
If it's not fixed then the screaming match between myself and FutureShop shall begin.
-->> Do not use if seal is broken.