howeird | Entries tagged with movies

The Hobbit in 3D, 24 fps because they only offered 48 fps in IMAX and I get acrophobic in IMAX theaters. And I have this to say to those who are blaming 48 fps on making them nauseous. It is not the frame rate - you see HD TV at 60 fps, and that doesn't make you sick, probably because very few of you not in the HD video field even know HD has a souped up frame rate.

I got dizzy in the first minute or two as the camera panned OUT OF FOCUS (WTF Peter Jackson?) too fast, too close up, at a steep angle. Most of the rest of the film was in focus, but there were several more scenes shot to make you dizzy.

I found the cinematography the 2nd worst aspect of the movie. Worst was incredibly poor audio mixing, which was exacerbated by AMC theater turning up the volume too high, starting with the pre-movie trailers. Even if the theater volume had been normal, the audio on the too-many battle scenes was Rock Concert level. And that brings me to the score. There wasn't much of a score, there was mostly shouting and metal clanging. I suppose there was something resembling music underneath, but find a tune, win a prize.

Makeup. Except for Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, and the elves, the hair and beards are insane. Oh yeah, the goblins and orcs have no hair, and their makeup was pretty good, except for the goblin king's double chin, which was the size of Bolivia.

There was some acting. Martin Freeman (not to be confused with Morgan of the same surname) had his moments, but for the most part he limited himself to one expression: bemused. Ian McKellen was not at his best - I suspect his character was seriously throttled back by the writers. Richard Armitage as Thorin displayed two emotions: stoic and angry. However, he is very pretty in a king-to-be kind of way. For the several nanoseconds of screen time they were given, Dean O'Gorman and Aidan Turner as Fili and Kili were charming during the quiet scenes and did angry, scared, defeated and victorious at all the right times. Andy Serkis' voice-over for Gollum was suberb, a shame that scene lasted the better part of an hour. Sylvester McCoy (aka the 7th Doctor) was unrecognizable as Radagast The Brown, a wizard who went off the deep end so long ago that they made him a lifeguard. Excellent acting, but one can argue that his scenes were also too long.

There is much CG, some of it quite clever but most of it overwhelming.

After 3 hours, the plot has barely moved forward. I checked my watch a few times, and even ducked out for a restroom break, something I haven't done in years. I didn't need the facilities as much as I needed a break.

If I see the next one, I may brave the IMAX just to see the 48 fps, but my 25+ years in the video industry tells me that it's a wash - the bigger screen needs higher resolution, and the double frame rate may just make it look as good as the normal rate on a normal screen.

Worth Senior discount price, just so I can say I saw it.

Current Mood: meh
Current Location: Newest Furball Hall

It's been one of those non timey-wimey days. Woke up not as late as I wanted to, looked up the movie times on Flixster and decided to catch the 1:30 showing of Lincoln.

Watched enough of the UW-Colorado game to know the Huskies were going to have a rare lopsided win. I don't know how they got to be #25 in the BCS standings, but that ought to go up next week.

After the movie, it was a toss-up between going back in and seeing Skyfall and doing Something Else. I figured one movie was enough, so I hiked back to the car, got my laptop and hiked to Starbucks. The line was insane. It wasn't long, in fact, there was only one person ahead of me to order, but there were 7 people blocking my way because they didn't have enough sense to get out of the ordering line and wait for their order to come up elsewhere. There is plenty of room in that place. What may have messed them up, besides insanity and lack of consideration, is the Starbucks bozoids erected a Christmas display in what is usually the space between the door and the cashier station.

A week before Thanksgiving! Unforgivable. The only reason I didn't walk out is I had to use my free birthday drink credit by the end of the month. I will not be going into a Starbucks again until after New Years. Until this year, they didn break out the Jesus stuff until December.

The place was packed for the full two hours I was there, but it was mostly take-out, so I had no problem finding a place to park and use the laptop. The main project was getting the monthly MSFT updates installed, there were about 20 of them this time.

Next on the agenda was a trip to 7-11 for cash from my CU account. I pointed the GPS to what it claimed was the 2nd nearest 7-11, but it took me quite a bit farther away than it needed to, and missed the final U-turn on a divided road. It decided the store was on my right when it was on my left. On my way home I passed a much more convenient one. Will have to remember it - it's in the new neighborhood, on the fringes.

Home to watch the OU-Stanford game, which was very sloppy on the offensive side of both teams, lots of dropped passes, lots of stupid up-the-middle runs for a loss. It went into OT, Stanford won because OU's kicker was having a bad day. It must be hard for him to kick the ball accurately when it isn't raining.

Had some of my chicken soup for dinner, and a turkey pot pie.

Attacked my to-do list with a vengeance, pulled the vacuum out of the storage room and did the livingroom. I'm going to also need to pull out the steamer. Sat down with the 200 slides Costco scanned for me, and loaded them into sleeve pages. And discovered that the binder labeled "Thai 1" was really Thai 2, with a handful from Thai 4, and some from Israel 1977. And a couple from Thailand 1989. Thai 1-4 is 1975-77.

I need to go to Costco and get 10 slide boxes (they hold 50 each) and put together all the slides from Thai 3, which is really Thai 1, and have those scanned. Maybe tomorrow after Skyfall.

Lincoln review tomorrow. Nutshell: I didn't vomit. Halfshell: it should have been called "Amendment 13".

Plans for tomrrow:
Sleep late
Skyfall
Costco
Load up 500 slides into little boxes
Steam clean some of the livingroom carpet

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Home

ADD strikes again. Reading my email there was a reminder to bring my theater resume to auditions Sunday, which meant adding the last two shows I was in, tweaking the photo and printing it. Done. Strange but true, the last show I did for this theater group is not listed on their history archive.

Work was busy, more automation stuff, two bugs to revisit, a new employee to send some internal software to, and some heavy duty packet chasing.

Lunchtime I picked up the RMA car alarm remote, they sent a new-in-the-box one. Getting it out of the box took more time for the tech than pairing it to the car.

Next stop was only a few doors up the block, Mattress Discounters, which is practically across the street from its two biggest competitors. Tried three of the Sealy Posturepedics, found the one which felt like the one at the sleep clinic, and before I even asked, he dropped the price $150 for the queen mattress and box springs, and also gave me a deal on a new frame (just the basic one, but I think I've had the one I have been using for about 20 years). This replaces a 15-year-old mattress which was wonderful when I got it, but no longer.

It didn't really matter which of the 3 places I bought it, they all have a best price guarantee. Sleep Train's commercials annoy me, they are everywhere and everywhen. I hate it when they make the radio talent do the commercials, with their train whistle pipe. And the name - what on earth is the connection between sleeping and taking the train? Mancini's Sleep World also over-advertises, and they were out of stock on the one I wanted when I checked online.

I looked into Costco, but they charge extra for hauling away the old mattress, and for the model I wanted they charged extra for the box springs, and the frame is sold separately.

Anyway, the way MD does it, they call from their dispatch center the same evening to say what 2-hour window they will arrive, so all I knew was Saturday.

More work at work, then off to Palo Alto for Stanford Theater's showing of the original 1920's version of Phantom of the Opera, with Lon Chaney. Along the way Mattress Discounters called, my delivery will be somewhere between 9 am and 11 am. Excellent! I headed for my secret parking lot, all 5 floors were filled solid, and it was so much fun waiting for people to turn around their SUVs and Urban Attack Vehicles in the most awkward places. That ate about 15 minutes. I parked across the street at the CalTrain lot, which meant buying a $4 ticket 2 blocks away. When I got to the theater the line was half a block long, which is fine because it probably went around the block at the time I'd planned to be there. This theater I'm not a senior, but it's not very expensive.

I found a seat in the balcony, one with leg room - the second section from the bottom, with an aisle in front of me. Never again. The number of people walking in and out during the show was obscene.

This theater usually begins with an organ concert, so when the organist stopped playing after his signature opening number and turned around to chat, I was puzzled. He gave a complete history of not just the print we were going to see, but all the prints ever made (another of which will be shown over the weekend), and how he got his first shot at playing a theater organ at college by organizing a Halloween showing of this film. Then he turned around, the organ lowered into the pit, and I got un-puzzled when he started to play the accompaniment. Dennis James is his name, and he played straight through, no stops, no intermission, for about 90 minutes. The print was a hodgepodge of splices of various quality, apparently there is no existing original print intact, but it was pretty good. It would have been better with the first 40 minutes, where they establish the relationship between the mystery voice and the soprano. Anyhow, standing ovation, loud applause. Worth full price.

I am by now starving, and I have always wanted to try the Peninsula Creamery, which is open late and probably older than I am. There is no place to sit, because 1/4 of the place has been reserved for a middle school drama troupe, and it's a popular place without that. After about 5 minutes a spot opens up at the counter, I read the very large menu, decide what I want, and wait. After 10 minutes of none of the staff even looking at me, I am fed up with being ignored and having my back to all the Sweet Young Things in the main seating area, so I leave. By this time the reserved section has been filled to overflowing, so I don't feel guilty, they have plenty of other customers. Some other time, then.

I go across the street to a new place called Thaifoon, it looks like they are closing soon, I ask the waitress in Thai when they close, and she asks in English if I want to see the menu. I'm 90% sure she is Thai, so I just say "no" and walk on by. Every place I go to is either closing in half an hour, closed, or not real food. Finally I remember the Cheesecake Factory waaaaaaaaay down University, they are open till midnight or 1 on Fridays. Fast service, my only gripe is it is so dark in there I need to use my cell phone "flashlight" app to read the menu. I am across the room from the bar, and between me and the bar TVs is eye candy. Lots of it. Especially right in front of me is a strawberry blonde, green-eyed petite woman having drinks with a female friend. Lovely view.

I had the combo shrimp scampi/Steak Diane, neither of which were exactly what I think of when someone mentions those dishes, but they were both delicious. Had the caramel pecan turtle cheesecake for dessert which was excellent except for the stale swirl of chocolate fudge on top half the size of the piece of cake. Service was okay, but looking at how far she had to trot to get to her tables from the kitchen, I gave her a big tip.

Back to the car, the alleged jazz group which was at the plaza was breaking up for the night. When I passed by on the way to the theater it sounded like 11 people with musical instruments they had just seen for the first time today, each playing their own tune in their own key and without anything identifiable as rhythm. This is a major reason I don't like jazz. It gets sloppy. In fact, sloppy gets high marks most of the time. I enjoy playing jazz because I'm a sloppy player, but I don't enjoy listening to it. There are exceptions.

Home, give Domino her whipped cream and open up a new package of dry treats for her. She still yells at me. I shift a lot of boxes and some furniture into other rooms so there is a better path for the bed.

Way past time for bed. I set the alarm for 7 so I will have time to shower & shave before they are due. I can take a nap after they leave.

Plans for tomorrow:
Up early
Mattress
Nap
Maybe go to Convolutions for the afternoon & parties
Figure out what music I'll audition with. Practice it.
Fall back

Current Mood: overwhelmed
Current Location: Newer Furball Hall

Pencil Thin Mustache by Jimmy Buffet has been earworming me today. Specifically "an autographed picture of Andy Devine". Andy Devine was my favorite TV actor when I was a kid, and I did have an autographed picture of him.** I remember him as the comic relief deputy in countless western TV shows, and several guest shots on Flipper. From time to time he would pop up in a movie, like Around The World in 80 Days and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Also on my list back then was Burl Ives, who had a similar personality but tempered by being able to sing and play banjo and guitar. He was a much more elegant actor than Devine, but he had the same spark.

Peter Ustinov and Orson Welles were a notch higher on the Hollywood totem pole, and I liked them too. And Theodore Bikel.

And this is all pure narcissism, because in one way or another, they all reminded me of me. :-)

**It was the only autographed picture I ever wrote away for.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Last night was a Retro Dome double-header, though they sold it as two separate films. The Princess Bride Quote-Along was a hoot and a half, starting with a goody bag of little props to use at various places in the film. Some of them were very clever improvisations. Before the movie there was a short slide show to introduce the newbies to some key phrases to quote-along with. "Inconceivable", and of course "As You Wish" were among them. Way too many of us knew way too much of the dialog in the film. It was a hoot and a half. It was totally old out, and they could not keep up with all the idiots who arrived at 7:30 for a 7:30 show, so it started about 20 minutes late. In the goodie bag:

A small Popsicle stick
A smaller Popsicle stick
a small rubber band peanut
A malt ball
A black mask
A sugar straw

The two Popsicle sticks tied together with the rubber band made a tiny sword for the many sword fights, the peanut was for a rhyme which ends "have a peanut", the malt ball symbolized the re-animation pill Miracle Max makes for Wesley, the sugar straw was the poison which went into the glass of wine (they handed out little cups of grape juice, but didn't make it to me until the scene was over). And of course the mask was for The Dread Pirate Roberts.

The second feature was a major FAIL. The Rocky Horror Picture Show featuring The Bawdy Cast. They totally ruined it. Aging, fat cast members (except for the delicious kid playing Rocky, who was probably jail bait), thought they were the show. They set up in front of the screen, spotlight pretty much obliterated the movie. Thank goodness they only mimed, at least the sound track was audible. They put together an okay goodie bag:

Glow stick for "There's a Light"
Bubble kit for the wedding scene (I tried it out before the movie, but the wand broke off when the scene came)
Newspaper for the rain scene (folded real small)
Confetti popper for the Frankie/Brad wedding scene
A whole roll of toilet paper for "Great Scott!"
Playing cards for the pre-finale number "Cards for sorrow, cards for pain"

Blocking the opening and closing lips sequence was a stripper. She starts her act lounging on a giant leopard-patterned high heeled platform shoe. Let me just say she was Ruebenesque everywhere but on top. The good news is she really sold it, the bad news is I wasn't buying any. Way to piss me off right of the bat.

Time Warp gets so much audience participation, why not invent a dance for a tune in the movie which has dancing with no discernable steps? Let's make up a line dance style set of steps. What fun. NOT.

All the previous RHS shows I have gone to which had a live cast, they stayed on the sides, down on the floor level and in the wings, enhancing the experience by miming the action while they watched the screen. It's not really possible, IMHO, to do better than Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard "Riff-Raff" O'Brien, Peter "Rocky" Hinwood, Charles "No-neck" Gray and Meatloaf.

Long story short, the cast ruined the experience for me, and I will make sure not to go to an RHS with their name on it again.

Current Mood: Jazzed and Annoyed
Current Location: Home
Current Music: The Time Warp

I thought 10 would be early enough for the 10:30 band intro but I had to park 3 blocks away. 4th of July at Los Altos was very well attended, there were lots of activities for the kids, and the band was very well received. The PA system was a total fail, someone decided the speakers needed to be in the back of the park, facing backwards.

Our conductor has done a great job getting us to mind the dynamics in the pieces we play, but it backfired this time - people way in the back (about 200 yards away) said they could not hear us.

But it was a fun time for the band, at least.

Stopped off at Fry's, did not find an SD card wallet but did find one for USB drives which will work.

Home, changed out of my uniform and into jeans shorts and a flag T-shirt from last year, then to the cinema, bought a ticket for the 3 pm show, but it was only 2 so I went to Starbucks and finished the Outlook merge I had started last night. Or so I thought. Turns out the merge program does not remove duplicates from the inbox, and does not merge archive folders with current folders. Time to see the movie.

Brave was okay. As usual, the animation was pretty good, though they seem to have trouble making noses which are not layers of polygons. I thought the messages were way heavy-handed, and the reveal at the end was not justified by the actions leading up to it. It's natural for a mother to defend her daughter. It's not natural, IMHO, for a mother to do what this one did after engaging in a "to the death" battle to defend her daughter. I'd be less surprised to see ERII abdicate in favor of her eldest son tomorrow morning. There are some parallels there, but this is a spoiler-free review.

The 3D was understated, which was nice. Oddly enough, something which impressed me more than the movie was the closing credits. They were done in a beautiful gold Celtic-like font, with three levels of depth. Names, departments and main unit designations were top, bottom and middle as the 3D layers go. Every credit to the bitter end was done with this high quality workmanship. I wish Pixar woud get a clue and stop showing credits for all the myriad people who did not actually work on the film. I really don't need to know who all the caterers were, or all the lawyers, or all the folks who slopped the stables for the animated horses. There is a cute Easter egg at the end, but I was the only one in the theater who survived long enough to see it. The staff person cleaning up was in the second to last row by then.

After the show I went back to Starbucks to finish the Outlook merge. It worked better the second time, but still left dupes in the inbox.

Home by way of Sizzler. Skipped the ice cream there because there was still chocolate cream cake at home. Sat on the patio with Domino waiting for hummingbirds to find the feeder (one had done so this morning), but gave up when it started to get dark. As soon as I sat down in the recliner two hummers landed on the feeder. Nice to know they have found it. It'll probably be empty when I get back from vacation.

Doing laundry - waited till after the concert to do the whites, so I could toss in the white uniform shirt. Waited till it cooled off to throw them into the dryer.

Did a reality check on the bag of OTC stuff for the trip, and had to jettison the clothing insect repellent because it's an aerosol spray. Everything else is okay.

Watched some fireworks on TV, because I could hear the booms from someplace not too far. Great America said they were not doing any tonight, so this must have been Mountain View or Milpitas.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Pack
Put Domino's carrier in the livingroom.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: New Furball Hall

Lots of reading at work, lots of almost falling asleep. Very technical stuff, mostly BBC white papers. Pretty dry material to be reading during high fire danger season.

Just before lunch, automation guy said two of my test cases failed. Turns out engineering changed the rules on us for a related feature, so I spent half an hour fixing that and uploading the changes.

Lunch was at Burger King where I used the TechCU credit card which allegedly will give me 10% cash back. From there it was a short hop to Kahlua Kennels, where I dropped off the directive I'd written telling them to not bring Domino to the vet unless she is so bad off she needs to be put to sleep. I don't see that happening in 3 weeks, but you never know.

Just before go-home time, automation guy says my new test failed. We walked through it, and it turned out that his test machine was set up differently from mine, but also the test I uploaded had not saved properly. We fixed that but it took an extra hour because instead of just running the bits which were wonky he insisted on running the whole test suite.

He said Monday he will teach me how to automate command line tests, which will let me build at least two more.

Home after work, spent some time with Domino on my lap. Then it was off to Bad Movie Night. Lots of fun except for one guy with a piercing voice who never shut up, and wasn't very funny. That lasted till about 11, then home again and a light dinner.

Plans for tomorrow:
Manicure
Massage(?)
Fill & hang the hummingbird feeder
Move some stuff out of the storage room and put the boxes of wire frames and assorted electrical/electronic junk in there
Change the litterboxes
Maybe do some laundry (or Sunday)

Current Mood: entertained
Current Location: New Furball Hall

After doing some more research on Compact Flash cards, I was surprised to find out that Lexar and a couple of other high-end manufacturers have 1000x models. All I have in my collection are 266x and 133x. Looking at some of the numbers posted on various camera geek sites, 1000x is in the area of diminishing returns (my camera probably cannot write that fast) but 600x looked like a plan. After some digging, I found 633x CF cards on sale and ordered 4 of the 16GB ones. I'll use those before I use the SD cards. The trade-off here is monetary. 10 of the 16GB SD cards which have an equivalent speed of about 80x cost $130. 4 of the 633x 16GB cards are $170.

Class 10 speed is 6 MB/s, 633x is 95 MB/s.
Costwise - $1.30 a MB/s for the SD card, $1.79 a MB/s for the CF. Pretty close.

In raw mode, I get about 750 images per 16GB card. If I shoot as much as I usually do on trips, that'll be one card every 2-3 days. For 18 days. Yeah, I'll have more than I need.

Today I did some laundry - shirts, and forgot about them while I went to the movies (MIB3-3D review is in the previous post). Loved it. Especially loved that there was actual acting.

After, I parked myself at Starbucks, and even though it was 85° outside there was shade, and a much better view of passing eye candy, of which there was a lot, it being a hot day and lots of people going to the flicks. Walked to Microcenter to see what they had in the way of CF cards, and "not hardly anything" was one way to describe it and "what they did have was way over-priced" would be another.

Home, too warm for the patio, but the aircon kicked in every now and then, which kept things cool enough. I am remembering that in Thailand a 76° day is called Winter.

Watched an episode of Eureka, and am finally starting to find Felicia Day annoying. Or her character, at least.

Finally remembered to put the shirts in the dryer, and eventually take them out and hang them up. Now the colored stuff is in the dryer. One nice thing about the apartment, the people upstairs get the heat from the dryer, not me.

Forgot to do so many things today, like take care of the boxes in the bedroom and take pictures of my eyes. But I did remember to box up the broken VCR to send back to the eBay seller who obviously did not check it like he said; and T-shirts to nephew and sister and their respective spice.

A lot of folks liked the photo of my dad I'd posted on FB, so here it is:

4/11/2008 at the Seattle homestead. If it wasn't crosswords it was sodoku, or an annotated book from the Old Testament - he had the complete set from Soncino. If that date is right, in this photo he was 84. Hmm. That does not sound right. But yeah, that was the last week they lived in the house. They moved to a senior apartment complex on 4/15/2008. Dad did not like Father's Day, he thought Mother's Day was enough.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Maybe BASFA.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Home

The whole idea was to be entertained, and boy, was I. Did not look at my watch until the credits started rolling. I think it completely lived up to the high standards of the franchise, and more.

Let's get some of the basic stuff out of the way. Josh Brolin was perfect as the young Tommy Lee Jones. Tommy Lee Jone was a bit more craggy faced than he needed to be, especially at the tender age of 65, and surrounded by the best makeup artists on the planet, but it worked. Will Smith is still Will Smith (that's a good thing). Special effects were...uh...out of this world. Totally gripping from the opening moment, though I thought they would have done better to give Nicole Scherzinger a more substantial part.

And the biggest surprise for me was the absolutely outstanding performance by someone of whom I thought I had never heard before: Michael Stuhlbarg, who was just plain amazing as Griffin, the wide-eyed Glamourian who can see all timelines. It is hard for me to believe this is the same actor who played Rene Tabard (the bookseller) in Hugo. What a find - an actual actor. Counting Grobin, that's two in one movie. Make that three - Emma Thompson as Agent O (please have someone bitch-slap the person who decided on that character's name) was excellent both as the Hilary-Clinton-like head of MIB and as the 1960's pouf-haired Agent Who Probably Makes Coffee For the Boss.

( Let me digress )

And I suppose Jemaine Clement deserves kudos for playing the bad guy, though 90% of that character is gorgeous special effects, costume and makeup. And stunt doubles.

If the last 10 minutes does not make you cry, there's too much Agent K in you. Brilliant way to provided a moving back-story without rebooting the series.

My only serious complaint about this film is there's no easter egg.

I may be adding this to my very small blu-ray collection.

Worth full 3D price.

Current Mood: entertained
Current Location: Mercado Starbucks

Started the morning on the phone to Tivo support, they worked around the hung machine by having me unplug the wi-fi adapter and plug it back in. When I left for work it said it was 78% done downloading.

All-hands meeting at 8 am, since it was being held at MMI HQ in Chicago. Former CEO spoke, I was not impressed. Google founder spoke, he did very well for someone who probably would prefer to be in his office, coding. New CEO spoke, I was very impressed. He knows how to do a presentation, Q&A showed he listens & remembers.

Checked my brokerage account, and yes, by golly, yesterday all my MMI stock was automagically cashed out at $40/share. Which is good because technically I didn't pay anything for them. But technically I did. Here's what happened:

In 2007-9 I bought Moto stock on the employee purchase plan. It started at $10.50 but kept going down, probably was about $7 when I pulled the plug on a losing program. When Moto split into MMI and MMS, I got about 1 share of MMI for every 6 of Moto, and the full number of shares of MMS. Then MMS split 8 for 1 or something bad like that.

Anyhow, the cash out is good enough to buy 5 shares of Google on a good day. Which I don't plan on doing.

Lots of busy stuff at work, and a bug fix to verify, which was fun to work with. Took an old set of commercials and set them to play in a loop as if they were a cable program. Did the same with a couple of other video clips.

Lunchtime I went to the Safeway at Rivermark, needed a few minor items, also got some creamy goat cheese to put on the sourdough mini slices I had on the counter at home. Then to Yo Yo Sushi across the parking lot. This one is about the same as the other one I went to recently. Excellent sashimi.

1-on-1 with the boss, he missed the meeting, so he asked what I could tell him about it.

I'm between projects, so I volunteered for a boring one but it's one I can do. My main project was supposed to begin Monday but engineering is not ready.

Home, fired up the Tivo and it was back at square 1, and hung at the same place as last time, but with a different error message. Workaround B got me through - power off the adapter & the router, then router up and then adapter back in place. Then I called Comcast to pair the cable card. The tech had no idea what he was doing, but I did so it all worked out.

I managed to add my season passes, except for football season because Tivo had not loaded the full database yet. No rush. It hung on me while I was doing that, same as the box it was replacing, so I re-arranged some furniture to get the Tivo wi-fi adapter away from the big speaker and near the wall which the router is on the other side of.

Tivo was recording on both tuners, so I fired up the DVD player, launched Amazon Prime and watched an old Star Trek episode.

Dinner was celery stalks, ha gow and sui mai with double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, and pistachios for dessert. No goat cheese because I'd forgotten the sourdough minis had gotten moldy so I threw them out 2 days ago.

I had planned to take a nap, but that only lasted half an hour.

The old Tivo and the ASUS Zan machine are boxed up and ready go to UPS

Plans for tomorrow:
work
UPS
YOTB rehearsal

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Home of the Weird

Saw The Avengers in 3D last night. I guess it would have helped if I had been more of a Marvel comics fan. I was raised on DC, and Marvel came around after I was past my comic book phase.

I enjoyed much of the acting. Whedon did a good job directing his characters in the human. non-action scenes. I especially enjoyed Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Banner, except he kind of blew his last important line by not appearing to be the least bit angry. Robert Downey Jr. had Stark down to a T, including the Black Sabbath T. We got treated to a lot of Scarlett Johansson's butt in tight leather, an added bonus. And the last thing we see in the film is Cobie Smulders's fine bubble butt sashaying away from us in form-fitting pants. Both women also gave good acting performances. Clark Gregg was the ultimate company man, and Jeremy Renner is almost believable as the commando leader, except he's too short. Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America were not given a lot to work with. Hemsworth made the best of it, Evans mainly came across as a stuffed shirt. Tom Hiddleston as Loki has a scary smirk, but was otherwise unconvincing in the Global Dominator role. Samuel L. Jackson phoned this one in. So did his makeup artist.

Most of my friends tell me The Hulk stole the show, but as far as I'll go is his scene fighting the bad guy was amusing. He's all CGI, and they gave him far more strength in that scene than he had demonstrated to that point. I think Iron Man had the most and best tricks/lines/CGI/plot movement.

There are two Easter eggs, the first comes right after the beautifully crafted main credits, and was gratuitous. The second comes about 10 minutes later after everyone within 500 miles of the production was listed in ugly 2D B&W text, and was kind of cute, but could have used some dialog. And it was in 2D.

Lots of violence, lots of effects, some superb fight choreography. Plot holes one could drive a mother ship through. Many snippets of excellent dialog. The Stan Lee cameo toward the end is priceless, made me laugh out loud.

Worth matinee.

Current Mood: cynical

I almost bought an ASUS Eee tablet on impulse this afternoon, because it is presented as being a netbook with what looks like a standard fold-up keyboard. But it's a tablet with a fold-up docking station. In other words an oversized smartphone without the phone part.

Oh well.

In other news, I was successful in putting the POIs from my stand-alone Garmin into an SD card which the in-dash GPS can read.

Lots of things resolved at work. The head of our customer on-site troubleshooting team assured me that I'd found a bug. It took a lot of time and tedious "push 'go' and wait for 15 minutes" to run the tests I needed to satisfy myself that I'd tried all the combinations, but in the end a new check box on the user interface doesn't turn something on and off which it was supposed to.

Had my 1-on-1 with the boss, mostly wrapping up the two bugs I have open, and making sure I got the message about an engineering meeting for a feature for which I'll be writing test cases eventually. I usually don't go to those, but this feature is Special™.

Lunch was at Coco's, which I saw at the

basfa meeting had corned beef & cabbage for the week. I love good corned beef, can tolerate cabbage in corned beef juice. It was far and away the worst cut of corned beef ever. The way they cut it, it was mostly fat & gristle, and only about 1/4 of the meat was edible. It was cooked well, though. My experience there is sending something back only gets you the same thing, more slowly. Also, the red potatoes they serve with the meal are wrong.

Maybe I'll try an Irish pub instead. Trouble is there isn't one within a lunchtime drive of work, and Saturday they will be drunken zoos. Maybe dinner tomorrow night?

The DVD of Barbarella I ordered arrived, I watched the first half hour or so when I got home. Well worth the $9. There is a lot more nudity than I remembered, but oddly enough the Jane Fonda scene I thought was right after the opening credits was further into the movie, but what she does during the opening credits is a lot more erotic than I remembered. There's also a lot more nudity among the extras, which I missed when I saw it in the theater. Looking at the release date, I bet I saw it on my 18th birthday. The rating system had just been put in place, and it was released about 3 weeks before my birthday.

Also arrived were a pair of biz card holders I bought for the conference, which I had only ordered yesterday. That was fast!

Bizcards are done. Time for dinner with Jane.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Dinner at an Irish Pub(?)

Current Mood: fulfilled
Current Location: Home of the Weird

Tonight was Shorts set #1, last night was #2. Unfortunately I'm booked for the rest of the times they are doing 3 & 4.

This was not as good a set as #2, but it had its moments.

The Barefoot Humanity (L’umanità Scalza) - dir. Americo Melchionda - Italy
Disjointed script which tried to do too much in too little time. Worst writing and least imaginative of all the shorts. Every scene was a WTFBBQ. Subtitles were too small and not on the screen long enough. Completely throw-away ending. FAIL.

Ethan - dir. Tamir Moscovici - Canada
Just when I thought things could not get worse, they did. The movie was artificially altered to look like it was shot using the exposed ends of 8mm film. I had to close my eyes after a couple of minutes, the searing flashes of red-orange which us old farts recognize as the last frames of a reel were inserted every 10 seconds, or more. Total nonsense, and made the movie un-watchable. There was a very good concept behind the movie, it was trying to be a documentary about a young sk8er boy (who also plays rugby) who thinks he has Tourette's, his mother likes that idea better than autism, but from the interviews they did with the kid, he sounds normal. They only had audio from him and his mother. How this atrocity got into the festival, I don't even want to know.

God and Vodka - dir. Daniel Stine - United States
Finally an excellent picture. Best dialog of the two nights, a charming story about a pair of friends, a man about to be shipped overseas by the army and his long-time best female friend. It is told from the angle that she is writing a story about him and their friendship, and doesn't know where to start or what order to put things in. So we see their life together out of chronological order, but it all makes sense and is very charming. Well acted, good-to-great videography, nice score.

Hatch - dir. Christoph Kuschnig - Austria
Apparently in Austria, hospitals have an open door leading to a hatch with an infant bed behind it, a humane alternative to leaving a baby on a doorstep. A pair of immigrants make the tough decision that they can survive in Austria, but not with a baby. As they are waiting for the bus back home, a man walks into the place and snatches their baby, drives away. He brings it home to his boyfriend, and it becomes clear this was totally on impulse. The ending is heart-rending and sweet. The lighting could have been better, but all in all a worthy flick.

Rhonda’s Party - dir. Ashley McKenzie - Canada
What do you do when a woman passes away the night before her 100th birthday party at the nursing home? The cake is there, the band is on its way, balloons have been filled with helium, party hats are on the table, the residents are gathered. Some of the best acting of the night, it is all supporting roles, no real leading characters. I would have tweaked the final shot a little, a minor nit pick.

Henry - dir. Yan England - Canada
Tour de force showing an old man who had a full and happy life as a concert pianist with his violinist wife, as his mind drifts in and out of the present. Genius editing and writing, in French but you stop noticing. Gérard Poirier plays the old man, he was 81 when they shot it last year, and he is amazing. I cried a couple of times, once at the end when he recognizes his daughter for a moment, then asks if they have ever met, and it is clear he realizes he has lost his memory. He asks her a simple question which sums it all up. I gave this a 10 out of 5 on my scorecard.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: Home

More on this later, I hope:

Went to see Cinequest's shorts #2, which were all superb, and completely made up for the meh of the night before.

All but one were beautifully shot, one was done on 35mm instead of digital and was a little grainy and in some places fuzzy, and colors were dull. Quickly:

Otto and the Electric Eel - dir. Duncan Skiles, Andrew Zuchero - United States
A man is cooking dinner for his date, it burns, he fires up a boatload of electronics and creates a flying electric eel, which he battles and finally kills - while his date is ringing his doorbell. Cheesy special effects, but a lot of humor with a happy ending.

Smorgasbord - dir. Jennifer Glynn - United States
Two women run a buffet restaurant, and are romanced by customers. The reverse Heimlich maneuver near the end is worth the price of admission.

The Padlock (il Lucchetto) - dir. Ettore Nicoletti - Italy
What starts as a very romantic story about a couple who add their lock to a chain full of lovers' locks around a light pole, turns hilarious. Points for biggest laugh in the shortest time.

Count Back from Ten - dir. Tamar Halpern - United States
Beautifully written and photographed and touching, the dreams of a young girl, with a heartbreaking reveal at the end.

Everything is Incredible - dir. Tyler Bastian, Trevor Hill, Tim Skousen - United States
An old man with polio has been building what he calls a helicopter since 1958, with interviews of his neighbors and relatives.

Reinaldo Arenas - dir. Lucas Leyva - United States
This is a very strange title. The film is about a shark being hooked buy a fisherman, from the shark's point of view. Reinaldo Arenas was a Cuban writer who was jailed for his work against Castro, eventually made it to America and committed suicide when the depression of AIDS became too much for him.

Sterling Hallard Bright Drake - dir. Robert Sickels - United States
A man in Walla Walla, WA has erected his own tombstone near the front of the cemetery, though he is very much alive. It is covered with odd drawings and misspelled quotes. High school classmates are interviewed, and then the man himself. Excellent videography.

Sailcloth - dir. Elfar Adalsteins - United Kingdom
John Hurt stars in this one, about a man who gets out of his nursing home bed, shaves, gets dressed in a suit and tie, sets off the fire alarm and walks out during the confusion. He takes a sailboat, outfits it with two sheets taken from the home, and sails out to sea and a tragic ending. Technically the best of the bunch. Oscar worthy.

In Search of a Donkey (Chasse à l'âne) - dir. Maria Nicollier - Switzerland
This is the 35mm entry. Three Japanese men are served donkey meat by their local chef, and go in search of a donkey to kill & eat. Much hilarity as they see a nativity scene in a shop window and mistake the donkey for a sacred Christian symbol. Adorable film, wish it had better production values.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: Home

Should have been called The Actor**. I went to see this film last night with expectations of fine acting and directing, quality B&W cinematography, lighting and makeup, and a highly entertaining script with a fine silent film style score.

None of the above.

There were some excellent 30's costumes, but mostly flapper style, nothing elegant.

Leading lady Bérénice Bejo reminded me of a young Carol Burnett, but with more grace. 90% of the acting skill in the film came from her.

I was disappointed in the huge role they gave John Goodman, who turns out to not be a very talented silent actor. The leading man did not do much acting either. His dog was okay, but had a limited repertoire.

The score was not worthy. Most of the time it did not connect with the action on the screen. It was mostly fluff, with some heavy-handed frenetic bits in a couple of key scenes. No way would it have been played for a real silent movie.

The film stock sucked lemons through a garden hose, and was processed to look grainy and old. The makers obviously never saw the later Chaplin movies. A top draw like the leading man in this film would have rated excellent lighting and film stock. Instead we got drek. Horrible lighting except in a couple of brief outdoor snippets. Makeup was as minimal as they could get away with. Some of the lenses were way distorted on the edges like cheap wide angle lenses. You wouldn't find those in a leading movie studio.

It was a pleasant surprise to see Malcolm McDowell in a cameo.

The dance routine at the end was energetic, but will not wipe Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers off the map.

I only laughed out loud three times, and two of those times were for cute set and props gags (for example, the leading lady's character name Peppy is spelled two or three different ways on the cast lists and posters). I did not cry at all. I was not entertained.

Bottom line: Meh.

**Yes, I saw the reference in the film, and thought it contrived.

Current Mood: cranky
Current Location: Home

I cannot believe that a minimal cast, B&W silent movie won Best Picture for 2012. There are so many aspects of movie making which The Artist did not have to deal with. Ditto Best Director. With all the stunning films and directorial triumphs this year, this film at best wins Miss Congeniality. Best actor? Maybe. If you like mimes. Ben Kingsley not even being nominated for Hugo was a travesty.

OTOH I was very surprised at the spontaneous standing ovation and thunderous applause awarded to Meryl Streep. I had no idea that on top of all that talent, her co-workers also sincerely like the person herself. That's good to know.

The memorial segment is when I tuned in, I saw it all, and was very pleased Elizabeth Taylor, who did so much brave and charitable work in her lifetime, was given the final spotlight. Cliff Robertson would have been better served with a clip from Charlie instead of Spiderman. And maybe Peter Falk deserved a second clip, from The Princess Bride. All the images flashed by too quickly. The chorus, however, was wonderful.

Current Mood: disgusted
Current Location: Home of the Weird

Watched the Raiders once again manage to almost beat themselves. Was miffed that the Seahawks game was not being carried locally. I see they did manage to beat themselves.

Spent some quality time with the cats.

At one time both had one arm of the recliner. Went to Fry's in search of replacement batteries for a laser the cats sometimes will chase, but Fry's has let their battery section go all to hell, and they did not have any of these. Also looked for a netbook bag, but there was nothing with an outside pocket suitable for carrying the charger until we got to the full sized laptop bags. Was about to leave empty handed when I decided to check out the chocolates. They had two new 85% ones, and macadamia roca. And as I was paying for those, I noticed they had the lasers with the same batteries - $1.99 the set. Each battery usually costs $1 or more. So I got a new laser.

Looked at the movie schedules, and saw two ways to see both Hugo and The Muppets at times when there would be minimal children. Did that, it worked fine.

Hugo is a brilliant film, Sir Ben Kingsley is perfect, as usual, Jude Law is excellent in the small but critical part they gave him. There was far too much of that Sasha Cohen guy, though I have to say the filigree on his hat is quite beautiful. He keeps calling his dog "boy" when the dog is clearly female. The title role, unfortunately, was written for the generic child actor, and that's what they cast. For those of us who were born in the early 1900s, the plot is an amazing mystery, but for those of us growing up in 1940 or later, not so much. ( mild spoiler behind the cut )

The sets are fantastic, lots of gears and pendulums (please people, it is NOT steampunk. It is punk-less. It is clockwork.) There is a brief homage to Harold Lloyd, which we are hit over the head with in the most brutal way later in the show. The lighting is excellent throughout, I don't know enough of that period's costumes to know how well they were done, but I suspect they are mostly 50 years too modern. There are some phenomenal effects, especially in the two dream sequences.

One thing which made it worth full price for me was the multiple romantic sub-plots.

The Muppets was disappointing. Except for the theme song and a couple of rock hits not written for the movie, the songs and lyrics are lame. A total waste of Amy Adams, except that the final scene is a spoof of Enchanted. The leading man hurt my eyes. All the muppets were true to the originals, the bad guy was ably played by Chris Cooper, but they gave him miserable lines. There were lots of cool cameos, I didn't recognize Alan Arkin. The movie has some cute moments, and some nostalgic ones, but it didn't hold together very well.

There was a very cute Toy Story short before the movie.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
P/U prescriptions
BASFA

Current Mood: mildly entertained
Current Location: Home

Saw Moneyball, which the trailers misled me into thinking was about corruption in the major leagues. On the contrary, it is about the A's trying to field a winning team at bargain basement prices. The whole cast is superb. It is well-written, moves along very quickly, and ends 5 minutes before it needed to. They covered that with a single text line after the video ended. Worth full price.

Had a very short chat with film buddy afterward, Starbucks was already closing up an hour before closing time, which I thought very rude of them.

Home, then off to Lyric Theater warehouse for auditions. They were ahead of schedule, I had the 8:30 slot but they were ready for me at about 8:10. It was nice to see a dais filled with people I knew. The only unfamiliar face I think is the music director. I sang Where Is Love? from Oliver and it was a little shaky when the accompanist was trying to follow me while I was trying to follow him, but I don't think anyone else noticed. I sounded good enough for the chorus part I want.

IHOP for dinner, service was good for a change.

Home, gave the cats their treats, watched the amazing end of the Ravens game which I'd Tivoed. There would be longer nails amongst the Baltimore population if their receivers could learn to catch the ball instead of just bounce it off their numbers.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
BASFA

Current Mood: okay

Made a lot of progress in breaking down some of the moving boxes which had been only partially emptied. There are lots of T-shirts and beach towels on the bed right now, but several boxes are no longer taking up floor space. Pulled a box out of the bedroom closet which was marked "long playing records" which belonged in the kitchen-side closet. Opened it up and there were also 78s, 45s and some stuff from on top of the fridge. I wondered where my lunch box had gotten to.

Calendars are in envelopes, I just need to stick mailing labels on them and find time to make a PO run. Some are going overseas, they need customs forms. Bother. I will have two at BASFA, one to demo and one sealed to auction off. If there is enough demand I'll auction them both. Debating whether to go in costume. Will also have some other items to auction.

Watched some football, Pumpkin and Domino took turns sitting on my arm. At a couple of points they had an arm each for a while. I tried an experiment, putting the dry food into the blender with a lot of water. They didn't touch it all day. They did nibble at the watered down canned food. Tonight's experiment is watered down higher carb cat food vs. turkey gravy. Will see in the morning which one wins. Pumpkin thought my pasta shells & cheese looked mighty tasty, but I doubt if he could handle that yet.

Met Janice at the movies to see Puss N Boots. It was somewhat entertaining, but I fell asleep twice, and many of the kids lost interest halfway through. Lip sync was horribly out of whack during much of the Jack and Jill closeups. There's no excuse for that in an animation. We saw it in 2D because Janice is allergic to 3D, and it was clear that some scenes needed the 3D. I thought the plot was rambling, pretty stupid, and made no sense in the context of the Shrek movies. I always enjoy Bandaras' delivery, Hyak was pretty good too, though her side of the script was often inane. There is no Easter Egg. The closing credits are better than average, but they list EVERYONE at Dreamworks, not worth hanging around for. Could be worth matinée in 3D if they didn't charge extra.

We caught up on the past 3 weeks, she's going to be off skydiving next Sunday so we probably won't get together till 2 weeks from now.

Made a stop at Lucky's on the way home. Somehow managed to spend >$100. A big chunk of that was for the carpet cleaner solution. And cheese.

Tivo-ed the 49ers game, and was less than thrilled with the play, though I won't argue with the final result. IMHO they still need a quarterback.

Ran the carpet cleaner (I have this mini el cheapo one for small jobs) and managed to lighten the smudges the movers left on the carpet by the front door. Also cleaned up a hairball Pumpkin left in front of the recliner.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Home
BASFA

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Location: New Furball Hall

Was out and about in plenty of time to not be at my favorite produce stand before they opened, partly because I forgot where it was. Had I remembered it used to be called Sunnymount, I would have known it was not too far from the Mountain View border. Instead I went a few freeway exits too far into Sunnyvale. They had some good looking Persian cukes, and small fat domestic pickling cukes, and I needed 7x4 (four per jar, 7 jars) but instead of being logical and buying in groups of 4, I bought 14 of each. Once home I needed to chop the tops off most of the Persians because they did not fit in the jars. And a couple of the jars were a very tight squeeze, but that was okay because the cukes shrink when they are put into the canning boiler.

Or that's how it had been my last 4 tries. This time two mason jars cracked - one in two places, one in three - which ruined those cukes. I'm left with 5 survivors, and a kitchen which smells like vinegar.

Cleaned up everything and was done in plenty of time to visit my friend in Fremont. Got there early, so went to the Starbucks across the street for half an hour. Found her apartment, we had years of catching up to do so an hour turned into 2, and it was going to be iffy if I could make it to the movies to see the part of Captain America which was interrupted by yesterday's (false) fire alarm. Made more iffy by looking up the show times and seeing it was 20 minutes earlier today.

It was no hassle getting the ticket stub exchanged, except it had to be done at the Guest Services counter inside not at the ticket booth, so that delayed me a couple of minutes. Walked into the theater exactly at the point where the screen had gone blank yesterday. Amazing.

The plot was uneven, there wasn't much acting except for Tommy Lee Jones, and they found one special effect and stuck with it over and over again. Cinematography, costumes and stunts were brilliant. Pretty good score, too. The closing credits were worth staying for, all 40's style art. Then came the white on black obligatory list of everyone who as much as breathed in the vicinity of the production companies (two screens' worth of finance departments, a line of trainees for nearly every function, etc.) but after that was over and the musical numbers credits whizzed by too fast to read, they showed what would have been the next scene, which segued into a promo for the sequel. Well, not really a sequel but the next movie in which Captain America is a major player.

Again had half an hour free, so I just sat on one of the benches and enjoyed the mild summer weather and the occasional people-watching.

BASFA was fun, light turn-out, though. Lots of auction items did not sell. People liked the pickles I brought to sample, but not enough to take the unfinished jars home with them, so when I got home I shared them and all the other jars of similar flavor with the disposal. Took today's batch off the granite countertop and put them on the knick knack shelf which is a good place to cool. All of them seemed to have sealed well.

Gave the cats their dose of Advantage, only 5 days late. I can't remember if I gave them their dose last month. :-(

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Nothing planned for the evening.

Current Mood: complacent
Current Location: Furball Hall

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Writing Wrongs

Annoying The Neighbors Since 1950

Entries tagged with movies

The Hobbit - review

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