p e n g u i n d e v i l

Well two really. Two complaints.

One is, we bought this Samsung Syncmaster 997df CRT Monitor a couple of years back. Yes, I feared Samsung and, of course, wanted something fancy like a NEC or somesuch (I don’t really like the looks of LCD screens)… But we were swayed. We were swayed by two factors…

1) it was the cheapest 20″ (or something) monitor they had that wasn’t total crud and

2) it actually seemed to have a really nice picture…

So after all this time? What can I say? Well the picture is great! It is bright and richly colored and it’s never had the slightest problem!

The problem is the other monitors out there! I have this blog colored oh so very nicely in black and shades of gray… The screen shots are well colored, deep and rich. but when I go elsewhere (usually work) and view it, the dark pictures are so dark as to be indistinct and the headers and darker gray text is nearly invisible. And at work, we have generally nice monitors… big new NEC’s and all that. Anyway, I’m trying to brighten up the text, but it’s hard, because it looks so nice at home… Which, of course, is where I do this.

Complaint number two? This week I started listening to my pal Jon’s college radio show. I know… And (You’re thinking…). Well, the college that he works at is in New Zealand, so it’s been my first experience with Internet Radio, since I listen to it here at MUNTFM. In a strange timing situation, the next day I read about this atrocity, another horrible example of corporate greed and (yes) fraud and their government lap dogs…

The RIAA managed to scam through some (one would assume) corrupt judges with their heads stuck back in the 1950’s, a law requiring internet radio to pay more royalties than regular radio stations but also, and this is the killer part, also pay royalties to the RIAA for music that isn’t controlled by the RIAA. In other words, all music streamed over the internet radio stations will need to pay high royalty rates to the RIAA, no matter what the music is or who owns the rights to it. Of course, this is so absurd that it almost defies comment. It brings back memories of when they shut down mp3.com on some trumped up “piracy” charge when any one who spent time there knew that most of the music up there was placed there by the artists themselves and most never had any form of commercial release. Hopefully their next step will be admitting that they just can’t stand anyone listening to music or making music or making money from music without them getting the lion’s share of the money. I wonder if you would be sued by the RIAA if you made an original song and broadcasted it from your own website?

Anyway, enough from me. More and better opinions and details are available at:

Of course, Wil Wheaton at SuicideGirls

Bit-Tech

WebProNews

DailyKos

TechDirt

Newsweek

And

Save Net Radio

What? I just found out that Kurt Vonnegut died! How the? Brain injuries and not lung cancer? Well, I guess since he died right about the time we went to the hospital, it is understandable that we missed the news… Maybe that explains how little Elinor is such a curmudgeon right off the bat. But still. Man. Okay, so his novels are a bit silly, but they pretty much are the bedrock of my teens and early 20’s and I had just started looking at them again a month or so ago. I know he was old and all of that, but it’s still a shock. Like him or not, he was the American Novelist of the 20th Century and though his books got well removed from any regular sense of Literature, A Man Without A Country was a great work.

“And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ‘Kurt is up in heaven now.’ That’s my favorite joke.” “

The moment has come. The new drive has been received and installed. Thoughts? Well, I am quite glad that dvd’s and cd-rom’s are now within the reach of my humble old computer again (speaking of old, you know you’ve had a box too long when you open it up and find a third hard drive inside that is not even hooked up… Where/when did that come from?), so hopefully (and also now that the little girl is sleeping more at night) I will get some good movies in. Speaking of good movies, I was surprised with the positive mentions that the recent QuiT movies (the Kill Bill’s and Grindhouse) got over at WWdN. Maybe I shouldn’t be? But I like WW’s blog and I can’t stand QuiT. But maybe I’m just letting my dislike of the fellow and his intentionally ironically derivative material (and worse of all, trying to attach his name to every cult Asian action film he can) stand in the way of enjoying some pure entertainment. Well, whatever.

Anyway, other aspects… This drive I put in is a Pioneer-DVR112D from New Egg. So I now have DVD-R and DVD-RW capabilities. Which I didn’t have before with the stock Apple Combo drive that I replaced. All for under $40. It is startling how much the prices have come down on these things… So that was a good surprise. Another funny surprise, after I got it all reassembled (not that it’s any chore or anything), I realized that the stylish curves of my MDD wouldn’t let the tray open! Well, a quick removal of the drive and a prying off of the front of the tray and all is well, but it certainly was a bit of a surprise.

Okay, so maybe I won’t add color. But I did decide to spruce things up a bit by moving to black. I dunno. I like it. I realize it may seem a bit dull, but (at least at this end) I like the way that the text colors look against a black background. I am curious though if the gray text might be hard to read on some color profiles. So, if you can’t read this, let me know!

No other news, except for we’ve now seen the 4th episode of the last bit of The Sopranos. I must say, I don’t really like this “half” season much. The first episode? Well, I never like those, too much of the “here’s how things are now after all these months” stuff. But I do understand the need, so I forgive them the first episode. Then came episode two. Now that was an episode! Good focus on Phil Leotardo and some great ending scenes, pointing to much drama to come! Sadly, three and four haven’t been much. I mean, I’m not hoping for a 9 episode bloodfest, but I’d like some good drama. The teaser for next week’s looks quite exciting though, so we’ll have to see what’s what…

Here we are at day one of WordPress. Most people who are reading will be noticing that the penguindevil has moved across from Blogger. So here we are.

I will probably fuss around a bit with it… Of course, I have a little already… As always, once I started tinkering with the template, I started having problems.. All seems well now, and I tested it in all 12 of the browsers I have (yes, even “ie”). So hopefully nothing funky will appear.

Not to fret, all of the posts and comments have come along too. But there won’t be any more posts back there at penguindevil.blogspot.com, and in fact, maybe my other blog will come over too? Who knows.

Anyway, here I be know. Let’s see…

And more updates… I decided to bring my counter stats over from blogspot. After all, why let the trails of all those visitors get forgotten! To make up for it, I swicthed it from counter page loads to “unique visitors”… So there.

What filmic changes might be approaching? Though it is a most crass question, I will (for a few moments) ponder the notion of upcoming lifestyle changes. Will the baby lead to more films? Fewer? Honestly, I hope for more family time and fewer films, but I realize that I know not what lies ahead… In fact, how to we know what’s already here? I traversed the misinformation highway to that trite bastion of banality… Blogthings. Gosh, some of the quizzes sound entertaining, but they really aren’t. A little pondering and I decided that there wasn’t anything great going on there…

The sucker for multiple choice tests that I am though, I let the site work its magic. In a few too many minutes of examining the site, I learned the following about myself: I’m more of a visionary than a radical, I belong in 1962, my cynicism borders on paranoia, I’m 4% hypochondriac and 92% Socialist, I Passed 8th Grade Science & history, I’m 48% NYC and 16% Boston but I belong in the UK. I am Olive Green, I could be a vegetarian and I should rule Venus. I also am a Centaur who has experienced 56% of Life, is 50% Misanthropic, 24% brutally honest, 30% weird, 48% gentleman and my personality is shared by only 6% of all men. Oh yeah, and I would, on average, sell out for $1,118,111.

So for what it’s worth, there’s that.

First off, my favorite comedy of errors, and just plain “one of my favorites” came to the big screen, albeit in a rather sad form. I know that I’ve seen it too many times but Aliens coming to a theater is a rare occasion. I doubt that I’ve seen it on the big screen since the year it was released… So here it was, and here I went. Well, the print was terribly scratched, which showed its age and let me know right off that it wasn’t the director’s cut (a boy has to hope), but it was worth every penny it costs to see it. First thoughts? Well, while it was a brilliantly constructed masterpiece on its release (and continues to thrill on dvd), watching a twenty year old sci-fi movie on the big screen and two things may become very apparent: blue screen and matte paintings… Scenes that I thought, at one time, to be wondrous were more like, um, “they’re just standing in front of a painting, even the props right next to them aren’t there?”. So with time, one must yield more of the disbelief. But the movie is still great fun. 20 times and, yes, none of the suspense remains, but it’s still worth it to see… and listen to, since one area that Aliens has always excelled at is its quoteability. It may be my favorite quote movie yet: “in the tube, five by five”, “Stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen!”, “yeah, but secreted from what?”, “Yeah…but it’s a dry heat…”. The hours of enrichment those lines have brought to my life are uncountable!

Sadly, of course, it also suffers from the worst last ten minutes of any film. As soon as they get back to the ship, not only does the story get ridiculous, it becomes most unacceptably corny for such an otherwise great action film.

Then just a few hours ago I went to see The Host. Well, I didn’t have any idea what to expect, but this wasn’t it! Basically a Korean comedy monster movie, it was easygoing, action-packed and fun. I really appreciated how they just got right down to business. It’s not far into the movie before the monster is full screen running amok everywhere, which I find to be perfectly acceptable for a monster movie. The lil’cgi monstrosity gets plenty of air time and, though the film is very lighthearted, it also includes: people chomping, the regurgitation of body parts, Agent Yellow, lots of running, some shooting and a greatly inept and irresponsible US Army. Chemicals dumped in the Han River lead to a big thing being created and kidnapping a young girl. Of course, the family sets off in pursuit of her. The CGI isn’t great, but it’s so out in the open that I can’t really have a problem with it, and I thought that the monster was a lot of fun. Anyway, not one for the “own it” pile, but certainly worth seeing if you like nutty monster movies. And as for the humorous parts? I’ve seen some terrible comedic moments in foreign films (Half a Loaf of Kung-Fu, anyone? A Better Tomorrow?), but this movie’s humor is nice, funny and low key.

Oi Microsoft. I know that no corporation really has the best interests of their consumers in mind, but sometimes, it can swing too far the other way. Case in point? Microsoft. Thinking of all of their protectionist antics: those terrible multi-year upgrade contracts where you pay for upgrades even if you don’t want or need them, the ironclad box they call the Zune and its crazy “we work for the RIAA” DRM strategy (okay everyone, now you can stop complaining about Apple’s DRM), the rumor that Walmart signed a contract with them to ensure that Firefox won’t work with their movie download site… I see that this week it been changed to just give an “unsupported browser” window instead of the gibberish it was presenting (of course, having iCab spoof IE you could get in and use it, if you really wanted to…), their old standard of having their web software write HTML in a non-standard way in an attempt to undermine the other Browsers in the world. And then now? This patent 20070033102 for technology that (in the case of “paid” advertisement’s: free computers with ad’s on desktop, free browser with ad’s on the desktop, etc) will enable them to verify that the user is “consuming the advertisement”? Possibly opening more of those beloved Microsoft windows for you to “interact” with to ensure consumption of advertisement and possibly shutting off the service if you do not pay enough attention to the ad’s. Sure, it sounds reasonable (nothing is free, etc) but viewed all together, they may be the most anti-consumer “Consumer Goods” company.

This 25 year campaign to pretend that they are the standard and the only option because they know that if people don’t think that way, they probably wouldn’t buy Microsoft products. I think that the “sales” of the Zune and Ballmer’s comments that – the sales of Vista will be basically the same as the sales of new systems – point this out. It again reminds me of the RIAA and how they shutdown the old MP3.com because it enabled people to distribute their own music (and maybe even make some money) without a recording contract, Microsoft seeks to shutdown anyone who tries to let people know that there are better, non-Microsoft options.

“Now that we have 90% of the computer population looking at our screens all day, let’s force them to be as chained to these systems as we want them too be: crappy MSoft applications, over-the-top security system with waves of alert windows, buying music and being told where and how you can listen to it, subverting the standards of the Internet to damage competition.. We just need to make sure they don’t realize they have other options!”.

I would say that I cannot imagine why all these companies spend all of this time and money on Windows stuff, except for that the IT departments of the world know that if the people they support were to switch (to linux, Mac or better yet, Unix, but with a Mac you get both anyway), there wouldn’t be nearly the need for IT departments. Talk about planned obsolescence…

Anyway, on to movies, none of which have been downloaded from Walmart… Jesus Camp. Yes well, a bit scary. A very unbiased documentary about evangelical children. Like Blood in the Face, it can be hard to watch. These belief systems that, not only require no factual basis, but also consider contrary factual information (tests of faith or what have you) as evidence, are very scary. If you think that not only are your beliefs unprovable but anything that contradicts you makes you feel all the more correct, can lead people into all sorts of nutty stuff. If there ever was a historical Jesus, I feel that he would be shocked to see what his hopes for reforming Judaism have warped into. Anyway, the folks who made this basically let the Jesus Camp folks say it as they think it (though they do throw in some of an Air America commentator to, well, balance it isn’t the right word, but to show an opposing viewpoint). This movie is alot of kids with bad haircuts who have trained themselves to cry at the drop of a hat and rattle on in, um, “tongues”. It gives a very bad name to home schooling (Creationism? Dad says so!). But, if you can stomach it (as I barely could) it is interesting, though you can’t help but wonder how some of these kids might freak out when they hit their twenties and reality starts peeking in around their folks apron strings…

On a more cheerful note, I continued my way through the Blind Dead saga with El Ataque de los Muertos sin Ojos (aka: Return of the Evil Dead). Well, first off, not to spoil anything, but the ending is very anti-climactic. Aside from that, it moves the action of the first movie into a town. Like most sequels, pretty unneeded unless you’re a fan and, a fan I am! I do so love those horse-riding skeletons! Five hundreds years after the townsfolk kill the Templars they have a little celebration with “burning templars in effigy” and everything! But, of course, the old stories are true and the nasty knights return! They proceed to attack the town and our heroes hole up in the church and the games begin! The town slaughter scenes are a bit hackneyed and silly, but it is still great fun.

To Die For. Okay, well, not quite my cup of tea… Though the story seemed like it had some potential. It seemed like one of those Based-on-a-true-story kinda stories where a wife convinces some dense teenagers that they should kill her husband. Matt Dillon was good but I really don’t like Nicole Kidman. She seems a terrible actress and her style comes across very stilted. And I may be dense but, the box describes it as a comedy. Which it certainly didn’t strike me as one of… Maybe they meant that for the box of I Love You to Death, now that’s a spouse killing comedy which I highly recommend!…

Event Horizon. I finally got my hands on a copy of this! I saw it a good while ago and remembered liking it. So now this time? It has a lot of elements of fun classic films, most noticeably it’s a bit of Alien and Hellraiser and I find it quite likable. A rescue ship is sent to investigate another ship that had vanished and then come back (but from where) and it has come back with a little something strange… Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? Chunks of pure evil? You be the judge. It’s a fun, dark, action-filled, sci-fi/horror film, it has good creepiness and some nice gore scenes. It’s suspenseful and has good look to it and some fun science fiction ideas. The casting of Sam Neill seemed a bit odd to me, but he does a good job and generally the cast is strong. All in all a strong film, though some bits seemed a bit too far fetched (the airlock rescue scene? Anyone?) and I swear that a half hour must be missing from the film.

Pan’s Labyrinth. Yes, I actually did make it to this, as I’d been planning for months, ever since the Rue Morgue feature. Though it wasn’t quite as grand as I had been expecting, it was plenty fun. A little girl, living at a military outpost at the tail end of the Spanish civil war, is told that she is the daughter of the king of the underworld and must complete three tasks to prove herself. It combines a fantasy film with some subterfuge and shooting. I appreciated the Civil War stuff just because it’s rarely portrayed (or even mentioned) in the USA at all, so it was nice to get this little glimmer of it. In terms of the fantasy stuff, it was good, and I would have liked for there to have been a bit more, but I found both of the story arcs to be engaging and fairly suspenseful and the movie looks nice. Remember, it isn’t for children.

Keep the River on Your Right. I thought it was interesting, less of the jungle than I had expected and it doesn’t come across as “dangerous” as I had expected from the marketing. it is pretty much a harmless tale of a fellow who goes and lives with the natives for a good while and then now, many years later, goes back (to New Guinea and Peru) and meets up with those he knew before. Its basically a sweet story of an old man revisiting his youth. The marketing again makes a big to-do about the cannibal angle, but it’s a pretty minor deal and not really too big a piece of the story… Except for some of the comments of interviews in the movie.

Desperation. I liked this pretty well, certainly better than most of the other Stephen King TV projects I’ve seen. Maybe it was the setting that enabled it to come off not being as overtly cheapo as most of the others? The story of the sheriff of an empty town who seems to enjoy collecting folks he pulls over, It was directed by Mick Garris (who is busy these days directing Masters of Horror episodes… though I haven’t seen any of his) and stars Ron Perlman, Tom Skerrit (!) and Steven Weber (from Jenifer, another Masters of Horror connection). Though don’t get me wrong, it is pretty corny. But I found it easy to play along with and fun. And Perlman’s sheriff is a pretty vile fellow, though the ending is weakly anticlimactic.

But first, there’s something that been bothering me. Pluto.
Yes, I know that we all heard more than enough about Tombaugh’s posthumous smack-down. But I have some issues with it… The whole “cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit” thing? Ignoring the other planets that haven’t… Pluto’s specific reason is that its orbit overlaps with Neptune? Shouldn’t that disqualify Neptune as a planet, because it hasn’t cleared Pluto out of its orbit? Also, personally, I am of the belief that good ol’ Luna doesn’t orbit around the Earth, so much as they both orbit the sun along the same track. I think that either makes neither one a planet or both Terra and Luna planets. Anyway, they need to come up with stronger reasoning before they downgrade the Scorpio planet. We don’t get a planet anymore? That may work for Cancer’s, but for me? No go… This Pluto thing won’t stick…

Anyway yes, another not soo filmic time. We’re busy trying to find a new apt and getting ready to move, you see, so films are kind of on the backburner… But I did manage to squeeze a few in.

First off, exciting news from DvdSavant! He announces that Facets is releasing Who Wants to Kill Jessie? on DVD. It’s good because this is a brilliant and wonderful comedy that is virtually unknown in the usa, the bad news is that I already have a Ceske PAL dvd of it and I hope this one won’t have some feature that will make me want to replace it! It’s a well-founded and frequent fear to those who impatiently end up buying foreign discs… At some point, a US disc always seems to come out…

And then… Yes, it’s from the acclaimed director of Run Lola Run, but since I haven’t seen that, it don’t know if its good or a bad thing but, I do like this one. Winterschläfer, It is basically a drama about two couples, one maybe splitting apart, one maybe coming together and it’s a nice quiet film with some beautiful alpine scenery. But wait, there’s more. There is a car theft and an accident and a some big plummets and some deaths and a developing mystery plot that the main characters don’t even realize is going on! Some seem to qualify it as an erotic thriller, but it has just got some old Euro-nudity in it and it’s not particularly thrilling, so I don’t buy that description. More like a “romantic” drama with mystery. But it is well done and engrossing in it’s quiet way, with some good tragedy thrown in to keep you interested.

Haute Tension I watched this again. Well, I still like it, it is tense and it looks great. Some fun characters and good startles and nervous-making scenes. Sure it’s not The Descent, but it’s still a great, fun horror movie.

Dragonslayer… Always reminding me of Lake Town from the Hobbit, this is another film which is good to look at. Well, let me rephrase that, the outdoor “scenery” shots are quite beautiful, Scotland or somesuch, the rest of it isn’t that visually great. The lead character is hard to take seriously, maybe he’s right for the role, but all I could think is… “that guy? what is he doing there?” The effects, while certainly dated, remind you that they were quite good in the day. Some of the other charcters are good: Ralph Richardson, of course, does fine in his brief role, and the lame king is good as is his evil henchman. In fact, most of the people do a good job. If only the story were a little better done and please, some other lead…

Also, for a Disney film, it did seem a bit gorey.

dragonslayer, or exercise guru, you be the judge…
dragonslayer 37:18

killers… hot or not…

delon…

not delon…

masterful set design
love is colder… 06:56

gangster…
love is colder… 43:22

Friday I went to some new place called the Hawthorne Theater to see Vader! Damn that was a good thing. I know they’re a bit more Death Metal than my usual listening, but they’re just soo damned good. Anyway, it was good to go. I only go to one or two shows a year and I’ve seen very few metal shows, so it was quite nice.

Well then, onto movies…

Werewolves? Samurai action? Monsters? How could one go wrong? Well, one could. I did. Kibakichi. At first, it seemed slow but with potential. Some nice scenery and cinematography… Though the picture seemed muted and dark. Well. That was the best part. Slow, boring. A couple of good fights scenes that were thrown off a bit by the monster effects being what they were. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If you want action and werewolves, I’d suggest just watching Le Pacte des loups again… Maybe the ol’ library needs a bit of culling.

On the other hand, yesterday I watched Slow Fade. That was a good one. Well shot, some of the old Carlito Brigante “they pulled me back in” action… The Daniel Lam soundtrack (hey! The DVD comes with a CD even!) techno music was good, some nice camera effects and kind of a hazy feel to the whole thing… Not really visually, but you kind of start feeling a bit hazy like our protagonist. Anyway I thought a nice film. Engaging, good looking and some good action.

I went to go and see Pride & Prejudice. My first time with that story. I actually liked it a good deal. It looked very nice, it was well acted and directed. I quite liked the lead fellow, Mister Darcy, and I surely got wrapped up into the who will get whom routine. Actually, it made me want to read the book.

We’ve also been watching the Wonder Years. I wasn’t too familiar with the show but now, after about 14 episodes in 2 days, I’m getting the hang of it. Pretty good for a TV show. Something that wouldn’t be too horrible for children to watch. it’s very thoughtful and well intentioned.

A long night of celebrating the trival victory! Third place! A late evening filled with beer and Matt’s wonderous Pecan pie from Blue Gardenia has led to a nice slow morning. Lots of Father Ted & rest are on the menu today. The Father Ted was a nessessity. Television this morning seeemed singularly irritating. Lots of jokers singing that old war song about rockets, bombs and glare and then someone who went around the country and photographed folks that share names with famous people… In this case, I would have to say that there are a few parts of “clever” and “interesting” that I wouldn’t understand. Someone needs to do something about the proliferation of books that are published. It seems like any jerk can cast a few trees to the ground just to repeat whatever gibberish goes through their head. All in the hopes of some publsher making anouther buck. I say halt production on 75% of the books being published and give those fools blogs.
Anyway, I just don’t get these holidays. But I found some fun songs at Dr Mysterian, Mabel’s is closed so it feels kind of like a little vacation and Jennifers gathering should be fun. If only it wasn’t soo hot… But Brooke and Sebastian are due back today, so there’s that to look forward to, too.