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Welcome to my web presence. Herein lies information related to my interests, my passions, and my philosophy. Please peruse the various sections listed above. Enjoy.
2008.05.22
I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opening day at a 12:01 midnight showing. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but be forewarned some hints may be given. I've been a huge fan since 1981, right along side my Star Wars fascination. As a kid I would swing on my whip in a tree in the backyard, want to find a perfect fedora, and basically loved everything about the Indiana Jones mythos, so it was with much anticipation that I went to see the new film; after all it's been 19 years since the third installment. Having read some the of the plot details beforehand, I realized that Lucas was taking the story into 1957, which also meant taking the film style away from the 30's adventure serials of the first three into a new era with the Red Scare, the atomic bomb, and all sorts of new science fiction mysteries. Given this, I loved the movie. Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf did amazing jobs (Mutt's lines were some of the best - particularly early on in his introduction), and I really enjoyed the production of this film. There were some silly points, sure, but so were there in all the films. The script was a bit weak in parts, but the story was great for the era, the characters were fun to watch, and the sets/production were exceptional. The editing was tight (especially in the jungle jeep chase). I'll be going back to watch it again shortly, but my initial review is that it's a 3.5 out of 5. I think it fits with the rest of the movies, but is sufficiently different to make it impossible to rank (kinda like Temple of Doom). [indianajones.com]
2008.03.04
Nine Inch Nails released a new album Ghosts I-IV. What's interesting about this collection of 36 instrumental tracks is not so much the music itself (which is fantastic), but the method of distribution. Trent Reznor recently split with his record label, so this new album is being released online and in CD format, with the first 9 tracks available for free. He even uploaded them to torrent sites himself. If you want to buy all the tracks you can get them in DRM-free MP3, flac, or Apple lossless formats for only $5. If this doesn't scare the record labels, I don't know what will. It's obvious that the RIAA and the old model of music distribution is dead. There's also a $10 option to download files and get physical CDs, along with a $75 and $300 set of deluxe formats (printed book, blu-ray, etc). I've been a fan for a while, and this just takes it up a notch.
[ghosts.nin.com]
2008.01.22
After watching the incredible documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, I've gotten back into playing Donkey Kong on the MAME arcade at work. The perfect game? Close. It's pretty addictive, that's for sure. The documentary follows Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell as rivals for the world record score in Donkey Kong (currently held by Mitchell with 1,050,200). My top score right now is 29,000, so I have quite a way to go as I try to master this incredibly difficult game from 1981. Update 2008.01.30: My new high score is 58,600!
2008.01.14
I miss Reagan. Just watch this incredible video from 1964 and see what a great orator he was. [www.youtube.com]
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