9-30-04 (18:00)
  • went to the funeral of melanie's dad yesterday. that was very saddening.
  • presidential debate in a couple minutes. if "bin laden" is mentioned as much or more than "saddam" then kerry will win the election, if not then i'm still going with bush.

  • 9-26-04 (23:51)

  • bad sports day...niners shut out for first time since 1977 and giants lost to dodgers which is big.
  • usc edged out stanford, next game is in two weeks against cal. should be fun.
  • updated movies list. 400 movies so far.
  • this is the most interesting imdb.com reviewer i've read to date. i think his writing style is pedantic and obnoxious, but it's always interesting.
  • holy crap.

  • 9-26-04 (00:26)

  • updated movies list.
  • i've come up with a new film genre: the philosophy film. it's any film whose main axis is philosophy. these films lack conventional plot or storylines, they choose, instead, to focus on the exploration of a certain philosphy(ies). examples would inclue slacker, waking life and my dinner with andre.
  • updated recommendations.
  • yesterday when i was at the theater watching mean creek there was a preview for some film (enduring love) "from the director of notting hill and changing lanes". when i saw that the first thing that popped into my head, without even thinking about it, was "mitchell." then i wondered to myself why i would think that the director's name was mitchell since i've never seen notting hill and i've only seen changing lanes once and, though i thought it was good, can't remember taking any extra special note of the film or its director. so i continued watching the preview and at the end they put up the credit list and the director was listed as roger michell. it was pretty amazing. either it was a crazy coincidence or, for a moment, i tapped into the true potential of my otherwise forgetful mind. either way it was cool even if i was technically off by one letter.

  • 9-24-04 (18:18)

  • "California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) won props from enviros this week as he signed into law more than two dozen pro-environment bills. The measures will (take a deep breath) allow drivers of hybrids getting at least 45 miles per gallon to go solo in highway carpool lanes, require that all cars built since 1976 get emissions checks from now on, establish the Sierra Nevada Conservancy to protect the beloved mountain range, create a cabinet-level Ocean Protection Council, prohibit dumping of so-called "gray water" from sinks and showers by cruise ships, limit bottom trawling along the coast, raise money to replace old buses with cleaner ones, and allow regional air districts to raise vehicle registration fees to fight diesel soot. Many of the bills were opposed by powerful interests; in particular, Schwarzenegger gave the stiff arm to Ford CEO Bill Ford and Tonight Show host Jay Leno, who lobbied against the carpool-lane and emission-testing bills, respectively.  "These bills were not all easy to sign," said Karen Garrison of the Natural Resources Defense Council.  "He did take some risks, and he gets credit for that.""

  • 9-24-04 (03:33)

  • updated movies list.

  • 9-23-04 (14:20)

  • melanie's dad died at about 3am this morning.

  • 9-23-04 (02:33)

  • updated movies list.
  • yesterday i called up new yorker video and first run features and got my name on their mailing lists for dvd screeners. in other words, i'm going to start getting free dvds in the mail from two independent dvd distributors. it's amazing how easy it was, too. i probably didn't even have to give them my work address, but i did.
  • this guy has written over 270 reviews and i've only even heard of maybe a half dozen of the films listed. crazy. he seems obsessed with commenting on the credits of particular films. in several instances he sets the record straight regarding actual cast, writers, etc. i wonder what this guy is like.
  • i don't often disagree with allmusic.com, but they got their review of amethyst rock star completely wrong.
  • this is what happens when 'civility' runs amok. i don't like war, but if you win a war then you make the rules...and if you lose then you get what is given to you.
  • got new black keys and saul williams today. zack de la rocha (formerly of rage against the machine) has a cameo on the latter. that guy's the hardest working man in the music business. 30 seconds worth of work on this album, one song with dj shadow and 20 seconds worth of work with blackalicious...all that in just three years. busy guy.
  • russ meyer died this week. like him or not, he was a pretty influential filmmaker...from john waters to doris wishman.
  • heard a john kerry interview on npr today. they grilled him pretty hard. i thought they'd be throwing him soft balls, but they didn't. that's why npr is cooler than anything else that size.

  • 9-22-04 (01:31)

  • updated movies list.
  • the up series by michael apted is coming to dvd. i think that the only dvd in the series that was available to this point was the last installment (42up).
  • today was hectic.
  • shortly before closing i was flipping through fhm (a stupid magazine) when i came across a q&a session with roger ebert. question: "how many films do you have to watch a year?" answer: "about 400. all up, i've written about 7,000 reviews, so i've probably seen about 12,000 movies in my life." my movie count for this year: 390. it's possible ebert was leaving out the films he watches on the side, outside of his work. at any rate, he probably has averaged 300 movies a year for the last forty years or so. i've come to the conclusion, then, that i'm watching the right number of films...now i just need to learn how to write well.
  • beastie boys setlist for thursday sept. 16th:

  • 1. Mix Master Mike Intro
    2. Sure Shot
    3. Egg Man
    4. We Got The
    5. Hello Brooklyn
    6. Triple Trouble
    7. Shake Your Rump
    8. Sabrosa
    9. In 3's
    10. Lighten Up
    11. An Open Letter To NYC
    12. Right Right Now Now
    13. Posse In Effect
    14. Super Disco Breakin'
    15. All Lifestyles
    16. Paul Revere
    17. Body Movin'
    18. Brass Monkey
    19. Three MC's And One DJ
    20. So What'Cha Want
    21. Ch-Check it Out
    22. Intergalactic
    23. Gratitude
    24. Sabotage

    9-21-04 (01:34)

  • got about 12 hours of sleep last night. that was very nice. i've been needing a good long rest for a while.
  • updated movies list. on pace to see 539 movies this year.
  • weather has started to change a bit. it rained yesterday and it's been getting colder this last week or so.
  • 49ers lost another close game this week. they did this a lot last year too.

  • 9-19-04 (00:47)

  • updated movies list.
  • was able to stay off my feet most of the day. i guess my new position lends itself to that a bit more than i originally thought.
  • updated recommendations. i don't seem to have nearly as much music to recommend as i have films, but today's addition is a musical one.
  • i've been really tired lately. i really need some time off more than anything else.

  • 9-18-04 (00:22)

  • updated movies list.
  • beastie boys concert was really good. the set list was like 20-25 songs long and they had two encores. for the first one they went into the upper level and played (intergalactic) on a small clearing up there. for the second one they played two songs on their instruments - gratitude and sabotage. i think the beastie boys put on a better show than anyone i've seen live, but i haven't seen very many concerts. that said, i think rage against the machine's music is more suited to live performance. they didn't play any of their punk stuff, or any rare stuff which was too bad. they did play paul revere despite the "wiffle ball bat" line, which they changed to "stick ball bat" which doesn't change anything so i don't know why they did that. talib kweli did a good job as an opener.
  • johnny and i played several hours of halo on the xbox. it was fun at first, but that game is excessively repetitive. doom or quake both took a lot longer to get old for me.
  • life has been full of extremes in the last couple weeks.
  • melanie's dad isn't doing well and it seems to be just a matter of time at this point.

  • 9-16-04 (00:27)

  • updated movies list.
  • going to berkeley tomorrow and then onto sf to see the beastie boys.
  • listening to 'open water' soundtrack right now. hadn't fully realized how good it was until now.
  • the first track on the new orbital is really good.
  • "Between the ages of 12 and 30, director and movie buff Peter Bogdanovich created 5,316 three-by-five index cards that held descriptions of every movie he'd seen in those years."  - from allmovie.com 18 years, 5,316 movies=295 movies a year. if he only watched 200 movies a year from ages 12-18, he'd have to average 343 movies a year from the ages of 18-30. that's pretty damn good. this year so far i've seen 384, last year i saw 329, and 245 the year before that. i've only been over 300 movies three years in my life so i have some ground to make up. in the last three years i've watched approximately 1916 hours of film (assuming an average of two hours per movie). that breaks down to about 80 full days worth of movies. for three years of work that doesn't seem like all that much. if an athelete put that much time into training, or a lawyer into studying or...it's just not very much time invested when you break it down in those terms. i suppose if you figure in the amount of time i spend writing reviews and reading about films then it might be a little more impressive, but right now i'm hardly a great study of film.
  • my foot feels a little better, but still definitely not great.

  • 9-15-04 (02:54)

  • updated movies list.
  • found out yesterday that i'll have to work six days a week during december because i'm a member of the management team. that was unexpected and not so great to hear. granted it's only one month, but it still sucks and i don't get overtime. on the other hand i also found out that i'm eligible for quarterly bonuses based upon three factors - keeping costs low (payroll and supplies) and keeping sales up. there's not much that i can, or will, do to affect those factors, but it's likely that i'll get something out of it at least a couple times a year.
  • sounds interesting.
  • npr had a story about sony acquiring mgm today. the expert they had on talked about mgm as the largest (in terms of archive size) movie studio. it's also one of the last independent studios (as in not owned by a major corporate conglomerate like aol-time-warner or sony/columbia). it's pretty sad to see one of the great studios being sold. sony/columbia doesn't generally put out great dvds so that's unfortunate. i was hoping for warner to win the bidding battle just because they take better care of their catalog titles. on the other hand aol-time-warner is evil so there are trade-offs. when the expert was talking about the deal he said that sony was mostly interested in buying the titles in the mgm catalog, titles like wizard of oz, the james bond series, pink panther, etc. there was at least one other title that he mentioned...that title (which i can't remember now) and the wizard of oz, though originally distributed by mgm, are now owned and distributed by warner brothers. so he was kinda wrong there. other than that it was a good story.
  • the other day i talked with tony (he does our posters at work) about hollywood and the film business. it was a pretty enlightening conversation. it was nice to pick the brain of someone who is in the business and knows a bit about how it works.
  • installed my new hard drive today. it's 160gigs which is more than enough at this point. my primary drive is only 60 so it's a big step up. i called the drive "ford" since he was prolific and because my primary hard drive is named kurosawa and it's widely known that kurosawa loved ford's work.
  • i'm just waiting for some indie band to come along and make a record of silence. they should call themselves something pretentious like 'the emperor's clothing is sparse.' just as merzbow is the leader in noise music, the emperor's clothing is sparse will be the leaders of the silence movement in music.

  • 9-14-04 (02:34)

  • updated movies list.
  • well it's melanie's birthday today.
  • last night melanie woke me up so i could give her a ride to the airport. her dad is in the hospital and things aren't looking so great right now.
  • what a week.

  • 9-13-04 (01:58)

  • updated movies list.
  • went to fleet feet today during my lunch and bought a couple arch support inserts. they seem to help. i'm hoping that in time they will provide enough relief to allow my foot to heal. i knew i would get old and less able with time, but i never expected it to happen this quickly. then again i never expected to work at a place that has concrete floors and requires me to be on my feet for so long each day.
  • my new job title and raise have given me more direction while at work which means my time will go by more quickly and i'll probably have a better time while i'm there. in other words, not only am i going to make more money, but, at least for now, going to work is less of a chore. i like having something new in front of me whenever possible. if i'm learning or being challenged then i'm generally enjoying myself.
  • 1117: number of movies i've rated on netflix.com

  • 9-11-04 (23:52)

  • updated movies list.
  • i always get excited when my reviews are on the front page of a movie on imdb.com.
  • went to a couple websites to do some research on my foot problem. the consensus seems to be that i should rest and wear an arch support.
  • "Port cities in Canada dump thousands of tons of virtually untreated sewage into bodies of water every year, according to a new report compiled by the Sierra Legal Defense Fund on behalf of three enviro groups.  Montreal, it seems, dumps 950 million gallons of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River every year.  If you think that's gross, well ... you're right.  It really is.  But it's not so bad when you consider that Victoria dumps 9 billion gallons of entirely untreated sewage a year into the Pacific Ocean.  Canada's sewage-disposal standards are far behind those in the U.S. and Europe, said Margot Venton of Sierra Legal.  An Environment Canada spokesperson said that Ottawa (the seat of Canada's federal government, for all you clueless yanks) and the provinces are working together to develop a joint wastewater treatment program by 2006, with national standards -- standards that will presumably frown on dumping billions of gallons of untreated poop, along with oil, grease, cyanide, and who knows what else, into waterways."
  • wouldn't have guessed that.
  • patriot day has come and gone. three years ago sucked.
  • i used to have an old almanac that had all sorts of great stuff in it that isn't normally carried in today's almanacs. apparently i got rid of it within the last year or so. that and my baseball encyclopedia. i regret that choice.
  • i invented a diet that i'll call the "hunter gatherer diet." the basic precepts of the diet are: eat throughout the day instead of having proper meals and "trail mix" type food will serve as the base of the diet. lots of fruits and vegetables (dried, fresh or cooked), lots of nuts and seeds, and no grains. three times a week you can eat meat, preferably fish. liquids should include milk and water, with fruit juices on occasion.
  • usc creamed csu today.

  • 9-11-04 (01:55)

  • updated movies list.
  • today is patriot day.
  • mostly a disappointing day as far as movies went. had fun with melanie though.

  • 9-10-04 (02:48)

  • updated movies list.
  • power went out today for a couple hours. as a result i went to see the newest jarmusch film and suspect zero.

  • 9-9-04 (01:32)

  • great website.
  • updated movies list.
  • i was the recipient of the quickest decision in corporate history today. a mere hour after having a sit down with the boss he said "i can't see any reason not to hire you" and "i'm impulsive and you seem thoughtful so i think we'll make a good team." he also informed me that as of friday the wage increase should take effect. even if it isn't reflected immediately in my next paycheck, when it does kick in it will be retroactive to this friday. i've tried not to think about spending money on some of the things i've been wanting because of what happened the last time i was hired for this position, but it's really no use. about 25 hours passed from the time that he scheduled an interview with me regarding the position, to the time he gave me the job. for the last manager that time frame was closer to 25 days.
  • more star wars changes. a comparison of the changes between the 1997 versions and the 2004 versions. the jabba the hutt stuff looks better, the shots at the top of that page look nicer, but the purples and sepia tones of the old version look more like what i remember the original looking like. in his review on digitalbits.com, bill hunt seems to like most of the changes on the disc, but changing the color scheme in those shots is pretty silly. the purple sky makes the landscape look so much more otherworldly. and of course i'll never forgive him for having han shoot second. whatever, this is such a dead horse. tobe hooper didn't digitally enhance leatherface and warner brothers didn't colorize casablanca.
  • i've got ice on my foot right now. while i was washing dishes i decided to test my foot by applying a lot of pressure on it while pressing against the floor. it hurt and now i'm regretting my decision. hopefully two days of rest and ice will fix whatever is wrong with it. it doesn't hurt at all when i'm just sitting around or even just standing, but every once in a while when i'm walking it'll hurt. it's a prickly sort of pain.

  • 9-8-4 (02:38)

  • updated movies list.
  • tomorrow i have a meeting with the boss. he said that "i'm pretty much the guy (for the product manager position)" and "it doesn't make much sense to go hunting for someone else when you're here." should be interesting to see how it pans out this time around.
  • not sure that this link will work for nonsubscribers, but here it is anyway. the gist of the article is that kerry isn't separating himself from bush enough and is doing exactly what i predicted months ago...playing just enough to the left of bush because he knows most of the left of center voters are so mindlessly commited to the "anyone but bush" mantra.
  • "The calculation in the Kerry camp is obviously that the liberal-progressive part of their base will put up with anything, and they seem to be correct in making that assumption. Last weekend one of Kerry's aides took the opportunity, in a debate on CNN, to emphasize that Kerry supported "96 percent" of the Patriot Act and indeed wrote some of the language of the act." zombies for kerry by alexander cockburn.
  • response to bush's rnc speech.
  • i remember bush saying he was against nation building in a 2000 debate with al gore. funny guy.

  • 9-7-04 (03:15)

  • in david cross' latest cd he talks about george bush's famous "they hate our freedom" line and how he uses it to manipulate people into thinking this is all just a cultural war. cross goes on to say that every time he turns on the tv he realizes that he hates our freedom since we do some of the dumbest shit with it. i think this (2) (3) is the kind of thing he might be referring to. i, too, often find myself hating our freedom.
  • updated movies list.
  • today was pretty good. got paid time and a half, plus i got free lunch. day went by quickly enough and tomorrow is my thursday.
  • the tendon that connects my forefoot and heel has been feeling a bit odd lately. i need a vacation.

  • 9-6-04 (01:12)

  • updated movies list.
  • the nba should have an alumni game. retired players versus rookies. guys like barkley, jordan, robinson, etc. against lebron james, carmelo anthony, wade, etc...it would get great ratings and it's a great way for the older guys to pass on some sage advice to the younger players.
  • zell miller's 1990 GA gubernatorial campaign was managed by james carville. i bet carville regrets that.
  • "Two polls show that Mr. Bush received a substantial boost from last week's Republican National Convention. Time magazine, in a poll released Friday, found Mr. Bush up 52 percent to 41 percent over Mr. Kerry. A Newsweek poll, out Saturday, had him up 54 percent to 43 percent. Both polls have a margin of error of four percentage points and were a statistical tie before the convention. "There's never been a challenger that has come back after being down double digits after the convention, after their incumbent's convention. That's never happened," Bush strategist Matthew Dowd told "Fox News Sunday.""
  • "The new strategy includes a negative ad accusing Mr. Bush of being insincere on issues affecting senior citizens and raising Medicare premiums, and Kerry-Edwards campaign officials made the Sunday talk show rounds promoting a list of "143 lies and distortions" they say Mr. Bush has made. "We've actually documented it" Mr. Devine said. "The problem with lying to people is that the truth catches up to you. And I think that's what's going to happen here. I mean, for example, the president, on Thursday night in his acceptance speech, said we owe a moral obligation to our seniors. And the next day his administration leveled the largest Medicare premium increase in our nation's history."

  • 9-5-04 (01:18)

  • updated movies list.
  • updated recommendations.
  • ended up not going to the state fair. it was windy as hell and we came to the conclusion that the day would be better spent indoors. watched two movies in the theater.
  • bought two great books the other day from bogey's books. one of my co-workers works there one day a week so i even got a 10% discount. one is "the films of akira kurosawa" by donald ritchie, he's done some commentary tracks for different criterion releases. the other one is even cooler, it's called "how movies work" by bruce kawin and it truly delivers on its title. it reviews just about everything a film does - technically and artistically - in a pretty straightforward way. it seems like the kind of book that you can read several times and get more out of it each time.
  • work early tomorrow again.
  • beastie boys concert on september 16th.
  • jon hooked me up with the political machine game. you get to run a political campaign...you can choose your candidates, the political climate, etc. it's pretty fun if you're a political geek like me. i chose kerry with hillary clinton as the vp and beat george w. fun stuff.
  • i need another hard drive.

  • 9-3-04 (00:39)

  • updated movies list.
  • my co-worker says the next hurricane to hit florida should be called hurricane Karma. awesome.
  • two more months and we should know whether there will be four more years of bush.
  • watched much of the rnc tonight. i don't even want to talk about it. bush was up to his usual "with us or against us" tricks and the sheep applauded. it's all very sad. afterwards the networks decided not to carry kerry's response. i listened to some am talk radio after the speech and they said it was great and complained about sam donaldson's comments during, and after, bush's speech. apparently he was ripping bush's speech apart and the am talk host didn't like it too much. of course, during kerry's speech the talk show host did the exact same thing - he talked over kerry and made sarcastic remarks. it was quite puerile and partisan, but i didn't expect much more. the bush klan really is banking on the stupidity of the american public which is why i still think he'll win. when he puts forth his view of the facts on kerry's voting record, for example...he'll say that kerry voted against humvees and body armor when really kerry voted against a larger bill that included a lot more than body armor. stuff like that annoys me just a bit.
  • it's very windy right now.
  • tomorrow we're going to the state fair.

  • 9-1-04 (01:20)

  • nader on ballot in florida.
  • i love fredrick wiseman's films, but apparently he doesn't want the public to view them.
  • yankees lost 22-0 tonight. that's the worst baseball performance i've ever heard of. the yankees have the biggest payroll in baseball.
  • mike williams won't be returning to usc this year. that's a damn shame. hopefully the niners can snatch him up in the draft next year. he's great.