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.