Why yes, Christmas was awesome, thanks for asking.
Took two days of the weekend to unwind, finish shopping, and clean my room (it was really messy) and then spent the next two at my parents' place mostly eating, although occasionally opening gifts, giving away gifts, and moving large appliances up flights of stairs.
Delightfully traditional. Sort of.
Had excellent reception for the gifts I gave (a rarity, so yay) and as per usual was loaded down with awesome things through the generosity of my family. But that is only tangentially related to my reason for posting.
See, I've become a crazy old man, virtually overnight. The night before I left for my parents', I received my electricity bill for the last month and almost had a heart attack. In the middle of winter, we managed to use 3 times the normal wattage that we expend in a month in the summer. No, really, truly, and literally, 3 times my August bill. I immediately declared that we would no longer be using the heater in any significant capacity, as apparently getting the apartment over 70 degrees requires enough power to run a normal city block for a week.
Suddenly Frank is in his room, huddled over his laptop for warmth, shivering. Meanwhile, I've taken to wearing a flannel robe over all my normal clothes while at home to retain as much warmth as possible. Seriously, it's like I've become crazy Scrooge over here with Frank as Cratchet. (With the exception that Frank does not go in for any type of maths, and so far as I know, has not fathered any crippled children.)
Also! As part of my extensive haul from this Christmas, I received the DS video game Geometry Wars, something I've been coveting since it came out earlier this month. It is a most excellent game, as I love things that are simplistic, yet colorful that let me blast things. It's the pure essence of what a video game should be.
Sadly, though, it was not made to originally played on a tiny portable system. In its native state, you control the game using two analogue joysticks on a single controller. In order to make it workable on the DS, they have changed the left joystick to a directional pad (up-down-left-right) and the right joystick to a tiny pencil which you use to draw your direction on the touch screen. It's not the most elegant solution, but it's surprisingly effective.
The issue is, for maximum effectiveness with this setup you must hold the system with one hand, scribble furiously with the other, and have a finger available on the holding hand to hit a button on the top of the system. The only way to accomplish such a maneuver is to bend your wrist at a 90 degree angle, brace the bottom of the system with your pinkie and ring finger, extend your middle finger across the length of the back of the system, use your index finger to trigger the upper button, and have your thumb act as a counter weight/directional button pushing device.
Okay, that probably sounds completely unintelligible. The upshot is: within 15 minutes of starting play, your hands will be cramped up into withered claws, from which there is no respite. It's like carpal tunnel within carpal tunnel.
If you try to outfox the game by laying the DS on a surface, there's no elegant way to reach the upper button, so you're left with limited playability. And if you use both hands to hold the system, you are severely limited in your scribbling ability. Neither of which is an acceptable solution to a proper gaming person.
The end result? Not only am I a crazy old man who wears a flannel robe at all times while yelling about wasted heat, my hands are set in arthritic claws whilst doing so.
Yeah, Merry Freezing Christmas, y'all.
(You have no idea how painful it was to type all that out.)
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Shocking Revelation: Computers are Awesome
Last week I wrote about my Christmas extravagance when it has to do with my own selfishness - namely the purchase of a new monitor and video card to replace my current dying unit.
In stark contrast to the extravagance of the purchase itself, I bought both items online rather than in a store. Because the lure of cheap prices, no sales tax, and free shipping speak to my inner Scrooge even when I'm throwing away piles of money.
I am utterly unaccustomed to having to wait for large purchases to reach me by mail, though. If I order anything online, it's usually books or a game, nothing that has any immediacy to it. This thing, though... man. The guaranteed three business day shipping that traversed an entire weekend nearly ripped me to shreds. Having to wait for the results of my mad spending spree makes me infinitely quicker to regret said impulse purchase.
Also, I was still having to work with the old monitor, which by that point would take a liberal 20 minutes to even give me a picture. I attempted to leave the sad thing on for the entire weekend, but I need complete darkness to sleep apparently, and thus it was an untenable situation.
But oh my, on Monday the monitor arrived.
The only word for it was coined by Frank, upon seeing it for the first time: "Excessive."
It is the most excessive thing I have ever seen. 22 inches of wide screen glory that is sharper than I previously imagined possible on a monitor. When you maximize a FireFox window, less than half the screen has any content on it. I can now open full-sized pictures off my digital camera in Photoshop without the slightest bit of scaling. It's the most ridiculously over-the-top thing I've ever owned that is not my Jaguar.
Then yesterday the video card arrived. It's a more modest affair, a last generation card that has been thoroughly outpaced in the meantime. But for me - a guy who was running something that was last generation at least two generations ago - it's an ungodly upgrade.
And just to complete the orgy of spending, I went out and maxed out the RAM on my computer to go along with the rest of the upgrades. This one was less extravagant and more "Duh, why didn't you do that earlier," as RAM has apparently grown so cheap since the last time I bought some that they're almost giving it away. $25 was the total cost to max my ancient machine to its peak performance.
Y'all? I know I say "there are no words" a lot. But really. Suddenly I have an entirely new ultra-functional computer, with a hedonistic-ly ridiculous monitor, and the total cost to me was under $350 dollars.
As I was saying to someone yesterday, now I have no expectations whatsoever for Christmas this year, as just staring at my new ninja-like setup at my desk fills me with enough joy to eclipse even the most horrendous of gifts. I've reached a pure nerd-zenlike state.
Merry Christmas indeed, y'all!
In stark contrast to the extravagance of the purchase itself, I bought both items online rather than in a store. Because the lure of cheap prices, no sales tax, and free shipping speak to my inner Scrooge even when I'm throwing away piles of money.
I am utterly unaccustomed to having to wait for large purchases to reach me by mail, though. If I order anything online, it's usually books or a game, nothing that has any immediacy to it. This thing, though... man. The guaranteed three business day shipping that traversed an entire weekend nearly ripped me to shreds. Having to wait for the results of my mad spending spree makes me infinitely quicker to regret said impulse purchase.
Also, I was still having to work with the old monitor, which by that point would take a liberal 20 minutes to even give me a picture. I attempted to leave the sad thing on for the entire weekend, but I need complete darkness to sleep apparently, and thus it was an untenable situation.
But oh my, on Monday the monitor arrived.
The only word for it was coined by Frank, upon seeing it for the first time: "Excessive."
It is the most excessive thing I have ever seen. 22 inches of wide screen glory that is sharper than I previously imagined possible on a monitor. When you maximize a FireFox window, less than half the screen has any content on it. I can now open full-sized pictures off my digital camera in Photoshop without the slightest bit of scaling. It's the most ridiculously over-the-top thing I've ever owned that is not my Jaguar.
Then yesterday the video card arrived. It's a more modest affair, a last generation card that has been thoroughly outpaced in the meantime. But for me - a guy who was running something that was last generation at least two generations ago - it's an ungodly upgrade.
And just to complete the orgy of spending, I went out and maxed out the RAM on my computer to go along with the rest of the upgrades. This one was less extravagant and more "Duh, why didn't you do that earlier," as RAM has apparently grown so cheap since the last time I bought some that they're almost giving it away. $25 was the total cost to max my ancient machine to its peak performance.
Y'all? I know I say "there are no words" a lot. But really. Suddenly I have an entirely new ultra-functional computer, with a hedonistic-ly ridiculous monitor, and the total cost to me was under $350 dollars.
As I was saying to someone yesterday, now I have no expectations whatsoever for Christmas this year, as just staring at my new ninja-like setup at my desk fills me with enough joy to eclipse even the most horrendous of gifts. I've reached a pure nerd-zenlike state.
Merry Christmas indeed, y'all!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Long Form Review - The Golden Compass
(Note: Usually movie reviews are pushed to the sidebar, but my thoughts on this movie filled up way too much of it. Which means it really needs its own entry. Vague and specific spoilers abound.)
The Golden Compass - Short Form: A good movie with above par action and acting, that is limited by its story in a very significant way. Also, armored bears! (RAWR!, etc.)
This movie is an object lesson that shows that the eternal debate on whether movies are better/worse than the books that they're based on is utterly useless. Because this movie is a near perfect retelling of the book (Or more accurately, all of the book but the ending. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.) and it is completely hamstrung as a movie because of that.
I would go so far as to say that it's one of the most faithful adaptation of a book into a movie that I've ever seen. Virtually nothing is changed, good or bad, from exactly how the entire plot is presented in the book. When the book had extended scenes of pure exposition, the movie paused the action to have some old British people yammer on for a while. When the book introduced the mythology of witches out of the utter blue without explanation or reason, so went the movie. When the book freaking rips off the jaw of an armored bear and then snaps its neck... well you see where I'm going with this. (Aside: As soon as I realized that they were following the book so closely, I could not wait for the bear fighting scene. And I was not disappointed. That was awesome.)
What I'm getting at, is that book purists should be theoretically thrilled by the adaptation. With the exception of a copy/replace job on every instance of "Church" with "Authority," very little was excised from the meat of the book. Only the flow of the movie suffers - to save time (not a long movie by any means) they often cut from pivotal scene A to pivotal scene B without resolving how they got from A to B. The director never lets the story down to save on length.
But the problem is, the story doesn't translate overly well into a movie. Yes, the action is extraordinarily well done and thrilling, but the whole story has too much of a measured pace and far too much required backstory to be super effective. The book worked because it had time to set up the idea of daemons and the rules involved, and then to build up the world and the mythology around the alternate timeline. The movie has no such luxury - resorting to condensed character traits in single lines of dialogue, clunky expository speeches in place of long conversations, and bizarre announcements of intent. It all just comes off as awkward.
The worst example of this is the entrance of the witch, who literally seems to serve no purpose to the story whatsoever except to act as a deus ex machina device for the ending. And while it sort of is in the book as well, the witches perform a larger function in the book (keying in on the prophecy - the one thing that was cut from the movie that it really could have used), which makes their use less egregious in book form. In the movie it was akin to having a wizard appear midway through your plot for no other reason than the fact that you'll need some magical reinforcements in about 20 minutes.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, but it could have been much better had they took a cue from other really successful adaptations (e.g. the Lord of the Rings writers) and how they adapted the sources to fit their needs. Because really, the LotR books are a perfect example of an awesome story that would be terrible in movie form.
Follow along: In the book version of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo's decision to leave his home and go on to Rivendale on his little ring adventure is about 8 months long, both in planning and execution, with liberal stops along the way to meet magical creatures and get eaten by old trees. It would be utterly boring to watch that play out on a screen, despite how nice a travelogue and expository device it was to set you up in the mythology.
So what did the writers do? Cut all the dithering about and made it compelling to watch: race against time to escape dark riders, picking up friends as they go along, taking up maybe a week of total time, most of which is entirely offscreen.
Similarly in the case of The Golden Compass, I think it could have easily been adapted in a similar manner. Take some liberties with the source material to make it flow better. Don't be afraid to cut a scene or two of exposition to make time for other scenes to end naturally before jumping to the next item on the list. Fill in the exposition naturally with reasonable asides in those scenes, and trust the audience not to miss things. Done properly (like in LotR) literary purists won't whine (too much) and your movie benefits by being more cohesive.
Or alternatively - since you planned on pissing off the purists anyways by ending the movie TWO CHAPTERS BEFORE THE END OF THE BOOK, why even care to follow the story so closely?
Seriously, the ending is the best part of the book! (Bear fighting excluded, obviously) You even put the goddamn foreshadowing of the end right there in the movie ("It says I'm bringing him what he needs."). It's like you're trying to purposely enrage people who read the book. Yeah, yeah, no one likes a downer ending in a kids' movie, but guess what? It's not a kids' movie any more than it is a kids' book. Mature themes abound. Stick to your guns or go home.
Grr. Don't mind me. I really did like the movie. I just hate squandered potential.
The Golden Compass - Short Form: A good movie with above par action and acting, that is limited by its story in a very significant way. Also, armored bears! (RAWR!, etc.)
This movie is an object lesson that shows that the eternal debate on whether movies are better/worse than the books that they're based on is utterly useless. Because this movie is a near perfect retelling of the book (Or more accurately, all of the book but the ending. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.) and it is completely hamstrung as a movie because of that.
I would go so far as to say that it's one of the most faithful adaptation of a book into a movie that I've ever seen. Virtually nothing is changed, good or bad, from exactly how the entire plot is presented in the book. When the book had extended scenes of pure exposition, the movie paused the action to have some old British people yammer on for a while. When the book introduced the mythology of witches out of the utter blue without explanation or reason, so went the movie. When the book freaking rips off the jaw of an armored bear and then snaps its neck... well you see where I'm going with this. (Aside: As soon as I realized that they were following the book so closely, I could not wait for the bear fighting scene. And I was not disappointed. That was awesome.)
What I'm getting at, is that book purists should be theoretically thrilled by the adaptation. With the exception of a copy/replace job on every instance of "Church" with "Authority," very little was excised from the meat of the book. Only the flow of the movie suffers - to save time (not a long movie by any means) they often cut from pivotal scene A to pivotal scene B without resolving how they got from A to B. The director never lets the story down to save on length.
But the problem is, the story doesn't translate overly well into a movie. Yes, the action is extraordinarily well done and thrilling, but the whole story has too much of a measured pace and far too much required backstory to be super effective. The book worked because it had time to set up the idea of daemons and the rules involved, and then to build up the world and the mythology around the alternate timeline. The movie has no such luxury - resorting to condensed character traits in single lines of dialogue, clunky expository speeches in place of long conversations, and bizarre announcements of intent. It all just comes off as awkward.
The worst example of this is the entrance of the witch, who literally seems to serve no purpose to the story whatsoever except to act as a deus ex machina device for the ending. And while it sort of is in the book as well, the witches perform a larger function in the book (keying in on the prophecy - the one thing that was cut from the movie that it really could have used), which makes their use less egregious in book form. In the movie it was akin to having a wizard appear midway through your plot for no other reason than the fact that you'll need some magical reinforcements in about 20 minutes.
Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, but it could have been much better had they took a cue from other really successful adaptations (e.g. the Lord of the Rings writers) and how they adapted the sources to fit their needs. Because really, the LotR books are a perfect example of an awesome story that would be terrible in movie form.
Follow along: In the book version of Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo's decision to leave his home and go on to Rivendale on his little ring adventure is about 8 months long, both in planning and execution, with liberal stops along the way to meet magical creatures and get eaten by old trees. It would be utterly boring to watch that play out on a screen, despite how nice a travelogue and expository device it was to set you up in the mythology.
So what did the writers do? Cut all the dithering about and made it compelling to watch: race against time to escape dark riders, picking up friends as they go along, taking up maybe a week of total time, most of which is entirely offscreen.
Similarly in the case of The Golden Compass, I think it could have easily been adapted in a similar manner. Take some liberties with the source material to make it flow better. Don't be afraid to cut a scene or two of exposition to make time for other scenes to end naturally before jumping to the next item on the list. Fill in the exposition naturally with reasonable asides in those scenes, and trust the audience not to miss things. Done properly (like in LotR) literary purists won't whine (too much) and your movie benefits by being more cohesive.
Or alternatively - since you planned on pissing off the purists anyways by ending the movie TWO CHAPTERS BEFORE THE END OF THE BOOK, why even care to follow the story so closely?
Seriously, the ending is the best part of the book! (Bear fighting excluded, obviously) You even put the goddamn foreshadowing of the end right there in the movie ("It says I'm bringing him what he needs."). It's like you're trying to purposely enrage people who read the book. Yeah, yeah, no one likes a downer ending in a kids' movie, but guess what? It's not a kids' movie any more than it is a kids' book. Mature themes abound. Stick to your guns or go home.
Grr. Don't mind me. I really did like the movie. I just hate squandered potential.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Pitfalls of Rationalization
Items I want to talk about but are too short for their own entry:
So my computer monitor is in the final stage of its life, like a dying red giant star seconds before collapsing into supernova (Note: Please do not email me to correct my astronomy. I do not care that my science has failed me. Blame the public school system.).
It now takes well over 10 minutes to display anything after turning it on, and takes another 15 minutes after display for the picture to actually settle into a normal viewable image (as opposed to a shaky wavering mess).
Considering the little guy is now over 2 years old and was the cheapest LCD monitor on the planet when I bought him, I think I ended up getting my money's worth. And I mean that literally, it was the cheapest flat screen monitor I could find anywhere. I bet I got a better deal on that thing than I would have if I had bought something out of the back of a guy's van in the bad part of town.
But that's what happens when your brain works like mine: You have a predetermined budget for a new computer. If you get rid of a) a printer, b) a warranty, and c) a remotely decent monitor, you can get yourself a pretty nice actual computer. Granted it's surrounded by empty space and a piece of junk display, but oh the computer itself is fancy.
Anyways. So now I've got to get a new monitor. Which immediately (also only in my brain) means that I need to get a whole new computer. Because really they're a set, right? You can't get one without the other.
Actually, it turns out this is not true. You are able to purchase monitors independently of computers, particularly when your computer is actually still running very well. It just takes a lot of convincing inside my mind. Because seriously, new computers are so shiny nowadays. All dual cores and wild computing power and enough RAM to run every program on my current computer all at one time.
But considering my previous mandate to "never buy anything again" after I got the new car, along with the state of my work industry, which is bouncing back and forth daily between "Bad" and "Job-Threateningly Horrendous," I was able to talk myself down from a new computer purchase. The monitor, however, is a requirement.
The real news, though, is that it turns out that rationalizing myself all the way down from a huge new expensive computer to only buying a monitor allows my conscience to guilt-free upgrade to a decent monitor, AND a reasonable video card to go along with it. In my brain, the saving from not buying a whole new computer offset the upgrade costs.
I never even thought of that as a rationalization exercise. I fear for my wallet now with these new-found powers. But man, am I ever looking forward to my new swank 22" widescreen monitor. It's gonna be sweet.
- My office building had to disable the thermostat in my office because it was sending faulty signals to the center of our floor, resulting in +80 degree temperatures in some other offices. So now everywhere else in the building the temperature is perfect, and it's about 60 degrees in my office. This is not my beautiful life.
- Am I the only person in world who finds that new T-Mobile commercial absolutely hilarious? The one where the guy keeps obsessively re-recording his voicemail to a girl he just met? Seriously, I crack up every time I see it. This is the second T-Mobile commercial I've loved. I think something is seriously wrong with me.
- My Christmas drive kicked in at least a week too early this year. I'm totally spent on Christmas, and we're still 12 days out. I blame my awesome Christmas Mix CD, which I busted out the day after Thanksgiving. I'm completely ruined for the holidays now. (I'm almost entirely finished with my shopping though. That's awesome at least.)
- Also, sweet unholy damn, I am in the best mood this week.
So my computer monitor is in the final stage of its life, like a dying red giant star seconds before collapsing into supernova (Note: Please do not email me to correct my astronomy. I do not care that my science has failed me. Blame the public school system.).
It now takes well over 10 minutes to display anything after turning it on, and takes another 15 minutes after display for the picture to actually settle into a normal viewable image (as opposed to a shaky wavering mess).
Considering the little guy is now over 2 years old and was the cheapest LCD monitor on the planet when I bought him, I think I ended up getting my money's worth. And I mean that literally, it was the cheapest flat screen monitor I could find anywhere. I bet I got a better deal on that thing than I would have if I had bought something out of the back of a guy's van in the bad part of town.
But that's what happens when your brain works like mine: You have a predetermined budget for a new computer. If you get rid of a) a printer, b) a warranty, and c) a remotely decent monitor, you can get yourself a pretty nice actual computer. Granted it's surrounded by empty space and a piece of junk display, but oh the computer itself is fancy.
Anyways. So now I've got to get a new monitor. Which immediately (also only in my brain) means that I need to get a whole new computer. Because really they're a set, right? You can't get one without the other.
Actually, it turns out this is not true. You are able to purchase monitors independently of computers, particularly when your computer is actually still running very well. It just takes a lot of convincing inside my mind. Because seriously, new computers are so shiny nowadays. All dual cores and wild computing power and enough RAM to run every program on my current computer all at one time.
But considering my previous mandate to "never buy anything again" after I got the new car, along with the state of my work industry, which is bouncing back and forth daily between "Bad" and "Job-Threateningly Horrendous," I was able to talk myself down from a new computer purchase. The monitor, however, is a requirement.
The real news, though, is that it turns out that rationalizing myself all the way down from a huge new expensive computer to only buying a monitor allows my conscience to guilt-free upgrade to a decent monitor, AND a reasonable video card to go along with it. In my brain, the saving from not buying a whole new computer offset the upgrade costs.
I never even thought of that as a rationalization exercise. I fear for my wallet now with these new-found powers. But man, am I ever looking forward to my new swank 22" widescreen monitor. It's gonna be sweet.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
This Just In - My Soul Crushed. More at 11.
w00t crowned word of the year by dictionary
There are no words to express my feelings, you guys.
Wait, that's a lie. I have tons of words. And more importantly, they're actually WORDS. Not a random combination of letters and numbers that some illiterate fool made up. Ugh.
I'm not saying that you can't use the word. In fact, I don't mind the occasional 'woot' in the proper context (the online world). I'm pretty laid back on slang in instant messenger, or in games. Heck even in blogs it's fine (e.g. my liberal and annoying use of "ain't" and "y'all" throughout every entry I've ever posted). The purpose of language is to convey meaning in the clearest way possible. If your audience responds better to something informal and familiar, it's perfectly fine to use.
But Merriam-Webster does not need to be condoning such things, dammit. I don't care if you want publicity. You're dumbing down the actual rules of language for no reason whatsoever.
Look what you just did, you made me write in all caps. I hate caps. Shouting on the Internet is just rude. But I am left with no alternatives. Let's break it down:
woot = four characters
w007 = four characters (that make no sense)
And to top it all off, if you read between the lines of what he's saying, it sounds like he's insinuating that the thing I hate most in the world is becoming acceptable. Namely "4" being the equivalent of "for" and "u" allowable for "you." It will be cold day in hell before I allow this to happen. I will wage war on all the 14 year-olds in the world, by myself if necessary.
Grammar rage, y'all.
God, it's that whole IDK MY BFF JILL? thing all over again.
Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster Inc. said "w00t" — typically spelled with two zeros — reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.
There are no words to express my feelings, you guys.
Wait, that's a lie. I have tons of words. And more importantly, they're actually WORDS. Not a random combination of letters and numbers that some illiterate fool made up. Ugh.
I'm not saying that you can't use the word. In fact, I don't mind the occasional 'woot' in the proper context (the online world). I'm pretty laid back on slang in instant messenger, or in games. Heck even in blogs it's fine (e.g. my liberal and annoying use of "ain't" and "y'all" throughout every entry I've ever posted). The purpose of language is to convey meaning in the clearest way possible. If your audience responds better to something informal and familiar, it's perfectly fine to use.
But Merriam-Webster does not need to be condoning such things, dammit. I don't care if you want publicity. You're dumbing down the actual rules of language for no reason whatsoever.
Merriam-Webster President John Morse said "w00t" reflected the growing use of numeric keyboards to type words. "People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A," he said. "This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character."Um hi, Mr. President of Dictionaries? You know what is a more efficient way of representing an alphabetical character than using a number? USING THE ACTUAL CHARACTER.
Look what you just did, you made me write in all caps. I hate caps. Shouting on the Internet is just rude. But I am left with no alternatives. Let's break it down:
woot = four characters
w007 = four characters (that make no sense)
And to top it all off, if you read between the lines of what he's saying, it sounds like he's insinuating that the thing I hate most in the world is becoming acceptable. Namely "4" being the equivalent of "for" and "u" allowable for "you." It will be cold day in hell before I allow this to happen. I will wage war on all the 14 year-olds in the world, by myself if necessary.
Grammar rage, y'all.
God, it's that whole IDK MY BFF JILL? thing all over again.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Epic Movie Blog
Is it really December already? Sheesh, this year went by fast.
Okay, so every year I do a breakdown wherein I arbitrarily rank all the movies I've seen, from worst to best. The rules are really easy: it must have been released in 2007 (either straight to DVD or in theatres), and I have to have seen at least 90% of the movie.
I call it arbitrary because I can look back at my old reviews I did during the year and I've utterly hated on movies that I have under the Really Good category now, and had only good things to say about movies that are in the Dislike pile now. What can I say, I'm a very fickle person.
But man, I just did not watch any movies this year. I blame two things: the fact that I got rid of my Blockbuster pass after they took away half of my movie borrowing power while charging me the same price, and my purchase of a new car which required cutting my entertainment budget wildly, to the tune of 75%. Almost all of which was in movie tickets.
I'd say I'm at about half the number of movies that I usually see, and there's a huge emphasis on movies released the first half of the year. I'm so far behind the pop culture curve it's sad.
With all that said, let's go to the list. As always, we have 5 categories for movies: Hate, Dislike, Meh, Good, and Great.
Movies that I Actively Hate
43. The Invisible (What did we learn? Never go see a movie based solely on the hotness of the lead actor)
42. License to Wed (Office Jim, no! Mandy Moore, noooo!)
41. Spider-Man 3 (From the best superhero movie ever to utter soap opera garbage in one sequel. Impressive.)
Movies that I Only Dislike
40. The Hitcher
39. Gray Matters
38. Shrek the Third
Movies I Don't Dislike But Don't Recommend Either
37. Reno 911!: Miami
36. Because I Said So (Man, really not a good year for Mandy Moore.)
35. The Messengers
34. 300
33. Disturbia
32. The Number 23 (Biggest drop, from feelings just after watching until now.)
31. Beowulf (Needs more time to fester in my mind. Should probably be higher.)
Movies That Were Good
30. Year of the Dog (Biggest jump. This movie really grew on me over time.)
29. Blades of Glory
28. Music and Lyrics (Most bizarre placement. Did I really like this movie that much? Apparently, as I can't in good faith move it down any more.)
27. The Simpsons Movie
26. Hairspray
25. Sydney White (Amanda Bynes, why do you do this to me? Should probably be lower. In fact, I hereby reserve the right to go back and edit this down about 5 places when I come to my senses.)
24. August Rush
23. Black Snake Moan (Cinematography and a hot Christina Ricci count for a lot, apparently.)
22. 1408
21. Dan in Real Life
20. The Golden Compass
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
18. Knocked Up
17. Superbad (I assume. I only saw maybe 85% of it, but I laughed uncontrollably throughout what I saw. Hopefully it ended well, otherwise I'll look quite the fool.)
16. Enchanted
Movies That Were Excellent
15. Breach (So this year...)
14. Michael Clayton (I was really into...)
13. The Lookout (quiet character study movies, in a big way.)
12. The Brave One (And also, shooting punks in the face.)
11. Sweeney Todd
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
9. Zodiac
8. Lars and the Real Girl (So high, right? I know! It's inexplicable.)
7. Sunshine (Sci-fi and hot guys represent!)
6. Ratatouille
5. Waitress
4. Once
3. Atonement
2. Juno
1. Stardust
Sweet damn, how lopsided is that list? At first glance it looks like a really good year for movies, but far more likely is that I didn't have the luxury of renting a million and one bad movies from Blockbuster to pad out the bottom of the list. And when I did go to the theatre, it was for a movie I was pretty damn sure I would like, as I had to maximize my movie-going dollar.
The ratio will probably only get worse too, as I've come up with my Oscar-bait movie list that I need to see in the last three weeks of the year, and it's chock full of movies that are supposed to be actively amazing. Not that anyone will care, but I'll keep the list updated as the month goes on.
Gosh, where has all my cynicism gone? It's like I don't even know who I am anymore.
Okay, so every year I do a breakdown wherein I arbitrarily rank all the movies I've seen, from worst to best. The rules are really easy: it must have been released in 2007 (either straight to DVD or in theatres), and I have to have seen at least 90% of the movie.
I call it arbitrary because I can look back at my old reviews I did during the year and I've utterly hated on movies that I have under the Really Good category now, and had only good things to say about movies that are in the Dislike pile now. What can I say, I'm a very fickle person.
But man, I just did not watch any movies this year. I blame two things: the fact that I got rid of my Blockbuster pass after they took away half of my movie borrowing power while charging me the same price, and my purchase of a new car which required cutting my entertainment budget wildly, to the tune of 75%. Almost all of which was in movie tickets.
I'd say I'm at about half the number of movies that I usually see, and there's a huge emphasis on movies released the first half of the year. I'm so far behind the pop culture curve it's sad.
With all that said, let's go to the list. As always, we have 5 categories for movies: Hate, Dislike, Meh, Good, and Great.
Movies that I Actively Hate
43. The Invisible (What did we learn? Never go see a movie based solely on the hotness of the lead actor)
42. License to Wed (Office Jim, no! Mandy Moore, noooo!)
41. Spider-Man 3 (From the best superhero movie ever to utter soap opera garbage in one sequel. Impressive.)
Movies that I Only Dislike
40. The Hitcher
39. Gray Matters
38. Shrek the Third
Movies I Don't Dislike But Don't Recommend Either
37. Reno 911!: Miami
36. Because I Said So (Man, really not a good year for Mandy Moore.)
35. The Messengers
34. 300
33. Disturbia
32. The Number 23 (Biggest drop, from feelings just after watching until now.)
31. Beowulf (Needs more time to fester in my mind. Should probably be higher.)
Movies That Were Good
30. Year of the Dog (Biggest jump. This movie really grew on me over time.)
29. Blades of Glory
28. Music and Lyrics (Most bizarre placement. Did I really like this movie that much? Apparently, as I can't in good faith move it down any more.)
27. The Simpsons Movie
26. Hairspray
25. Sydney White (Amanda Bynes, why do you do this to me? Should probably be lower. In fact, I hereby reserve the right to go back and edit this down about 5 places when I come to my senses.)
24. August Rush
23. Black Snake Moan (Cinematography and a hot Christina Ricci count for a lot, apparently.)
22. 1408
21. Dan in Real Life
20. The Golden Compass
19. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
18. Knocked Up
17. Superbad (I assume. I only saw maybe 85% of it, but I laughed uncontrollably throughout what I saw. Hopefully it ended well, otherwise I'll look quite the fool.)
16. Enchanted
Movies That Were Excellent
15. Breach (So this year...)
14. Michael Clayton (I was really into...)
13. The Lookout (quiet character study movies, in a big way.)
12. The Brave One (And also, shooting punks in the face.)
11. Sweeney Todd
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
9. Zodiac
8. Lars and the Real Girl (So high, right? I know! It's inexplicable.)
7. Sunshine (Sci-fi and hot guys represent!)
6. Ratatouille
5. Waitress
4. Once
3. Atonement
2. Juno
1. Stardust
Sweet damn, how lopsided is that list? At first glance it looks like a really good year for movies, but far more likely is that I didn't have the luxury of renting a million and one bad movies from Blockbuster to pad out the bottom of the list. And when I did go to the theatre, it was for a movie I was pretty damn sure I would like, as I had to maximize my movie-going dollar.
The ratio will probably only get worse too, as I've come up with my Oscar-bait movie list that I need to see in the last three weeks of the year, and it's chock full of movies that are supposed to be actively amazing. Not that anyone will care, but I'll keep the list updated as the month goes on.
Gosh, where has all my cynicism gone? It's like I don't even know who I am anymore.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Christmas Link o' the Day
God, what a day.
But in lieu of ranting, instead of getting mad we're going to get awesome instead. It's the Christmas Season, dammit.
In that spirit: FlakeOMatic, the easiest way to lose an hour of your life by reliving your gay childhood in arts and crafts.
But in lieu of ranting, instead of getting mad we're going to get awesome instead. It's the Christmas Season, dammit.
In that spirit: FlakeOMatic, the easiest way to lose an hour of your life by reliving your gay childhood in arts and crafts.
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