Just saw a post on Boing Boing about a DIY aquarium where someone built a tube across a room to connect two normal aquariums. I saw something very similar several years ago in a 1988 Jackie Movie titled Dragons Forever. Yuen Biao’s character had a long tube running through a room in his house filled with water that fish were swimming through. Throughout the scene, you saw a total of about 20 of them, always going in the same direction. I wonder what happened to them once they reached the end.
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Some interesting documentaries. Some not.
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FormTextResizer is a bookmarklet that allows you to resize any textarea or text input on any webpage.
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Visualizing sorting algorithms using Java.
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Video conversion program that works with a multitude of formats.
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0xED is a native OS X hex editor based on the Cocoa framework.
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Companion utility to manage your Parallels virtual machines.
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Translated and annotated.
Wow! This is a must see movie. The opening scene in Uganda was awesome. It’s great to see parkour getting more lime light. It totally heightens the thrill of a foot race. Banlieue 13 (aka District 13) had a pretty cool parkour chase scene, but Casino Royale shows how much more intense it can be with a bigger budget.
But it really takes you back to the early days of Bond movies. Not quite as epic as the Connery ones that always ended in a huge secret underground base full of people in jump suits, but pretty darn close. No gimmicks. No giant laser beams shooting down to earth from satellites. No tanks. No blimps. No ejector seats. No rocket launchers hidden in the trunk of a car. No submersible cars. You get the picture… It gets back to the roots of what makes Bond so cool.
Basically, it’s just him and his wits. He’s newly assigned to double-oh status, and makes mistakes along the way. It’s refreshing to see a Bond that isn’t perfect. Daniel Craig can pull off the action. You’ll have to ask a lady if he can pull of the suave and debonair part. And just a warning for the guys; the movie takes a bit of a romantic turn. Basically, you get to see the more human side of James Bond. Also, there’s a particularly gruesome interrogation scene that might make you cringe. Oh, and with a title like “Casino Royale” there’s some poker involved. Texas Hold ‘Em, actually, which probably wasn’t the style of poker they played in the original book. But whatever.
I think I’m going to have to go see it again. I got so caught up in the moment at times, that I’d miss some dialogue and be lost for a short time.
If you liked the first Grudge movie, you might like The Grudge 2. I did like the first one, but I didn’t like this one. Yeah, it was creepy, much like the first, although I think the first pulled it off better (probably because it was still fresh). It was rated PG-13, and that’s about how it felt. I’d even go so far as to say it felt like a PG movie. I just didn’t find it scary, or suspenseful even. There were several of those “music builds-up, then silence, then a loud noise” moments that are meant to make you jump, but I found them pretty easy to spot before they started (i.e. where the girl is supposed to appear). The coolest one was probably in the journalist’s dark room.
I didn’t find the characters interesting at all either. They didn’t really do anything you wouldn’t have expected them to do. Again, I think the journalist was probably the most interesting.
Fans of the original will like it because they’ll get some loose ends tied up near the end of the movie. There’ll be a CSI-esque flashback ending that might answer a few questions.
I guess I just wasn’t in the right mood. I might be unfairly comparing it to the original Japanese movie, which received and R rating and was far better, in my opinion. It’s been a while since I’ve seen those.
So who am I? I’m a geek.
Officially, my given name is Robert, but I prefer to go by Bob. I’m half Irish and half German, but 100% Canadian. I was born in, raised, and am currently living in Regina, the capital of Saskatchewan. Having been born on October 12th, 1976, means I am now in my 30′s, and I can’t wait to see what that brings.
I’m a software programmer by trade. Having a father in the industry, I’ve been around computers practically all my life. I love problem solving and designing algorithms, and I get off on making computers do my bidding. My favourite platforms of choice are Mac OS and Unix, which means I think Mac OS X is the best operating system in the world. But I know the world needs Windows, too. I’m currently employed by a large federal corporation here in town.
I love movies and rarely find anything bad to say about them. My favourite kinds of movies are comedies, sci-fi, fantasy, and action. I’m a sucker for romantic comedies, but I also love a good Hong Kong shoot ‘em up. I have more DVDs than I’ll ever be able to watch (and now an ever-increasing collection of Blu-rays), and that’s A-OK with me. Some of my favourites are 12 Monkeys, Bean, Office Space, Dutch, Hudson Hawk, Galaxy Quest, Groundhog Day, Swordsman, and Sneakers. My favourite actors include Bruce Willis, Stephen Chow, Jackie Chan, Bill Murray, and Rowan Atkinson.
I don’t watch anywhere near as much TV now as I did in the 80s as a kid. I still love to watch my early childhood cartoons like Rocket Robin Hood, Spider-Man, The Mighty Hercules, Dungeons and Dragons, Gummi Bears, M.A.S.K., and so on. The best series, past or present, is Doctor Who, and I love every British comedy that has ever been written. Except for The Mighty Boosh; that stuff’s just plain weird.
Canadian Football is my favourite sport, the Riders are my favourite team, and I don’t watch NFL. I’ll watch hockey as long as it’s the playoffs or the Olympics, but will just as easily turn it off or turn to something else. I refuse to watch golf, baseball, and basketball, but I’ll watch soccer or rugby as it’s something different. Nascar is not a sport.
I used to carry my entire music collection with me on my iPod, but have since moved to an iPhone, requiring me to be a little more selection. In some respects, that’s OK, as my musical taste seems to have frozen sometime in 2002. My tastes vary wildly, but there are some artists and bands I can always trust to deliver like They Might Be Giants, R.E.M., Chemical Brothers, and FatBoy Slim. I don’t know if I’ll like something until I hear it, so I have a lot of one hit wonders and chart toppers (unless it’s hip hop or from the last 7 or 8 years). I also have a lot of soundtracks and scores from movies, tv shows, and video games that I’ve enjoyed over the years. Generally, I don’t like easy listening or jazz unless, of course, I’ve heard it and liked it. To sum up in as few words as possible, I’d say anything that I can tap my feet to.
I’d love to travel, but have never done anything about it. I prefer more temperate locales, as I hate being hot and sweaty. The UK and Scandinavia are my dream vacation spots, but I could probably convince myself to go anywhere if I worked at it hard enough. My biggest obstacle is food, as I have zero imagination or courage when it comes to experimenting with food. To me, meat and potatoes is not a stereotype, but a way of life.
I collect comic books, but rarely ever read them. Much like my movies, it’s more about the collecting, categorizing, sorting, organizing, and recording in a database, that I enjoy than the actual spoils.
Genealogy is my favourite hobby, but I don’t hang out in graveyards like some kind of devil worshipper.
I hate small talk, and would prefer silence instead of it. This is because I don’t read the news, I don’t listen to the news, and I don’t watch the news. Politics don’t interest me in the slightest bit, but I still vote when I’m told, usually for whoever I hate the least (I had a fleeting romance with Canadian politics recently, but that was abruptly quashed on election day). I was raised Roman Catholic, and went to Catholic schools, but I don’t go to church, I don’t pray, and to me the Pope is just a nice old man. In short, I’m an agnostic, but I still like to think there is or was a higher power at some point, at that there is something for us to do after we die, whether or not it’s heaven, because life seems short enough as it is. Basically, I know right from wrong, and that’s all I feel I need. That’s my own opinion, I don’t try to force it on others, and I have no problems with people having their own beliefs and opinions. I just wish they wouldn’t try to push it on others, or judge people because they’re different.
Carl King wrote a pretty good piece on what he calls the 10 Myths About Introverts that I think explains a lot about me.
Did I miss anything? Questions? Comments? Drop me a line.
Go Riders!