Movies/TV

Back in the good old days.. Way back. I'm talking 95-96.. When I used to live stateside North America, I was introduced to a lot of things. Among these droplets of gold, counting Dr. Pepper, PB and Js and Twizzlers, was Star Trek. Now, I had heard of the show before coming over, sure. But I hadn't in fact ever really seen it. I remember making fun of a guy in my school because he was into Star Trek at the time. Oddly enough, I hadn't ever seen it, nor did I really know what it was. All I knew was, people who were into it were counted as some of the geekiest people on planet earth.

So when I found out that the matriarch of the family I was going to live in in trusty old United Bluff was two tricorders short of a trekkie, I was a little worried. Little did I know, that the lurking geekness in me would soon be revealed. Because I did in fact realize that Star Trek is one helluva fine show. Sure, it's outdated (most of them), and the odd episode can be too damn corny. But overall it's just dandy.

So, over the years, I've made it a point to watch all of Star Trek.. all series, seasons and episodes. I've had Voyager around for quite some time, but never had the chance to watch it. Voyager was my host-mom's favorite Star Trek series, mainly due to the fact, I'd guess, that it had a female lead, as opposed to the largely popular Captain Jean-Luc Picard of The Next Generation fame. Captain Janeway wasn't liked by as many trekkies, because.. a woman as a captain? What will be next? But she gained popularity as the seasons progressed, and Voyager is regarded as a good a show as the rest, I'd dare say.

I've watched 6 episodes now, and I still like the show. I know, 6 ain't a whole lot. But it takes time getting into things, and since I do have 140 episodes give or take to go, I'd say easing in to it, is key. I watched TNG with an old roomie a few years back, but I guess I'll have to watch that again too. My agenda now, tho, is Voyager, DS9, Enterprise, TNG and then The Animated Series, a rare version of the original show, that was voiced, largely, by the original cast, but still fell out of canon because of some small technicality.

Yes, perhaps I'm a geek. But geek or no geek, Star Trek still carries a lot of punch. And it's a damned good ride, while you're on it. Two thumbs straight the hell up!

Brief update on my recent doings around these parts. Can't say it's terribly interesting, but what the hey... it's good enough for this blog, so it'll be good enough for you, thank you very much Mr. High and "I've got something interesting to say everyday" Mighty. Where's your blog then? No? Not so largemouthed now, are we?

Aaaaanyhoo, last week might possibly have been the slowest and most dreadful week of me life. It was insanely dull and boring, and generally just a huge pile of salamander feces to traverse. I managed as usual by my quick wit and runny mind, to get through it, but it was hard, folks, lemme tell ya. Work is about as much fun as walking around in waist high sewage, and no less vomit inducing. And my sparetime is mostly spent messing with the server and stuff. Good ole mgb has put me on to music player deamon - a program running on eg. a server. It sets up a webbased and network enabled streaming possibility for your music, meaning you can listen to it through any browser any place in the world. Also, you can use one of many media players to access your music across the network at home. It's nifty, and it's something I'm gonna be utilizing soon. Being able to listen to my own music while at work or anywhere, really, through any old browser, is pretty damn cool.

Gonna set up some wireless at home in the not so distant future. As soon as I have the cash to shell out for an access point and a PCMCIA wireless card for me laptop. Neither are expenssive purchases by any means, but still it's money out of the budget. Ranc recently announced the arrival in our home, of 1gbit switches. So we're gonna install them at some point. "Install a switch? Isn't it just a matter of switching them, as it were, with the old ones?" you might very well be inquiring at this point. Of course, I've no chance in hell actually hearing you or react to that question unless you email it to me. BUT, since I'm a pretty brilliant guy, I've gone pro-active on your rear end, and anticipated you pondering this very thing. And yes, yes it is just a matter of performing a simple switch. But you have to consider who you're dealing with now. Ranc and I are pretty notorious in our ways, when it comes to doing stuff pertaining to crawling around underneath the table, with wires and stuff. Also, it'd mean going offline for X amount of minutes. And nobody likes offlinetime. But yeah, we'll give it a go, and see how fast stuff is transferred... at some point.

This weekend I was with mum in her summer residence. Was nice enough to get away for a day and just kick back. Weather was pretty nice, sun being it's usual shiny self, but not too hot. We watched the entire Season 10 of Friends, which neither of us had seen yet. I had, through various channels, learned that Rachel and Ross eventually made up, but it was still nice to see. Yeah I know, I'm a sentimental mofo when it comes to my Friends. But it's been 10 years in the company of these 6 quirky NYC pals, and it's hard not to take a sympathetic point of view regarding Rachel and Ross' off and on relationship. Of course we had to finish off with the classic get-off-the-plane stint, but it was nice.. it was good. At least I've seen all the 10 seasons now. S10 wasn't my fav season by far, but it had a lot of the classic laugh out loud moments, so enjoyable overall.

Also, I acquired, from mum, the 7th, and so far final, installment of the Harry Potter series of books. Read 150 pages or so that day, and another 120 at home last night. It's a pretty decent read, something I've been looking forward to for some time. Not being a fanatic, I couldn't be arsed shelling out 300 bigones for a book on opening night, so getting it now and reading it quietly will do me just fine.

Right... that's about it. Interesting, huh? You got to hear about wireless stuff, servers, Harry Potter and Friends. Even the least adamant of readers won't be able to say no to a blog post like this. It's what dreams are made of, folks... dreams are made of. Until next time, keep your pants dry.

I went to see Transformers the other day, with Louiszche. She'd seen it 4 times already (wasn't it 4?), and was still pretty psyched apparently in deepest awe of Optimus P and his host of former trannies. Anyway, I had declined on seeing it a few times, but thought wtf... I don't get out anyway, and apparently it's getting somewhat decent reviews. I'm not a Michael Bay fan by any measure, only really liking Armageddon because Bruce W and a few other cool people are in it, and of course The Rock, because it's just a fucking amazing piece of action. Besides those, Michael Bay is fairly annoying. He looks like a German daytime television star for crying out loud.

Oh well. The Transformers was a decent enough flick. I'll split my brief review into two sections: visuals and content.

• Visuals; let me say, right off the bat, that this flick is one of the most amazingly crafted visually stunning movies I've seen. The cg bots were picture perfect. Animations detailed and flawless, colorful, fast and seemless. It was very stunning, and it made the geek in me cry out in sheer happiness.
• Content; I wasn't impressed. The actors did an ok job. Shia Labeouf was ok, altho he wasn't believable as the nerdy guy who wouldn't be able to get a date or get noticed. And what's her face, Megan Fox didn't pull the bad-girl-turned-good role off very well either. Most of the characters came off as comic reliefs, with the usually exceptional John Turturro in the lead. His Agent from Section 7 was just laughable, and not in the good way. Many sort of childish jokes and lame situations were stuffed in between amazing visuals, overall pulling the film off somewhat nicely. Oh yeah, and what's with the fucking aussie chick? She annoyed the hell out of me, with what sounded like a lame faked australian accent.

So yeah... I was both impressed and let down by the movie. It's crisp to the look tho, and I suspect that after I've gotten an HDTV with an HD-DVD player for the release of the Ultimate 300 Edition (GIVE THEM NOTHING BUT TAKE FROM THEM EVERYTHING).. I might grab Transformers in HD-DVD just so watch the bot-scenes over and over and over again in 1080 hi def. That's how fucking amazing it looked... and perhaps a few scenes involving Megan Fox, but don't tell anyone I said that. No really, don't tell. It's important to me.

Interesting fact: Dalif has only ever gone to that pesky bathroom during two movies he's watched in a movie theater. Both movies were Bruce Willis flicks. And it was the same theater both times. Coincidence? Hardly. Bruce just makes me have to go weewee. I hate going out on a flick, but I'd rather spend a minute going to take a piss, than have to share attention between a full bladder and the movie.

Besides me having to be in absentia for about a full minute (I went when Bruce was flying the chopper from the powerplant), the movie absolutely positively ruled. Granted, it was totally far out over the top and without so much as a shred of even attempting believability. But we don't give a fuck about that. It's Bruce, it's Die Hard, it's all out action for 2 hours. And boy was there action. Explosions, shootings and Bruce with a blood covered shirt. It's just like in the good old days. I loved it. Laughs, thrills and macho through and through.

I'm not really gonna go into details about plot, composition or any technical stuff like that. We all know what this is. Bruce was... well his performance is vintage Bruce. He basically wrote the book on the cocky, tough as hell, take no shit from anyone character. And he plays McClane to perfection. Easily the coolest movie character of all time. And his daughter wasn't all that bad (altho I'd never dare ask her out... Bruce'd beat me to death). Justin Long did a swell job as the nerdy Matt.

This movie has a lot of high tech stuff, and as always it's geared up for the big screen. So doing anything they'd like is as easy as pressing random buttons on a keyboard. However, as opposed to other movies (like Swordfish), this movie did portray the hacking population a little better than usual. Matt's dekstop is crowded with icons and his terminal is opaque, like a true geek'd have it :) And they do have some actual hacking displayed on screen.

Overall, it was 10 for 10. I didn't get a killcount.. lost track fairly fast. But it's got what it takes to be up there with any old flick you could toss at it. It's all about kickass, and it knows it. And that insight makes it a true gem.

I'm in love with this track. 'It's Just Like you Imagined' with Nine Inch Nails. It was used in the trailer for the movie 300 (which I've reviewed earlier on), and I dunno if it's the connotations that follows with being associated with that movie or if it's the sheer awesomeness of the song by itself, but I can't stop listening to it. It's totally captivating and enthralling. The composition, the images it creates, the harmony of whatever instruments. I can hear it on a loop for hours. Found the video today, and wanted to share it. First time I've seen this vid too.. it's kind of weird, but also cool in an artistic and absurd way.