a life less interesting

Movies, courtesy of Rudi

2008-07-10T03:33:08Z

I was catching up on Rudi's recent activites and decided to give it a try: Seeing how many of the "100 greatest films of the past 25 years" I had personally seen.....

(Films I've seen in bold)
1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)

11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)

20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler's List (1993)
22. Rushmore (1998)
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
30. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996)
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999)
40. Speed (1994)

41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988)
46. Children of Men (2006)
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993)

51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
53. The Truman Show (1998)
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There's Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)

61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)

71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006)
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)

81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004)
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

I think some of those movies are odd choices, but I won't question others - "Evil Dead II" is a great movie, and very fairly deserves it's place on the list. I won't go into others (cough)"Titanic"(cough).

Of the 100, I've seen 54 (might have mis-counted), but I think thats respectable. More than a couple have been on my "to watch" list, but the details of getting a movie on that list - and by that I mean all the things that need to go right on the checklist of life - are too much to go into right now. Suffice it to say, there are plans to extend that list.

Actually, this brings to mind a project I'm trying to figure out how to do: cataloging every movie I've ever watched. EVER. More recent movies are easier to check off or catalog, but how am I supposed to remember if I saw "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo" or not? Let's face it, there were more than a few break-dancing movies back then, so who knows which one it was?

I guess that without actually going back and watching every movie I might have watched over again, I'll just have to guess somehow and hope that's enough. Since it's my project, it'll have to be. Some movies - like "Timerider" - really stand out for some reason. Others, like the afore-mentioned break dancing movie, blend together. I'll just have to do my best with it. I think I'm going to work out some kind of multi-media web based list - make it more visual. Perhaps a separate blog - that way I can add my comments to them.

Waste of time? Maybe. Duplicated elsewhere? Probably. But it will probably be more than a little fun (for me, anyway) to go through them and try to make an accurate list. And movies are probably easier to remember than all the books I've read.... Not sure why that is though. Stay tuned, I'll probably figure out a way to do this instead of "paying" work anyway......

Life with the thumbs

2008-06-29T14:40:57Z

So, I've had the iPod touch for about three weeks and the news is bad: I love it. I'm not sure how, but this thing has become pretty ingrained into my life already. That's not just fast - its crazy.

I didn't plan on putting that much music onto it - I already have a 30gb iPod and love that, so this would be a good supplement, especially since it's very PDA like in many ways. I managed to get this 8gb model by chance, but I'm very grateful for it. I had to resist using it for the first day - we were doing NSO presentations and it seemed like it might have been a little distracting.....

So, after I plugged in, charged up and configured, the first thing I did was to setup the email. For the .Mac account it was a snap - and so was the GMail and Yahoo! account - Apple was kind enough to to include account "wizards" for certain mail servers to speed things along. Nice. I had some issues with my hosted email and the SMTP server, by that turned out - at least partially - to be my fault by being overzealous with trying to set the specific ports. Ooooops.

Anyway, after getting the IMAP servers setup, things went pretty smoothly in the mail department. Safari is very similar to what I'm used to on the laptop, but the animations that it uses for pop-ups and new windows takes a little getting used to at first. Very nice.

One of the great things about it is the email - it's at my fingertips all the time. I normally loathe the Crackberry addicts, but I find that I'm starting to turn I to one despite myself. The ease of being able to swipe and tap an email to delete it, or even just being able to check my email from anywhere there's a WiFi signal - without having to drag out my laptop - is pretty freeing on a couple of levels. Considering that just about everywhere on campus has some sort of WiFi access, it means I can do work from just about anywhere. Good stuff.

One of the nicest features, hands down, is that I can add content to my calendar or my address book at any time. When I as at the doctors office the other day, they asked me to make an appointment for 6 months from now. Normally I drag the laptop out and put it in right there - otherwise, I get the little appointment card, then promptly loose it and forget about the appointment until about a week before. Not cool. With the laptop, I can add it, but that's cumbersome - especially since this office isn't exactly spacious. With the iPod Touch, I just switch to the calendar, add the appointment, and then don't worry about it until it pops up a reminder 3 days before, and then 1 hour before - and I've also got it set to SMS my cell phone to remind me in case I'm not at my desk when the computer tries to warn me.

With the roll-out of Apple's new "Mobile.Me" service, things will get even easier - instead of having to plug into the computer every few days to sync, everything will happen over the WiFi connection in the Touch and my laptop - and I'll be able to view and edit my calendar or address book from any computer connected to the internet. Time will tell if this is a good or bad thing - but I think it will be all good.

another day, another dollar

2008-06-25T22:42:03Z

It was just a very long, tiring day.

End of line.

life without wires.....

2008-06-20T12:15:48Z

Since I got this iPod Touch (detailed post forthcoming), I've suddenly become less computer dependent but more WiFi dependent. Right now I'm waiting for my chiropractor, using a random, WIDE OPEN access
point. So open, in fact, that the default username and password worked fine when I tried the admin login. It's rather sad, really.

Anyway, while having dinner with Noah and Abby last night, I rembrered that McDonalds has WiFi. Keeping in mind that this is America, they want money for it. Lucky for me they also partner with, among others, AT&T, for access. After a few minutes of thinking, I was able to remember my DSL credentials and actually get online. To load photos of the kids of the Internet. I'm not really sure why I had to, but suddenly the kids didn't care about the "Kung Fu Panda" action figures - they wanted to see their photos.

Technology: 1
Plastic toys: 0

Just for fun.....

2008-06-16T15:07:14Z

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

This is me, trying to stay awake while things happen around me. Joy.

Oh, and Skitch! is an interesting tool from plasq that allows you to do screen shots (or images captures right from your iSight or other camera), edit them, and the post them to the web. Right now I'm using their servers, but you can put it to flickr, .Mac (soon to be MobileMe), or right into your FTP account. It's pretty cool to play with, and I'm finding more things to do with it each day. Go check it out!

Snacktime

2008-06-11T11:18:10Z

Barenaked Ladies have a new album out: "Snacktime." As the name implies, it's geared toward kids, and from what I've heard of it, they do a good job pulling that off. I've seen a couple of their videos - which are animated in a sort of wacky, zany style - and have no trouble imaging my kids loving the songs and their videos. If you have iTunes, you can click on the "iTunes" button and go to the page in the iTMS for the album.

USPS being slightly less than helpful...

2008-06-01T16:09:59Z

I came home from Noah's baseball game yesterday to find a "Sorry we missed you" note from the fine folks at the USPS. It seems that someone is trying to send us a certified letter and no-one was home to sign for it. Now, for most people, the question becomes: who's sending us a certified letter? And even more importantly, why?

Did we inherit some money? Are we overdue on some bill? Is the town about to take our property and turn it into a park? Did my letter to the furnace maker have something close to the desired effect? Except for the last one, I'm not sure. The furnace maker actually had something in the mail that same day, telling me I was foolish for neglecting to include the serial number of our furnace. Silly me, thinking that if my name is the same as the one that paid for the dang thing, that they'd be able to look me up. But I digress.

The problem here is that I can go to the USPS website and track the certified letter - it's got it's own tracking number and everything. But when you go to the page, you learn more about the letter and where it's going than you do about where it's supposed to end up. While I can see that this would be useful for the sender, it seems that having even the city and state that it's coming from might also be helpful.

For the sender, to maybe make sure they entered the 20 digit tracking number in properly (especially since it can be hard to read the handwriting on the little slip).

For the recipient, to maybe give you a small clue as to who's trying to get in touch with you. Granted, something like "New York, NY" might not tell you much, but it's a little bit more than knowing that someone from somewhere is trying to send you some bits of paper and really wants to make sure you have it.

But that's just my thoughts on the matter.

Oh, and Noah's team won, in case you were wondering.

The boiler of DOOM....

2008-05-16T10:55:24Z

When we bought our house, 10 years and 8 months ago, we discovered that the boiler was rather old (40+ years - it was installed when the house was brand new) and needed to be replaced. Phone calls to various oil companies resulted in us sticking with the company that serviced the equipment for the previous owners, and we bought a nice, compact, efficient boiler to take it's place.

Now, 8 months outside of the "we'll replace it free" part of the warranty, the dang thing is leaking. The oil company points us to the manufacturer, since it's still "under their warranty" - and the warranty says that we have to pay a pro-rated amount for a new block and then installation by the oil company. To the tune of $1500+.

Now, I know King George wants me to take that "economic stimulus" payment, er, advance on next years taxes, and buy up a bunch of cheap, disposable electronics to help out the economy, but let's face it: at this point, I'll be spending it on keeping the hot water going in the house and gas for the car. I'm not an economist, but I don't really see how that's doing all that much to help the economy. But that's not the point.

Here we are, dealing with a leak in the boiler block. What's supposed to happen is that the water enters the block, which is heated by the rest of the boiler, and then it goes out down the pipes into the water tank and eventually out my taps. Instead what's happening is that there is a leak, so water - very very very very very hot water - is leaking out of the block and onto the floor. It's been doing that for a while apparently, because when I went to get something out of our second fridge, there was water on the side of it. The far side of the fridge from the boiler. Like, 15-20 feet from the boiler. F*#&$&#&#.

So, while I now wait for the manufacturer to get back to me about what, if anything they will do about extending our warranty, I ponder the pickle I find myself in. We've got kitty litter on the floor to soak up the excess water, and strict orders to the kids to avoid their lengthy, very hot showers. I cringe whenever the dishwasher or washing machine are used.

You'll note that I've avoided mentioning the name of the manufacturer. I'm doing that for two reasons - first I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and hoping that they'll do the right thing here. Second, I'm planning another post for after their decision. The reason for leaving the name out now is that there are certain keyword searches I've done to find out... that the problem we're having isn't a lone instance. It's actually a pretty big deal - like I called some dealers in Connecticut that sell and service their products, mentioned the model I had, and they were able to guess what problem I'm having. Like hundreds of pages found referencing the problem when I search Google. Like I'm just cranky as all get out about the whole thing.

So, un-named manufacturer, what will you do? The right thing? Or the one that saves you some money but loses you yet another customer? And gets yet another page on the internet bad mouthing your company and products? I know what I'm hoping for....

"The vanishing personal site"? Maybe, maybe not...

2008-05-08T11:54:03Z

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : The vanishing personal site

Our personal sites, once our primary points of online presence, are becoming sock drawers for displaced first-person content. We are witnessing the disappearance of the all-in-one, carefully designed personal site containing professional information, links, and brief bursts of frequently updated content to which others respond via comments. Did I say we are witnessing the traditional personal site's disappearance? That is inaccurate. We are the ones making our own sites disappear.

Now that's pretty darn insightful. Zeldman mentions Jody Ferry's site specifically, and it's a great example: a home page, and then links that take viewers OFF the site.

I've been posting more photos to Flickr than I have to my family galleries. I spend more time on FaceBook - mindless distraction that it is - than I do posting on my own site. And I just joined Twitter, for reasons that I don't know that I fully understand. To what end? I'm not sure.

I see his point - websites used to be all about capturing eyeballs and keeping them on your site. Then people started selling adverts, and it was even more important to keep those visitors coming in and staying in - or leaving through your adverts. Now, with the advent of all these more interesting services, and the ease with which they can be used, more people are just taking advantage of that ease and moving their content elsewhere. Why try to build your own photo gallery - or install someone else's - when you can just point people to your Flickr collection? Why post regularly when you can Twitter? Well, that's not quite the same, but it's similar.

I myself discovered del.icio.us and have all but stopped using the bookmark feature in my web browserS. Why? Part of it is the ease of having my bookmarks so easily available - especially from the multiple platforms and browsers. It's also a lot easier to find bookmarks when I need them - I tag everything going into del.icio.us, sometimes over-tagging them, but it's really easy to find stuff now - rather than spending 20 minutes trying to remember the name of a site, I go to the page for the tag that I believe is the right, and I usually have the link right there.

What does this all mean? I myself have been farming work out to others - and didn't think too much about doing it. Due to the nature of the internet, and the way my account is setup, my photos are public, my Twitters are public, and most of my bookmarks are public. Do I care? Well, sometimes I wonder if I'm sharing too much. But at the same time, I haven't done anything to lock down my family photo gallery - although it would be trivial to do so. I make an effort to keep my bookmarks private when it's not something I want shared with the public. I can do the same thing with my Flickr photos - and have done so in the past. Twitters, well, I guess that's more than a bit like this blog - I can, and do, self-censor. If I didn't, life might be more than a little awkward.

But where does it all lead?

Shaken and stirred...

2008-04-21T17:24:25Z

Driver of James Bond's Aston Martin cheated death - Telegraph

Commenting offline

2008-04-16T00:47:52Z

So, I've noticed that there hasn't been any comment spam on the site for a while - like since I made the change to MT 4.1. Upon trying to comment on something myself, I realized that there is a problem: you can't comment.

I'm trying to figure it out, and when it's working, then, well, you'll be able to comment.

Joy.

When you have a moment....

2008-04-04T18:45:37Z

There is a style contest going on at "Design to Inspire", sponsored by HP and TypePad/Vox/LiveJournal (aka SixApart). And I entered some designs:

Swimming Pool
Grater
Internets

If you have a minute - and you like them - would you mind terribly going and voting on them? Even if you don't like them, maybe stick around and vote on someone elses. There are some rather nice ones out there.

The new 'Star Trek' movie...

2008-03-29T02:00:09Z

Have you seen the trailer for "Star Trek" yet? Go watch it. Now. I'll wait.

Watched it? Good. It doesn't tell you much, sure. But it leaves so very much to the imagination. And it also makes you want to see it - right? I mean, there's people in that movie you've heard of, but you can't really imagine them as, for example, a young Kirk, right? And who could ever be Scotty? Oh, wait - that's right, it's Simon Pegg. You might know him from Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. If you haven't seen them, go check them out - "Shaun of the Dead" is a great sendup of zombie type movies, and "Hot Fuzz" is a brilliant homage of just about every single police movie ever made. And then some.

And, in case you forgot about where "Star Trek" started (a young man named William Shatner... ah, memories!), you can check all of the series and movies on DVD.

Not a good way to start the weekend...

2008-03-24T18:53:53Z

I was stopped at a stop light - 2nd in line. The car in front of me put their car into reverse - I didn't do anything. A second later, they were still in reverse - so I got ready to honk the horn in case they started to move backwards. Then they did start to reverse - so I laid into the horn. The woman driving started to look around - left, right - but still kept coming. The results are above.

She got out and apologized, explaining that she's lost and trying to get to the hospital to get her mother or something. Not really my concern, but whatever. I told her to turn the corner and pull over, since we were blocking the lane we were in. I got her info, and she was very emphatic about going to get her mother and dealing with this later. I told her we would talk later, and as she drove off, I called the police. A few minutes later, they were there, listened to my tale of woe, and took my and her info.

Since we had exchanged phone numbers, she called me twice - once to make sure she hadn't erased it, and the second time to find out why I had "lied" to her - by calling the police, I apparently broke some sort of promise between us. I don't remember that - I remember telling her that we would talk later. She was very upset and doing lots of yelling, so I didn't really understand what she was saying - except that she was apparently coming back to the scene.

When she did arrive, she came from down the road, and I didn't recall seeing her pull up. She glared at me as she walked by, and then went to the police officers. After a minute or two, the responding officer brought my paperwork and notes back, gave me my case number, and told me that she hadn't wanted to hang around because she was..... driving with a suspended license. At this point, I drove off - cranky, but able to move still, so happy for that - the last accident I had resulted in a car that I didn't really feel safe driving in.

Fast forward to today - four days later. After making a few calls, getting the insurance company's estimate, getting my own estimate, and making more calls, I got a voicemail this afternoon from my insurance agent. Their auto-accident person was calling me back - I had asked for help figuring out which of the many companies with the same name she was actually using for her insurance. It turns out she doesn't have insurance. Of course.

Now, look, I'm not saying that she didn't have to go get her mother or whatever. But if you're license is suspended, and you don't have insurance, DON'T DRIVE YOUR CAR. Simple, straightforward, and easy. With my last incident, I'm waiting for the insurance company to "subrogate" the claim - meaning that if they ever manage to get money from him, and we all know it will take more than a couple of weeks - then I'll eventually get my deductible back. Maybe.

AWESOME.

RIP, Arthur C. Clarke

2008-03-19T01:20:57Z

io9.com reports...
Arthur C. Clarke, Futurist and Scifi Legend, Dies
Arthur C. Clarke, author of scifi classics Rendezvous with Rama and 2001: A Space Odyssey, died today at the age of 90 in Sri Lanka. Not only did Clarke create a legend with 2001 (he worked on the film with Stanley Kubrick too), but he also predicted many of the scientific inventions of the twentieth century such as telecom satellites. He was even knighted in recognition of his many mind-bending contributions to the worlds of literature and science speculation. [LATimes]

What's most disturbing to me is that I was browsing some Wikipedia articles about his novels: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, 3001: The Final Odyssey) at about the time that io9 posted the story. Weird.

And did you know that he was among the first to posit the idea of a geostationary communications satellite?