Posts from 02/2005
I got a letter in the mail today saying that I've won the Spanish Lottery. Dios mio!
We watched The Forgotten with Julianne Moore this weekend. Though it had a few genuinely startling moments, it was not a spectacular movie. Good for a watch, but not particularly memorable after all is said and done. The DVD also has an alternate ending, half of which is better than the original ending, and half of which is utterly ridiculous.
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I've only heard two songs by the UK group, Kaiser Chiefs but they both suffer from the same disappointing lost potential. The group has a great sound and writes good intriguing verses, but they really suck at choruses, which are so repetitive that they make listening to the whole songs a chore.
Here is Exhibit A of catchy verse, from Oh My God:
And here is Exhibit B: the self-defeating repetitive chorus which makes the song annoying:
Simple choruses are great for singalongs, but surely someone could have come up with ABAB or ABAC rather than AAAA.
The second song of theirs I heard was I Predict A Riot which is a little more palatable:
And the dumb chorus, which at least has some semblance of consequent phrase:
Both songs also employ the jumbly-pitch rising effect, a la Day In the Life:
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I got two more people addicted to Alias. Apparently Rosie & Jason bought the first three seasons discounted on eBay from Hong Kong and watched the entire first season in just eight days.
Not much planned for the weekend -- just a little work and a little shopping. I need some new shoes pretty soon now, since the ones I got before moving to Florida are almost torn apart now.
Yesterday morning, while on my way to the grocery store, I passed a car warming up in front of someone's house. In the back seat, there was a man fervently cleaning his rear window with what looked to be the front page of the Washington Post. The vigor of his scrubbing was akin to scouring a bathtub when you have no Comet. And by the way, this story has no moral.
One British group that's currently pretty popular is The Streets, though I really don't understand what the big deal is. Take the guy from Cake, replace his band with synthesized drum beats and have him spout arhythmic prose with a British accent and you have The Streets. Maybe it sounds better when you're British, but to me it just sounds like a white boy with a speech impediment trying to rap. Here are some samples from the CD, A Grand Don't Come for Free on Amazon:
What do you think?
New JJ Abrams shows are on tonight.
Apparently someone is finally moving on the security clearance I submitted for a year ago -- my Florida friends are getting approached by watchful FBI investigators.
K (3:52:03): Mike just called me because the guy just called him too (I gave him his number) K (3:52:11): So what new job are you trying to get? Me (3:54:20): no new job Me (3:54:23): just a govt security clearance -- it takes about a year K (3:54:33): so you can do cool things in your current job? Me (3:54:38): yup K (3:54:39): ohhhh, I see K (3:54:43): this guy was kind of shady K (3:54:59): he wanted to meet in person and was asking if we could meet tomorrow and where K (3:55:07): I was like, how do I know you're who you say you are? K (3:55:19): so I told him I'd rather do the interview over the phone K (3:55:45): hard to explain - just the way he was speaking K (3:55:55): but anyway, there literally was nothing bad I could say about you Me (3:55:57): they are supposed to be trained to not display emotion in asking questions K (3:56:04): YES! he definitely did that K (3:56:16): zero emotion, even when I told him funny things K (3:56:55): he wanted to know who you worked for here, professor-wise K (3:57:34): when he asked me if you'd ever done illegal drugs or sold them, I almost started laughing K (3:57:51): he wanted to know if you were friends with any foreign nationals Me (3:57:57): Marta K (3:58:04): and if you belonged to any anti-american organizations Me (3:58:10): SCI at FSU K (3:58:14): and what your general patriotic mood was K (3:58:18): lol K (3:59:31): all kinds of stuff, 12 minutes of stuff Me (3:59:38): they should pay you K (3:59:56): he told me at the end of the interview that this is public record and that you can see it if you request to K (4:00:39): he asked about your financial stability Me (4:00:51): yeah, so no foreign govt can entice me to spy for money K (4:00:54): I told him you never took out loans because you lived off of your FGM summer fortune K (4:01:13): and that you shopped once a week in the early morning at Walmart to avoid the crowds K (4:02:25): it's hard to lie about you because there's nothing to lie about K (4:02:49): Mike and I were just saying that there's no person we can think of on this earth who we would trust more with govt security clearance than you Me (4:03:17): I actually post govt secrets daily, encoded on my website K (4:03:28): oooooooooh Me (4:03:37): if you enlarge the periods, it's a really tiny font with words in it K (4:03:45): Mike's next question was "how are we going to get Brian to tell us all the govt secrets?" |
Listening to the Scissor Sister's song, Return to Oz reminded me of the 1985 movie by the same name. Though it was a sequel in name to Wizard of Oz, it was much darker and easily one of the scarier movies ever billed as a kids' movie. The plot involved Dorothy escaping from a mental institution where they did electroshock therapy and returning to an Oz which has been destroyed for years. Everyone is turned to stone, and the land is overrun with Skeksies, psychedelic clowns with wheels for feet. There's also an evil witch who has a hallway of heads, where she goes to wear a different one every day.
As crazy as that summary sounds, this movie was actually closer to the Oz books than the original movie, and most of it is based directly on the writings of L. Frank Baum's thirteen book series. I read the books as a kid but they're no longer in print. Thankfully, they're fully online now.
Anyone else remember being scared of this movie as a kid?
Garden State was a good movie. Without a Paddle was predictably funny but a little slow and annoying. We've also started watching the second season of 24 which is off to a pretty good start. In other news, I've broken 260 gold in Warcraft auctions.
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I'm at the stage in my sickness-recovery where I feel fine but my throat is engaged in enharmonic phlegmaticism.
Don't forget to tune into ABC tonight to watch 78 minutes of good TV and 42 minutes of commercials.
Lost Episode 16 "Outlaws" Tonight: Kate and Sawyer divulge dark secrets to each other while tracking a renegade boar that Sawyer swears is purposely harassing him. Meanwhile, Hurley and Sayid worry that Charlie is losing it after his brush with death, and a shocking, prior connection between Sawyer and Jack is revealed.
Alias Episode 7 "Detente" Tonight: While Sydney and Nadia argue about Nadia's acceptance of Sloane's fatherly concerns, Sloane worries about Nadia's well-being when she and Sydney go undercover as wealthy, irresponsible young heiresses to uncover the whereabouts of a deadly chemical.
Loudoun County real estate assessment numbers should be coming out pretty soon. I moved to Sterling about a year ago and got in for around $300,000. There's a house on my court which was assessed at slightly less than mine in 2004, and it's now on the market, selling for $475,000. With numbers like that, I don't know how much longer the working class in my neighbourhood will stick around.
I finally watched Donnie Darko last night, the cult favourite that was released to little fanfare a few years ago and rereleased this week as a Director's Cut. It was a very interesting "figure it out yourself" movie and I see what was going on in it, but it would probably take me several more viewings to really understand the plot completely (if that's possible). Check it out if you like psychological thrillers and metaphysical topics like space-time paradoxes.
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Shark Tale had some funny moments, but was mostly inane. It was definitely no Finding Nemo. The Oscars are coming up soon, and it will easily lose the Animated Feature category to either one of the other competitors.
I guess this means it's time for my annual Oscar picks news posts, even though most of the movies I've seen recently are definitely not of Oscar quality.
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I haven't kept up with Oscars or movies much at all this part year, so my selections will be based completely on creative interpretations of anagrams of Nostradamus' propechies. Movies with dots next them are movies I've actually seen.
To Be Continued...
As you can see, I have not actually seen any of today's movies, making my predictions twice as valid.
To Be Continued...
To Be Continued...
Who will win? Who really cares?
As you can see, the accuracy of my Oscar picks is inversely related to how much effort I put into them. I didn't even watch the Oscars -- I just tuned in for the opening monologue and went to bed.
Regularly scheduled updates will resume tomorrow, as I have to run to the store to stock up on toilet paper and lantern batteries for tonight's snowstorm.
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