Don't let the Japanese scare you off, you can still play this game. Simply drag your cards on to the falling cards to create sequential runs (both backwards and forwards). It's a Speed type game, basically. Very fun!

I haven't seen the original movie upon which The Departed was based, so I can't give a comparison review, but this story about opposing cops and criminals who each have a mole within their midst was a good ride. We saw this with Brendan a couple of weeks ago with free tickets, so we didn't feel bad about the fact that it came out on DVD four days after we saw it. We actually sat in the ghetto side of the Fullerton AMC. It's been years!

Anyway, I'm not sure there is a lot to say about this movie. It's very entertaining, very well acted, obviously well directed, and the dialogue is sharp. Scorsese finally won his Oscar this past weekend, although this isn't the movie that should have done it for him. Honestly, they should have given him the Oscar in 2003 for Gangs of New York instead of Roman Polanski. GIY may not be everyone's favorite Scorsese film, but he was the best director that year, for a film that was all over the place from fights to love scenes to knife throwing scenes to riots to fires and more. In a way, I'm disappointed that Marty won this year, because it just means people felt sorry for him. He's a big man, and he can take it, and he's capable of continuing to make great movies, so I would rather have seen him lose and win later on for a more deserving picture.

That's not to say that The Departed is a bad movie. Actually, it's filled with excellent actors doing their thing well. I liked the casting choices a lot, and Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Mark Wahlberg are all awesome in their roles. The script's weakness, in my opinion, was that both moles were dating the same women. I can handle coincidences, but that one went a bit too far for my tastes. Even so, I tried suspending disbelief on that note and still enjoyed the movie. I loved that the script didn't always go where the audience expected it to, especially the way some of the characters meet their destinies. Unfortunately, Kevin and Bean had been talking about the movie a few days before I saw it, and they let out some major spoilers, so I wasn't very surprised by any of it.

In the end, good movie, well-made, not my Oscar pick for Scorsese, but I liked it quite a bit.

Now that the Oscars are over, I changed the poll. Just something fun I came up with. If you have any poll ideas, please post them in the comments. In case you are wondering, The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine tied with 8 votes each and The Queen got the remaining 6 votes.

Conservapedia's entry for dinosaur:

Some Christians reject the Theory of Evolution and the mainstream scientific consensus of the age of the earth. Of those Christians, the Young Earth Creationists believe, based primarily on Biblical evidences, but also drawing on archeological and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the Creation Week, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago; that they lived in the Garden of Eden in harmony with other animals, eating only plants; that pairs of various dinosaur baramins were taken onto Noah's Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning; that fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood; and that some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today.

Seriously? People think this? I know that some Christians still believe the earth was created a mere 6,000 years ago, but I never really considered the implication that dinosaurs would have had to live at the same time as humans.

If you're still a doubter after reading this factual information [insert heavy sarcasm here], check out the explanation for how Noah fit the dinosaurs on the ark.

I'm pleased to finally announce what I've been up to the last couple of weeks. It's my new business and it is called BrendoMan Productions. I had done some of this stuff when I was in college for my friends' bands, putting up their MP3's and creating pages for them on the now defunct MP3.com and other sites. I've continued to help out various bands (and our own label) with websites and other promotional services. Phil gave me the idea to really pursue this when we were at the DIY Convention earlier this month. While we were there we met a lot of independent artists and realized that a lot of them didn't have the time and/or knowledge to really develop an online presence. So that's what got the ball rolling. I really want to thank Phil for all his help in fleshing everything out. If you a musician or in a band and are looking for affordable online promotion, website design and hosting, and digital distribution solutions, be sure to check us out. You can also help get the word out by becoming our friend on MySpace.

That's right, all you Bostonians that read this blog...we will be visiting your fair city from March 23-27. We have a few unreasonable demands to put in place first, however:

1. Good weather. Preferably, yachting weather. We've never been, and unreasonably demand it.
2. A Yacht. We don't have one, so that makes yachting a bit difficult. If you provide us with one, we could make our dreams come true.
3. The cast of Cheers. If we make it all the way to Boston, we'd like to see the entire cast. But, we'd settle for just Norm, if the rest aren't available.
4. Admittance to Harvard. That's right. We want to actually be admitted to Harvard for the length of our visit. And from then forward, we will refer to ourselves as dual Harvard grads (get it? Harvard AND Harvard of the midwest? That's funny stuff, people).
5. Last but not least, we demand to throw some tea into the harbor. Real tea, not instant Nestea crap.

I tried pretty hard to incorporate as many Boston stereotypes as I could into a 5-itemed list. Our final demand is the only actual one we would like to have met (besides meeting Norm, obviously): please give us suggestions of what to do while there! Places to eat, things to see, etc., etc. Also, let us know if you are free that week--we are always up for visits!

~Kelly

This is one of a number of movies I've added to my queue recently because it's been mentioned by several fellow bloggers. I've really been enjoying watching a lot of foreign movies lately.

The story features a guy (I wouldn't call him a man, quite, because he has such childish ways) named Bruno, who is a petty thief for a living, often employing local boys to do the dirty-work and paying them a fair percentage. He and his girlfriend, Sonia, have their own way of life in the outskirts of a small Belgium town. They rotate between her apartment, a shelter, and a makeshift living space by the side of the road near a small river. They are in love, and seem to be taking on parenthood with an odd mixture of responsibility and immaturity: they wait in line to file official paperwork for the baby, while the baby lies in a baby stroller that also doubles as a "car seat" when it's sitting unsecured in the backseat of their rented convertible. Bruno, having been told how much money a baby can go for on the black market, decides to sell the baby while Sonia's waiting in line; when Sonia reacts like any mother would at the news, he tries to get back the baby. The only problem is that the black market is blackmailing him for backing out on the deal.

Bruno and Sonia are such an interesting couple, and it's great fun to watch them as the movie unfolds. They play games with each other and often seem to have no cares in the world, even though they have a baby along for the ride. They don't seem to worry about money because they can always thieve for it. Their lifestyle is odd to us as viewers, but somehow it's easy to accept as normal for them.

Director-writers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (whose other work I haven't seen) have a very unobtrusive presence, letting the action happen very naturally. We don't know what Bruno's thoughts are as Sonia brings the baby home to him, and we don't know what they are as he gives the baby away. But with the absence of a soundtrack or score, our imaginations are allowed to fill in what they might be, although that is more difficult for the type of audience that is likely watching this movie: people who probably can't relate to his way of thinking or his situation.

Okay, I'm pressed for time, so skip to the final scene. I won't say what it is, but it's extremely moving, showing us a transformation occurring in Bruno that began when one of his kid friends is caught for theft. What I like about Bruno is that, in the beginning of the film, one can sense that he is kind, fair, and intelligent, but doesn't apply those things to his life very well because of his immaturity, and as events progress, the dormant potential starts to be realized. It takes the presence of a small child to put him face-to-face with his wrongdoings and take responsibility, and ultimately seek redemption. What a nice little story. I liked it a lot.

Apparently, Wikipedia has been accused of having a liberal bias (along with anything else, I imagine, that fails to exclusively promote conservative, American, capitalist ideals). To balance things out, a group of people have created Conservapedia: the FOX News of user-edited online encyclopedias.

To start with, the site has a lengthy entry pointing out examples of bias in Wikipedia. Among the offenses are failing to credit Christianity with the Renaissance, using British spellings of words (a clearly anti-American bias), and including a lot of entries for songs by Moby.

Given the obvious liberal bias in Wikipedia, it's interesting to see what balanced information Conservapedia offers. Here are a few choice excerpts.

Democrat: "The official platform of the Democratic party emphasizes strengthening America. Right-wing critics claim, however, that the Democrat voting record reveals a true agenda of cowering to terrorism, treasonous anti-Americanism, and comtempt [sic] for America's founding principles such as freedom of religion."

George Washington: "Washington is perhaps the person other than Jesus who declined enormous worldly power, in Washington's case by voluntarily stepping aside as the ruler of a prosperous nation."

Unicorn: "The existence of unicorns is controversial. Secular opinion is that they are mythical. However, they are referred to in the Bible nine times, which provides an unimpeachable de facto argument for their once having been in existence." [This sounds too unbelievable--I think it may be a prank]

My personal favorite entry, though, has to be the one for Republican, the entirety of which is just five words: "The party of Abraham Lincoln."

As you can see, Daniel is very much on the move these days. In just a few weeks he's gone from barely pulling himself along the ground to pulling up on furniture, crawling, and now, even climbing up stairs.

Looks like everything is back in action. It appears that some emails might have gotten delayed, so if you have a brendoman.com email or forwarding address, sit tight. In other things, Cherry Coke Zero is really freaking awesome. That is all.

One of the classes I am taking right now is a Perl class. I am digging it. For my first set of labs, I put my scripts on our brendoman.com servers and they worked fine. Check it. Nothing exciting, really. Our second set of labs use the CGI.pm module (yeah, all you non-geeks can tune out now) and those scripts won't work here. No idea why. I would take the time to figure all that out with Dreamhost but I have a deadline so I dusted off the old Tripod account and uploaded them there. Tripod is actually pretty nice if you are doing Perl. You can edit your files right in the file manager, it sets the permissions for you, and it displays any errors in an easy to read format. The web pages you host there are litterd with ads, but not .pl files. So until I figure things out with Dreamhost, I'm sticking with Tripod. Check out my first form script here. Here's hoping I get an A.

This Slashdot article is crazy. It's only a matter of time before an armed automated module is created, stolen by or sold to someone, and we're discussing the "Great Voltron War of 2019." Seriously.

When I finally got on board with podcasts a little while back, one that I subscribed to was KEXP's Song of the Day. As the title suggests, it features a single song every day, usually from very obscure independent artists. I thought it would be a great way to discover new music. Most of the songs I could take or leave, but every once in a while I hear one that I love.

Thursday featured one of those songs. Micah P. Hinson's "She Don't Own Me" grabbed me from the first notes (I'm a sucker for banjo), and has just grown better with repeated listens. I found a site where you can preview four of his other songs. As soon as I have the money, I've got to buy that album.

DreamHost Status » Blog Archive » Planned Power Outage

We were just informed one hour ago from our building management that an emergency maintenance window is scheduled for this Saturday morning, February 24th, at 1AM PST. UPDATE! The building has just changed the window to be 23 hours later.. it is now scheduled for Sunday morning, February 25th, at 12:01AM PST. This maintenance window involves taking our entire building’s power off line for approximately 3 hours.

I'm pretty darn amazed at the crazy comments by some customers on this page. Yeah, Dreamhost has had some issues in the recent past, but this is totally out of their control. Also, it's three hours in the middle of the freaking night. Come on, people. I'm not losing any sleep over the fact that brendoman.com and all related sites will be down for thee hours on Sunday morning. Go to sleep or something. I know it will be hard for everyone, but I think we can work through this.

Hewitt is a pretty darn awesome point and click adventure. Reminds me of the old LucasArts games such as Day of the Tentacle or Monkey Island, but with an even geekier twist. Very nice.

via Download Squad

Roses – Outkast
Fragrance of Pink – Sarah Masen
The Sky Is Crying - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
What Sarah Said – Death Cab For Cutie
The Wanderer – U2 & Johnny Cash
Tracy Jacks – Blur
Rose of My Heart – Johnny Cash
Miracle on 42nd St. – The Flaming Lips
Vigilante Man – Woody Guthrie
Stick Around – Steve Burns

I finally had a chance to catch this one at the dollar theatre a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad I did. It was nice to see Robert De Niro's eye for directing, since I've only ever seen what he can do as an actor. Actually, he is both director and supporting character in this movie, and I loved both.

The casting of the Good Shepherd, which chronicles one man's experience as an early CIA agent, is one of my favorite aspects of the movie. The way each actor is used in the film, and given just the right particular look, adds so much to its overall success. De Niro, Damon, Joe Pesci, and Alec Baldwin all look slightly different than we have ever seen any of them, which is hard to do. In a way, I guess I'm also praising the makeup artists, but I wouldn't go too far in that praise, because, try as they might, the makeup artists weren't able to convey the aging process very well on Damon and Angelina Jolie. They both look about 5 years older at the end of their story than when they began, and the first time their son called Jolie "mother" my theatre audience was surprised.

Besides this little flaw and a couple of small script choices, I really liked this one. It's slightly predictable in form, but tells a new story, and the calmly told story of Edward Wilson appreciable both for its meticulous style and interesting subject matter. Where the film does fall into predictible situations, the details of the story, acting, and stylish way in which it's presented make up for it.

I would go into more detail, but work's busy these days, so let's just say I liked it quite a bit, and especially appreciated how the old ladies who sat in front of us let us know what was going on about 1 minute after everyone else had figured it out. :)

Well, now you can tell how far I am with posting. It's the 22nd, and I'm just getting to talking about a concert that happened about three weeks ago.

Jenny and I got to Pasadena early for some shopping and then met up with Yo and his brother for dinner at Buca di Beppo. We had four different tickets in four different locations on the ground floor of the auditorium, because the tickets sold out so fast, and I had to buy all of our tickets individually. Jenny got the closest ticket, I got second-closest, and the guys were towards the back, although the theatre is small enough that pretty much any ticket is a good one.

We walked from dinner to the auditorium, where, outside, there were giant banners for the event (see above picture of my sister). We hung out in the courtyard for a while because the opening act was terrible - as Yo likes to point out, she lists her influences as "pain, injustice, heartlessness." Haha.

When we went in, we all went our separate ways and I got centered about halfway back (view seen above). Some guy asked me to join him in rushing the front, and like an old geezer, I told him I was over those days. This was, in fact, my 11th or 12th Morrissey show. Another one tried to get me to switch seats with a friend of his so they could sit together, but he couldn't reach his friend on his cell, so that never happened. I was happy where I was.

Morrissey played a lot of stuff from his two most recent albums, and then had a large amount of Smiths songs, which made me very happy. Songs like Girlfriend in a Coma, How Soon is Now, and Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want are things I never thought I would see live because the Smiths broke up in the mid-80s, so any time Morrissey sings these songs, it means a lot.

The Moz was in a good mood, chatting a lot between songs. I loved that he introduced himself as Chester Bennington - quite a funny joke if you ask me. He also said he was rooting for the Denver Omelettes when he discussed the superbowl (cheesy, but that's what you get from him). He did the removing the shirt thing a few times, which I think is funny because the girls up front scream, and as soon as he's got the shirt off, he's walking off-stage to get another one and put it on as fast as he can. He's actually in great shape for his age, though.

The night was entertaining, and I and everyone around me sang a lot and had a lot of fun. Yo and his brother dropped us off at the parking structure where we parked after the show and we had been there for at least 8 hours and only paid about 3 dollars, which was awesome. I hope more bands decide to play this venue!

Here's the end of Girlfriend in a Coma. Yo, I had audio after all, but poor quality. I'll upload them all to youtube, but they're all kind of lame:

Oh yes, as Yo reminded me, I amlost completely forgot that we all have pieces of one of Morrissey's shirts that he threw out to the crowd! It's a bluish color. I think I'll keep it with the dried gladiola the Moz threw out to the crowd at my first Morrissey concert at Bridges Auditorium.

Brian Beatty:

I don't own a cell phone. I'm not anti-technology; I'm anti friends and family.

Actually, I'm just anti giving people the means to interrupt what I'm doing any time of day.

Virus: A fun and simple game, just click the colors on the bottom to spread to those adjacent colors. Not so great for us color blind types, though. I still almost won.

Found via MeFi

I don't know how many years it's been since I saw George Sluizer's Spoorloos aka The Vanishing (1988). It must have been one of the earliest foreign films I ever saw, and one thing is certain: I never forgot how it ended. I always heard about a remake existing but never saw it until just a couple of weeks ago. Oddly enough, it's by the same director this time around, but this 1993 version had a different writer, and it shows.

This version begins like the original, but stars Kiefer Sutherland as Jeff, a guy whose girlfriend (Sandra Bullock) disappears when she goes into a gas station convenience store to buy a couple of drinks. She basically vanishes from all traces of existence, and Jeff searches diligently for her for a few years. Eventually he meets a new girl (Nancy Travis) named Rita, and she doesn't have room in her life for his obsessive search, but of course, she's pulled into the plot just as deeply as he is. Jeff Bridges plays the villain.

I like how the early parts of the movie play out. The progression of events is well edited, and one can follow the mood perfectly. I would say that as far as this version followed the original's plot, it was actually pretty good. Then things start to deviate with the introduction of Rita, and as the villain takes initiative and Rita is involved, the story becomes less and less interesting or tense.

Bridges, whom I normally like, is a bit too cooky to seem frightening in this rendition of the story. I noticed the message boards thought he just has a small speech impediment, but beyond that, the man has some sort of weird accent that made me laugh more than feeling creeped out. Instead of thinking he was a methodical, cold killer (like I felt about the original movie), I thought, "That zany Jeff Bridges! He sure is silly."

By the time we reach the film's end, the presence of a new (American) writer is quite obvious. The shock and effect of Spoorloos' ending is completely lost on this Hollywood remake. The final scene of relief in this version made me roll my eyes and wish I hadn't watched it after all.

The Vanishing is definitely a disappointment, and I would suggest that people who haven't seen either of the two to should try Spoorloos. Though my memories of the original are vague with age, enough of them are sharp enough for me to recommend it over its remake.

I was pretty bummed out by Tim Hardaway's recent remarks. Leave it to George Takei to turn the tables.

Nicely done, George.

It's been awhile since I linked to an SB Email, but this one really spoke to me.

I had a great weekend. It started on Friday when Ric and I celebrated Valentine's Day. We went to Downtown Disney to look for a restaurant and ended up eating at the Jazz Kitchen in the umbrella room with the live jazz music. The entertainment was great, and so was the food. I had a wonderful chardonnay with my shrimp and lobster ravioli, and Ric enjoyed his gumbo and jambalaya. After dinner we were walking along the stores and joked about going in to Build-A-Bear. Of course, joking turned into "let's do it!" when we thought of buying a new stuffed playmate for Pip, who was 1-year old that day. That's right - he's already one!

So we went in and a very effeminate guy helped us stuff our little cat. Of course, if we had known that, at Build-A-Bear, they take delight in embarrassing the customers by making them hug the animals, choose a heart, make a wish, kiss the heart, and put it in the animals, we wouldn't have even walked in the door. Nevertheless, a child was born, and his name is Magwich (because, of course, he is both a benefactor and a nemesis to Pip since he is a playmate and something to tear into pieces - and if you haven't read Great Expectations, you should). We bought a stuffed-animal polo shirt with the sole intent to take it home and see what it would look like on Pip. Isn't it cute? He was doing a sort of walk-crawl because he felt so constrained by clothing. It was hilarious.

Saturday I got up bright and early to meet up with Amy, Megan, and Lisette, and we all drove down to the LA Flower District to get an idea of what we're going to do for Amy's decorations for her wedding. We pretty much figured everything out, which was amazing. And, like most brides, Amy's idea of what she was going to do completely changed once she visited the flower market and saw all of those colorful flowers in person. I love going there.

Ric took Pip to the vet on Saturday afternoon. I had him go to the Banfield at Petsmart instead of the little homegrown vet we had been going to previously because it made me uncomfortable to take my pet to such a dirty place. Pip was having his year checkup and checking into that infection in his teeth. First off, he's a healthy 12.5 pounds already. Wow! Second, the infection didn't warrant teeth-pulling, so I'm glad we took him to Banfield. I dropped him off today to leave him overnight, where he'll have some sort of dental cleaning that costs too much, and we'll get him microchipped just like everyone on Heroes.

After I was done with all the flowers, I did laundry at my folks' place and then Jenny and I decided to go out to Italian since Ric wasn't coming along. We had a fantastic meal at Roman Cucina. The bruschetta (best anywhere) and aglio/olio were worth the long wait, which didn't turn out to be so bad because we were able to go shopping at Buffalo Exchange and take a walk around downtown Fullerton. I definitely need to go back to BE once I've got more money. By the time I got home I was able to watch the end of a Kings game with Ric and then I pretty much passed out from exhaustion.

Sunday we went to church - no Andersons. I thought so. We had lunch and then joined Ric's folks to see the university's current play, The Glass Menagerie. Great acting, especially the mother's role. I think I'll post more about it later. We all had pizza for dinner and watched another Kings game. This time the game ended right - a shootout where the Kings beat the Ducks.

All in all, a busy weekend, but full of fun memories and good food. Good times. Work's busy, so I suppose I shouold get back to that.

I'm not really much of a Nine Inch Nails fan. I respect Trent Reznor for being a talented and creative musician, but his music just isn't my cup of tea. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued by the viral marketing strategy being used to promote the new NIN album.

A couple of weeks ago, apparently, some new t-shirts were sold with highlighted letters spelling out "I am trying to believe." Fans discovered that iamtryingtobelieve.com is a registered website that seems to be about a dark, dystopian future. Several related sites have been discovered (see the list here), which together reveal a world that exists after a catastrophic global act of war.

None of these sites specifically mention a new album or even Nine Inch Nails; and, like the infamous 1984 Apple ad, it's the mystery and the lack of information that generates interest.

This marketing campaign was taken to a new level when one of the songs from the album was found on a flash drive that was left in a bathroom at a Nine Inch Nails concert, and subsequently shared on the Internet. Since then two other songs have been leaked in the same way.

Normally, an album leak occurs when an advance copy of a CD is ripped and shared before its release, which is a source of great frustration to record labels. Instead of hopelessly trying to fight the downloaders, though, Trent Reznor is taking advantage of file sharing to build anticipation of the new album. By intentionally leaking the album one song at a time (as many have speculated he is doing), he is gradually building excitement over the release online. Like I said, I normally wouldn't take any interest in a new Nine Inch Nails album, but this marketing campaign has me intrigued.

But if the album is eventually available for free download, will it make any money? Yes, for two reasons.

First of all, not everybody downloads album leaks. There's still a substantial portion of listeners who get their music exclusively by purchasing CDs or downloading from iTunes. I'm guessing that Trent Reznor is counting on fans who download the leaked music to generate enough buzz about the album to cause some of these other people to become interested and buy the music.

More significantly, I expect the official release will include some added incentives to buy. Already, we see that the album is tied into a fictional dystopia as revealed through further websites. I think we can expect a multimedia experience that includes some combination of audio, video, pictures, and words in an elaborately designed package.

I spend way too much time playing this game. Yet of course I have much fun in doing so. It is kind of the reason that I have not been keeping up on my blog, and that I have really nothing to write about except this game. So I will write about it now.

First off, this game is different from any other FF game that I have ever seen or played. It is no longer turn based, it is real time. I like how you can customize your characters, and while I am not finished with the game, I am genuinely involved in the games story. I am interested to see what I do with my characters and how I choose to save the world in this game.

I am interested to see what happens with the empire, Larsa, Vayne, and Gabbranth. At the same time I am wondering how much of a role the Occurians will play in the end of the game. Or how Ashe will handle the commission she has from them.

One thing I cannot stand though, is the Techniks and the Magics. First off there is only one water spell, and it is completely weak sauce. Why no Watera or Waterga? Sorry if that spoils the game for anyone. And the techniks, besides steal and libra, are useless. Even libra is kind of useless unless you are determining which enemy to attack first.

Then there are the Mist powers. Espers and Quickenings. I like the Quickenings. It is fun to string as many as I possibly can together and see how much damage I can do to my foes. On the other hand, I have not really harnessed their power. They don't seem able to do much of anything but die and confuse you. I don't understand how their abilities work, and then they use an ability and they just disappear? It kind of sucks, unless of course I am not using them correctly.

Anyways, I really enjoy this game. I have wasted three days of my life on it so far, and I plan on finishing the game so that I can see what happens.

Overall, this game gets Wo0 out of a Wo0t. It may go up if the last battle isn't as dissappointing as FFX.

Today was President's Day, and as my school district observes this holiday, it was also Stay at Home Day. For me, at least. Lucas still had to go to school. I suppose that is one benefit of being in an elementary school instead of a university...

In honor of President's Day (or, because I just wanted to), I baked a chocolate cake. While I was cracking the eggs for the cake, I realized that eggs are maybe the one food that I will consistently pay higher prices for when grocery shopping. Awhile back, Lucas and I watched a documentary about chickens and egg harvesting. It was pretty appalling...enough so that we buy only free range chicken eggs now (a note: if the box only says "cage free," the chickens are still kept indoors on the floor. If it says "free range," that means the animals were allowed outside--so I've read. Who knows exactly what happens..). Although I am willing to do this, I still can't bring myself to pay more for organic bananas or apples yet. Maybe if the bananas and apples were kept in cages, I would think differently. But, really, it's a piece of fruit. Maybe less pesticides, but until we have a greater source of expendable income, my insides will have to deal with those pesticides...just as they have been doing for 26 years.

Now that I am writing this, I guess there may be a few other things I would spend more on (note: by spend more, I pretty much mean purchase a non store brand or a less well known but higher quality product...think natural peanut butter vs. Great Value). I spend more on quality baking chocolate, Yoplait yogurt, ice cream, and olive oil. Hmmm, that seems to be able to be summed up as the following: spend more on indulgences, less on sustenance.

Well, this post strayed wildly from my original point of buying free range chicken eggs. I'll end with a question: is there one (or more) food items that you will fork over the extra money for?

~Kelly

Wii Play with Wii Remote

Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Third Season

I'm at work, but at least I'm getting holiday pay. So hooray for that. I haven't had much to say lately. Just a couple things:

• I got a 196/200 on my first Intro to Programming test. The average was about 160, so I'm very happy.
• I got a couple of goodies this weekend. First I got Wii Play. The games are fun, especially Tanks and Billiards. The best part is now I have my own Wiimote. Also, I bought a new video card since mine is about to crap out. I got a 512MB NVDIA 9500GT, so that should hold me over for quite awhile.
• I am going to San Francisco in April for my brother's birthday. My mom is coming too. I haven't seen her since my brother's graduation, so that should be really cool.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm: Buy it, rent it, just watch it. It's freaking hilarious.

That's pretty much it. I've just been working, hanging out with folks, and working on a few other side projects I have going on. More on that soon.

This one's not as subtle as the last, but I still think it's pretty amusing (note: the events in this excerpt from Against the Day take place around the time of World War I, several decades before John F. Kennedy).

"Ich bin ein Berliner!"

"Excuse me?" The patient seemed anxious to speak with Kit.

"He will not harm you," Dr. Dingkopf assured him as attendants adroitly steered the patient away. "He has come to believe that he is a certain well-known pastry of Berlin--similar to your own American, as you would say, Jelly-doughnut."

"How long's he been in here?"

Shrug. "A difficult case. The Jelly-doughnut being such a powerful metaphor for body and spirit, to find one's way to sanity merely through reason becomes quite problematic--so we must resort to Phenomenology, and accept the literal truth of his delusion--bringing him into Göttingen, to a certain Konditerei where he is all over powdered with Puderzucker and allowed to sit, or actually recline, up on a shelf ordinarily reserved for the pastries. When he starts in with his 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' most customers try only to correct his diction, as if he is from Berlin and has meant to say 'Ich bin Berliner'--though sometimes he is actually purchased--'Did you want a bag for that, madame?' 'Oh, no, no thank you, I'll eat it right here if I may.'"

"Well--if that doesn't bring him back to reality..."

"Ach, but no, he only remains inert, even when they attempt to...bite into--"

Britney Spears is Now a Skinhead - NothingToxic.com

First off, this news report is hilarious. It's amazing how serious they take this story and how much coverage it is given. Also, Britney looks kind of like Evey, and that's pretty hot.

Zombie Horde 3

Pretty darn cool GTA style game where you complete missions and kill zombies. The graphics aren't the best, but it's really fun.

Lucas mentioned in a previous post some books that I had read by the author Daniel Quinn--Ishmael, My Ishmael, and The Story of B. I first purchased Ishmael because I had a gift card to use up and the reviews on the back of the book caught my eye: "From now on I will divide the books I have read into two categories -- the ones I read before Ishmael and those read after." -- Jim Britell, Whole Earth Review. That was intriguing enough to me to warrent purchasing an unknown book. As Lucas mentioned, the character Ishmael is, in fact, a gorilla. Ishmael is the "teacher" in the book and he places an ad in the newspaper in search of a "student." At first I wondered why in world it was necessary to make the teacher a gorilla instead of a human, but once the subject matter he is teaching comes to light, it begins to make sense. The teachings of Ishmael couldn't come from a human point of view, because he was teaching about humans. If the teacher was a human, he would not have a objective view. He "could not see the forest for the trees," so to speak. More specifically, the teachings revolve around a specific subculture of humans--the one we are members of. Not so much members of the American culture, modern culture, or any other culture you might think of, but a whole different view of culture that I had never considered prior to reading this book. Without going into great detail, the culture we are part of is basically that of totalitarian agriculturists ("takers", as it is referred to in the book). It is fascinating to view things from the perspective that Quinn presents in these books. He takes historical events such as Agricultural Revolution and looks at them from an outside perspective--and that perspective really changes how one might think of history.

Some of the arguments made in Ishmael and the other 2 books are not exactly "politically correct." For example, in one discussion it is brought up that we should stop increasing food production year after year. Increased food production allows a greater amount of the population to be fed, allowing the population to continue to grow. His argument is that if you hold food production steady, the population will stablize. Quinn gives examples of how this works in various tribal cultures and it does not in fact cause million to die of starvation. Keep in mind that this book is fiction, so there are no facts or numbers to drive home his theories--but it is interesting to try and wrap your brain around them!

Another note about these books--they may not be appropriate for those who do not know where they stand on their faith or are easily offended. Quinn makes many arguments from a somewhat agnostic viewpoint, especially in The Story of B. But, they make you think and I think that is a good thing for anyone.

~Kelly

This is probably my favorite movie I have seen recently, and is also the first movie that's ever had a scene that surprised me so much that I actually involuntarily gasped. I know that sounds like such a small thing, but I was in public at the fitness center and I even put my hand in front of my mouth in surprise; movies never really shock me, but this one did. For those of you who have seen the movie, you know exactly which scene I'm talking about.

The story revolves around a man and his family, who receive anonymous packages that are either videotapes of the outside of their own home or some disturbing childlike drawings. These all seem to have something to do with the husband, Georges, and his past. The effects of this terrorizing take their toll on Georges and his family, and that's just about all I can share without giving anything away.

The movie is meticulously directed by Michael Haneke, wonderfully acted by Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, and has the great bonus of making its emotional impact without the use of a score or soundtrack. It's raw, real, and contemplates many ideas about guilt, responsibility, and what people choose to hide from each other.

I can't go into more detail about my favorite aspects of the movie without ruining it for people who haven't seen it, but I loved it.

Today was the beginning of my weekend. Once again, I am pretty busy. I took a test at school for my Intro to Programming class. I had to write a C# program without a book or notes. I nailed it on the first build. No errors and it did what it was supposed to. It was a very simple program that calculated Field Goal Percentage. I almost slipped up when I was trying to figure out how to display a percentage because we never had to do that in our homework. It was pretty darn obvious (P) but I always am second guessing myself when it comes to that stuff. I guess I should stop doing that. I got my financial aid money, which couldn't have come at a better time. Greg, Monica, and I saw The Last King of Scotland, which I really enjoyed. Forrest Whitaker was pretty freaking amazing and deserves all the praise he's getting but James McAvoy deserves a lot of credit too.

Tomorrow I'm going to actually sit and work. I have homework to do as well as a ton of different things Phil and I are working on for pop.vox.music. We got a lot of great ideas at the DIY Convention last weekend and now we're working on implementing them. I've also decided to give my online music promotion business a real try so I'm going to be working on the site for that. On top of all that, I'm continuing the job search and resume polishing and what not. Good times.

I'm way out of order in my coverage of Topper movies, but that's because I never even knew this one existed until a couple of months ago. Once I knew, I set my lovely TiVo to automatically record it if it should happen to air, and it was a pleasant surprise to see it pop up on my screen when it finally did record.

This Topper movie stars Roland Young as Cosmo Topper, as usual, and his wife is played by Billie Burke, as usual. Constance Bennett reprises her role as Marion Kerby, the woman whose ghost (along with her husband) got Mr. Topper into a lot of trouble in the first Topper movie when their company caused him to have such odd behavior that his wife almost left him. In this movie, Topper's wife is convinced by a female lawyer that she should get that divorce after all, so the only way they can get it is in France (those crazy 1930s!). She and the lawyer set off to France to get the divorce and a leech of a man who wants her money immediately starts courting her before the divorce proceedings have even gone through. Marion Kerby's ghost, which was supposed to be free to go to heaven at the end of the first movie, gets sent back to Mr. Topper because her work with him isn't done yet - she has to help save his marriage, and the two follow along to France, where they wreak havoc on the hotel where all of the action takes place.

I know it sounds nutty, but I like these Topper movies. The first movie was so focused on the "awe" of ghostly special effects that it could have better. This one did have a few problems with that (by the third movie, the special effects are just a bonus and not a main feature of the movie), and it also had a few looong flashbacks to the first movie. I would rate the first two Topper movies on about the same level, and the third takes the cake for me.

As usual, Roland Young and Billie Burke steal the show. Young's physical timing is perfect as he's jerked around by an invisible woman, and Burke is the epitome of being pleasantly oblivious and naive. Their performances are hilarious and very fun to watch. I'm glad I finally completed the Topper series, even if it took me a long time and I went out of order. I love the old fashioned comedies, so this was right up my alley.

With the war in Iraq escalating into a complex mix of insurgency, civil war, and sectarian fighting, I find myself increasingly confused about all the various groups involved. Fortunately, NPR has come to the rescue.

They are featuring a series of stories titled The Partisans of Ali, which attempts to explain the initial split between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and how the fighting between the groups has come to a head in Iraq today.

The most helpful segment I've heard so far is this one, which was also featured on NPR's World Story of the Day yesterday. It summarizes the major conflicts Iran and Iraq were involved in from 1979 to the present day.

A discussion over at Voter Vault got me thinking about who I would rank as the best and worst Presidents in our history. Here are my top five:

1. Abraham Lincoln
2. George Washington
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. John Kennedy

I don't feel too strongly about Kennedy. Maybe Wilson should be there. Kennedy did get us into Vietnam, but he also pushed the Apollo program. I guess the nerd in me wins out.

Now, for the worst Presidents:

39. Franklin Pierce
40. Herbert Hoover
41. Andrew Johnson
42. James Buchanan
43. Warren G. Harding

It's still way too early to put George W. Bush in either list. Unless things turn around in Iraq in the next year, he'll probably find his place in the bottom five eventually.

Who would you put in these two lists? If you need some help, take a look at this article about scholar's rankings.

ROFL

Clippy can be a jackass sometimes.

I LOVED this movie. The story is incredibly simple - a boy loses his sister's shoes when he's on the way back from picking them up from the repair shop. They don't want to tell their parents because they don't have a lot of money and either they will get in trouble or they will stress the parents out. So they share one pair of shoes while the boy works on trying to get back his sister's shoes. Sharing means the girl, Zahra (Bahare Seddigi is wonderful), has to go to school in the shoes, then run all the way to a meeting point so she can give them to her brother Ali (Amir Farrokh Hashemian), who in turn runs off to his school (and is often late).

This is all seen completely through the eyes of these kids. The goings on with the shoes is what occupies their minds and their lives, and they share this secret with each other, often being mad at each other but never willing to tell the parents. The boy, Ali, is so earnest in trying to please his sister and not bother his father, and when he enters a race because 3rd prize is a pair of tennis shoes, the whole drama that follows had me completely enticed. Every time a kid was late or something happened to the shared pair of shoes, I actually felt nervous for them. The race was incredible. I felt more emotionally connected to this story than most of the movies I saw this past year.

I loved the performances, use of color, subtle direction, and perfect portrayal of childlike behavior. I'm pretty sure I picked it up based on a recommendation in the movies folder (Nate?), so whoever inspired me to add it to my queue: thanks!

Letters From Iwo Jima shows a Japanese perspective of the events that took place on the little island whose fate would also determine the fate of Japan. I'm very glad I rented Sands of Iwo Jima earlier this year, which takes an American perspective that integrated real war footage into the movie. The two together are a nice package, and I'm sure I'll feel even more appreciation once I watch Flags of Our Fathers, which is probably in my mailbox right now.

Letters is a good war movie, and one of the aspects I appreciated about it the most was seeing what it was like for soldiers who saw hardly any action in the outdoors. The film shows us the Japanese preparing for the battle, even having enough time to dig massive trenches, and in the meantime, we get to know the inhabitants of the island, including a few flashbacks to their pasts (which are slightly cliche but forgivable).

The part of the movie that most impacted me was the fact that we were getting to know these soldiers on a personal basis, but their superiors were so involved in a battle of who had the best plan of action that these soldiers were being completely wasted (especially the grenade scene). Also, just like in Fires on the Plain, these soldiers are practically abandoned by their country like sitting ducks waiting to die, which is infuriating to sit by and watch.

The music is simple, mostly effective, but borderline annoyingly repetitive. I didn't get angry at it, but did come out of the theatre with the main theme repeating over and over in my head.

As far as direction goes, Eastwood is great. I can't believe how much he has to offer this industry, and that he's doing it so well at an older age.

On a side note, did I ever share the story with all of you about how Ric's grandpa used to date Eastwood's sister? He used to pay off little Clint so he could have some alone-time with her. Haha.

Anyway, it's a very good movie, with many great details of execution. I didn't feel as emotionally impacted as some of the reviews I have read, but I'm okay with that.

The new poll