Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

Public Service Announcment

some time ago i went to freeheadset.org to get a free headset for my [then new] mobile phone. ok - they actually want you to pay for shipping, but that's reasonable. anyway, weeks and weeks went buy and i pretty much figured i was ripped off. since the amount was small, i didn't bother following up and complaining. good thing i didn't as today my free headset arrived. cool beans.

Quotes To Think About

with the death of hunter s. thompson and some of the reaction to his taking his own life where he was called a "chickenshit" and "coward", i had to chuckle when i saw this quote thomas fuller quote and later in the week, a virginia woolf quote i had all but forgotten gave me a smile.

Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.   -- Thomas Fuller

I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.   -- Virginia Woolf

Word Association, Week 107 & 108

i missed doing word association last week as i was in rainy san diego, so i figure i'll just do both of them this week.

Week 107 Dirty work:: somebody's gotta do the Shopkeeper:: cashier Goodness:: gracious great balls of fire Yearning:: wanting Show and tell:: grade school Trapped:: in a corner Malcolm:: X Season:: cancelled Bestseller:: list Desk:: chair

Week 108 You’ve got a friend:: farm fresh Immigration:: office Waitress:: tip Snickers:: bar Recognize:: recall Concept:: car Birthday:: suit Told you so:: i Unlikely:: candidate Extension:: phone

The Notebook

after a lengthy trip to the dentist today where the film the notebook was being talked up, i finally found some time to sit down and watch. it wasn't quite what i was expecting. it was certainly a proverbial chick flick and the movie style was a bit of a mash-up of "50 first dates" and "the princess bride". if you haven't seen it, stop reading now and go rent it (and don't forget the tissues).

reading further may spoil the movie for you. consider yourself warned.

the film has two tracks to it, one is the story which most identify with through the notebook trailers -- boy meets girl, loses girl, blah, blah, blah. the second is how the story is being told -- an aging man is telling the story to a woman of similar age in a nursing home. she is suffering from dementia and memory loss while he has suffered several heart attacks but is clearly trying to be "ok" and appear strong and healthy. as you can guess, it is revealed as the story goes on that he is in fact the main character (noah) and is reading the story to his love -- allie. so while the story itself is about love and romance in their youth, you slowly discover that it carries on deeply to that very moment. to the time, then, where he is reading their story to her in the hopes that she will remember.

the early story has the pair meet up. allie is not interested, but noah is persistent and eventually gets enough of her attention to spark a romance. she is the stereo-typical rich girl and he the poor boy. as expected, the parents don't approve and allie ends up moving away. noah writes her every day for a year, but the well-intentioned mother never gives her the letters and eventually they both get on with their lives.

seeing as the film is from the ww2 era, allie meets up with a soldier that happens to also be from a wealthy family. he is charming and falls for her right away. she, too, is in love and they plan to wed. as hollywood-fate would have it, as they look in the social section of the paper for their announcement, noah's picture is there in front of the estate he told allie he dreamt of buying and fixing up. so off she went to bring closure to that past relationship.

meanwhile, noah did a stint in the military as well, had his best friend die next to him and returned home eventually getting that home and rebuilding it like he dreamed. and of course took into account the suggestions allie gave him when he shared that dream with here -- white with blue shutters...

allie's mother eventually steps in again when she goes to essentially see wtf was going on. well, she knew, but she of course had her agenda. in a bit of a twist, the mother shared a deep secret -- she too had a "summer love", but took the secure path marrying allie's father all the time making it painfully clear how much she loved allie's father. as she sent her daughter off, she handed her the stack of letters noah had sent and told her she hoped she would make the right choice. her sharing her secret, of course, made it fuzzy now to what the mother felt was the right choice as well.

lets cut to the chase -- after some gut-wrenching moments, and in much expected hollywood fashion allie went back to noah. i was somewhat expecting a late twist with the elderly man (reading the story) who was always referred to as duke to actually be the man allie failed to choose (lon), but it was not to be. and that is a good thing as i think it would have pushed reality completely over the edge. even by hollywood standards.

the movie has a lot of memorable moments and quotes, but they would all be out of context here, so i'll suggest you go watch the movie where they can be delivered as they were intended.

i give this movie 4 out of 5 stars despite the crap i'm likely to take over saying such a thing.

Sun San Diego

so much for warmth in sunny san diego. it rained almost the entire time we were there. parts of the area flooded, there were off-shore tornados. geez! all we needed was a plague of locusts and i think we'd have been set.

on the bright side, it was good to get away for a bit. despite having a laptop in tow, i fought the urge to get on-line for work or play. i even sent a minimal number of pictures to flickr, but that was mostly because of my phone battery and the fact that the eff'ing rental car's power socket was not working. fortunately enough people got ipods for christmas so there were numerous people i could bum a charge from including the person in the adjoining suite.

I'm Leavin' On A Jet Plane

schedule printed? check.
important contact phone numbers? check.
flight confirmation/itinerary? check.
rental car confirmation? check.
hotel confirmation? check.
directions from hotel to rink? check.
cash? check. heh.

must re-sync ipod, gather up phone and iPod chargers, shove some clothes into a bag and i'm ready. san diego better be fuckin' sunny or i'll be pissed.

hmmmmm.... the mexican border isn't too far away. i could make a run for it. *grin*. adios all. the only thing to be updated here until i return (if i return) will be photos on flickr.

Flicks Through February

it's been quite some time since i've done any movie reviews. last time was on 05 january and since then i have seen only 15 movies. so without further ado, and in order of viewing...

• Ladykillers: with tom hanks, i was expecting a bit more. it was cute for sure, but it simply did not meet expectations. 2 of 5.
  
  
• Employee of the Month: heh. haven't we all felt/seen something similar to this. this was a cross between the great movie office space and falling down. 3 of 5.
  
  
• The Village: finally got to see what all the chatter was about. people seemed to like or totally dislike this movie. it was good enough that i didn't hate the movie, but it wasn't exactly great. m. night shamalan really needs to try a different movie recipe though. 3 of 5.
  
  
• Shadow of Fear: mildly interesting ideas, but simply not a good movie. this is definitely filed under "don't bother". being nice, i'll give it 1 of 5.
  
  
• Cellular: cool premise, great execution, a few laughs on the way, and filmed locally in so.cal. i was expecting a so-so movie and was pleasantly surprised. definitely worth a rental. 4 of 5.
  
  
• Gypsy 83: sara rue is off for a night of a 1,000 stevies (referring to stevie nicks) and is quite the looker in the goth-ish get-up. i give the movie extra points for using a classic smokey and the bandit trans-am and for the music. a friend in college had a cousin that was a dead-ringer for stevie, but i digress. i'll give it 3 of 5, but warn you it isn't the sort of movie for anyone.
  
  Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastles: they could have simply called this one "dude, where's my burger" or some such. this is a classic stoner movie that is great to watch when you need just a little a.v. input to entertain yourself. definitely worth seeing this flick if you haven't already. i'm giving the bonus points for the great use of doogie howser -- 4.5 of 5.
  
  
• Without a Paddle: it was promising, but the title should have been "without a good sense of direction". it had it's funny moments, but unlike harold and kumar it tried to have a moral or something. sorry... 2 of 5 and i'm being nice.
  
  
• Little Black Book: i was a little concerned getting this movie to watch, but it ended up being fairly delightful. and no, not just because the male lead is a pro hockey scout. :) a chick flick worth watching -- 3 of 5.
  
  
• The Grudge: another one of those movies i wondered what the fuss was about. i won't embarass who i watched it with, but they were seriously creeped out and i'm still chuckling over that fact. this flick wasn't as bad as some had said, but it certainly won't be a classic unlike buffy the vampire slayer. 3 of 5 since it scared at least one person.
  
  
• This Girl's Life: this movie was supposed to be about an internet porn star which caught my eye. i finally snagged it when it said it had a great performance by james woods. that it did. he did a fabulous job playing the part of moon's parkinson's inflicted father. it was a shame his role was such a small part of the movie. i give it 2 of 5 simply because of wood's performance, otherwise it gets 1 (because of nudity).
  
  
• Eulogy: dysfunctional family has to gather at the funeral for their father. pretty much the standard schtick for this sort of movie. i hoped for some originality, but there was little to be found. if you've seen all the good stuff, give it a watch. a solid 2 of 5.
  
  
• Friday Night Lights: i finally got to see this. blockbuster was out for 4 weeks. it was worth the wait. it wasn't as serious as "remember the titans", but certainly had a serious side. although, it was tough when one of the main characters name was "boobie" and he'd say stuff like "ya'll wanna win? put boobie in" and referred to himself in the third person a lot. some good action and will likely rangle up some memories of high school sports if you played. no doubt, this title is worth a rental and gets 4 of 5.
  
  
• Saw: i knew nothing about this movie before i saw it (pun not intended). i really liked a lot of things about this movie -- it had an interesting and fairly unique plot where a serial killer provided his victims some rather personal dilemas from with to work with. i personally didn't like the ending as it felt like they discovered they needed to end the movie and didn't have a plan. regardless, i'd watch it again. 4 of 5.
  
  
• The Cookout: i guess i kinda sort got what i was expecting. it was the stereo-typical black guy makes good (via pro basketball) and moves to an affluent white neighborhood. then invites the family for a cookout. mayhem insues. two parts still make me chuckle though -- one is when farah fawcett's character tells her husband that "negros" have moved in next door. he moves into the frame from his winged-back chair an exclaims "oh, no... black people" or something like that. her husband was the actor danny glover. heh! then we had the family member that was an attorney (that has failed the bar 14 times) and twists everything to show how "the man" is keeping him and his people down. he pointed out to hockey being a bunch of white guys that smacks a black puck around and gave it the ole' umm hmmmm the puck isn't white, i wonder why. the sports agent (who was white) suggested that it isn't white because it would be hard to see on the ice to which he replied "you would think that". lol. i give this movie 3 of 5.

ok, that's all for now. i still want to watch "the notebook", but have to find a good time to do so.

Winding Down

one of the funny (not funny ha-ha) things about some impending time away from the office is the mountain of work that mysteriously appears that just has to get done before you leave. projects that a few short days before were considered low priority have all of a sudden become critical. grrrrrrrr. then the recently quiet phone starts ringing off the hook.

despite it all, i'm still going to [hopefully sunny] san diego for 4 days and am seriously thinking about not even taking a laptop. yes, that's right -- me going somewhere without a laptop in tow. i might just do that. if i can't handle that, i'll bring one but will try and not use it. heh.

as much as i'm looking forward to it, aside from the time i won't be at a hockey rink i expect i will be bored to tears. but ya know what, that doesn't quite sound so bad. maybe i'll just snap a bunch of pictures and upload 'em to flickr as i go... that could be amusing.

Late Breaking News

i'm told that the nhl has postponed their news conference tomorrow which was to cancel the nhl's season. this is confirmed by an ap news report. still hope?

Update: espn is reporting that things are getting closer; however, it may be too late for this season.

Decision or Emotion

seeing as it is valentines day, it seems pretty apropos to ponder -- what is love? besides being haddaway's one hit of course.

the mind hacks blog had a post about it from a science/pschological view as did npr (kqed) in forum with michael krasny this morning [archive of the show]. it's all interesting stuff really (i'm listening to it now).

amidst other discussions, it was argued to me that love is a decision one makes that goes along with some initial yet fast fading hormone driven feelings. i disagree.

Word Association, Week 106

it is that time of week again. this week's word association.

1. Judge:: and jury
2. Detroit:: red wings
3. Hyphen:: dash
4. Get it right:: compliance
5. Pulsating:: vibrating
6. Yoga:: stretch
7. Memorable:: experience
8. Financial advisor:: ef hutton
9. Ten million:: options
10. I:: you

Beautiful Pictures

mountains.ru has some really excellent pictures including a nice panoramic of everest and my favorite from the front page. for those that don't understand russian -- the right column includes photo set for your enjoyment.

Quiz Results

i came across a quiz at another blog and figured what the hell, lets see what it has to say. since they include large images, i have put the results in the extended entry for those that want to see my results to "the big love test, what do you need?" and perhaps take the quiz yourself.

FROZEN QUEEN/ KING You dont want love to come through to you. You like it the way you are. To be unreachable, no need to show feelings. Hiding everything inside you. You are already used to it. You say yourself that you dont need anyone, that you stand on your own two feet or that you dont have time for these things. But in reality you are scared to get hurt. You feel save where you are: by yourself, nobody can hurt you there. You invent your own relationship in your dreams. You just need to know that you COULD get a partner. Thats it. PLEASE VOTE, I want to know what you think about my quiz, I worked hard on it.You can always message me or tell me how I can improve that quiz. Ill sure write back. ~THE big LOVE TEST!! What do you need? With PICS! For girls and boys!~ brought to you by Quizilla

Emailstrabation

today's dilbert provided a much needed chuckle.

maps.google.com

google's new maps.google.com rocks.
that is all.

update: and here is an excellent explanation of how it works.

Hacks: I'll Drink To That

i was going to do a little writeup about how the iTunes promotion by pepsi was still hackable, but it josh rubin hits the salient points. i'm not a pepsi drinker, but will have the occassional one to pick up a few free iTunes. which i suppose is their goal. so for 1-for-1.

of much more concern is the IDN hack that phishers are likely to be taking advantage of any second now. at the moment, i have nothing to add here either and highly recommend you read the jottings.com article on the matter. he gives all the right pointers for you to apply the quick fix.

Word Association, Week 105

it is word association time again, and i'm getting to it early seeing as we got back from the bar mitzvah early.

1. Shelter:: food and
2. Karate Kid:: wax on, wax off
3. Andrew:: hurricane
4. Rib:: adam's
5. Push it:: pull it
6. Creep:: in' along
7. Chainlink:: fence
8. Squash:: court
9. No mercy:: relentless
10. Superhero:: batman

Quote Of The Day

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. -- Richard Feynman

Isn't Once Enough?

i looked at my logs and someone from the ip address 66.79.163.10 (a misconfigured pc running red hat linux) keeps downloading two of my posts (this and this). now i can certainly understand someone looking at a post more than once, but doing so every 30 minutes or so for the past day and a half. something is clearly running amok over there. perhaps denying them access will grab their attention. frankly, i smell a link spammer with broken code.

Cool Beans

months ago i recall seeing an article where a woman's face was appearing on a wide variety of ads. some guy tracked her down and told her about it -- she was surprised and never gave anyone rights to use her image in print ads.

A legal dispute with Nestle USA ensued, during which Christoff, 58, declined the company's $100,000 settlement offer, and Nestle USA turned down his offer to to settle for $8.5 million.
[entire article via cnn]

long story short -- jury awarded him 15.6 million. nestle, you should have settled. now you have to spend even more money on your appeal and the fact of the matter is, you used his picture without permission. if you had permission all you have to do is simply prove it. you have a signed release don't you?

Quote Of The Day

the young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. -- saki