The life and times of a fallen hacker
Archive for January 2005
Bought an aquarium on friday. Crafted an additional blog to document setting it up as well as its life once the occupants settle down. So, fish-averse readers can now browse this stream of consciousness safely, without constantly stepping on slimy flounders and other scary critters of the deep.
EDIT 16.8.2008: The link works, but there’s not much content. I so need to pick up writing about fish again.
Dear friend,
Hope your communicator still works even when the Nazguls have been tearing down the base stations in the westerlands.
Anyway, noted that you failed to grab your riding directions to Barad-Dûr from the printer.
Cheers to the whole Fellowship, take care
–
E.
roklintu has announced the 2004-poll results.
No big surprises. Franz Ferdinand reigned supreme in the non-finnish category, whereas the local categories had were dominated by Y.U.P. even though they were pretty silent during the year.
Carrying on the dvd-backlog reduction as the weather continues to amaze with its lack of quality. Two movies that turned out to have a lot more in common than I originally thought. Two movies that I really should have seen on the big screen instead.
First up, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie, worth of good 4 stars. So, I was probably the last to see this movie, and quite a hole it had been. Showing a mythical late-spring Paris, where concierges still reign supreme and small corner-stores live on as opposed to Carrefour hypermarches. Audrey Tatou fits her eponymous part perfectly, representing a weirdly believable paragon of naivety. The cinematography matches the faery tale atmosphere, the colors are vibrant and play off the contrasts well.
Well, she didn’t change my life (to quote the poster tagline), but sure provided an amusing two hours. And a reason to catch up Jeunet’s a Very Long Engagement (starring also Tatou) when it appears.
And next up, Tim Burton’s Big Fish, that with the force of full 5 stars shows that his previous planet of the apes was just a brief hiccup on his career. Anyway, this is yet another modern faery tale, and even stronger story than Amelie. The main element is the power of a good story, and it is indeed told via both fantastic and mundane elements. Actors fit their parts well - Billy Crudup’s lack of emotions fits his character well, Ewan McGregor hits a perfect southern twang, and both Jessica Lange and Albert Finney as the elder Blooms seem moulded for their roles. The images are, again, worthy of a dozen positive adjectives, Burton’s attention to detail pays off. And the soundtrack, both Danny Elfman’s composition and the hand-picked tunes (loved Allman Bros’ Ramblin’ Man on it), seems purchase-worthy as well.
Besides, how could a movie that begins with a tracking shot of a huge catfish be anything but absolutely brilliant.
Anyway, go watch these movies. They’ll do their best to make a better person out of you.
Fiddled with the title/date definitions, since they were overflowing a little. And as a side effect internet explorer (win/6.0) is now actually able to display the page in somewhat sensible fashion. The elements in the sidebar do not obey the font-sizing rules for some unexplainable reason, but that’s a minor loss compared to the original layout catastrophe.
Anyway. You really ought to use a real browser instead: firefox, opera, safari, konqueror, whatever. Yada yada.
Also updated the record and dvd lists for the first time in a way too long while.
Further comments
about misbehavior (with attached screen dump for clarity) welcome, of course.
Wired
also comments on the McCarthyist comments from the emperor of Redmond.
Some brave soul has gone and updated Neal Stephenson’s ode to Linux - In The Beginning Was The Command Line.
A worthy treatise is thus updated for the new millennium, but like the original slashdot story states, there’s still a lot of ground to cover.
And it seems that Microsoft is definitely catching up in the CLI-game, and if Jon Udell is believed, will take over the position as a “really nifty shell” on top of the heap. When Longhorn eventually ships. And if it ships with msh. And that’s a pair of big if’s and when’s.
Only in the land of frivolous lawsuits can something like this happen.
#include
Ok, so how many screwups did the world’s richest man exactly have in his presentation at CES. No idea. Wasn’t there. But at least the following made it out to the wide world outside:
Not a good day for the hardworking folks from Redmond. Heads will roll for the former, and it’ll be hard to shake off the latter as well.
Got a surprising package today. An item that I’d counted off for a loss a while ago. A cheap retro-game sent from UK, in air mail, as business-as-usual as you can get. Which I thought had gotten gulped up by the collective beasts known as international mail
But no. Was waiting in the foyer when I got back.
Bearing a faint stamp mark “republic of Namibia”. None worse for wear due to the excess mileage.
Wonders never cease. But I don’t think that I’ll ever hear the story why the package took such a scenic route. Things’d be so much easier if all mail was traceable - with couriered packages you’re aware of their every nudge.
Three T-shirts from thinkgeek. Including my
favorite design, a capsaicin molecule, too bad there’s no backprint of the actual scale.
Shipped via UPS, arrive in three and a half days.
That’s plenty fast in my book.
The first is a north american pitcher plant, a Sarracenia psittacia to be exact. The second carnivorous plant that I’ve
bought (the first, a flytrap, is currently hibernating in a nicely chilly garage). No surplus of fruitflies around the flat or anything needing natural mobilization of any kind, the funky colors of the plant (picture to follow, when one can be taken with natural light) just made it irresistible to purchase.
The second is a succulent (distant relative of cacti) from south africa, a Faucaria tuberculosa. Quite different from its windowsill-mate in habits, this baby seems to require watering much more seldom (it’s a savanna plant). No spines which is a bonus.
I’ve killed only one plant in the last two years, so these ought to have a pretty decent chance of surviving as well…
Plus: Sin City Trailer looks very very exciting. Mickey Rourke is a spitting image of Marv, and ms. Murphy doesn’t seem to be spoiling this movie either. Seems to combine three albums in the narrative, hope the stories still make
sense and work together. The graphical style - black & white, with rare dashes of color corresponds with that of the comics and works beautifully on screen as well. Must see.
Big minus: Will Eisner, father of the Spirit, and all round comics revolutionary died yesterday. Newsarama has a worthy obituary. No end to stiff drinks in sight, it seems.
Indecent weather and mounting boredom have allowed (sheesh) the luxury of watching four movies that either missed on the big screen or (in the case of the last one) never made it to Finland.
First of the bunch is Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon, 3.5 stars. No good reason why I never got around to watching this. A conflicting artist featured in a film that has too much wrestling, but enough good bits to keep ypu coming back for more. Jim Carrey shines (his first serious role, if I recall correctly), and Courtney Love isn’t bad either. And the two 24-karat melancholic R.E.M. tracks just remain haunting even when the credits have rolled into the big black fade.
Joe Carnahan’s Narc [4 stars] is one of those movies that leave you appreciating your un-interesting (in the chinese proverb sense) life. Fewer positive destinies for characters than three average NYPD Blue episodes rolled together. Strainedly violent acting from Ray Liotta, supported by Jason Patric (firmly in the Serpico-lookalike mode). Drugs, violence, incest, suspicion, betrayal, lots more violence, the whole gamut of quality
life as an undercover policeman in Detroit. As Hohto said, definitely one of the best modern cop movies in a long time.
Pretty much something altogether different is Ben Stiller’s Zoolander [3 stars], in which he also plays the lead role. A gloriously dim male model that is exposed to the secret underworld where a carefully picked and preened group of people is responsible for vast majority of political assassinations. Comparisons to Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama are unavoidable. David Duchovny in a minor role provides a quality consipracy-pastiche. Too bad the funniest bits are in the trailer, the movie itself has a few plodding scenes that would have benefited from bolder cutting.
Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman [3 stars] is one of his trilogy of weirder than you’d expect subcultures. This one concentrates on amateur actors, Best in Show is about dog shows, and his newest (thus far unseen) a Mighty Wind deals with aging folk musicians. Guest also stars as an ex-Broadway
director who directs the 150th anniversary play of a small Missouri town. Full of folks used in other Guest-movies: Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey. Neither they, nor one of the strangest UFO-subplots in a while can ultimately save the movie which starts well, develops decently and grinds to a sudden halt. Some of the material left on cutting room floor and available on the dvd would have suited the rather short (less than 90 minutes) movie pretty well.
EDIT 14.8.2008: Hohto is still gone.
It’s now proven. Playing black metal does not make you cool. And then there’s the bit about “Helsinki, Sweden” on the page, that I sure hope is just trolling for abusive comments, not real ignorance…
EDIT 10.8.2008: Sadly the original page is gone.
So, my old alma mater massacred their outclassed opponent in the season-capping Fiesta Bowl.
And what a season it was… Undefeated campaign, totally dominating quarterback, scoring average of more than 45 points a game. And a Heisman nomination for Alex Smith, the QB.
Too bad the stagnant bowls committee did not allow Utes a higher position (and thus presence in Rose or Sugar Bowl). Would have been interesting to see how they’d have fared against the real top teams of the nation.
Anyway, here’s hoping for continuation of the Cinderella story next year. The Utes lose their coach Urban Meyer to Florida, and Alex Smith is considering early entry to NFL (skipping his senior year in the university).
Well, the Kings of the Search do a decent recap of last year as well.
Decent gig. Don’t have the new album, so apart from easily recognizable Lost Boys and Christina Death, missed the new songs. Lots of old classics - Gothic Girl, Chair, Brandon Lee seemed to be the best audience-rousers.
Played for ~90 minutes. No encores. Seemed to do a recording of the show. Mix was not optimal, the vocals were mushy at times.
Full house. Sold out. But still not as crowded as some concerts in Tavastia have been. It was actually possible to walk around. Watched from the balcony, excellent view.
And based on the new songs, I think I have to buy the Devils-album as well.
Time to start looking for a replacement for the trusty sony 715…
Second season of Black Books crashes the player. It starts blinking a static number on a familiarly blue hbackground on screen and does not respond to remote.
The other case is my first ever region 4 disc that is not dual-region… Bugger, was looking forward to catching the whole Creature Comforts
in longer-than-ten-minutes chunks.
No big anniversaries here. The blog is now nine months and three days old. Or 241 entries old. Depends on the perspective I guess.
So that was 2004. And it wasn’t a bad year by any count:
Well, the last point ain’t going to be repeated, as a visit to see the 69 Eyes is lined up for today…
Any new year’s resolutions are firmly kept in the virtual strongbox.
