November 2006 Archives (17 posts)
Kramer At The Laugh Factory
There is a very funny video on YouTube called Seinfeld Lost Episode - Kramer At The Laugh Factory that has some clever editing. It matches footage from Seinfeld with Michael Richards’ racist outburst a couple of weeks ago at the Laugh Factory. Poor Kosmo Kramer.
Posted in Television at 4:57 PM | Comments (1)
Heroes Recap: Six Months Ago
There is a good summary of last night’s episode of Heroes at Fangasm. If you’re a fan of the show or you missed last night’s episode then you’ll want to read the recap.
Posted in Television at 4:19 PM | Comments (0)
What a drag
What a drag it is getting old. Gray hairs are peppering the top of my head and I find myself breathing heavily after climbing a flight of stairs.
Today I turn 38 years old and as the step-daugther’s little boyfriend so nicely put it, “that makes you 20 years older than me!”
Posted in Personal at 2:17 AM | Comments (4)
Casino Royale (2006)
Casino Royale (2006) is awesome.
I went to a Sunday night (10:30 PM) screening of Casino Royale and the theatre was packed. Why? This is the best James Bond film to date. It’s rare that I’ll watch a film and want to immediately watch it again. Great acting, action, and a fantastic script make this one a winner for me.
Forget about the smarmy goofiness of Roger Moore, the unbelievable villains or the gadgets in a lot of the other Bond films. Casino Royale is much more realistic and gritty. I love the direction that the producers are taking to breathe new life into the Bond franchise.
Daniel Craig is great as 007. Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter is icing on the cake. Eva Green has a juicy role as Bond’s love interest — beautiful, mysterious, gorgeous, beautiful, gorgeous and beautiful.
One of the best comparisons to Casino Royale might be Batman Begins (2005). Casino Royale nails the Bond character in the same way that David Goyer’s script and Chris Nolan’s direction nailed Batman Begins. Without being boring, the Bond character is created and explained throughout the film in a very entertaining fashion.
The references to Money Penny, martinis and an Astin Martin are nice touches that will satisfy fans of the other films. No Q, no disappearing cars, and the absence of corny one-liners was a nice change.
I can’t wait to see Casino Royale again. 
Films are rated from 1 to 4 stars.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 1:39 AM | Comments (5)
United 93 (2006)
I finally got around to watching United 93 (2006) on DVD last night. Wow!
I was surprised at how writer/director Paul Greengrass managed to engage the viewer up until the final moments of the film. You can’t help but remember where you were on 9/11 when you watch United 93. You start to relive that day the deeper into the film you get.
Before you know it, you feel like one of the doomed passengers and catch a glimpse of how awful and terrifying it must have been. United 93 is powerful filmmaking and worth a rental if you haven’t seen it. ½
Posted in DVD Reviews at 11:37 PM | Comments (2)
Zune not so Zimple
Everything that I’ve read about Microsoft’s new Zune MP3 player has been less than stellar. The Washing Post has a story complaining that Microsoft’s Zune Only Looks Simple.
Aside from the brown Zune, the player looks nice enough but apparently it isn’t very easy to purchase music for the player. Music subscriptions, Microsoft Points, incompatibilities with other Windows XP music services (Rhapsody, Napster or MSN Music songs) spell trouble for Zune.
Simple sells.
Why create Microsoft Points when we have real dollars and cents? Microsoft is just too big a beast to ‘get it’. Give them some time and I’m sure they’ll figure out ways to take market share from Apple but for the time being, Apple has nothing to worry about.
Posted in Technology at 12:18 AM | Comments (4)
Steven Soderbergh does it ‘old school’
Steven Soderbergh tops my list of one of the most exciting director’s in the film industry. For every commercial film he makes (Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen) he’ll make an unconventional, non-commercial film (Schizopolis, Full Frontal, Bubble).
His latest film, The Good German was made the way films were made in the 1940’s—black and white film, no zoom lenses, single camera set-ups, boom microphones, no digital back lots. The NY Times has an interesting story on the way this film was made. I can’t wait to see the end result.
Soderbergh is the only director I know that writes, directs, shoots, edits and produces his own films. At the moment he has 4 projects that he is directing and 11 projects that he is producing. Incredible.
Thanks to James for the link on the NY Times story.
Posted in Movies at 11:33 PM | Comments (1)
Lose weight on red wine diet
New reasons to drink more red wine:
- double your endurance
- lower your weight
- reduce the risk of diabetes
Read the full story at Telegraph.co.uk. Of course this story came from my father who loves his red wine but I have to question its ability to help one lose weight. Hmm. Maybe you have to actually exercise and drink vino to lose weight.
Posted in Food at 10:21 AM | Comments (3)
Daring Fireball
Lately I’ve been checking John Gruber’s blog, Daring Fireball for the latest buzz in the Mac community, web development and technology. Great site with plenty of fresh content served up daily.
Posted in Apple and Blogs and OS X Software and Web Development at 1:01 PM | Comments (0)
Why you don’t need an extended warranty
Consumer Reports published a story on why you don’t need an extended warranty which is worth looking at. I don’t know how many times I’ve been to Future Shop or Best Buy and the clueless salesperson tried to sell me an extended warranty. If they were allowed, they would try to sell an extended warranty on blank DVDs.
The Consumer Reports story suggests that you consider an extended warranty if you’re purchasing an Apple computer (because they only have a 90 day warranty). Fair enough.
I’ve purchased 9 Apple computers over the years and have had to repair only one — a laptop.
Recently, the hard disk failed in an 3-year-old iBook that my father owns. It seems to be a hard disk failure and shouldn’t be too expensive to repair. Should he have purchased an extended warranty? No. I don’t think it would have been worth it.
Make sure that every electronics purchase you make is put on a credit card that has an extended warranty plan! A friend of mine told me to do this years ago and it paid off.
I purchased a Sony DVD player that stopped working right after the 1 year warranty was up. Because I purchased the DVD player with a VISA card (that doubled the warranty) I was able to make a claim. VISA paid to have my DVD player fixed.
Check to see if your VISA or MasterCard has an extended warranty program. If it doesn’t then get a card that does.
Posted in News and Technology at 11:30 PM | Comments (1)
Ed Bradley, Veteran CBS Newsman, Dies
Wow, I had no idea that Ed Bradley was ill. Just two weeks ago he had a segment air on 60 Minutes. He was only 65.
I grew up watching 60 Minutes and still count it as one of my favourite shows. It won’t be the same without Ed Bradley. He’ll be missed.
Posted in News and Television at 3:06 AM | Comments (1)
Elements of Color Photography
Nothing makes my day like finding a remainder book (that is actually decent) for 90% off the cover price. Such was the case when I stopped in at David Mirvish Books on Art last night to kill some time.
I picked up a brand new copy of George Todd’s Elements of Color Photography for $4.99. You can’t purchase a photography magazine for that little!
Todd’s book is nicely bound, contains 80 photos, and the stories behind them. It’s similar to ‘the making of’ books by Ansel Adams and Charlie Waite. Great stuff.
Posted in Books at 10:33 AM | Comments (0)
Thunderball (1965)
Casino Royale is in theatres next week which means that MGM has another James Bond DVD box set. This is the third release of the Bond films on DVD. Yesterday I picked up James Bond Ultimate Edition: Volume 1 and James Bond Ultimate Edition: Volume 2 on DVD.
So why did MGM release yet another version of the Bond films on DVD? For the last three years Lowry Digital Images has been restoring every frame of the 20 Bond films — 42 miles of film. Using more than 600 Macintosh G5 computers Lowry Digital has been removing dirt, scratches, and colour inconsistencies from each frame of film in the Bond films.
Each of the films now has a DTS soundtrack that sounds impressive. DTS (Digital Theatre Systems) purchased Lowry Digital Images for $11 million last year which could mean that all of the films they restore will get new DTS soundtracks.
Last night I watched Thunderball (1965) from the new Ultimate Edition and can say that the film looks and sounds amazing. I’m glad I waited until now to add the Bond films to my library. Once the dust settles between HD DVD and Bluray, MGM will probably release the Complete Comprehensive Ultimate Special Edition of the films again. Oh well, you have to jump in somewhere.
I forgot how much of this film was spoofed my Michael Myers in his Austin Powers films. I found myself laughing in all the wrong places. Still there is nothing better than a Bond film and I’m looking forward to watching them again.
I’ve been watching too many obscure foreign films, documentaries and art films lately. A dozen Bond films should put some balance back into to my cinematic universe.
For a comprehensive review of this DVD release have a look at DVD Talk.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:23 PM | Comments (4)
About This Particular Macintosh
I’ve been using Macs now since about 1991. Before that I was an Apple II user. I drank the Apple cool-aid around 1983 and have been a convert ever since.
When you become an Apple user you often crave information about new products, great software, tips and tricks. Tonight I came across About This Particular Macintosh (ATPM) for the first time and I can’t pull myself away from the site.
How many Macintosh webzines do you know of that still remember SyQuest disks or Compactor Pro? ATPM reminds me of MacWeek magazine, back in the day.
If you’re a long time Mac user or if you just switched from the world of Windows, then have a look at ATPM. For starters, there are some great software reviews of EarthDesk, VirtueDesktops, and Dobry Backuper.
ATPM also has some great monthly columns that explain hidden features of your Mac and provides endless tips and tricks that will improve your daily workflow.
Now that I have a new 500 GB drive I’m going to read a review on SuperDuper! 2.1. If my main disk drive fails (never happened), or my computer gets stolen (happened twice) it would be nice to know that I can stay in business and retrieve a backup.
Posted in Apple and OS X Software at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)
More Gigs
Lately my Macintosh (Dual 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5) has been feeling a little sluggish. Photoshop CS2 occasionally takes a coffee break, Safari seems a little slow at loading pages and I’m always low on hard disk storage.
RAM
I doubled my RAM to 2 GB and things seem to be zipping along again. Because I’m using Photoshop and often working with 16-bit images I would probably benefit from even more memory.
Storage
My internal 150 GB hard disk has only 6 GB of space left. Who would have thought that applications would every be 400 - 500 GB in size? It doesn’t help that I have 12 GB of RAW photos to archive.
I have an external 120 GB LaCie drive and it is almost full as well. Solution? Call up TigerDirect.ca and order a 500 MB Seagate internal drive (7200/16MB/SATA). That should last for a couple of years (or until I dump another 186,500 photos on there).
Does anyone have any tips on how to speed up an old G5?
Posted in Apple and Television at 4:50 PM | Comments (0)
98.7 % Correct
For reading my email I use Microsoft Entourage for OS X. A while back I noticed that most of the email I received was spam. My solution was to start using SpamSieve to filter out all of the junk email messages. The best $30 I ever spent.
24,177 messages later, SpamSieve has filtered
- 6,042 good messages
- 18,135 spam messages (75%)
- 58 spam messages per day
Out of those 24,177 email messages, 25 emails were incorrectly marked as spam. SpamSieve was accurate in filtering my spam 98.7% of the time. Excellent!
Do you spend the first 10 minutes of your day deleting email? Creating new message filters for all of the crap in your inbox?
Even if you spend only 1 minute a day deleting spam, you’re wasting 6 hours a year on something that SpamSieve can do for you. Okay, I’m done.
Posted in OS X Software at 9:57 PM | Comments (0)
Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
Earlier this year I saw some of Edward Burtynsky’s photography at CONTACT — Toronto Photography Festival. His photos are unique in that they present us with an alarming view of the environment.
Manufactured Landscapes (2006) is a documentary film that follows Burtynsky around the world as he photographs landscapes that have been affected by manufacturing and industrial work. When you see what is happening in China with manufacturing plants or the Three Gorges Dam project you can’t help but shake your head.
Most of our old Macs and Dells and DVD players, referred to as eWaste, gets shipped to China where it is recycled. There are a lot of toxic chemicals in eWaste that seep into the water table, requiring bottled water to be imported so that locals aren’t poisoned.
Jennifer Baichwal’s film has some wonderful visuals and we get to see Burtynsky at work as he creates some of his photos. The problem is that the film is boring. The music is terribly uninspiring and gloomy. I love photography but I found it hard to stay awake at times while watching Manufactured Landscapes.½
Films are rated from 1 to 4 stars.
Posted in Movie Reviews at 10:11 AM | Comments (2)
