Oh. My. GOD.
[tags]semi-orgasmic viewing & listening pleasure[/tags]
Oh. My. GOD.
[tags]semi-orgasmic viewing & listening pleasure[/tags]
I definitely have a cold. Sore throat, stuffed up goodness. It’s not that bad yet, but it’s enough to be annoying.
I also seem to have pulled a muscle (?) in my chest last night while dismantling the TV/stereo equipment. I assume it was from trying to gently drop the 101-pound TV into the box; I actually don’t remember doing it. All I know is that this morning it hurts to do…well, anything.
On the plus side: I have the day off, I finished my stats assignment last night, and my new TV & stereo are being delivered today.
[tags]cold, pulled chest muscle[/tags]
Since I’m not playing basketball this winter (since we lost 5 of our regulars — PC and his gf have a baby now, pac-man and his wife moved to Oakville, and miggles moved to BC — it’s no longer a viable option for PC to rent the gym) I’ve had to step up the running routine. Now that I’ve settled into it and just made it part of the daily routine it’s fairly easy. I ran 4 times (2-3 miles at a time) last week, and would’ve done more if work hadn’t intruded. I should be able to go 5 times this week as well. It’s not much — only 10-12 miles a week — but if fits in with my work & study schedules.
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The new HD PVR arrives tomorrow, and the TV & stereo arrive Friday. I’m taking Friday off so that I can box up the old stuff, clean the shelves and vacuum the floor, help the guys set it up and then turn everything to 11 while I watch The Matrix.
[tags]treadmill, pvr, hdtv[/tags]
Today, after years of suffering with substandard audio/visual equipment (having a Technics stereo that I bought nine years ago at Future Shop: not cool), we bit the bullet and bought some new stuff. We were going to wait until we moved into the new place, but Nellie suggested last weekend that we should just go ahead and get it. And when your wife suggests that you buy a new TV and stereo, you don’t ask twice.
We got a 37″ Sharp Aquos HDTV with 1080p resolution (which you can see on the left), a Yamaha receiver & DVD player and Definitive Technology surround sound speakers. Nellie was happy ’cause everything’s silver or titanium.
They also threw in a Rogers deal where they pay for the HDTV PVR/digital receiver rental for 10 months, which is great. The only downside is that we have to clear all the movies off the old PVR by Friday when the new system arrives and gets set up. We still have ten movies on there, so it could be tricky…good thing it’s a long weekend…
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We watched a movie called Duane Hopwood (imdb | rotten tomatoes) last night. It was a low-budget indie film I only heard about because Ebert and/or Roeper mentioned it sometime last year, and it was good if unspectacular. David Schwimmer plays a reasonably nice guy from Jersey who doesn’t think he’s a drunk, even as his drinking slowly takes over his life and pulls him away from everything he loves, especially his wife (Janeane Garofalo) and kids. It’s not a terribly happy film, but it’s perhaps more affecting than you might think at first simply because it’s not fantastic or extraordinary. Everyone knows — or knew — a guy like Duane.
[tags]sharp aquos, duane hopwood[/tags]
Tonight was the screening of Babel (imdb | rotten tomatoes) to which I won a free pass last week. It was, like the last Iñárritu film we saw — 21 Grams — intricate, even delicate in how it displayed human frailty and trauma. It was compelling and well told; we didn’t really notice that it was 2.5 hours long.
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Sadly, the same can’t be said for a film I watched earlier in the week. Slacker (imdb | rotten tomatoes) may be a cultural document, but it feels badly dated fifteen years on. I actually stopped it 1/3 of the way through; it was alternately getting on my nerves and boring me. I wish I’d watched it in 1991, but I truly had no idea anything like that was happening in the world in 1991. I was in cultural Siberia.
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I downloaded two new albums from eMusic: Dust Bowl Revival by Ox and Quiet Waters by Woolly Leaves. Both are alt-country/folk style, and quite mellow. Ox is a band my brother turned me on to, and they do some mean Woody Guthrie covers; Woolly Leaves are the band of a member of The Constantines.
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After giving it an honest-to-goodness try to see what all the fuss was about, I deleted my MySpace account this morning. I found it both a popularity contest (which I want no part of) and an entry-level blogging tool (which I have no use for). On top of that, it looks like it was designed by a drunk guy in 1998. MySpace is the AOL of our decade; it’ll be dead (or massively repurposed) soon enough. Good riddance.
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What would Alex P. Keaton say about stem cell research? Forget that; what would Jennifer do? Or Nick? Or Andy? Or — God help us — Skippy? By the way, whatever olympic-class fuckwit asked Michael J. Fox that question should be sterilized. No sense keeping those genes in the mix.
[tags]babel, inarritu, slacker, ox dust bowl revival, woolly leaves quiet waters, constantines, myspace sucks, alex p keaton, michael j fox[/tags]
From Sony, who brought you the brilliant ad featuring the balls bouncing down a San Francisco street, here’s a new one of equal splendor. Where the first ad was serene, this one is a bit more…effusive.
[tags]sony bravia ad[/tags]
Ah, Deadwood. If it doesn’t have the best one-liners ever, I don’t know what does. Another favourite: “He likes to berate the gimp mornings.”
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Scarlett Johansson, avec Dita Von Teese (Marilyn Manson’s wife) poses for some S&M photos. You’re welcome. [via Buddha Canvas]
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Speaking of Scarlett, she’s recording a Tom Waits cover album. That should…wait, what?
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Shoot. The Catholic bishops have wandered into the lawmaking again. Where’s my broom?
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Lunenberg might be getting a strip club. Question: would it be part of the UNESCO site?
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What a coincidence that a 10,000-year-old meteorite should be dug out of the ground in Kansas. No doubt they’ll have trouble convincing some of the locals who think the earth is younger than that.
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Still on the topic of idiots, a garbage disposal manufacturer is suing NBC because of a scene in last week’s Heroes depicting an indestructible girl’s hand getting mangled (and then healing, natch) when she sticks her hand in one of their products. Of course, you couldn’t really read the brand name. And even the simplest of the simple would know that sticking your hand in an operating garbage disposal would cause it harm. But yeah, sue those fuckers. Twice.
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More idiots: George W. Bush and the Congress he rode in on. The bill he’s just signed into law means that anyone suspected of terrorism isn’t guilty until proven innocent, they’re in purgatory. You know it’s gotta be a peach when the executive director of the ACLU calls it “one of the worst civil-liberties measures ever enacted in American history.”
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The recording industry has launched 8,000 more file-sharing lawsuits. Now where’s my buggy whip?
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OK, back to the Catholic bishops: some of the quotes from Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber are just knee-slappers. Gob-smackers, even. Check it:
“As leaders, we are guardians of long traditions of wisdom”
Really? ‘Cause I was 17 when your church admitted you were wrong about the whole “We condemned Galileo ’cause he said the earth revolves around the sun” thing. Also, as I pointed out to someone recently, you still officially have it on the books that communion wafers become the body of Christ somewhere between the beak and the gizzard. You may not really admit it in public anymore, but…yeah. No need to go on, but you’ll pardon me if your promised knowledge of “long traditions of wisdom” don’t set me all a-twitter.
“People don’t really have a sense of personal sin or reflection. We are becoming a more selfish and hedonistic society.”
Catholicism (or any other religion) does not equal morality. In some cases it’s quite the opposite. Anyway, that’s the same tune that church officials have been whistling for centuries and we’ve somehow managed to avoid Armageddon.
[On the issue of gay marriage] “We really need in Canada to support families.”
Now you’re pissing me off, padre. Once again, let me help you with the math: marriage != straight-and-child-bearing-only club. Besides, if you let gay people get married, wouldn’t that just create more family units? Or would you just like Canada to support a certain type of family?
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I find this whole religion thing difficult. About 80% of Canadians practice some kind of religion, including many of my family and friends and other people I respect. I couldn’t care less if they’re religious, or about the particulars of what they believe. But when religious people try to impose their beliefs on the public, and especially on the law, I get annoyed. I hope some of them do as well.
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By the way, sorry for the brain dump; I was sick yesterday and this stuff just built up. OK, off to eat and watch some Friday Night Lights.
[tags]deadwood, scarlett johansson, tom waits, catholic bishops, gay marriage, lunenberg, garbage disposal, heroes, nbc, dubya, file-sharing, buggy whip[/tags]
The Onion’s A.V. Blog reports that two of the TIFF films that I’m most anticipating might have trouble getting on screens south of the border. I suspect no such issues here in Canada, but it’s a sad state of affairs. As the article states,
“In both cases, films are being shut out of theaters for their ideas, not for any explicit or offensive content on the surface. These gatekeepers have basically decided that adults need to be shielded from ideas that they deem inappropriate. They’ve creating a special rating and it’s called GFY (Go Fuck Yourself).”
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I might be in the minority, but I’m all for Hockey Night In Canada moving from CBC to TSN/CTV. Why? Because I, like most of the rest of the country, can’t stand watching the prime time game being called by a pair of Leafs homers who’re on the down slope of their careers. Bob Cole and Harry Neale may be nice guys, but you may as well go watch the game in your Toronto-fan grandpa’s rec room. Gord Miller’s a better play-by-play man, Pierre Maguire’s better at colour (and actually knows the names of some non-Leaf NHLers), and they have guys like Bob McKenzie, Glenn Healy, James Duthie and Chris Cuthbert to boot.
The best part: no more Don Cherry. I’d like it if they could salvage MacLean somehow, but if he has to be sacrificed in order to distract Cherry while they pack up the HNIC set, then so be it.
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Because all my music is encoded at 128kbps (it’s the only way it’ll all fit on my Nomad) I’m thinking this would be a good investment.
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Hey, WOXY’s back.
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Slides in a museum; bitchin’. My brother’s already mentioned it, but this exhibit at London’s Tate Modern looks very cool. When I was there that hall was filled with a giant (and I do mean giant; it was about a hundred feet tall) double-ended red horn.
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If I have time tonight I’ll try to post more pictures from our trip. Day 3 was the motherload (400+ pics) so it could take me a while to slog through them.
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I’ve finally had to pick up my next textbook. However, it’s a statistics course, and I find stats kind of interesting. Sick puppy, I know.
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New TV: Heroes has me hooked. Studio 60 is, apparently, in trouble, proving once again that Aaron Sorkin is too smart to write for television. I haven’t watched Friday Night Lights yet, but if it’s as good as the movie I’ll stick around for the ride.
[tags]d.o.a.p., deliver us from evil, hockey night in canada, creative xmod, woxy, tate modern, statistics, heroes, studio 60, friday night lights[/tags]
Here’s an interesting confluence of personal interest and scholarly pursuit: the Russian music downloading site AllOfMP3.com, which provides extremely cheap downloads with no copyright protection, is apparently one of the — perhaps the only — major barrier to Russia joining the World Trade Organization. A site like AllOfMP3 would surely violate the TRIPs agreement on international recognition of intellectual property rules, and TRIPs is what I just wrote a whole paper on (though I focused on generic medication for poor countries, not music copyright).
This book learnin’ might come in handy after all…
[tags]allofmp3, wto, trips agreement, russia[/tags]
Our Canon S3 (and the 2GB memory card inside) did yeoman’s work on our trip. We’ve finally moved all the files into one place for a grand total of 1,302 pictures and 30 videos weighing in at 1.63GB and 1.64GB respectively. Here’s how it broke down by day:
* there were some technical difficulties with getting the video to work, so we have no videos of Emerald Lake or the Lake O’Hara/Lake Oesa region.
[tags]canon s3, rockies[/tags]