And I ran…I ran so far in pla-aa-ace…

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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.

.:.

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]

Perhaps he meant to say chest?

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Here’s how I know Fed-Ex doesn’t have a Britney sex tape: in an interview yesterday his friend was quoted as saying,

“At the time (the video was made) the two of them were in the honeymoon stages of the relationship and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They did nothing all day but have sex – and play the odd game of chess. They were insatiable.”

Chess? The friend expects us to believe that Kevin Federline and Britney Spears played chess?! C’mon. I suppose next a close friend of Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow will reveal their plans to buy a leaky oil tanker.

I suppose this might just mean that the friend is full of shit, or it could simply confirm that The Sun is toilet paper masquerading as news, but I prefer to think of it as evidence that K-Fed’s desperation is beginning to overwhelm him. I’m hoping he’ll implode soon and we can go back to worrying about real problems, like what Bono thinks of Madonna’s adoption.

[tags]unimportant bullshit[/tags]

Uhh…the bunny's not breathin'.

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The new James Bond movie is getting great reviews. The last time I was able to say that was the twelfth of never.

.:.

There’s a new Simpsons movie trailer. Well, not really…it’s just a teaser, but it’s still pretty funny.

.:.

We just watched the last two movies on the PVR:

  • Welcome To Sarajevo (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was about the Bosnian war, done with near-documentary feel as is often the case with Michael Winterbottom’s films. Winterbottom isn’t shy about mocking/scolding the bureaucratic indifference and laughable photo-ops disguised as concern, but focuses on the smaller and more personal story of the reporters.
  • Midnight Express (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a good movie about a horrible chapter in some dumb drug-smuggling bastard’s life, but Nellie pointed out afterward that it was pretty much a fabrication. A lot of the key points in the film just didn’t happen in real life. Still, that scene in Cable Guy makes a lot more sense now…

Man…two straight movies about genocide and then a prison torture movie. Good thing we didn’t watch Dancer In The Dark; we might’ve jumped off the balcony.

[tags]james bond, casino royale, simpsons movie, welcome to sarajevo, michael winterbottom, midnight express[/tags]

Cleaning off the PVR

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We’re burning through the recording pretty quickly. Actually, both Dirty Pretty Things and Dancer In The Dark were recorded improperly, so we just threw them on the Zip list and moved on.

  • Network (imdb | rotten tomatoes) is a film I’ve seen several bits and pieces of, but not all together.  Though it drifts badly in the last half hour, it’s still a remarkable piece of satire in that it’s even more accurate than it was 30 years ago when it was made.  The idea of the evening news being run as typical entertainment might’ve been shocking or absurd in 1976, but it’s de rigeur today. Seeing it after watching the premiere of Studio 60 just made me realize what a massive reference Network was for that pilot, even more than the explicit references within the show. For example, the scene where the Studio 60 execs turn on every TV to hear “In a scene reminiscent of Paddy Chayefsky…” was taken directly from Network..so they used a scene from Network to point out the parallel to Network. Now that’s meta.
  • Cube (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a Canadian film made 10 years ago that I hadn’t seen for some reason. Reasonably engaging and interesting, considering it was kind of sci-fi (which I normally don’t like) and Canadian (which usually doesn’t bode well in general). Plus it has Maurice Dean Wint, who’s just cool.
  • Ararat (imdb | rotten tomatoes), an Atom Egoyan film that opened the Toronto film festival a few years ago, was pretty good, if a little uneven. This film, too, was meta, as it shows the filming of a movie — called Ararat — about the Armenian genocide, with parallel storylines drawn from the effects of the genocide itself. A good movie, and enlightening if — like me — you don’t know much about such an ugly chapter in history.

[tags]network, studio 60, cube, ararat, armenian genocide[/tags]

Toys!!!!!!!!!

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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…

.:.

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]