Computers, Music

CDs Again!

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Quite a long time ago my 20GB iPod ran out of space. Every time I added new songs, I had to delete old ones to make room. This caused my iPod to become sorta messy (incomplete albums, exclusion of songs I wanted at a later date, etc.). Thankfully, today I went to get a 60GB color iPod, so now I can try to get my library fixed up (which is going to be quite a task, let me say).

In honor of finally being able to put new music on my iPod, I headed over to Everyday Music and bought $70 worth of CDs.

I would like to share the list of albums I purchased. I am quite excited:

  • The Cure – Mixed Up — I mainly wanted this CD because I already have the “Tree mix” of “A Forest” and absolutely love it. Plus I really do love the Cure, so it seemed like remixes would make a good addition to my collection.
  • The Chemical Brothers – “Life Is Sweet” single — The Daft Punk remix of “Life Is Sweet” is basically a new creation, which is good and bad. I first heard the remix on the Gregg Araki movie Nowhere. Since I am trying to obtain nearly every Chemical Brothers single, the purchase was necessary.
  • Grandaddy – Under the Western Freeway — Grandaddy is quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. The Sophtware Slump and Sumday are mind-blowingly good, and I’ve been wanting to get more albums. Today was my chance! The song “A.M. 180” is used in the movie 28 Days Later (the only “happy” part of the movie when they are shopping at the grocery store) and I loved it.
  • Grandaddy – Concrete Dunes — Apparently this is a “rarities, imports, previously unreleased, and out of print tracks” album. It sounds like something for more of a hardcore fan, so I guess you can call this “preparation” or “anticipation.”
  • Boards of Canada – In A Beautiful Place In the Country EP — Since Boards of Canada have released so few albums (which are so amazing), I feel the need to get everything I can by them. I need more!!
  • The Streets – Original Pirate Material — The song “Weak Become Heroes” was 43 in Pitchfork’s The Top 100 Singles: 2000-04, so I figured the album was worth checking out.
  • Dntel – Life Is Full of Possibilities — I already have the “(This is) The Dream of Evan and Chan” single (it was basically the “first” Postal Service song — it was where Brian Tamborello and Benjamin Gibbard first collaborated. Now it’s time to see what the rest of the album is about.
  • Elliott Smith – XO — Most of my best friends love Elliott Smith, so it’s about damn time I actually get one of his albums. I couldn’t remember what album people had recommended when I was at the store, but XO sounded intriguing.
  • Liz Phair – Liz Phair — Don’t hate me!!! I used to be a huge Liz Phair fan (I saw her live once, had the Girlysounds Demos, etc. etc.), but then with whitechocolatespaceegg I started worrying. When Liz Phair came out, I heard it was horrible (0/5, no stars, etc.) so I didn’t even bother getting it. Well, I found a skuf copy for only $4.25, so I figure for that price I might as well see if it’s really so bad…

So overall, that makes 9 CDs for $70.18. That averages out to about $7.80 a disc. Not bad, if I say so myself.

Miscellaneous, Seattle

You Will Not Get In This Door

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The sign on my neighbor's door
I hate to be all gossipy and stuff, but I cannot resist posting this note that is taped to the door on the guy who lives in the apartment next to mine.

It reads:

If I didn’t buzz you in via the front entrance you will not get in this door. I don’t care how loud or long you know you will not get in.

Whoa! So now I suppose you are wondering (or you should be wondering, at least) what would prompt him to post such a note?

First, some background (full of speculation, of course) about this guy. He is probably in his late-30s or somewhere in his 40s. He is about 5’7″ and has reddish hair. I’m 99% sure that he is gay. I’ve never seen him dressed in anything but baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. I have no idea if he works or anything like that. All I know is that there have been many times when I have seen extremely attractive twink-type guys coming out of his apartment — which never ceases to shock me.

Then last weekend in addition to the twinky boys, he also had lots of visitors who were older, uglier guys. They were the kind of guys (who, again I am assuming are gay) who have that Tom Seleck-type of sleazy faux-suave look. The striking feature that I have projected onto the collective of them is a blond (possibly) dyed moustache — if that gives you any idea.

These two types of guys started coming in together. And often times they would wait in the back of the apartment until someone would come in and then they would sorta sneak in with someone who lived in the apartment. Or sometimes the guy would go out and let them in. It was all very sketchy.

Also, there have been numerous times when in the middle of the night when someone has knocked at my door only to mistakenly realize that he meant to knock on the door next to mine. There was even a time when someone knocked on my door wanting to use my phone so he could call the guy next door. After the guy didn’t answer the “visitor” left a voicemail to the effect of, “Well, I’m here now but I guess you changed your mind? You aren’t answering your door or your phone.” The guy claimed that my neighbor buzzed him in, but somehow I doubt it.

Considering the fact that I live within four blocks of two sex clubs (Club Seattle and Club Z), I suspect that all this stuff going in with my neighbor is somehow related to sex and/or prostitution and/or drugs. How’s that for speculation?

Now I’m pretty cool with all that stuff, so it’s never fazed me. I always thought back to that Sex and the City episode “Are We Sluts?” when someone in Samantha’s building is held-up at gunpoint because someone left the door open and everyone in the building assumes that Samantha is at fault. I figure if he’s having sex that’s great and it’s never bothered me before.

…Until last week when my bathtub kept backing up.

I must preface this by noting that I am aware of the fact that in a logical universe all of this is unrelated, but nonetheless, I think it’s funny how I assume that it’s related anyway.

So early last week I came home from work one day to find my bathtub filled with about 2 feet of water. I know that when I left in the morning that the tub had drained (I took a shower, so why would there be standing water?), so I was really sorta annoyed at the whole situation. I got my plunger out and that helped a little, so finally I made a trip to get some Draino. That did the trick.

The next morning after I got home from the gym there was water in the tub again — this time less, though. I didn’t have time to plunge or anything, so I quickly showered, utterly disgusted by the fact that I was standing in ishy dirty water. When I got home that evening, there was still water in the tub (though it had gone down a little), so I plunged again. This time reddish/brownish gunk came up (it wasn’t shit, luckily — I smelled to make sure!), so again I went to the store and got Liquid-Plumr. (Yes, I am aware of how dangerous and environmentally unfriendly all that shit is — but I was feeling desperate.) The Liquid-Plumr didn’t really help, so I wrote a note to leave with my landlord so he could look at the problem the next day.

That night I heard all kinds of voices coming from the apartment next door. I may have been delirious from the Liquid-Plumr fumes, but I could’ve sworn that there was a correlation between the talking next door and the water in the tub raising. I imagined some relationship between the sex and the drugs and the partying and the need for lots of running water and lord knows what else. Needless to say, I got annoyed. Then I kept hearing voices in the hallway and the door opening and closing, so I went to the peephole at the door and peered out.

Imagine this scene: Me feeling annoyed and possibly high from fumes looking out the peephole like some old crotchety woman. I laughed at myself, even.

The next day my apartment manager fixed the drain and mentioned that he went next door to work on the problem, also, so my suspicions were somewhat vindicated. The tub has been fine since, by the way.

Then today I noticed that sign on the door. I love it. It makes my imagination run even wilder!

Star Wars

Star Wars Revelations

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Star Wars: Revelations
I know I’m a bit behind on the whole bandwagon of checking out Star Wars: Revelations, but oh well. I have now downloaded it, burned it to a DVD, and watched it — so I feel confident that I can comment on it.

First off, though, a little about getting the movie — the nerdy part of me thought the challenge of getting it on DVD was almost better than the film itself.

On the movie download page, the two main file formats are QuickTime and Windows Media Player WMV. For the more geeky fans, there is also DivX and a bunch of formats for various hand-held devices. What really got me excited, though, was the DVD version of Revelations. My new notebook has the ability to burn DVDs, but I haven’t used it yet. I figured this would be a perfect learning opportunity.

Since the file is over 3GB, the creators of the film prefer that people get the film using BitTorrent. I had used BitTorrent in the past to download episodes of season 4 of The Surreal Life, so I figured it would be pretty straightforward and fast. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

The BitTorrent files were taking forever to download. I was getting download speeds of only 33KB/sec, which meant that downloading would take well over 10 hours. I know my connection is faster, so that seemed insane. So despite the fact that the FTP wasn’t the preferred method, I went and downloaded my favorite FTP client, NcFTP (which supports resuming of failed/stopped/disconnected downloads), and started downloading. It took most of Saturday to download (but at least I was getting between 80KB/sec and 120KB/sec), but at least it was faster than BitTorrent.

Once I had the ISO image, I needed a way to burn it on to the blank DVD (a Memorex DVD-RW, for what it’s worth). Originally I figured that I could use burnatonce, a great little program I’ve used in the past to burn normal CD images. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to get burnatonce to work with DVDs, so I searched for another solution. I quickly found DVD Decrypter (which is apparently out of “print” but can still be found on download sites), which worked great. I thought it would take forever to burn a 3.5GB ISO image, but amazingly it only took 25 minutes or so.

With the burning completed this morning, I now had Star Wars: Revelations and was ready to watch it. (There is still the option of downloading the “specials” disc #2 with behind-the-scenes features and whatnot, but for now I’m content with just the film.)

Darth Vader and Zhanna
As for the film itself, I have mixed feelings.

The special effects are amazing. The amount of CGI work done for this film (including light saber battles, space scenes, explosions, holograms, etc.) is spectacular. If someone were to splice a few of the shots into a “real” Star Wars film, I probably couldn’t tell the difference. The only complaint I have about the CGI work is that it is often “too realistic.” I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, but I think it has to do with the fact that the film was entirely digital, which left it without that somewhat grainy and theatrical feel that normal movies have. Everything was too crisp and clean to be in a movie.

As for the acting, however, I was pretty disappointed. I’m not sure how the film was cast, but as far as I can tell most of the characters are played by a group of friends — the director, for example, plays one of the main characters. For the amount of awesome CGI work that went into the project, I would’ve hoped that as much effort would have gone into casting. Not to say that the film was horrible or that the quality of acting reminded me of ninja and karate movies people made in high school (though at times it did have that feel…), but it definitely could have been better.

If I had to venture a guess, I would assume that the people behind the film had more of a technical/computer background rather than a theatre arts one — but I could be wrong (and I should probably research a bit before being so critical). If anything, I think that seeing the people in the film made me realize how difficult acting truly is and that we often take that for granted with most movies and television shows.

The story, on the other hand, was rather interesting. It takes place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The main character, Taryn Anwar, is a seer Jedi. In the past, the seers had been kicked out of the Jedi order, so Taryn is a bit of a rouge — perhaps? Prior to the film, she had been working for Zhanna, the Emperor’s Hand, to help exterminate the Jedi (which began in Revenge of the Sith). Eventually, Taryn teams up with some other Jedi’s to figure out the meaning of a mysterious artifact.

Spoiler ahead:

At the end, the “revelation” is that the seer Jedi’s foresaw the rise of Anakin Skywalker (or, more vaguely, a Jedi who would turn to the Dark Side). In order to prevent this from happening, they would on occasion kill Jedi who they feared might turn (which is probably part of the reason they were kicked out of the Jedi order). The seers setup a system to track all the Jedi’s in the universe — that was the secret of the artifact.

The final battle at the end is between Zhanna and Taryn over who gets to keep the list of all Jedis. Ultimately Zhanna escapes with the list, but Taryn’s friends make a copy so they have a list too. At the end, Darth Vader kills Zhanna (who he was jealous of), and will presumably take credit for having the list and hunting down the remaining Jedis. Taryn and her friends vow to protect as many Jedi as possible and plan to enlist the help of Senator Organa (from Revenge of the Sith and Leia’s adopted father).

Like I said, the story is interesting, and has a few twists that I didn’t mention. And there are a few “cameos” like Boba Fett and that strange eye machine that guards Jabba’s palace in Return of the Jedi that only true fans would think of including. (Though I don’t remember a character muttering, “I have a bad feeling about this…”)

I love the idea of having various “alternate universes” that are created with literature and film. The more complete these universes the better. I’ve posted about this before (on my old blog, though, I think), and I’ve concluded this enjoyment of “mythologies” is part of the reason I find soap operas and television shows so enjoyable.

I think it’s awesome that a bunch of fans got together to add to an alternate universe that they so obviously love. I truly hope that more people will add to the universe in such rich ways. Over at TheForce.Net there are a bunch of fan films that I will have to check out, but I have a feeling that none will compare to Revelations when it comes to visual effects, storyline complexity, and length.

I commend the makers and look forward to more fan-created work.

News, Politics

Exploiting Who/What?

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As far as I am concerned, life is based on exploitation. Everyone exploits everything, and that just seems to be how things are. The people who complain about that are totally missing the point.

I find it extremely disturbing and ironic that while people are attacking Cindy Sheehan for exploiting her child’s death, we have another mother who is vowing to stay in Aruba until she gets answers about her daughter’s disappearance. In the same month that Cindy Sheehan is accosted by the media for camping outside of Bush’s ranch (where all he seems to do — as made evident by a recent episode of The Majority Report — is clear brush!), Beth Twitty-Holloway confronts and harasses a young man who she thinks is somehow hiding information from the police. Rather than covering Holloway’s actions as disrespectful and possibly illegal (the young man is seeking a lawsuit now), the media covers it as “a mother out for answers”-type thing. She is hailed for her slightly unorthodox actions and excused because she is a mother in grief.

Yet when it comes to Cindy Sheehan, the media’s story (when it chooses to get critical — admittedly, most of the stories covering her actions in Texas are pretty lame and don’t ask tough questions of either side) is that she is exploiting the death of her son in order to advance her left-wing agenda. The fact that she is a liberal who lost a child in the Iraq War seems to mean that must hide her political views as she grieves and that since her son died in a war she disagreed with, that she must stop all political action in the name of her son. It’s ridiculous.

The administration has been exploiting military families this entire war. And not just military families — this entire war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan before it, was waged in the name of those who died on Sept. 11. The U.S. wanted revenge and wanted to ensure that an event like Sept. 11 would never happen again. If the right-wing administration can exploit, what makes it so wrong for the other side to do the same?

Which brings me back to my first point — “exploitation” isn’t always so bad. Without “exploiting” the dead, we probably wouldn’t have made the same advancements we’ve made against fatal diseases, for example, because families who have suffered the loss of a loved one due strive to save others from the pain and fight for research and treatments and whatnot. If John Walsh hadn’t “exploited” the death of his son, America’s Most Wanted would have never existed — that show alone has helped apprehend 853 criminals and found over 40 missing children. (The America’s Most Wanted example comes to my mind because I saw John Walsh commenting on the whole Aruba thing last week.)

I think what Cindy Sheehan is doing is admirable and brave. I don’t think she is exploiting her son — or any other soldier. I think that she has turned her grief into action, and that is a commendable thing to do. In the face of horrible events, most people retreat inward and try to cope with what has happened. Cindy Sheehan lost her son. She is using that loss to illustrate the fact that he died for what is not a “noble cause.” She is trying to affect change, unlike (not to dis on her, because I am sure she is going through immense grief as well — it’s just that the media handles it differently) Beth Twitty-Holloway who is truly exploiting her daughter’s disappearance to be on the television and, well, I’m not really sure what her ultimate goal is, but I don’t think it is as selfless as Cindy Sheehan’s motives.

Seattle, Wong Kar-Wai

2046 Opening In Seattle

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2046-2047
Finally!!! 2046 is opening in Seattle on August 26 and playing at the Harvard Exit Theatre.

I must say, that of all the Landmark Theatres in Seattle, the Harvard Exit is the best for foreign films because the seats are sloped enough so that people’s heads are not in the way and you can actually read the subtitles. We should all be thankful that, although the venue is larger, they aren’t showing it at The Neptune (which is where they showed it for SIFF).

The site doesn’t say how long it will be showing in Seattle, but I would guess that it is one or two weeks, so if you have any interest in seeing it, don’t wait — see it as soon as possible after the opening.

Movie Reviews

Dead or Alive OR ABSURD?

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Capture from the finale of Dead or Alive
While watching Dead or Alive by Takashi Miike (who also did Izo, Audition, Visitor Q, etc.), I kept saying to myself, “Hmm, this is missing the absurdity that I love so much in Miike’s films!”

Then I got to the ending. I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, but it’s great. And absurd. And very Miike (as far as I can tell based on the three or so movies of his that I have seen already). Good times. I do recommend.

Philosophy

Origin of Life

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Puddle of algae
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the idea of universal common descent. I know there has been some recent questioning of common descent, but let’s pretend for a second that common descent is indeed the model — and even if it is not, the fact that life has basically come from one branch of evolution is still pretty phenominal.

My thoughts, however, have been less along the lines of “oohh everything is related to everything an intertwined and has a common history” (a la the whole “all humans descended from the same first humans so therefore everyone is good and the same”), but more about the fascinating aspect that since the first collision of proteins or whatever the made the first (or first three) cellular-type structures, that act of “life begining” has not happened again.

All life that we know of is carbon-based and somehow consists of cells and consumes energy. And that is all we know of “life.”

With the Mars Rovers treking across another planet and the new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter equipped with even more tools for trying to find “life” on Mars, I wonder what it is we are looking for? Obviously we are looking for carbon-based lifeforms that we are familar with — a plant, bacteria, an incest, an animal, etc. But for all we know, “life” on Mars evolved very differently so as it didn’t require cells or solar energy. Maybe “life” on Mars (or anywhere else in the universe, for that matter) is invisible to our eyes and instruments or lives in a different plane or existence due to it’s different base-atomic structure.

I wonder if there is any value to considering the definition of life. Could a star be considered “alive”?

On a related note, I wonder why evolution has only allowed sentient life (as far as we know) to happen once. Does the fact that humans exist as we do create some sort of metaphysical impossability for other animals to develop language as seemingly complex as ours? Can no other animals learn to create fire?

… I apologize for the “everywhereness” of this post and its rather abstract nature, but I do wonder what “life” is and how it came to be that “life” only started on Earth once. I’m sure the chances aren’t that high of “life” randomly starting, but it seems really strange to me. What is going on?

Miscellaneous

“Out For Blood”

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I probably shouldn’t make fun of people who post comments on my site (but as far as I’m concerned, this stupid 206-415 business is a site of it’s own now — I swear that most of the people posting comments didn’t even read my original post… they seem to not understand that the phone number is spoofed and that whoever is at 206-415-9247 is an innocent third-party in this mess, but whatever), but I loved this comment:

My call came in while I was donating blood this morning. I thought it might be my kids so I picked without seeing who it was because I was laying prone with a needle and tube in my arm. 206 415 9247. I gave blood and now I’m out for blood. I’m tired of repeating hello. I also get overseas calls from family and friends and id doesn’t always show up the same. It gives me agita! They’re gonna wish they’d never called this girl, lemme tell ya. I never give up on justice.

(emphasis mine)

Holy shit everyone. Watch out for “SanDiegoGrommet”!!

Oh, and “agita” is “acid indigestion.” Yikes!

Dallas

Missing Miss Ellie

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Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie
Yesterday, Barbara Bel Geddes, who plays Miss Ellie on Dallas died. I find this sad for a few reasons.

First (and this could be a happy reason?), Dallas season 3 just came out on Tuesday. It is kinda cool that she survived to see season 3, but sad at the same time that people will be reminded of how great of an actress and character she played, she is no longer with us.

Second, she is probably one of the strongest characters on the show. In one of the early episodes of season 1 or 2 she has a discussion with Pam or Sue Ellen (I honestly cannot remember which one…) about infidelity. Miss Ellie admits that her husband, Jock, had cheated on her on occasion and whenever she did, she slapped him with a belt or something to set him straight. It’s hard to really express the spirit of the scene without watching it again, but I just remember being really moved by her strength and refusal to put up with shit from her husband.

Miss Ellie, mother of the notorious J.R. and totally likable Bobby, was a great mother and stopped at nothing to keep her family together. Whenever the brothers had issues with their wives (which was quite often), Miss Ellie almost always took the side of the woman (she was a great defender of both Pam and Sue Ellen), while at the same time slowly trying to show her sons how great their wives were.

A true matriarch and she will be missed.

Finally, I must note that I, of course, started watching Dallas season 3 yesterday and am, of course, loving it. I’ll try to post some thoughts as the season progresses.

Movie Reviews

Moloch!

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The Machine-Man and Rotwang
I watched the Kino Video version of Metropolis last night and I have to say that it is one of the best film restorations I’ve ever seen. The quality of this version of Metropolis rivals a lot of the Criterion Collection DVDs I’ve watched. For a movie made in 1927, the print was super-crisp (almost too crisp, if that is possible). In addition to the great quality, this version claims to be the most complete version of the film and even where the original negatives have been lost (so as to create missing scenes), the creators of the restoration included brief textual explanations about the missing sequences.

As for the film itself, I wish I wouldn’t have waited to long to watch it. I mentioned the Time magazine “9 Great Movies From Nine Decades” during my review of Bad Education, and while Talk To Her was the most recent (for 2000s), Metropolis was the first (for 1920s). Apparently that article has been on my mind lately.

Anyway, I totally understand why Metropolis would make the list — the movie was brilliant.

From my understanding, the lasting legacy of Metropolis has been its dystopian vision of the future, but I think the social and feminist themes it raises are also worthy of praise. This was quite a progressive film — and if I can be saying that in 2005, I wonder how it was received in 1927. (Perhaps it is more shocking now since, in my opinion, we have, in many ways, become more conservative in the past 20 years or so — maybe in 1927 people expected films to be more artistic and abstract and tackle philosophical and political issues…)

I definitely want to watch the film again, preferably with commentary. Since the film is silent, I can imagine that having people talk during it would help keep my attention — though I will say that the score for this film is quite gripping, and I am fairly certain that John Williams ripped off a few of the musical themes for Star Wars.

Sometimes when I watch these old “classic” movies, I do so with a little resentment — why should I have to watch such and such film if I want to consider myself to be someone who really appreciates good film. And why should I believe some old critics as to what makes good film and take their recommendations seriously since they tend to hate films I love such as Doom Generation and Lost Highway (okay, I guess some critics do like Lost Highway, but hopefully my point remains…). With Metropolis, I must admit that the critics and history of film criticism are correct — this is a great, must-see, important, artistic film.