Mark

Disjointed, Freakish Reflections™ on The Oscars™

Movies / /

The Oscars happened last night. Ho hum. Gladiator won best picture. Ho hum, big suprise. Rather than ramble on about how Gladiator was good, but not best picture good, I’ll speak about Steven Soderberg’s win for best director, which, I felt was well deserved. Now, I’m going to admit, I haven’t seen most of the movies nominated this year, but I did see Traffic and I felt that it was superbly directed. I was extremely impressed. I feel for Ang Lee, however, since he was probably also deserving of the award. From what I’ve heard about Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky (director of Pi) was also deserving, and he wasn’t even nominated (thats what you get for making a brilliant but relentlessly brutal film).

Since I probably won’t get around to doing a year 2000 movie roundup until August (like I did last year), I’m going to link to Widgett’s, which is entertaining and honest and a good read. He makes the point that the year 2000 wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be, and overall, I think he might be correct. But 2000 had 2 things going against it: a slow start (first impressions count) and even with the strong ending, the year still wasn’t nearly as strong as 1999…

Where the Hell is the DVD?

Music / /

Chapter One in the touching story of the rumored Nine Inch Nails DVD, by Meathead. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Meathead’s work, I highly recommend you check it out, even if you aren’t a big fan of NIN (for instance, chapter one contains a menacing Sting as well as the horrors of the evil Verizon empire). Rarely have I ever seen someone who is able to consistantly rant about a single topic with such quality for so damn long. Bravo, Meathead. Bravo.

Now that I’ll actually have some computing power, I’m beginning to look forward to things like this.

Proceed with your cat story

Arts & Letters / /

Say what you want about Art Bell, but you have to admit, sometimes his show is very funny (Warning: This link is in .ram format, meaning it must be played with realplayer, one of the worst, sloppiest, unsecure programs in existance. I appologize in advance for ruining this otherwise fine weblog with realplayer’s poison.) It is amazing how dumb people are (I think he was most likely stoned out of his mind). [thankee sai Widgett]

March Madness? Forget about the NCAA tourney, and head on over to the Sauced 16, a grueling taste test of 16 beers. Who will be the victor? Only 4 remain (including Labatt Blue!?). This line is classic: “Between tasting rounds, the judges’ palettes are cleansed with raspberry sherbet.” Good work Dack.

Metafilter Turns Two and gets some upgrade action. Happy Birthday. Interesting history…

GO

Culture / /

In the movie Pi, there are several scenes where the movie’s protagonist takes a break from his work to visit his teacher and mentor. During these visits, they play an ancient asian game called Go. Basically, the Go board has a grid and some black and white stones. The rules of Go are incredibly simple, yet mastering the game is a lifelong, and sometimes life-consuming, effort. Indeed, the game is much more than just a game to its devoted players. Some people kill themselves when they lose. Some do it for a living. Some people even believe that it could save our public education system. For others, it represents the Holy Grail of computing (as it is incredibly difficult to program). Pi was originally supposed to pit student and mentor against each other in a game of chess, but they changed it to Go, and the movie benefits greatly. For Go reflects the common themes of the movie; Go represents a certain synthesis between spiritual and rational life…[thanks alt-log]

The Dream Machine

Computers & Internet / /

I recently purchased a veritable plethora of computer hardware in an attempt to build my dream machine. Ars Technica was an invaluable resource for my efforts, especially their system recommendations and how-to guides. Not to mention their weblog, which is a great source for current tech news and information. Tom’s Hardware Guide also provided some in-depth wisdom and reviews. For price comparisons, I used pricewatch.com, streetprices.com, and pricecombat.com. Another good find was jcshopper, a decent store with very good prices ($57 PC133 256MB SDRAM!). Thanks also to grenville, Four Degreez, and DyRE for all their help! Soon I’ll be able to break the chains of my 200Mhz oppression! For those who are interested, I posted my purchases on the infamous Kaedrin Forum.

The Honor System Takes Hold

Computers & Internet / /

Amazon.com’s Honor System, a way for Web sites to receive payments from readers, is slowly taking hold. In all honesty, while I see the motivation for having such a thing and am enthusiastic about using it, I don’t see how that sort of system could really support a website. First, when given the choice, most people won’t pay. Second, even when people do pay, they aren’t likely to keep paying. That’s why you see Metafilter making $600 in a day, then practically nothing for the next month. If you wish to prove me wrong, feel free to donate to the Kaedrin Honor System Page (or go here to find other options for supporting Kaedrin:)! It will be much appreciated!

5:30 PM: More thoughts – It would be great if Amazon was able to incorperate some of its other functionality into the Honor System. For instance, allow visitors to review the website, or the ability to create lists of themed websites. Amazon could potentially parlay the Honor System into becoming a major portal site (even recommending sites for you based on what sites you’ve rated and visited), and given Amazon’s rediculous commission system, its in their best interest to have people donating as much money as possible! Granted, the system could be abused, but I think Amazon has a lot to gain from integrating the Honor System with reviews and recommendations. Just my 2 cents.

p

Movies / /

Today is National Pi Day and also the birthday of one Albert Einstein. I plan to celebrate by popping in Pi, one of my favourite movies of recent years. A kinetic, grainy, paranoid masterpiece, Pi strikes a certain cord with me and for some reason, appeals to my personal philosophy (3.14 stars; sorry, couldn’t help myself). 8:54, Press Return {insert cool Clint Mansell Music here}.

American Gods

Arts & Letters / /

Neil Gaiman is using blogger to keep a journal about his upcoming book, American Gods. Its an interesting look into the life of a writer (and a cool guy too:). He talks about stuff like the mechanics of copy editing, coin magic, permissions, and the best things about finishing a book. [via Follow Me Here]

The book sounds interesting too. His description:

It’s a thriller, I suppose, although as many of the thrills occur in headspace as in real life, and it’s a murder mystery; it’s a travel guide, and it’s the story of a war. It’s a history. It’s funny, although the humour is pretty dark.

I’m not too familiar with Gaiman’s work, but I’m probably going to check this book out because Neverwhere rocked my world and he seems like a great writer.

MST3K vs. D&D

Movies / /

A homemade MST3K episode (complete with familiar silhouettes) lambasting Dungeons and Dragons among other role playing games. Don’t let it pass, its a riot (even if you don’t like D&D)! I miss MST3K a lot. Its just so much fun seeing them tear a bad movie apart. I’ve got a couple of episodes on tape (including the infamous Manos:The Hands of Fate) and, of course, the Movie, but there are over 200 episodes out there. I think I might even be tempted to watch TV if someone started airing them again…[via boing boing]

In some completely unrelated news, I’m beginning to worry about the mutant fungus from space (well, ok, maybe its not completely unrelated). Biologists are worried about virulent new strains of fungus which the russian space station Mir will bring back to Earth.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, David Hasselhoff is the AntiChrist.