I wanted to see the eclipse last night but I didn’t want to set an alarm, which would wake up Nicole. So I told the dogs to wake me up between 3 and 4. Grover woke me up at 3:36AM! It was hard to find the moon at first since it was fairly dim out and it was dimmed further by the fog, but I managed to locate it and observe for a few minutes. Thanks, Grover!
Aug 282007
Aug 212007
The past weekend was great! Nicole came back from the UK Thursday night and the Friday day we drove to LA for a family reunion on my dad’s side. Nicole held up amazingly well despite the jet lag. Our family met at the Laguna Sawdust Art Festival and wandered before going to the main Laguna Arts Festival and finally going to dinner. Everyone involved wants to try and meet more regularly so I look forward to seeing them all again soon.
The downside of the trip is that it wore Nicole out and now she has a cold.
Aug 142007
The Illusionist – I loved the uncertainty it generated throughout the movie about what was real and what was illusion. Plus you generally can’t go wrong with Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti and I think it’s the first movie Jessica Biel is good.
Happy Gilmore – It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it but it’s still great. Also I think the deleted scenes from when his grandma’s house is being packed up should have been left in.
The Shaolin Drunken Monk (Shao Lin zui ba quan) – This film is capitalizing on Gordon Liu’s popularity from Master Killer/36th Chamber. The action is good, the drunken training is good, the voice overs are so bad they’re good.
The Bourne Ultimatum – The first movie was great, the second movie was fun but didn’t really have direction, this one was back to the feeling of the first one. It mirrored the first one in the action and look, had good suspense, good action, and was a good wrap to the series. I’d even see this one a few more times.
Poison Ivy: The New Seduction – Another movie where the third was better than the second. Not to say it wasn’t rediculous, but it’s entertaining similar to how the first one was.
Bandidas – Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz wanted to make a western/comedy and this is what came out. It’s a fun movie!
The Legend of Zorro – The string of good sequels ends here. Not that it was a horrible movie, just missing some things to make it flow together and when you see the deleted scenes you’ll see why. This is the first movie I’ve seen where I think all the deleted scenes should have been included. It’s clear that they were cutting to get the time down, but when you’re already at 130 minutes those extra bits don’t make much of a difference and the resulting movie would have been MUCH better. The only scenes not cut for time were the original beginning and ending. The studio cut those because they wanted to option for more sequels with the same stars, but seeing how long this one took to make that clearly isn’t going to happen. The framing from the original beginning and end would have improved the movie as well.
Stomp the Yard – I like movies about breakdancing and this is kind of one so I had to see it. Fairly predictable plot to hold the dance/stomp stuff; the dancing isn’t as good as You Got Served, but the acting is oscar-worthy by comparison.
Curse of the Golden Flower (Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia) – Another awesome movie from Yimou Zhang! The sets are amazing, the colors are amazing, the cleavage is costumes are amazing! Really though, you can’t go wrong with Yimou Zhang directing Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat in a period piece.
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! – I hadn’t seen any Russ Meyers movies so I decided it was time to change that with three well known ones. The dialogue is awesome, the acting and action is laughable but it doesn’t matter. Generally low budget movies like this don’t look this good. I thought the guy who played the old man was great. Thumbs up.
Motor Psycho – Again, great dialogue and look and with better acting this time. Unfortunately even though it was only 75 minutes it started to drag towards the end
Supervixens – This one is in color and I think I liked Russ Meyers’ look in black and white better. This movie has more comedy in it and by the end it gets pretty strange. I thought the barn sex scene was really funny. After these three movies I have a good idea what to expect from his movies:
- Women with large breasts (but I knew that going in)
- Car chases and/or long shots of driving
- Fight scenes
- Maybe a rattlesnake bite/suck out the poison scene
- Lots of fight/death scenes
- Sex scenes
- People being blown up
Aug 142007
This morning after I walked the dogs but before I went to work I saw the wasp again. It was trapped between the window and the screen actively looking for a way out and that’s where it’s going to stay for now. When I went home at lunch to let the dogs out it was still there but barely moving. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow so I can finally get rid of it.
Aug 122007
Yesterday morning I was in the kitchen when I saw something flying with the corner of my eye. I turned to look and saw a black wasp making a course straight for my head. Recalling recent tales of swollen ears from wasp-in-hair action I dodged and ran out of the kitchen. It went back up to the skylight and I could see it from a distance that it was a paper wasp. I decided to give it time to find its way back outside the same way it got in. Two hours later I couldn’t see it any longer and a few trips through the kitchen were ok, but then I paused to pick up something and I turned to see it coming for me again. This time I knocked some things off the counter in my hurry to get away. A few hours later the wasp was still there and I was starting to get hungry so I went to the store and founds some non-poison flying insect killer (mostly mint with a touch of sodium lauryl sulfate) and the claims of “kills in seconds” was promising.
Once home I verified the wasp was still there and then I just had to wait for the wasp to get within reach. I wasn’t about to get on a step stool since I figured I might seriously hurt myself in an escape attempt. I had to wait for it to crawl down to spray it, and then a second time, and then a third time, and then a fourth time. Kills in seconds is true when it’s about 1000 seconds. I was just outside the kitchen waiting when I heard it fall to the floor. I looked just in time to see it right itself and fly into the kitchen window where I lost sight of it.
I looked carefully in case it was just pissed off and waiting to strike, but I saw no evidence of a wasp. While I waited I munched on the snack food I bought when I got the bug spray so I wouldn’t be subject to another sneak attack in the kitchen. A couple hours later and I looked more thoroughly and still no sign of the wasp. My best theory is that it crawled under the window in the track but moving the windows hasn’t turned up a body yet. I’m satsfied I won’t be troubled by that wasp again.
Aug 112007
When Nicole left I figured I would spend a day or two replacing the 7thsign hard drive using Nicole’s computer as the host for the two laptop drives. Her machine was too unstable for that so instead of upgrading her machine to be more efficient and quiet after the drive swap, I had to do it first. Then I had to figure out how to make the devices that aren’t there by default because it’s a parallel ATA drive on a serial ATA connection. The hard drive was copied without too much trouble though I forgot some that had me doing a second pass today.
Anyway, Nicole’s machine now has an energy efficient power supply and an AMD64 processor that tops out at 45W. With it slowing down when not in use, it actually spends most of its time using around 15W. Tomorrow I need to recycle all these boxes, donate the working old parts and take the rest to e-waste recycling.