Starts out a little slow, picks up, gets fun, then loses steam 2/3 of the way in, mostly because at that point it’s just tying up the loose ends. Han and I saw the first showing Saturday of the opening weekend over at the Mann Village (Fox) in Westwood. Quite an impressive showing for 11:30 in the morning, the number of people there would have filled a multiplex’ large auditorium to capacity.

Most of the future presented was believable, but I did have a problem with the interface Tom Cruise uses at work. This is nitpicky and definitely geeky, but I couldn’t see how his hand movements were in any way being picked up an interpreted correctly. The other interfaces, which were touchpads or voice commands, were fine. But that finger and hand show was a little bit much.

No, I didn’t dig the Lexus.

But I did like the “”static gun.”" Apparently they call it a subsonic gun. Whatever, I like my name better. =)

It’s worth seeing, so go see it. I’d probably advise you to catch a matinee, though. Considering matinees now cost $7-8, I don’t see the point in seeing a movie at prime rate anymore, unless it’s part of some big thang you and your friends plan out involving Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles or BCD Tofu afterward.

Now if only someone would come with me to see Lilo and Stitch….

link

The future home of Intrinsic Rielity has been established: linus.grumblemutterspit.org.

I just need to rewrite the whole damn thing in PHP. Finding a cheap and friendly Java/JSP webhost, well, mostly a cheap one, turned out to be ridiculously hard. So here I am at phpwebhosting.

This will take a bit of time and the weekend will be spent up north for Jean and Terry’s wedding. So your gonna be stuck staring at this static page for awhile. Sorry.

In the meantime, let me get all this out while it’s still in my head.

The barbecue last week was, as always, fun. Han has pics of it, which he should have up soon at han.grumblemutterspit.org. I say soon because who knows when that URL will start working, and when Han has his site in place. You can always try his old URL. I, as usual, had my six beers in the sun. The first two went down like water and felt like it, but by the fourth one they caught up and there I was, a’grinning and a’yellin’ as is my wont when I get a little ways north of “”buzzed.”" I’m sure everyone found it amusing, especially how I kept bringing people out to check out my car.

Hey, everybody needs a hobby.

And in light of that fact, my car will be getting a short-shifter and hopefully a new set of springs, which I can maybe get help installing by friends over at my VW/Audi enthusiast forum. Snigger all you want, I think it’s cool when you meet people who are willing to put the time out to help out with something that would cost a couple hundred bucks at a shop with a mechanic that may not care as much about scratching the paint.

Saw Minority Report. Good. Not excellent. Just good. I had issues with the back-third. Didn’t read the original story by Dick, and didn’t want to buy that messed up looking publication I saw at Midnight Special at 3rd Street in Santa Monica.

Speaking of which, Japan’s crazy robot store just opened up in LA! Mandarake is now at 3rd Street. They even have the entire set of original issue Chodenji Voltes V die-casts… anyone got $2000 they wanna shell out for a nice birthday present to your good ol’ buddy? Well, it was worth a shot, right?

Right?

Okay, that’ll be it for now. I gotta do some research on the possibilities of mounting JServ on this puppy – not giving up Java just yet.

From MetaFilter.
Hilarious.
Personally, I’m saving up for the SUBTERRANEAN ISLAND BASE WITH OPTIONAL VOLCANO UPGRADE.

link

A dumb movie that I find funny. Seth Green is, as always, hilarious. Devon Sawa makes it work. And this is the one movie where I find Jessica Alba really, really sexy. Oh, no, it’s got nothing to do with her halloween costume, no sir. And if you believe that I’ve got some really hot dot com stock to sell ya.

link

Blah.
The movie is okay… it just isn’t interesting. The plot did not provide enough depth for you to care about the characters except in the briefest moments. And John Woo’s grand battle scenes were not exciting, even with the huge explosions (never saw a frag grenade give out that much flame).
Not worth the price of admission.

link

A fun movie. The plot was simple and straightforward. The action sequences were short but in being so were extremely effective and realistic. Matt Damon plays a man with no memory, so his blandness actually worked. Franka Potente was stuck with some really crappy lines but managed around them as best she could. Chris Cooper joins the pantheon of actors sold into Al Pacino’s method of acting when you are too old to care. Julia Stiles shows up in a role with no meaning.
But all in all, it was a solid two hours of entertainment.
I hope there isn’t a sequel.

link

Sound is a bit messed up and the picture quality isn’t great. The widescreen is really, really wide (supposedly 2:35… dunno, looks like it’s wider than that). Still a nice little DVD but definitely not as good as this movie deserves it to be.

link

Better plot that cracks a little in the last third (think soap opera). While the story was better than the second book, character development mostly stopped. While Harry and Hermione get upgraded according to their age, everyone else has settled into that cozy sitcomish character that was at first appealing to the audience and is now coasting on that personality. Ron, Snape, and particularly Malfoy have pretty much gone this route.
Now I suppose the fourth one is the grand one that puts it all together. I’ll just have to wait for Sue to get it for me (remember, you still owe me this one).

link

by J.K. Rowling
Yeah, I’m behind. I finally got around to reading the second installment in this wildly popular series. While the story was so-so Rowling’s writing has definitely improved. Descriptions weren’t as kludgy and characterizations were more endearing. Rising to the occasion, I suppose.

link

STOP THAT.

ahahahahaha!