I find it fascinating that people I don’t know visit this site and mess with my wishlist.

No, really, you don’t have anything better to do?

Powerful and sad, delivered with understated grace. There’s my critic-like sentence. It’s a good movie. Don Cheadle does a great job, much to my surprise considering the crap accent he uses in Ocean’s 11 and 12.

It shames me to not even know the major details of the true life conflict depicted in thie film, and I hope I am among many who watch it, and are that much more aware of the world outside our borders.

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About six months ago Google implemented Google SMS - an impressive substitute to the expensive cell phone providers’ 411 service (they’re all $1 per listing, except Sprint, which gives you 4 listings).

Instead, I can send an SMS to Google (GOOGL/46645) with something like: “”chipotle 90291″” or “”mac cosmetics beverly hills, ca”" and I get a directory listing and a phone number.

The one thing missing that I really wanted was movie times. When I tried it, I got a “”feature not yet implemented”". Well, good golly, six months later (that being right now), it now works!

Mr. Moviefone was the brilliant idea of the 90’s, but then it got less and less useful as the ad before “”If you know the name of the movie you’d like to see, press 1 now”" got longer and longer. Remember when it was just “”Hello, and welcome to Moviefone! If you know…”" then it became “”Hello, and welcome to Moviefone, a service of the Los Angeles Times. If you know…”" (or whatever sponsor for the city you were in)? Then it was “”Hello, and welcome to Moviefone, brought to you by AOL. [deep, hushed voice]In a time of wonder and splendor, a man faces his destiny….[/deep, hushed voice] … If you know…”"

Yeah, well I was getting tired of wasting 5 minutes of my time on this. Far better to simply text “”movie: ong bak 90024″”, do something else with my time for 10 to 30 seconds, and get three SMS messages with a listing for the three nearest theaters with times and everything. Plus I get to review the SMS, versus having to call Moviefone again (oh, you know you’ve done it).

That, along with the already working 411-like directory service, makes GOOGL the most useful tool on my cell phone other than talking to someone.

So after watching Constantine with Nadia, Sun and I drove all the way to the Camarillo outlet. In the rain.

Basically, Sun and I cashed in our Amex membership rewards points and collected a decent stack of gift cards for The Gap and Banana Republic. And gift cards go a long way at the outlet versions of these stores.

To sum up, I came home with two shirts, a sweater, six pairs of socks, and three pairs of boxers while Sun scored a jacket, a pair of jeans, a pair of slacks, and two halters, and the total sum after gift cards was around $15.

Score.

This battery pack screws onto the tripod mount on a camera and gives power via the camera’s DC input socket. It comes with virtually every input plug out there, and you can still mount it on a tripod because the pack has its own mount.

And the damn thing lasts forever. I charged it over a month ago and left it plugged in to my E-10. Granted, I’ve only taken all of 30 shots since then, but the battery level indicator (oh, yes, it has one) still says full.

This thing rocks.

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4361 Sepulveda Blvd
Culver City, CA 90230
310-397-9295

Their lechon and pollo asado’s garlic and lime sauce is better than Versailles and they have a poem of a flan. A poem, damn you!

This is a good place for dinner out, and definitely a place to take friends for an introduction to Cuban cuisine.

Aside: the first time Sun and I went there, two VW MkV Golfs were being photographed with some models at the corner. No, not those kinds of models at Hot Import Nights, well-dressed, upscale sorta thing, makes the Golf look very metrosexual.

Just an aside.

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Didn’t suck… much. I was expecting worse, so that helped. It’s passable… it’d be better if the storyline was more organized and the editor paid more attention to pacing, but all in all, not bad. Elements from the Original Sins and Dangerous Habits story arcs, with some cinematic changes to fit a two hour running time, were actually well done — didn’t mind at all, really. So the real problem is just in what I said: a need for cleaner storytelling and better pacing.

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Was at the gym with my freebie 50 minutes with a personal trainer last night.

1. Apparently, my body fat is only 20.4% — this surprised me, I thought I’d be around 24%, myself.

2. Because I’m at 20.4%, a drop to 15% body fat means gaining 10 lb. of muscle… and dropping 10 lb. of fat. This basically means STAYING at 160 lb. Go figure.

3. The trainer hurt me GOOD.

4. I avoided the sell on having a regular trainer — it’d be nice, but not an extra $300/mo. nice. Not for now. I’d rather flounder about on my own for awhile — besides, I’ve always been pretty good at getting trim when I get excited enough about something. Ah, the days of ultimate frisbee…. DAMN, was I fit back then!

5. My quads were complimented upon with a hint of surprise. Naturally, it’s pretty weird for a person as out of shape as me to still have well-formed quads, but I’ve had them forever. Still, it’s nice to be complimented on it. I also have good calves and forearms, but they’ve diminished in recent years so this was not as obvious. Heh.

In case this hasn’t dawned on you, yes, hell froze over, Linus got a membership at a gym. After all that harping on hating to exercise in stationary positions, etc. etc., I went off and became a turncoat. The reasons are frightfully simple: these places have saunas and steam baths.

No lie… that’s what convinced me. That and access to hotel pools in Marina del Rey.

Anyhow, it’s close by, within walking distance, at the Marina marketplace where I also go to the movies, eat, and shop — so for me, very convenient. That and the relatively secluded (no, really, what the hell is up with jogging in place in front of a humongous window where passersby can stare at your unbelievably sweaty and exhausted form!?) location, plus not as crowded as the bigger emporium-like places, pretty much sealed the deal.

We’ll see how it goes over the next few months.

Reconstructed from recovered test reels and videotape following Sam Fuller’s original shooting script, a movie I’ve owned on DVD for years expands and deepens its theme: the only glory of war is surviving.

I always liked this film — now I like it even more.

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Good movie — has several flaws that keep it from being the fantastic movie the awards it’s been winning appear to make it, but still a good movie.

The worst part? Two-dimensional evil white trash family stereotypes.
The best part? Dialogue between Freeman and Eastwood, and Eastwood and the priest.

The laughs generated by the Danger subplot were also pretty good.

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