Something I've Been Wondering for a While

Is the arrow between the "E" and the "X" intentional, or is it serendipitous, a hidden corporate logo easter egg of sorts?

Oscars

This was the first time in many years that I watched the Academy Awards show from beginning to end, but I found myself checking what was on The Simpsons and The Family Guy toward the end of the show. I didn't think Ellen was too bad of a host, but the show followed form for recent years by having the host pulling a disappearing act for most of the second half -- this makes the show feel somewhat disjointed to me.

Highlights: Michael Mann's montage, Martin Scorcese's win, the Dreamgirls medley
Lowlights: Nothing really stood out as a lowlight, just the overall length

Teavana

I blogged about this place about a year ago, but the post went down the memory hole; I'm in a tea mood so it seemed like a good time to post about this place again. From their homepage: "Life's Short. Relax. Drink Some Tea.
Teavana… a place that many consider a heaven for tea drinkers. Over 100 kinds of Fresh Tea. Beautiful Teapots. etc…

You are about to begin your exploration of the world of tea.
From the lush hillside plantations of India and Nepal to rolling waves of green tea in Japan, we have sought out the world's freshest and finest teas for your palate to embrace and fill your senses with the wonders of the world's oldest and most healthful beverage. We source only the highest quality and freshest teas bringing them from the tea estates fresh every month into the United States. So let's begin your journey…"

Gorillaz

I feel as though I should know who this group is, since they are on the box my iPod came in and iTunes uses them as an example for their 'mini-store', but it wasn't until I did some digging around in iTunes that I realized that I'd heard their song "Feel Good Inc." many times without knowing who the song was by. Since radio stations rarely seem to read back the names of the songs they play anymore, it can be difficult to find songs you like -- especially when the name of the song isn't obvious from the lyrics. (Another example of this is the Chemical Brothers' "Galvanize" as heard in the Budweiser commercials, which seems like it should be called "Don't Hold Back.")

Disappear Here

One phrase from Bret Easton Ellis' 'Less Than Zero' stuck with me, which was "disappear here". I have the picture above set as my Windows desktop, and I don't know why I think of that phrase whenever I see it...

Gung hei faat choi

Happy year of the boar to all!

Box Office

First Norbit opens to $34 million, and now this:

quote:

'Ghost Rider' sets box office ablaze
Comic adaptation takes in $44.5 million
By IAN MOHR
Variety.com
'Ghost Rider'

NEW YORK - Sony's Marvel comic adaptation "Ghost Rider" revved an estimated $44.5 million over the first three days of the extended President's Day frame, easily taking No. 1 at the domestic B.O. and becoming the biggest opening of the year so far.
Studio was estimating Sunday morning that the pic could roll to $51 million over four days, which would make it the biggest President's Day opening ever, surpassing Adam Sandler comedy "50 First Dates," (which hit $45.1 million over four days in 2004).

endquote

It's not all that often that an ad campaign will make me actively want to avoid a movie, but for two weeks in a row movies which held absolutely no appeal to me have opened like gangbusters. I love movies, and I'm usually pretty generous when it comes to movie choices, so I'm somewhat surprised to find that there seem to be an increasing number of "mass appeal" movies which don't interest me at all.

Watch Videos on your Wii

from Lifehacker.com
Wendy Boswell
Sunday, February 18th 2007

quote:

Watch videos from all over the Web right from your Wii with Stumble Video's new Wii-focused video channel:

The revamped video site includes an interface specifically designed for the Wii's Opera browser. Wii owners can use their consoles to navigate through StumbleUpon's video search functions and channel menu, rate and recommend videos, and "discover" more videos that specifically fit their rating histories.
I tried this on my spankin' new Wii and it actually works pretty well; some of the videos are a bit fuzzy, but that's to be expected with the different resolutions. However, overall I found it easy to use..

endquote

From this description, I can't tell whether this works with sites like YouTube and iFilm, but it still sounds pretty interesting. I love the Wii's potential in internet connectivity (even though I haven't been able to connect mine to the internet yet), and this seems like a pretty cool application.

Almonds

Serving Size: 1 package
Calories: 250
Calories from Fat: 190
Total Fat: 22g
Total Carb: 8g
Dietary Fiber: 5g
Sugars: 2g
Protein: 9g

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's day.

This Looks Interesting

Trailer for 'Across the Universe'

I can't tell whether this film is going to be a groundbreaking, unique experience in filmmaking or an unholy mess, but the trailer sure looks interesting. I love the idea of using the Beatles' music as a backdrop and connecting thread to a story set in the '60s, and some of the visuals look astounding.

You Give a Little Love

Bugsy Malone Finale

I miss being able to post directly from YouTube...

Subterranean Squirrel

Tonight as I was pulling into my driveway, a squirrel ran right in front of my car and ran down into the storm drain. This seemed peculiar to me, as I don't even ever remember seeing squirrels in my neighborhood before. For some reason it's striking me as an omen of some kind... of what, I'm not sure, but I hope it's something good.

The Others

I guess it makes sense, now that they've killed off the 2nd season tail end survivors, that we are getting flashback episodes centered on one of the 'others'. Overall not a bad episode, but I didn't feel that it moved the story along as much as I would have liked after such a long hiatus.

Wii!

Happy Wii-day to me!

Remember New Coke?

Almost everyone over a certain age most likely remembers the 'New Coke' fiasco, when Coca-Cola changed its classic formula to a sweeter version that tasted more like Pepsi which the marketing geniuses figured would help boost Coke's sales. An uproar followed, those responsible were sacked, and Coke went back to its classic formula (hence the 'Coca Cola Classic' now found on its labels). It seems odd to me, then, that 7up could make a fairly radical change to its taste with almost no notice or hype. I like the new 7up flavor, but I wouldn't necessarily say I like it better, and it seems different enough to me that I'm sure at least some people wouldn't like it as much. If there is any lesson to this, it may just be that some things are too much of an institution to be messed with, and for other things it may just not really matter.

Before I Forget

I wanted to keep this someplace where I wouldn't lose it...

1/3 BBQ Sauce
1/3 Honey
1/3 Soy Sauce

Before They Were (Network) Stars

I thought it was interesting to spot both Locke from "Lost" and Meredith Grey from "Grey's Anatomy" in the small roles in the movie "Old School", which aired tonight on ABC.

Favorite Superbowl Ad

The Coca-Cola "You Give a Little Love" ad, even though it wasn't new. The "Bugsy Malone" soundtrack was one of my favorites when I was growing up.

YouTube Coca Cola Ad

(Least favorite: SalesGenie.com, which was so bad I thought it had to be some sort of a parody. Alas, I think they were serious.)

Every Now and Zen...

I had run across this place last April and thought about giving it a try, and today I did. Great Boba Tea, and they had Dim Sum which looked really good. I'll give that a try next time...

http://www.zenzootea.com/index.html

Happy Blogday to me

Today is the first anniversary of my first post to this blog. A lot has happened in my life over the past year, but blogging has been one constant and it has been an enjoyable pastime throughout the year.

Go Colts

My team is the San Diego Chargers, who finished up an historic and fantastic regular season with a spectacular flameout in their first playoff game. I will be rooting for the Colts tomorrow, since I usually root for the AFC team in the Superbowl and I'd like to see the "can't win the big one" monkey tossed off of Peyton Manning's back.

Regardless of the outcome of the game, what I am probably more interested in are the commercials. Let's hope for some good ones this year -- it doesn't seem as though there have been as many memorable commercials in the past couple of years as there used to be, but maybe I am just getting more jaded.

Jetsons Time?

Commence holding breath: X-Hawk flying car could be here by 2010
Posted Jan 31st 2007 4:34PM by John Neff
Autoblog.com

The flying car is the equivalent of transportation's carrot on a stick. It's a concept that always seems to be 3-5 years down the road. According to an Isreali inventor named Rafi Yoeli, the flying car will actually be here by 2010 in the form of his X-Hawk. The X-Hawk uses a ducted fan design that allows it to have the same manueverability of a helicopter without exposed blades that prevent choppers from hovering near buildings and the like. Yoeli's own company, Urban Aeronautics, is developing the X-Hawk first as a workhorse vehicle that could be used by firefighters, rescue teams, and the military to aid in the recovery of people stranded in hard to reach places.

Like a helicopter, the X-Hawk can take off and land vertically, it will be able to fly up to 155 mph, reach an altitude of 12,000 ft and remain in the air for two hours. The size of the X-Hawks rotors, which are powere by four internal combustion engines, will be much smaller than a helicopters, which will make the vehicle quieter but also guzzle 50% more fuel. The X-Hawk only exists as a full-scale mockup right now, but Yoeli expects an unmanned Mule version to fly in 2009. A larger version capable of carrying ten people is also planned. The estimated price for an X-Hawk will make a Veyron owner blush: between $1.5 and $3.5 million, and Yoeli admits those estimates might be low.

(End Quote)

Let's see, if I save $10 a week I could get one of these by... oh well

Dell Gaming Micro-PC Possibly in the Works

PC Plus
Dan Grabham

Dell to launch gaming handheld in future?
Mini-gaming machine more likely to resemble UMPC than PSP

A senior Dell executive has admitted the company could look to make a gaming handheld in future. Global gaming chief Abizar Vakharia was speaking at Dell's European Innovation event in Marbella. There, Dell had earlier launched the XPS 710 H2C top-line gaming PC.

When quizzed about a future handheld, Vakharia looked serious as he said: "You know, that's definitely one that's on the radar screen, but we have no plans to talk about anything today."

Dell has made no secret of its desire to grow share in the gaming space, underlined by last year's acquisition of Alienware, but it would be some departure for such a major box shifter to launch a portable gaming device.

Any such handheld would be almost certainly a Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) style device because of Dell's close connections with Intel and Microsoft.

(End Quote)

This could be pretty cool, something like the PSP but enough like a real computer to justify it to geeks not quite ready to sink a couple of thousand into a toy.

Dani California

I just discovered this video (sorry, I don't watch too much MTV or VH1), and I love what they did to cover the entire history of rock. Here are my guesses of who is being spoofed / paid tribute to, in order:

Rockabilly era: Elvis Presley
British Invasion era: Beatles? Kinks? Herman's Hermits?
Acid Rock era: Sgt. Pepper Era Beatles? Iron Butterfly?
Glam Rock era pt 1: Angel
Glam Rock era pt 2: David Bowie / Mott the Hoople
Punk Rock era: Sex Pistols
Goth era: Bauhaus
Hair Metal era: Poison
Grunge era: Nirvana
Modern Alternative era: Red Hot Chili Peppers

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9kb_8LNTrpw

Short Movie Review (Retrospective Edition) -- The Notebook

Sometimes a guy can be in the mood for a maudlin chick flick. Either this was not the movie or I was not in the mood.

Murdoch: Big media has less sway on Internet

The Hollywood Reporter Online

By Georg Szalai
Jan 27, 2007
NEW YORK

Big media companies and governments ultimately can't stop or reverse their reduced agenda setting power brought about by the Internet and digital media, but must learn to live with it and embrace it as an opportunity, a panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland said Friday. Big media conglomerates have less influence amid the continued explosion of news sites, blogs and podcasts, News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said in the session moderated by Charlie Rose and available via Webcast. "It's so pluralistic," Murdoch said. "We all have less power, much less...(we) the big companies."

(End quote)

While this isn't actual news (who was Time magazine's Person of the Year again?), it's always interesting to hear the fact of the democratization of media admitted by a media titan. It's also interesting that this story comes out the same week as a story about News Corp. suing YouTube's owners to release the name of someone who posted episodes of 24 and the Simpsons before they were even broadcast. In some ways the current state of YouTube reminds me of the original incarnation of Napster -- it seems as thought you can find just about anything, for free, if you are willing to look. It seems silly, for example, to pay $1.99 to iTunes for a video you can almost always find on YouTube.

Moxie Dreams

I had s strange dream last night, where I was in high school and all of (us) cool kids were in a karate class. There was a submarine sandwich place next door and they sold Moxie, which of course everyone started drinking once I recommended it. Then there was a party of some kind at someone's house, and I wasn't keeping up with the cool kids enough for some reason (not rowdy or debauched enough, I think). Then I went to work where my job was to print out financial statements (pretty cool job for a high schooler I guess), and that is sort of where it ended. I remeber explaining that debt ratios had no direct effect on income tax rates, since debt incurred isn't income.

At any rate, the Moxie was as good in my dream as in real life...

P.S. From Wikipedia: "One of the key ingredients of Moxie is “Gentian Root Extractives”, which probably contributes noticeably to its unique flavor. For those without access to Moxie, the flavor can be approximated (and adjusted to taste) by adding Angostura bitters to root beer. Its bitter taste is also reminiscent of Italian chinotto soda."

T Mobile Hot Spot Wireless

I am currently posting from a T Mobile Hot Spot. These are pretty handy but my complaint is that they don't recognize returning customers automatically -- I am not good at remembering all the various user names and passwords for the accounts I have set up with assorted websites, and it seems to me that something like wireless connections at hotspots should have some sort of feature to automatically sign in if the user so desires.

Update: I know that there is a technical name for this involving Wireless Network Connections and something called a WEP key, but I was just making the more general point that once you have an account set up with a wireless provider it would be nice to have it recognize your computer the way home or other networks do. For example, once I set my WEP key at my parents' house, I haven't had to sign one once.

Amazing Amazon

I love Amazon. They ship things so rapidly that they almost always satisfy my need for instant gratification, and the prices are usually less than those at my local Borders or Barnes & Noble. I stocked up on computer books during a recent spree, and with free shipping I came out far ahead than if I had bought the same books at any bookstore. Today I received the following books, which are almost all on my reading list for 2007 (except for The Time Traverer's Wife, which I had already read but wanted my own for my library):

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
The Time Traveler's Wife
Artemis Fowl
Me Talk Pretty One Day
The Book of Lost Things
The Secret History

My nightstand is piled high with these books, and I am excited to begin catching up on my reading list. Updates to follow.