oi, mates! we went out last night to mockingbird station on the DART train for dinner and a movie with another couple. we hit up trinity hall and the angelika theater to check out murderball [IMDb].

for a documentary, it was very good. we all liked it a ton. it's strange how it makes you feel like bawling one second and cheering the next. kinda enlightens you on how partial quadriplegics live, and it's only an hour and a half long so it's easy to get through quickly. i'd recommend seeing it while it's in town for sure.

hmm, other miscellaneous news... lost will have someone else on the island in upcoming season 2... the list of so far's best-selling games of 2005 was released, at least something for the GC was on there, hey? it was also interesting to see (from the nintendophiles forum) the list of top-selling GC games all-time in the US. hmm, another great GC slashdot thread debates whether the world should panic over reduced nintendo profits (uh, aren't we between major console releases?)... hey let's feign enthusiasm over the new doom trailer! (wasn't really impressed by V for vendetta, dane cook's waiting or the 40-year old virgin either)...

prolly enough to chew on for now, hey?

--j

why are you reading this? go listen to dane cook's retaliation now. some good new comedy shit. thanks to hoang for letting me know it was coming out.

--j

i don't really have anything epic to post. we didn't really do all that much this weekend, which is kinda sad, i guess? what may be sadder is that sometimes i think i sorta prefer it that way.

it's funny when to an outside person it looks like you've gotten nothing done, but you personally feel like you've been productive. this weekend we didn't really even see anybody or be social at all, but i got a lot of good little things done at home, mostly on my computers.

i've found that it's tough to claim that you're organized in both real life and in your "digital life." soon as i get things cleaned up and organized in real life, i realize my home network and tasks and shit are all in disarray. so sometimes it's actually nice to focus more on that instead. don't have to paint the town red *every* weekend, hey?

alayna's usually giving me the ol' stinkeye cuz she's all "go vacuum that room" and i'm like "but i'm getting so much done!" and all she can see is me sitting on my ass looking back and forth between two monitors. can't say i really blame her, cuz i usually end up sitting in here for hours on end.

i'm been trying to figure out a better reminder/to do system, so i'm trying out backpack to see if it's a decent alternative. still pondering trashing winXP on my left-hand box and going back to linux, but things like PDA ActiveSync prevent me from doing so. oddly enough, my iPod shuffle doesn't wanna talk to my mac right now, so i had to quickly import my whole library to XP and try it on that machine, and for once it worked.

as much as i love working out with my shuffle (as it works *quite* well) i'm really disappointed in how fickle the goddamn thing is. we already had problems with alayna's, where it just wouldn't work with her machine any longer and i couldn't fix it for the life of me. it kinda acts like a little flash drive that wants to work sometimes, but then decides that it won't work on a particular machine for a week. we've got 5 working machines in here, most people only have 1, so what the hell do they do when their shuffle decides to crap out every now and then?

i've been a little too surf-happy lately, just spending a ton of time sitting at the PCs, not really sure why. i'm coming across new-to-me sites like technorati and del.icio.us, which are good time wasters. i'm still trying to figure out how i like taking in my RSS feeds, whether it's a standalone program or built-in to the web browser like safari. i messed around a bit with synergy, which allows you to use a keyboard/mouse on 2 PC's at once without a KVM, but lost interest when realized that it was tricky having custom mouse shortcuts set up for both computers, something i kinda rely on.

sometimes i get in these little moods where i'm just trying to oversimplify everything. i want everything in my digital life to work without me having to micromanage everything, yet in order to achieve this, i spend all my time anyway, heh.

i leave you with a penny arcade article i found rather amusing. ;)

--j

well i finally got around to seeing equilibrium, after i found a dvd rip of it a month or so ago. it's got to be one of the best movies in the past few years that didn't have a wide release at all. some of the effects were slightly hokey and seemed a bit cheap, but the storyline's awesome and the plot moves quickly without leaving you behind. the gun-based martial arts style was impressive and made for some terrific fight scenes. i think it achieved an action movie as well as a dramatic movie simultaneously, which seems tough to pull off most of the time. i'd highly recommend it.

i was happy to hear today that the NHL lockout officially ended today, so play should resume as usual next season. yeah that's really great and everything, but uh... with ESPN deciding to drop most hockey coverage for next season and now-considered-the-bottom-network NBC signing on to broadcast games (uh, when? and where do you show weekday games?) is anybody gonna even be able to watch hockey in the states? i'm all for some of the rule changes, like adding shootouts to eliminate ties and trying to increase the total number of goals scored in each game. i was also kinda interested in the idea of the league ditching 6 small-market teams to save some cash. i think 30 teams is too much for the NHL, and 20 would prolly due the trick. anyways, i'm cautiously optimistic about the whole thing...

--j

i'm not really one to ever be offended by much, and i'm all for a complete lack of censorship on the internet, but i actually can't help but be a little taken aback by one of kevin smith's latest posts. in case you're not aware, he's the director of several cult movies like clerks and chasing amy, some of my favorites.

the part i have a problem with is that the guy is really detailed about how he spends his days, which is typically really entertaining. he never fails to mention every time he has sex with his wife, but he's got even worse lately about throwing little details about their sexlife in his regular posts, which is... just weird. it's almost like he's bragging, and i can kinda understand why. as brilliant as he is, the two aren't exactly mistaken for brother & sister. she's generally regarded as a bit of a hottie, while he's sort of the fatass adult-fanboy type. it's cool that they're genuinely in love and married, but what's with laming it up by putting the sexual shit on a blog? he's even had his blog mentioned on tv so you know he gets a lot of hits. just weird that given his audience he doesn't mind bragging about his wild sexlife.

instead, do like me and fill your slow moments of your day by reading Overheard in the Office or Overheard in New York, both highly entertaining.

well i'm not in the mood to work right now, so i figured i'd post.

just came off the 4-day holiday weekend, which was pretty damn lazy. friday night was prolly the most active, a dinner+movie date. alayna and i checked out the angelika in plano for the first time. it's in the shops at legacy, which was a surprisingly little quaint area. we saw howl's moving castle, the latest anime from famed jap hayao miyazaki, who also did princess mononoke and spirited away.

howl's was... okay. i've seen several of miyazaki's movies now, and i always walk away feeling the same. i always think "goddamn that was pretty" but then i think "but what the fuck was that all about?" it's a perfect example of anime being too much fantasy and not enough engaging plot. during mononoke, spirited away, howl's... i remember getting bored for like a half hour with all of them. i love the artistic elements in all of them, but i get so lost on what the hell's going on that i really lose interest. typical IMDb fanboys have it rated over 8, but personally i'd give it more like a 7 flat cuz it was pretty, but lacked any sensible plot.

saturday night we decided to stay in instead and had chinese delivered and finally got around to watching closer. we both enjoyed it, which is a nice rarity when we both enjoy a movie together. it wasn't particularly all that complex, only centered around 4 characters, but it was an entertaining two hours, which is enough for me. we'd highly suggest it for a night in.

--j