Like most folks in US/ Canada/ England and other parts of the Dickens-reading world, I'm a fan of Dickens' shortest and most-on-the-nose work, A Christmas Carol.
On Sunday evening one of my favorite movie versions, the 1984 A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott, was on AMC. It was a good era for special effects, before things went crazy with CG and filmmakers knew how to work within their limitations but had made art out of editing, shadows, light and fog machines. As Scrooge, George C. Scott doesn't come off as goofy or immediately redeemable, but he does appear human - the smiles at Fezziwig's made all the more meaningful as they crack the ossified grimace, or the realization of what is coming as he witnesses his own future.
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Technology Convo: The Lenovo Yoga
I am supposed to be talking about the Lenovo Yoga this evening, a computer I purchased last weekend as my Dell laptop decides to eat itself from within and I make a transition to new hardware before all is lost.
Steven reviewed his Chromebook, a computer I looked at long and hard before making a different and more expensive decision. That said, Steven bought his Chromebook for a development box, something I heard was do-able just Saturday night.
I'm looking at Chromebook as a solution for Jamie for next year sometime, and I think it will meet all of her needs - except for figuring out how she can manage iTunes. So if anyone wants to jump into this discussion, please help me out.
But this is about the Lenovo Yoga, the Windows 8 machine I picked up that's part tablet, part laptop.
Windows 8
I'm a longtime Windows user, and the quirks of Windows are so seamless to my everyday existence that they're usually fairly transparent to me. You probably read that Windows 8 has been redesigned for the tablet, but that's not altogether true. Windows has created an interface for the tablet with brightly colored "tiles". And, sorry, it's mostly intuitive. If you can use an iPhone or Android phone, this isn't any better or worse. I also expect that the "tiles" will become more customizable over time, but they work just fine for now, and whether you hold the tablet in landscape or portrait, it's all pretty easy to use.
Steven reviewed his Chromebook, a computer I looked at long and hard before making a different and more expensive decision. That said, Steven bought his Chromebook for a development box, something I heard was do-able just Saturday night.
I'm looking at Chromebook as a solution for Jamie for next year sometime, and I think it will meet all of her needs - except for figuring out how she can manage iTunes. So if anyone wants to jump into this discussion, please help me out.
But this is about the Lenovo Yoga, the Windows 8 machine I picked up that's part tablet, part laptop.
Windows 8
I'm a longtime Windows user, and the quirks of Windows are so seamless to my everyday existence that they're usually fairly transparent to me. You probably read that Windows 8 has been redesigned for the tablet, but that's not altogether true. Windows has created an interface for the tablet with brightly colored "tiles". And, sorry, it's mostly intuitive. If you can use an iPhone or Android phone, this isn't any better or worse. I also expect that the "tiles" will become more customizable over time, but they work just fine for now, and whether you hold the tablet in landscape or portrait, it's all pretty easy to use.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
On Officiating the Wedding of Friends
There are moments in your life that, no matter how clear and ready you tried to be, nothing is as real as the moment when it is actually happening.
On Saturday, around 4:10 PM, I looked at my friend Julia, just absolutely radiant in her wedding dress, and Bill looking sharp in his suit, and the 80-people out in the white chairs on the lawn, and I realized I had the microphone and the script to the wedding and, holy smokes, I'm marrying my two good friends. Me. This is happening.
There's no part of the story about how it went wrong. It went off without a hitch. The dinner was even really good, and normally wedding dinners are the thing you swallow and pretend to like because, oh my gosh, this place isn't cheap... but in our case, it was all excellent. And Bill is a Belgian Ale snob, so you couldn't say one thing negative about the beer selection.
Eventually, Jamie and I even cut a rug on the dance floor.
On Saturday, around 4:10 PM, I looked at my friend Julia, just absolutely radiant in her wedding dress, and Bill looking sharp in his suit, and the 80-people out in the white chairs on the lawn, and I realized I had the microphone and the script to the wedding and, holy smokes, I'm marrying my two good friends. Me. This is happening.
There's no part of the story about how it went wrong. It went off without a hitch. The dinner was even really good, and normally wedding dinners are the thing you swallow and pretend to like because, oh my gosh, this place isn't cheap... but in our case, it was all excellent. And Bill is a Belgian Ale snob, so you couldn't say one thing negative about the beer selection.
Eventually, Jamie and I even cut a rug on the dance floor.
Friday, December 14, 2012
A moment of silence
My thoughts are with the families of Sandy Hook Elementary and Newtown, Connecticut.
There are no words, and so I'll not try to provide them. Take a moment for the families, and one for your loved ones.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Saw Louis CK and other Bits into the Weekend
Somehow we wound up with 6th row tickets to see Louis CK at the Moody Theater this evening. Right on the center aisle. Kind of crazy. I insisted to our friends who had seats a bit further away that you could feel the comedy spraying across us from that close.
Louis's brand of comedy isn't for everyone, and certainly his show on FX isn't something I'd likely watch with my folks. I do find his work challenging (the last bit this evening on 'Of Course' vs. 'But Maybe' isn't necessarily going to be for every audience and runs the risk of being misunderstood by some audiences).
If you know Louie (the oddly misspelled showname of Louis CK's FX program), you might like this. NSFW. Sorry.
Sports!
I didn't get to watch, but UT's Women's Volleyball team is once again headed for the National Championship! We've got as good a chance at winning as not, and no matter what happens, it's been a great year for the squad.
But it'd still be amazing to see a National Championship.
Unfortunately, I never get to watch the games. They broadcast on the controversial Longhorn Network that I don't have, and I travel so much, I never buy tickets, even though they play across the street. I mostly keep up via articles online or asking one of our Sys Admins who goes all the time.
The Weekend
We're in San Antonio as of tomorrow as this is the weekend of the wedding I'm officiating. No Hobbit for me this weekend, I guess.
Looking forward to the wedding. Of course seeing Julia and Bill get hitched from the best seat in the house is a treat, but Matt & Nicole will be there, as well as other pals like Jonathan and Billie. This is going to be all right.
After the wedding, I plan to come home, finish Christmas shopping, then lay very, very still before Dug and K arrive for the holidays. I have a feeling that when my feet hit the ground at the start of January, work is going to be nuts. I need to plan summer vacation now or its not going to happen.
Louis's brand of comedy isn't for everyone, and certainly his show on FX isn't something I'd likely watch with my folks. I do find his work challenging (the last bit this evening on 'Of Course' vs. 'But Maybe' isn't necessarily going to be for every audience and runs the risk of being misunderstood by some audiences).
If you know Louie (the oddly misspelled showname of Louis CK's FX program), you might like this. NSFW. Sorry.
Sports!
I didn't get to watch, but UT's Women's Volleyball team is once again headed for the National Championship! We've got as good a chance at winning as not, and no matter what happens, it's been a great year for the squad.
But it'd still be amazing to see a National Championship.
Unfortunately, I never get to watch the games. They broadcast on the controversial Longhorn Network that I don't have, and I travel so much, I never buy tickets, even though they play across the street. I mostly keep up via articles online or asking one of our Sys Admins who goes all the time.
The Weekend
We're in San Antonio as of tomorrow as this is the weekend of the wedding I'm officiating. No Hobbit for me this weekend, I guess.
Looking forward to the wedding. Of course seeing Julia and Bill get hitched from the best seat in the house is a treat, but Matt & Nicole will be there, as well as other pals like Jonathan and Billie. This is going to be all right.
After the wedding, I plan to come home, finish Christmas shopping, then lay very, very still before Dug and K arrive for the holidays. I have a feeling that when my feet hit the ground at the start of January, work is going to be nuts. I need to plan summer vacation now or its not going to happen.
Trailer for "Pacific Rim" - summer 2013
This is a movie by a big name director who decided to make a movie about giant robots fighting kaiju.
I don't know how I'm not supposed to see this movie.
Yes, it looks ridiculous, but it's a summer movie, y'all.
I don't know how I'm not supposed to see this movie.
Yes, it looks ridiculous, but it's a summer movie, y'all.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Signal Watch Watches: Lincoln (2012)
I'm feeling a little punchy, so let's make this clear: I liked this movie, and I think you might enjoy it, too. I was a bit afraid my less than reverent tone might suggest I did not like the movie, but that's not true.
Jamie, Juan and I finally caught Lincoln (2012), the recent release about Old Penny-Face.
Ann Miller brings some Holiday Cheer
Hey! Christmas Eve is in less than two weeks, so it's time to start panicking. But not Ann Miller! She's adorned her tree with a spear head for some reason, and she's already got a mess of presents ready to go. It looks like she's standing in moss in an infinite void, so she's got that going for her, too.
I wonder why Jamie doesn't dress fancy like that for the holidays...
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Man of Steel Trailer #2 - Because, really, what else are we going to talk about at this site?
A second trailer with greater plot detail has surfaced for the coming Superman movie, Man of Steel.
When I think of how superhero movies have traditionally been shot and edited, even recent Marvel event films that I quite liked, I have to tip my hat to the cinematographers and editors of Man of Steel. While you can almost taste the filter effects, it at least doesn't feel like a disposable popcorn flick from jump that even the Iron Man films tilted toward. The look and feel may not have been how I would have done things, but I can dig the "I saw a Terence Malick film once" vibe they're going for in an effort to make this film on what appears to be a scale more epic than Donner's Modern America Myth of Superman: The Movie.
I desperately want to fling myself on the alter of fandom and get excited. I really, really do. But...
To get it out of the way - the trailers for 300 and Watchmen were also amazing spectacles, but as movies, both based on works I knew very well, I found the actual product terribly disappointing. And, as every nerdling knows, Zack Snyder directed both of those films as well as Man of Steel.
I gave up hope for an ideal Superman movie when I heard Snyder had been hired - a move I found shocking with Chris Nolan attached as producer. But pretty clearly, Nolan is receiving a paycheck and isn't really involved. The studio is just riding off his story treatment with Goyer and the good name 3 Batman films and an Inception earned WB and counting on the fact that John Q. Public has no idea what a producer actually does and how fungible that term becomes when money gets thrown around in Hollywood.
When I think of how superhero movies have traditionally been shot and edited, even recent Marvel event films that I quite liked, I have to tip my hat to the cinematographers and editors of Man of Steel. While you can almost taste the filter effects, it at least doesn't feel like a disposable popcorn flick from jump that even the Iron Man films tilted toward. The look and feel may not have been how I would have done things, but I can dig the "I saw a Terence Malick film once" vibe they're going for in an effort to make this film on what appears to be a scale more epic than Donner's Modern America Myth of Superman: The Movie.
I desperately want to fling myself on the alter of fandom and get excited. I really, really do. But...
To get it out of the way - the trailers for 300 and Watchmen were also amazing spectacles, but as movies, both based on works I knew very well, I found the actual product terribly disappointing. And, as every nerdling knows, Zack Snyder directed both of those films as well as Man of Steel.
I gave up hope for an ideal Superman movie when I heard Snyder had been hired - a move I found shocking with Chris Nolan attached as producer. But pretty clearly, Nolan is receiving a paycheck and isn't really involved. The studio is just riding off his story treatment with Goyer and the good name 3 Batman films and an Inception earned WB and counting on the fact that John Q. Public has no idea what a producer actually does and how fungible that term becomes when money gets thrown around in Hollywood.
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