You are in monthly Archives.
June 29, 2008
Twitter feed of $1.99
Twitter feed of $1.99 MP3 deals on Amazon. (via Daring Fireball)
No wine-ing
The Frugal Oenophile's Wine of the Week - if you can relate to a wine tasting "ruby-garnet," this blog is for you. I'm pretty sure he just makes it up. This solid candy-apple pink quaffer shows rich raspberry and strawberry aromas with traces of citrus, ripe apple and pepper at the tail end.
I have another gallery up on Juice.. click on Artfest Midwest (not Des Moines Art Festival).
June 27, 2008
Don't let this cloud your judgment
10 rare clouds, 20 cool clouds (via Metafilter)
How would you rate Pixar movies?
Also via kottke, a "best" list of Pixar movies. Click to see how I would rate them (disclaimer: some I've only seen once and, in some cases like A Bug's Life, not since they came out)
1. The Incredibles
2. Toy Story 2
3. Toy Story
4. Ratatouille (whoa, how did I spell that right on the first try?)
5. Monsters, Inc.
6. Finding Nemo
7. A Bug's Life
8. Cars
Ticketmaster is bad, etc
Ticketmaster is $750 million in debt. Hey I have an idea: don't charge people $4 to print their own ticket and maybe they won't hate you. (via kottke)
June 26, 2008
Back by popular demand
Get to da captions!
June 25, 2008
Schwarzenchester
June 24, 2008
Credibility Shmedibility
Wallet inspector!
When we arrived in Paris, we headed toward the Louvre, dodging puddles along the way since it had just rained. Aimee said, "watch out," pointing to the ground. Just then, a guy near us picks up a gold ring.
He gestures, asking if it is ours. We say no. He sort of lingers, almost offering it to us, showing how nice it is. "Luck day!" he says.
We were a little weary of scams, last time we were in Paris gypsies approached us with their cardboard signs with stories written on them and once in Rome a group of small kids came running up and laughing, but didn't try to do the all-out pickpocket swarm.
Anyway, we just sort of shrug and keep going. It was sort of a fat, cheesy looking ring; had zero interest in it even if he did want to give it to us. We wondered aloud if it was a scam. At first we didn't just because it was a weird coincidence that Aimee said "watch out" the moment the guy found something on the ground, but she was referring to a puddle.
He didn't get far enough into the scam to offer to sell it to us, but it is a common enough scam for Rick Steves to list it on his website.
Here are a few more scams around the world.
June 22, 2008
100% juice
Back into some freelance photography for Juice, latest gallery here (click on the SWINE) one.
Aimee and I were walking Chester to a hardware store nearby today. There is a path we sometimes take that goes right by a big yellow lab named Max that always barks really loudly. I get the sense that he's pretty friendly with people, but always goes nuts when we walk by with Chester.
Max is fenced in. Most of the fence is normal fence height, except part of it has junk piled up right next to it and it sort of sags down. The dog has always really easily been able to jump over it, if he wanted to.
Well, today he got a little too into his barking at us and hopped onto and then over the fence. He was about 15-20 feet ahead of us on the sidewalk. He barked for a few seconds, then realized he didn't really have a plan.
I picked up Chester in case he was going to charge us, and Aimee and I just held our ground and looked at him. He sort of realized he wasn't really going to do anything and slowly headed back toward the fence. We walked by without any other incident. A little girl came out of their house calling for him. He turned to her, on the other side of the fence, tail wagging, wondering how to get back over.
I've never seen this dog (or many dogs in our neighborhood) on a walk... I think the owners would do the dog a big favor by walking him. Chester is about 1/5 his size and gets 2-3 walks a day. Maybe he's just jealous.
June 20, 2008
How many Simpsons characters can you name?
I only got 53/63... sad.
Mars attacks
Cool photos from Mars, including a some dust devils...
June 19, 2008
Gotta love this headline
Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer (not The Onion! -- via Daring Fireball)
Normandy trip II
There's a quote from The Talented Mr. Ripley, when they're in Rome and Philip Seymour Hoffman is looking for Jude Law and Matt Damon says he's at dinner, Philip says,
l don't think he's
at dinner at 6:30 P.M.
If you said he was still at lunch,
maybe I'd believe you.
The Italians eat dinner late (by American standards) and so do the French. Nine o'clock would be considered a fine time to sit down for dinner. Our six o'clock average would seem crazy to them. We had to adjust to this eating schedule a little bit, but at least it's easy to find a restaurant at eight o' clock.
Further affecting things is double daylight savings time. Springing ahead two hours means the sun sets at 10 p.m. and it doesn't get dark until around 11 p.m. I kind of like it, except I imagine later in the summer it wouldn't cool down until very late in the evening.
As it was, the weather we had was perfect. Temps in the 60s to start, then low 70s toward the end of the trip. It was never sweltering. We only had some light misting the first day of biking and some light rain after we were all done with the bikes.
Our second day of biking brought us through some beautiful countryside and then to Fontaine Henry with its notable chateaux.
As with a lot of structures in Normandy (and I suspect France and Europe in general) is that it is hard to pin a date on buildings because it might have started as little more than a brick shack in the 1400s, added a little more in the 1500s, etc, and maybe a major wing in the 1800s. Same thing with this particular chateaux. Unfortunately during the French revolution, as with many other French aristocracy, the papers of the history of the chateaux were destroyed. Luckily the family survived the revolution (thousands were sent to the guillotine) and hid their genealogy in the process, so that wasn't lost.
In one of the stairwells were filled-in bullet holes from the Canadians on D-day. They were looking for maple syrup! Actually, Germans had occupied the chateaux (the French can't have nice things) and left earlier in the day. The Canadians didn't know that, and understandably had an itchy trigger finger ascending the stairs.
Today, the countess gives tours of the home, which she still lives in (part of giving tours is to help support the high cost of living in such a place). She has marvelous works of art throughout, including some by some famous painters.
We'd just done a long morning of biking and it was right about lunch time, so I wasn't as interested as I could have been -- plus she kept talking about every little item in the room and I was worried it would be a three hour tour (a three hour tour). Gilligan!
Our guides provided us with a great lunch of stinky French cheeses, bread, and patés (including rabbit, which I'm pretty sure was made from gym socks).
After lunch we made our way to Arromanches. It was a little bit of a touristy town, but they had good reason to attract people -- it was part of Gold beach and was an artificial harbor during the war.
It was D-day, so naturally the town was packed. Music, parades, food, veterans and tourists milling about. It was a fun atmosphere. I don't know about the other parts of France, but the people of Normandy are still very appreciative of what happened on D-day. It's a near week-long celebration there, while in America we don't really give it much thought unless it's a major anniversary. It was the 64th anniversary, so not exactly anything special, but it was celebrated like it was.
Lots of vintage vehicles and people dressed up in military garb. I've never been much of a flag-waving type of person but it did give you a little bit of pride to see so many American flags waving about.
It was a pretty long day of biking until that point (and it was getting to be evening) so we opted for a van ride back to the hotel. We freshened up and had dinner on our own. It was nice that they provided breakfasts, a few lunches, and every other dinner.
We got to explore Bayeux a little bit. We tried to get crêpes after dinner but crêperies were closing around 9 p.m. in this small town (more on frustrations of the French closing at odd hours -- lunch -- in a later blog) Settled for some ice cream.
The next day we set out for Omaha beach, the D-day museum there, the amazing American Cemetery, Pointe du Hoc, and a bus ride to our next hotel in Reville.
There are a lot of different WWII museums around Normandy, we went to two. One in St. Mere Eglise, and this one at Omaha beach. This one was pretty good -- they had a lot of WWII weapons and memorabilia, photographs, and dummies dressed up in military garb holding weapons. There was also a film but we didn't have time.
But before we left we did get to meet Ralph Manley.
I'll repeat what I posted on Flickr:
He was a paratrooper that jumped on D-Day, and was regaling us tourists with some of his stories.
For example, he listed all his gear and ammo he was carrying when he jumped and said he weighed over 400 pounds with all of it (I suspect that number has grown over the years).
He said he was hurt 6 times, all by shrapnel.
His specialty was demolitions.
The guy interviewing him asked, "Were the Germans tough?" Ralph said, "Yeah, but we were tougher!"
He also said they could distinguish friend from foe by sound -- planes, tanks, jeeps, even shoes. You never wanted to fire a German weapon because your allies might shoot back.
I asked the younger lady who was with him (daughter? granddaughter?) what division he was in. She said the 501. I think she meant the 101st division and 501st regiment.
After he was done answering questions, he shook everyone's hands (including ours!); everyone was in awe of him and he was beaming like a movie star.
After the museum we met Stephan, our WWII guide. He was very knowledgeable and I don't think there was a question that he didn't have an answer to. He told us about the landings, why the B-17s didn't do much to soften the Germans up there, and the challenges the Americans faced.
After Omaha beach we biked to the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, which wasn't far away. It's actually American soil; there was a good quote inside that I can't find, but went something like "we didn't come to conquer but to liberate, and this land is all we have asked for."
The geometry and precision of the graves (and not to mention to context) was pretty impressive. And, like most of Normandy, very photogenic. I could have probably spent all day there.
After the cemetery we drove to Pointe du Hoc, which was a pretty interesting site. The French decided not to fill in the craters there, maybe to help future generations see what happened.
Our guide went down into a crater so we could take a photo for scale. A fellow rider said it looks like he had run down in the craters before, and he said in fact it was one of his favorite places to play as a kid.
On June 6, Rangers quickly scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, took many casualties, only to find "fake" guns the Germans had set up. It wasn't all a waste, though, as they found the real guns several kilometers away. They managed to sneak by the Germans positioned there and melt the guns with thermite (then went back to the cliffs, got more thermite, and did it again!).
After, we took a bus to the next hotel in Reville. Stay tuned!
June 18, 2008
Learn to speak like a real worker person
Let's blue sky this low hanging fruit!
June 17, 2008
Couple things
Washy Ad Jeffy - fun way to remember U.S. Presidents (via Waxy.org)
2008 Democratic Race in 8 minutes
"Definitive" explanation of the end of Sopranos
Photos of bubbles! Some look like planets. How it was done.
June 16, 2008
Normandy!
Fun facts:
Miles cycled: about 200
Shortest ride: 12km (the first day, a warm-up)
Longest ride: 62km (the last day)
Days cycled: six plus a warm-up day
Stayed in: Paris, Bayeux (two nights), Reville (two nights), St. Malo (three nights), Paris
With: Aimee, my parents
Bike Tour by: VBT
Tour guides: Bruno and Sophie
Hours spent traveling each way to and from Paris: about 24 hours door to door
Photos here.
While most of Iowa was dealing with way too much water, we were riding under blue skies in Normandy and Brittany, France.
The trip was through VBT, a bike tour service headquartered in Vermont. They did a great job with all the logistics -- shuttles to and from airports and train stations, hotels, and support while biking (including keeping those water bottles filled!). Highly recommended.
Aimee was really the only one of the four of us that was ready for any kind of long-range biking. My training consisted of biking 12 miles downtown and back and to the library and grocery store nearby a bunch of times. Aimee had rode over 200 miles with her almost daily biking to work.
Despite not really being ready for riding 30-60km a day, I didn't do too poorly. I wasn't too sore, although my legs did get tired, and I was probably the slowest one going up hills (the heavy bag with all my camera gear didn't help). Of course this extra weight helped me in the downhills; I'd pick up speed faster without having to do anything. Straightaways were a breeze. I only had to use the "25th gear" (as Bruno, one of our guides calls walking the bike) a couple times on the big hills.
We flew into Paris via a drive to Minneapolis and then layovers in Chicago and London Heathrow. The two layovers made the trip about twice as long as it could have been if we had a Minneapolis to Paris flight (we later learned you could pay more and get a direct flight).
It made for a long trip. The flights were through American Airlines/British Airways. There was "weather" in Chicago so American was generous enough to bump up our flight. Good that they did, we might have missed our connection since everything was getting pushed back.
Luckily the British Airways 747 had a personal video entertainment system on the 6.5 hour trip to Paris and the 8.5 hour trip back. A decent selection of movies and TV shows, too. Managed a small nap or two on the plane.
A shuttle found us right away in Paris and took us to our first hotel. I don't think we would normally ever stay in a four star hotel in Paris, but that is one of the perks of booking through VBT -- they pick nice hotels for you.
After the long day (literally) of travel, we were pretty worn out, but got a second wind in Paris. It was about nine in the morning for us, 4 p.m. local time. We forewent a nap and walked... and walked... and walked. Ate a nice dinner in the Latin Quarter and walked back to the hotel near the Champs Elysee, detouring to walk near the Eiffel Tower for a few pics. If you've been to Paris you know this is a pretty long walk, especially without a lot of sleep.
The next day we packed up and took a shuttle to the train station to meet our fellow travelers (20 of us in all) and take a train to Bayeux, for next two nights.
The train ride was a couple hours and a little bumpy, but some nice scenery. Oh, there was a crazy Canadian guy in our car. When the beverage cart came around he ordered tea. He wasn't sure if the guy would understand "tea" so he made a "T" with his fingers. The server poured the tea and gave it to the Canadian, who wanted milk in it. The server motioned like either he didn't understand or they didn't have any. The Canadian said defiantly he didn't want it without milk. The server found some and poured it in. After the server left with the cart, the Canadian said to his lady friend it was terrible and he didn't drink it.
When we got to Bayeux our guides for the rest of the trip, Bruno and Sophie, were there waiting for us and loaded our luggage into the VBT van. Bruno and Sophie are a married couple that do all the VBT bike tours in France. They were very organized and made sure everyone had everything the needed and equipment was ok. They did a great job throughout the whole tour.
In Bayeux, the hotel wasn't quite ready for us so we wandered around and got some lunch (and had the first of several galettes).
Bayeux was a small town with a great cathedral and nice pedestrian street with restaurants and shop. It's also home to the famous tapestry, which we toured. Impressive in its length and depth of story weaved into it.
The town is surrounded by very quaint houses and countryside, so it was a good introduction to the Normandy area. We had a 12k warm-up ride the first day.
After freshening up had a nice wine (and kir) hour and meal with the bike group. Bruno and Sophie gave a nice talk and introduced us to the "25th gear" and the "green door," which is if there isn't a restroom around (or it's too scary -- public restrooms there can be an adventure), then use the green door. You probably can guess what that means.
All for now -- more coming.
June 14, 2008
Back!
We're back from Normandy! stay tuned for updates and about 1,000 photos. (Thanks to Dan for the new Chester-shop)
Sooo... anything happen since June 3?
June 03, 2008
Atreyuuuu!
(thanks Chase)
June 02, 2008
Critters II: This time it's personal.
(thanks Woodsie)
Operation Overthere
Invading Normandy soon. Will try to tweet via iPhone where there is WiFi. Follow here (need a free Twitter account).
Jim Davis on Garfield minus Garfield
NYT interviews Jim Davis about GMG.
Mr. Brooks: Worst Movie Ever?
Ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but this movie is terrible. It's not often a movie is bad enough to blog about, and it might get kind of long.
So, the movie is about Mr. Brooks, played by Kevin Costner. He's addicted to killing people. Interesting concept, right? It's sort of Seven meets Fight Club with an inexplicable Matrix-style shootout in the middle (yes, Demi Moore shoots out the lights for no other reason except it is more dramatic ... she and the bad guy are 15 feet away from each other in a hallway, why are you taking the time to shoot the lights out?)
Also, to distinguish that Kevin Costner is playing a bad guy and not a baseball player, a cowboy, or Robin Hood, they give him glasses. What range!
A man, "Mr. Smith," played by Dane Cook, sees Mr. Brooks kill a couple and wants to get in on the killing because it looks fun. That's what I always thing when I see the same thing. All the while, a detective (Demi Moore) is chasing Mr. Brooks and another serial killer (there seem to be a lot of them). Not to mention Mr. Brooks dealing with a pregnant daughter who has dropped out of college.
Oh, and Mr. Brooks is apparently "Man of the Year," according to the opening scene. Awarded by whom and for what, we never really learn. By all accounts he never interacts with anyone except his secretary and the occasional Japanese customer. Did I mention he runs a box factory? That's right: he RUNS A BOX FACTORY. The screenwriters must have been in the zone when they got that idea. Maybe they just got done watching the Simpson's episode where Bart visits a box factory. In that episode, at least the box factory has a point.
Pretty much the only reason for him being Man of the Year is so Dane Cook can recognize his photo in the newspaper.
Before I get to the (shutter) script, here's what went wrong:
The casting: Demi Moore as the rich detective who faces an expensive divorce was a bad choice. It would have been better if she could act, or bring something to the role besides Botox injections. It's hard to express emotions when your face is a block of cheese.
Also, Dane Cook. I thought the main problem with his character might be the fact that he was cast in the role of a serial killer wanna-be, but looking at the screenplay, it was a bad part right from the get-go. There is absolutely no believable motivation for this guy to all of the sudden want to start killing people for pleasure. I think all the motivation revealed basically was, "That was such a rush when you killed those people! I want to, too!" I think that's probably how all sociopaths get started. Watching an episode of Profiler would have given them more psychological research than they did for this script.
Oh, did I mention William Hurt plays Mr. Brooks's evil thoughts? He does a good job, and might be the only halfway redeeming thing about the movie. Well, "redeem" implies it helps outweigh the bad, which it doesn't, so I'll just say he does a decent job.
The director: Bruace A. Evans, co-writer. Previous directed: Kuffs. I think this movie would have benefitted from a director who didn't help write the movie. It needed a fresh perspective. It might have brought it up from "historically bad" to simply "forgotten about." For example, Demi Moore is fighting some bad guys in a moving van and ends up flying at high speed out the side door and lands on another car's windshield. She gets some stitches on her head but otherwise seems entirely okay. In fact, we don't see any bandages or stitches later on. I guess little details like this don't really matter when your main character RUNS A BOX FACTORY.
So who wrote the script? Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon, who previously teamed up on Jungle 2 Jungle, Cutthroat Island, and Stand By Me (which I will give credit to Rob Reiner for it actually being good).
Here is a sample to give you an idea of its brain-hurting power. It's a scene where Mr. Brooks is schooling Mr. Smith in the fine art of scoping out your victim:
MR. BROOKS
I've memorized the license number,
you write it down. When you get
home go on the Internet and find
out everything you can about this
guy.
MR. SMITH
We aren't going to kill him
tonight?
MR. BROOKS
No. We could, but then we wouldn't
be in control. We could leave loose
ends, and we both know the danger
of that.
** Note, here Dane Cooks awkwardly ad-libs, "Yeah, we do." **
MR. SMITH
(squints at the Pickup's
license)
I got it.
MR. BROOKS
Look at me.
Mr. Smith does.
MR. BROOKS
Close your eyes. What's the number?
MR. SMITH
VF... eh...
Mr. Smith opens his eyes and grins sheepishly.
MR. BROOKS
Don't feel bad, I've been doing
this a long time...
(he points to a holder on
the dash)
Pen, paper. Write it down.
Ohh.. write down the license plate. This guy clearly has been doing this a long time with insights like that. Here is another gem. This is when Mr. Brooks decides to scare Mr. Smith a little; make him sure who is in control:
In the BEDROOM at the end of the hallway, Mr. Smith begins to
snore. The Figure coasts silently toward the sound.
Mr. Smith's face is sideways on the pillow. The snores and a
little drool burbles out of the corner of his mouth.
WHOOMP!! The impact of something landing on the bed bounces
Mr. Smith upright and awake.
MR. SMITH
Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!! Ahhh!!!
The beam from the penlight hits him in the face. He raises
his hands to shield his eyes.
MR. BROOKS
Don't worry, if I were here to kill
you, you would already be dead.
** Note: this marks the 100,000th time for this line ever used **
The penlight leaves Mr. Smith and Mr. Brooks places it
deliberately under his own chin casting long sinister shadows
up his face. He's sitting on the bed next to Mr. Smith.
MR. BROOKS
After you left today, I realized
our friendship was a little one-
sided.
(MORE)
(CONTINUED)
So when we meet tomorrow night
would you be so kind as to bring
all of the pictures and the memory
card from your camera. That way we
can like each other simply for who
we are. If you don't show up, I
will presume you've gone to the
police and I will kill you. Even if
I go to jail because of you,
someone will find you wherever you
are and kill you.
The penlight goes off. There's total silence.
MR. SMITH
(squeaks)
Mr. Brooks?...
He squints into the black.
MR. SMITH
Mr. Brooks?...
Finally he gathers the courage to extend a shaky hand. The
bedside lamp goes on. The room is empty. Cautiously Mr. Smith
swings his legs out of bed and stands up.
He forces himself to go to the door and from there curls his
arm around the jamb into the darkness.
The HALL light is dazzling.
A peek into the BATHROOM shows there is nobody there. He
continues on into the LIVING ROOM.
His camera equipment is on the table. The tripod is still set
up. There is no sign of Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Smith eyes the front door. It's closed and the 'security
chain' is in place!!
Another quick scan of the room. It sure seems that he's alone.
He opens the front door the length of the chain and looks up
and down the hallway. It's empty. Slowly he closes the door.
Standing in the light of his LIVING ROOM, Mr. Smith is more
scared and strangely more excited than he's ever been in his
life.
MR. SMITH
Wow!...
If you want to read the entire screenplay, it is here. Watch the movie if you want, but don't say I didn't warn you.