Extremely good.
This is just the kind of movie that stays with you. Hours after, you'll still be thinking about it (even if you're not sure why).
Mickey Rourke is just plain incredible. The role was just made for him. I still wish he had won the Academy Award for best actor.
Marisa Tomei did a great job too.
Its rare that something could be so fundamentally sad but not really make you upset.. just.. bothered.
I'll always be seen as a disappointment [to myself] in the eyes of my dad. Its pretty difficult not to glorify the dead, and its just as difficult to live up to their glorified standards.
I'll always think that if my father had been around after the age of ten to raise me, teach me, push me, I would have ended up a much better person.
I've realized that after all these years I have two things to still hold on to:
The actual sense of loss. The loss means he was once here.
A bunch of bricks in Brooklyn.
I thought I was gonna like this, and I really did.
I've never seen a Star Trek movie before, but that didn't matter. I knew the basic characters, the basic premise, and of course, all the well-known catch phrases.
I totally was so excited to see this because Jennifer Morrison (Cameron from House) was in it. Even if I knew she'd only be in it for a few minutes.
I had no idea that Eric Bana was Nero until.. right now, looking at imdb. Too funny. Eric Bana should only ever be the guy in Munich.
Simon Pegg, as Scotty, was easily my favorite character. Simon Pegg is just the best guy ever.
Every signature phrase made me just laugh out loud. It was so funny to hear people saying those lines and meaning them...
I just have a vision of the writers having a big white board with a list of all the signature phrases they needed to use in the movie, and writing the movie around those lines.
Overall I loved it. It was all I expected it to be, and even a little bit more.
One of the disney movies that my dad took me to.
We had gotten to the theater too early, and the current showing was maybe half over. So we walked around to wait it out. For some reason we were around Radio City Music Hall, and I must have said that I wanted to see The Christmas Show.
A short while later (maybe a couple of weeks) my dad took me to see The Christmas Show. I don’t remember any of the show though. I only remember any of this because I was so amazed that he remembered.
For absolutely no reason, a quick top five of my favorite Mac freeware applications...
Transmission
Transmission is, without a doubt, the most reliable, usable, and best looking Mac BitTorrent client I've ever used. It offers great customization, and can handle a large amount of files while remaining relatively lightweight.
Sequel Pro
Sequel Pro is a fantastic MySQL application for the Mac. Its clean, fast, and as far as I can tell, bug free. If you have to spend a significant amount of time working with MySQL, I'd really suggest trying this.
Symbolic Linker
Symbolic Linker is a tiny contextual menu plugin that when clicked, will create a Symbolic Link for the selected file for you. This is a huge time saver if you ever create symbolic links on a Mac. Its one of those apps that I was wishing existed, and was incredibly happy when I discovered that it did exist. Its just plain genius.
NetNewsWire
I actually bought NetNewsWire many years ago, long before it became a freeware app. It is a fantastic RSS news reader. Many have created beautiful themes for the app. However I don't always use NetNewsWire for its news reading capabilityes. I use it most of the time for it's dock menu. It has a great dock menu that lets you know when your favorite websites have updated via RSS. The best way for me to explain it is with a screenshot.
Fluid
Fluid is another genius app. Fluid allows you to create "SSBs", or site specific web browser. Basically you can make custom browsers that only go to a designated site. The fact is that there are many websites that we frequent constantly, or that we always have up in a browser window. The natural next step is designated 'apps' for those sites that you always have to visit, and Fluid does it wonderfully.
This is just a quick update to my Nuvola theme for Bluebird. The main difference is that it shows relative time instead of the regular time (such as '3 minutes ago'). When you mouse-over a tweet, the time disappears and reply/dm/permalink/retweet buttons appear. Its kind of fun!
Thanks to Na Wong & Alex Sancho for help with getting the relative time back!
Download Nuvola 1.2.
I'd been meaning to see this for years, I just never got around to it. I had heard great things about it.
This is the third movie I've seen with Patrick Wilson in the last six months.
What I've learned from these three films is I'd much rather see Wilson as a cheating husband (the movie Little Children) or a pervert (this movie) rather than a dweeb (Watchmen).
I've also learned I have a fundamental issue with taking the guy seriously. Not that he's not a good actor. I just... can't really take him seriously all of the time.
Ellen Page really does look, and in many ways act, disarmingly young (which is the point). All I could see was a child.
Its so funny that Sandra Oh is billed third in this movie. I thought she'd have a much larger role.
I think I expected it to be more more disturbing, but I enjoyed it overall.
So yesterday I bought a box of Crispix cereal. I remembered eating it all the time as a kid so I must have loved it. So I finally tried it again for the first time in years.
Wow. Its... amazing. Yes, I know it tastes like nothing, but its the best nothing ever.
Actually now that I think about it, it tastes just like Special K. Regardless, its delicious.
So I saw this when it first came out, and I finally happened to watch it again.
I couldn't really remember that much from the first time, but regardless I feel like I got more out of it the second time around.
The story is really fantastic. I just ate it up this time around.
This is definitely one of Nicolas Cage's least annoying roles. Also he apparently wore a fatsuit during the entire filming. I thought he looked pretty muscular for someone who was supposed to oafish.
Meryl Streep was really fantastic. I'm not a huge fan of her normally, but really she did a great job as Susan.
Its just so unique, just so creative.
Apparently Donald Kaufman was the first truly fictional person nominated for an Academy Award. How cool is that?
So I've started a new baby project, called Words I Didn't Write. It is a lyrics blog. A place for me to collect lyrics from songs that I like.
I always want to post lyrics on here or on my twitter, but I never did, because I knew that once I started, I'd never stop. So this seems like the idea solution. A place for me to post lyrics that I love that I just can't get out of my head.
It won't ever replace my blog. Its just... in addition to it.
In many ways it may end up being the most personal thing I do on the web. It also may end up being sad... many lyrics I love happen to be sad. It doesn't mean that I'm sad, but sometimes sad songs are just so pretty.
So, yes. wordsididntwrite.com.
I've made a quick update to Nuvola for the new version of Bluebird . It is a bit different, now when your mouse hovers over a tweet, buttons for replies, direct messages, and re-tweeting will appear in the upper right-hand corner. ;)
Download Nuvola 1.1.
I've updated my Bluebird theme that I released last week. Although it looks very similar, it was pretty much completely redone. I have renamed it Nuvola, which means "cloud" in Italian. I figure it fits since it is white, blue and gray. ;)
When you double-click anywhere in a tweet, buttons will slide down for replying, direct messaging, and re-tweeting. It also now features relative time, and when you click the time of the tweet, it will take you to the tweet's permalink in your browser. Lastly, the background colors have been refined for readability. You can see the new features in action here.
Thank you to Na (for relative time & avatar mask) and to Laurent (for his amazing themes!). :D
Download Nuvola.
Of course I liked this more than I expected to.
The least annoying Seann William Scott has ever been. He was actually fairly normal.
McLovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) needs to be in more movies.
Is there anything Elizabeth Banks isn't in?
Bobb'e J. Thompson, who plays Ronnie Shields, was definitely the star of the movie. What a great kid.
A few of the actors from the old show The State were in the movie. It was great to see them.
Overall it was both sweeter and funnier than I expected it to be. Fun movie to watch.
So a early beta of the great little Mac OSX twitter application, Bluebird was released yesterday! I have been testing it for the past few weeks, and its just a fantastic little app.
I quickly whipped up a mod of one of the bluebird themes for fun, you can see a preview of it above... and you can download my Bluebird theme here. :)
[For anyone who downloaded it off of my twitter, little changes include: better spacing overall and better-looking direct messages.]
So I had been toying with the idea of getting my unibody MacBook etched for quite a while. I had my artwork all picked out. But then I lost my nerve. Although I have no plans to sell my MacBook anytime soon, I may want to sell her someday. Etching my laptop will most likely completely ruin the resale value. So I decided against etching.
Instead I had a custom decal of the artwork made. Overall I am very happy with it. I think it looks elegant and gives the same idea of etching. Except of course its completely removable. I'm a fan. <3
Just for fun, here is a second photo of the MacBook alongside my cat Daisy who is sunning herself on my bed...
You can get your own laptop decals made at Lewa's. I highly recommend her. :)
Liked it much more than I thought I would.
Gerard Butler is charming as hell.
So were his two friends, Mumbles and Handsome Bob... just loved all three of them.
Idris Elba plays Mumbles. You may know him better as Stringer Bell on The Wire. Best guy in The Wire, also one of the best guys in RocknRolla.
You have to love a movie that names a character Handsome Bob.
I found the guy who played Johnny Quid crazy annoying until the last ten minutes. After that he was great.
Not really worth mentioning Ludacris & Jeremy Piven...
My favorite scene? When Stella & One Two dance. Retarded but awesome.
The guys who make one of my favorite applications, TextExpander, posted a great tip a while back to automatically shorten urls that are on the clipboard with the tr.im service.
It works wonderfully, except there is no way to track how many people click your shortened urls because you're not logged into your tr.im account when the urls are shortened. There is a crazy easy way to log in to your tr.im account when TextExpander shortens your urls.
Add this line as a new TextEpxander snippet and set it as an Applescript. Fill in your username and password where it says username:password.
do shell script "curl --basic -u username:password http://tr.im/api/trim_url.xml?url=pbpaste | tr '>' 'n' | tr '<' 'n' | grep -m 1 -A 1 url | tail -1"You can also simply download this TextExpander snippet to add to TextExpander. You still must put your username and password where it says username:password. :)
Set the shortcut to something like "trm" or similar.
Thats it! Anytime you want to shorten a url in any application, copy the url to the clipboard. Next go to where you'd like to paste the url. Type in "trm" or your shortcut, and it will paste the shortened url automatically.
Its not terribly interesting, but I've made a couple of very little changes to the site...
I finally updated my install of Django from pre-1.0 to 1.0.2. Feels good! Though really anyone else shouldn't notice any difference. I'm really starting to look forward to Django 1.1!
The tree branches that go all the way down the page on the left side now alternate colors... woo!
I've made site searching more thorough.
I've done a bit of re-organizing. I've finally gotten rid of the Swag section. I still have the Cinema section. However random reviews of other things (such as tv shows or random stuff) will still happen. Until I can think of a better section for it, they'll just be regular articles that happen to have ratings.
I should really preface this with the fact that I'm a sucker for crime shows. Seriously I'm willing to watch almost any crime show.
Easily one of the cheesiest crime shows out there.
As far as dramatic crime shows go, this one is certainly on the lighter side. In more ways than one.
It is shot in a very light/bright way. Many crime shows seem to have some very dim and dark lighting to them. Even when indoors, this show is still very light. Its a nice change.
I enjoy the creative ways murder victims die on this show. Not all the the time, but some of the crime scenes themselves are quite creative. It makes the show fun.
I really like Reese, Crews' partner. Her dark past is a bit cheesy, but I still like her chemistry with Crews. She balances him out.
I find it hard to believe Crews really believes much of the crap he says, but he certainly is a decent person and a good cop.
Ted is also a great character to offset Crews. How that guy ever committed illegal acts is beyond me.
Stark, Crews' previous partner, is an interesting character. He seems like such a cool guy while also being rather creepy at the same time. He also always seems to be around.
It is so, so weird to see Robin Weigert as anyone other than Calamity Jane on Deadwood. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.
Once the whole underlying mystery is done (I hope they do get to eventually finish it instead of having it go on forever). I think it can still hold its own as a plan old crime show. So I hope they get to do that eventually.
I've been trying to be good about saving my pennies, but I must admit that I've still purchased a couple pieces of Mac software recently...
ShoveBox
I finally bought this great notes app. I'm very picky about my note applications. The simpler, the better. I think I will always be a Notational girl at heart. I can really write a whole post on different Mac note apps. To make a very long rant short, ShoveBox is overall a very very nice notes app. Its clean, stays in the menubar, supports hot keys, and has a fun "quickjot" function for taking quick notes. It also has a very promising beta iPhone app for syncing.
Fontcase
Easily the nicest looking and one of the must useful Mac font management applications out there. I am not the biggest typophile out there, I tend to stick to a few favorite favorite fonts, but I still find it to be a crazy useful app. It also feels very lightweight to me compared to the other font management apps I've tried in the past. If you ever use anything other than Times New Roman or do anything with design, Fontcase is a must-have.
LittleSnapper
I really didn't want to like LittleSnapper. But over time it grew on me and now I can't live without it. I don't use the website they provide for posting snapshots, but I did (to spite myself) fall in love with the app's concept itself. its very freeing to never have to organize screenshots of all kinds and to no longer have tons of random screenshots sitting on the desktop. Now they're all in one place automatically as soon as they're taken. Once you get used to the workflow you won't look back.
Yup, it was awesome.
Wasn't nearly as dark as I expected.
Jeffery Dean Morgan really did a great job.
Malin Akerman must have one of the most distinctive voices on the planet. I just couldn't get her character from 27 Dresses out of my head. Made it hard for me to take her seriously.
I spent the entire time trying to figure out why Carla Gugino looked so familiar. Its because she's been in a ton of stuff, but just as a brunette.
Jackie Earle Haley, who played Rorschach, plays a great crazy dude. He also played a a convicted sexual predator in the movie Little Children.
I just realized that Patrick Wilson, who plays Night Owl, was also in Little Children (with a much better haircut). Interesting...
I kind of found it hard to take anything Night Owl did seriously. The dude was a dweeb. Even when he was having some fantastic sex.
I was pretty much unfazed by all the blue man nudity.
I would totally watch this again.
Season one was superbly done. Season two was also great.
Season one was just so intense. Season two was a bit less intense, I think its simply because the pace of the season was a bit slower.
The parts that upset you really upset you. It can be just plain difficult to watch.
Griggs, McNulty, Bunk, Freeman, Daniels, D'angelo and Omar... just awesome, awesome characters.
The amount of drinking on this show matches the amount of cursing on Deadwood.
The 'f*ck' scene in season one was my favorite few minutes in any crime show ever. (I've watched many many crime shows).
I hate the show for some of the stuff it does to some of its characters... but I'm sure that all of the crap that this show does to its characters makes me love it even more.
Its just a beautiful show. So engrossing.
I used to have a little section on the site where I'd post my current favorite albums... I got rid of of it in the redesign in an effort to be as minimal as possible. So, for no particular reason, the top five albums I've had on heavy rotation lately...
Santogold - Santogold
I don't know why... I just love it. Can listen to it all day long. Catchy as hell.
MGMT - Oracular Spectacula
Same thing. The songs "Electric Feel", "Future Reflections", and "Weekend Wars" will just get you.
The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
This album is just... fantastic. "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" gets me every time... over and over again.
The Bird and the Bee - Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future
I just got this album a couple days ago, but I can tell, its a keeper. I loved their first album, and this one just spells to be so much better.
Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak
No matter how much I don't want to, I just love certain songs on it. Listen to "Bad News", "See you in my Knightmares" and "Paranoid" a few times. You'll see.
You can find more of my recent musical loves on my last.fm. ;)
Yes, it really is that good.
It deserves all the awards that its won.
Its intense, while still having hope. Its a nice combination.
Loved the acting. The child actors were just fantastic.
Great soundtrack.
Everything about it is just beautiful.
Seriously... go see it. You'll be happy you did.
My Social Experimental Psychology class did our first "social experiment" Tuesday night, on "Dyad Invasions". A dyad invasion being a person walking in between two people obviously talking to each other. Basically we stood on a New York City street in pairs, two-to-three feet apart, and spoke to each other for five minutes at a time, to see if people walking by would walk in between us or around us. Every five minutes we'd try a new spot. We had three spots outside on the street and three spots inside the university.
We had another girl sit a bit away to take count of the number of invasions. I was surprised by how many invasions we ended up having... the average was probably around four, but we had one instance outside of thirteen and an instance inside (when some classes had just ended) of twenty-three.
We may not have discovered anything too exciting, but at least trying to make small talk with a partner for 45 minutes helped pass the time in my four-hour class.
Warning: my review may contain spoilers... ;)
Liked this season much much more than I expected to.
I'll never see Jimmy Smits the same way again.
I had no idea Smits was actually a good actor. He's talented.
Smits was f*cking creepy. Even when he was acting normal, you knew he couldn't possibly be normal.
I mean, who talks about friendship and trust that much. Seriously?!
I think that I liked this season more than last season.
I still say last season's drug story line was retarded.
I absolutely loved all of Deb's progression in this season. Loved her and Anton from start to finish. Its so nice to be able to be happy for Deb.
It was also nice to see Laguerta in a new light. Still clever... but also... caring.
Yay for Batista! Its also so nice to see him happy. I loved seeing him handle his promotion in stride and handle it responsibly.
The beginning of the season was a bit slow for me, mostly because I felt like I knew what was going to happen, and just wanted to see it happen. By the middle of the season it started to pick up and just get awesome.
Of course.. how could I ever forget Dexter? He finally figured out that the two people in his life he can trust, Rita and Deb, are the people he should trust. Every time Dexter tries to make a friend, it ends up in a whole mess of death. Maybe he'll learn that you can have very good friends who don't know all of your secrets.
I always love how Dexter is confronted with people he has a lot.. in common with, but ultimately, he can see the difference between himself and them (Miguel Prado, George King).
Dexter was faced with different opportunities for murder. Murder as pure self-defense (Oscar Prado) murder as a favor (for Miguel Prado), murdering someone who wasn't a killer (just a pervert), and murder for mercy (Camilla).
It was great to see Dexter sort through all those different opportunities to see which ones he was really comfortable with.
So, I've been using Adobe CS4 Photoshop with Leopard's Spaces for quite a while now. Originally I had Photoshop not assigned to any space, and then I tried with Photoshop assigned to a specific space. Neither setting worked, and anytime I'd switch from a different application back to Photoshop, I'd end up with what you see above.. a completely unusable Photohsop CS4... menus missing and nothing working.
Then Matty gave me the idea to try using Photoshop CS4 in every space... and magically, it worked!
Its extremely sad that I didn't think to switch it myself... but its seriously nice to not have a UI mess every three minutes. Adobe should make their products work properly with a major Leopard feature, or at least warn Leopard users about it. Seriously.
So Macworld this year. What is there to say? Basically... not much. I have to admit I'm relieved though, I've spent more than enough money on Mac products lately.
I am not even tempted to try the iWork update, I don't need any of the new features. As for iLife, iPhoto sounds interesting, but I'm not in too much of a hurry. There are great free plugins for Flickr & Facebook to use in the meantime.
I think it was a good year for a lighter keynote. Good job Apple. <3
