Yes, I moved the weblog from [http://weblog.janella.com] to the main site [janella.com] And the layout has also changed. The photo header above rotates photos Farrah and I have taken. Photos included in the header right now are:
A new photo may not load if you’re browser caches the photo, but know that it does work. I’m not sure how many I’ll put up for the header, but a new image should load here or there.
Merry Christmas to all!!!
[project.janella.com] has now been changed to [beta.janella.com] What exactly does that mean?
Well, I started going back toward a CMS (Content Management System) solution for this website. See the website is basically made of two components: a weblog (or blog) and a photo gallery. Currently if you access [weblog.janella.com] what you see is Wordpress, a great blog program. When you access [photos.janella.com] you see 4images, a photo gallery program. Both are created by different groups of developers and function great.
Bobby Fisher? Mr. Goodbar? Videos with Bjork in it?
There’s a new beta search engine by Yahoo! that allows you to search for video clips. Go to [video.search.yahoo.com] to try it out. You can play with the preferences so you’re searches aren’t restricted.
Also available in beta by Yahoo! is [My Yahoo! Search] This one is a little more personal. Sign in with your Yahoo! name and start searching. You can save results, share results, search within saved pages you searched on, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
A Christmastime. Farrah, my mom and I went to see Kayla’s play a Christmas in Egypt. Kayla played the part of Delta, an Egyptian with a southern accent. She was one of three southern belle types. The other two were named Cleopatty and … oh, the name escapes me now. In any event, Kayla’s performance was fantastic.
Afterward we went to the Traber’s residence for birthday cake to celebrate Farrah’s upcoming birthday.
Farrah told me about [this ad] with Asian actors stating the importance of voting. I never saw it on television, but I did vote nonetheless. If you missed the ad, watch it for gee whiz.
Disposable cell phones that turn into sunflowers??? With the inventors being from Amsterdam I thought the plant/flower type would be different. Interesting idea nonetheless. [Read the story at CNN.com]
Oh its been a short weekend for me. I had to work yesterday because a co-worker needed to take one of their floating holidays before the end of the year. He has one more to take this year so looks like I’ll be working another Saturday soon.
Last night Farrah and I also went to my company’s year end party (called YEP) in San Francisco. It was held at 7th and Brannen in the City as it has been for the last several years.
(as dictated by tessie)
*regular baking potatoes (5 lbs)*gravy (e.g. turkey - can or jar)beef gravy (no mad cow in it)stuffy (e.g. stuffing)corn, green giant (either frozen canned; nibblits)green bean, green giants (can; kitchen cut - no french cut)two cans cream of chicken, campbellsdried french onionblock of velveta cheeseroll, e.g. dinner rolls - heat and serve or pilsbury (freezer)cranberries - cannedapple and pumpkinvanilla ice creamchocolate whip cream
The last of the Hawaii trip photos are posted. The photos are located under Trips | Hawaii 2004 Part II for both the [photos] and [project] pages. Again, there is no difference in the amount of photos displayed on either page. The photos are just displayed in two different methods.
For this album (Hawaii 2004 Part II) most of the photos were taken with a digital camera. I have yet to upload the raw photos to a linked [Shutterfly] page, but will do so when I get the chance.
New albums posted are:
Tiana’s Birthday 2004 - Tiana’s first birthday party celebrated at Ko’olau. Currently only the photos taken with the Nikon cameras are posted. Digital images to follow - when I get a chance. Grandma’s Birthday 2004 - Grandma’s 86th birthday celebration at Auntie’s home. Again, only the film images are posted right now. From the description provided within the album, you can click on a link that will take you to a like album on [Shutterfly], an online photo service.
Farrah and I found this huge spider on our wall after coming home from Toys R Us:
We tried to corral the spider but, unfortunately, ended up killing it. We are still trying to determine what kind of spider it is. Anyone know?
Yeah, we’re back from Hawaii!!! I’m working on getting the pictures posted. Right now I’m a little tired but managed to get the pictures from Grandma’s 86th birthday posted. It’s available through [http://photos.janella.com/] as well as [http://project.janella.com/]
What is the latter site you ask? Just trying to determine if I want to use the [Gallery] engine to post photos or not. I’m still thinking about it, so not all albums are available on the project subdomain.
The final release version of Firefox is now available at [mozilla.org]. The site is really busy since it is the first day of release, so you may want to try later on in the week.
We’re getting ready for our trip to Hawaii (yes again). One of the things we wanted to do before going was to get a new phone plan. Our current plan is geared toward local use. If we travel outside of the state we are charge for making calls. I know I didn’t want to stay with our current carrier, AT & T, so we should look elsewhere for a national plan.
Today would have been my father’s 95th birthday. I know if he lived this long it would have been quite a feat. Nonetheless I do miss him still.
I saw these images below posted on some messageboard regarding the new [Fantastic Four] movie being made. From the looks of the these images I’m not too impressed. Then again I wasn’t too impressed with the Thing’s costume or Jessica Alba as Sue Storm. I’m thinking their going to have to CGI the Thing or he’ll just look like a ‘guy in a costume’.
I’m watching tv right now, seeing how the Presidential race is going. It’s interesting to see the color coded map on the screen, and how divided the country is on who should be PODUS (President of the United States - something I learned from watching [The West Wing]) I’m not sure how the country comes out of being so divided on a leader, especially with a war going on and the economy the way it is.
Yeah, it took me an hour in line to cast my vote, but GO VOTE!
Today we went up to the City to Lotte’s place to (1) celebrate Matthew’s birthday - which was last week, (2) a house-warming for Lotte, and (3) celebrate Halloween. Now that’s a lot of celebrating! Photos are posted on the website. I had to head back early to hand out candy at the house. Right now I’m typing this weblog entry from the laptop near the front door. The kid flow is somewhat steady.
I get worried about my computer. Actually, the data stored on the computer, such as email and the family digital photos. Computing, as some of you may have experienced, can be frustrating. Errors in Windows seem to happen daily if your system is askew. The Internet is not a safe place as well. Viruses are everywhere, even in images viewed on websites! Also, hard drives can crash - even though only one has crashed on me ever.
Are you registered to vote? Hope so because it’s too late to register for this year’s election - at least in California. For a comedic look (or a comedian’s pov of politics) check out the following:
[the borowitz report] I heard him on the KGO radio. Pretty funny guy. [Jon Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire] steaming video on someone’s blog. Enjoyable.
Wow, today was a busy day. I helped celebrate my sister and friend’s birthdays.
First off was Susana’s birthday in Santa Cruz. My mom and I drove up to Riva’s on the wharf to meet Susana, Kayla and Rex for lunch. I had my ususal Fisherman’s Platter (calamari, fish, and chips). There was some slight detour-ing going and leaving the pier as a marching band competition was occurring by the Boardwalk.
“So you wanna breakdance instead? – Purported mumbled word by me. Ok, I know I talk in my sleep. But I can’t imagine any situation where I might mumble the above phrase. Farrah said I did and she’s not one to make this up. I don’t think I can even make this up!
are gas prices going up in your area? according to a [cnn] article regular unleaded is on average $1.99/gallon. wish that were the case here. you can checkout the local gas prices by visiting [sanjosegasprices.com] with the link available on the sidebar also.
ah, finally got through the rest of the hawaii vacation photos. albums posted are called:
cruising oahu - hitting chinaman’s hat and other points of interest luau day - morning began with a hike up [diamond head] then a luau at paradise cove. last day on the island - last minute shopping, packing and…saying aloha.
do you like reading blogs? pop on over to [metblogs] where you can see specific regional/city blogs discussing life in the city and such. there is a blog for [tokyo], [san francisco], [chicago], and other cities. check it out.
you’ve heard of [friendster] right? if you haven’t, friendster is considered a social network. we’ll, if you’ve been using the latest version of [firefox] you might consider social bookmarks, at [del.icio.us]
on del.icio.us you can add, share, and find bookmarks. you can categorize your bookmarks, then add them to firefox as an rss feed so they are live bookmarks. the site looks like it is in pre-beta with some features such as alpha sorting not available.
our favorite new television show this season has to be [lost] wednesay @ 8pm on abc.
quick shot: plane crashes on a deserted island. survivors try to figure out where they are, how to contact someone for help, and who they can trust amongst their group. it’s a dramatic gilligan’s island!
what we like (so far): the story has many mysterious elements surrounding the island as well as passengers on the plane.
man, it’s october and i’m still talking about our hawaii trip that took place back in august!?!?!?! well, my memory on specifics is fading (yeah, it comes with age, huh). this might be the last time i write about the trip. most of the pictures are posted. just a few more from the last days we stayed. anyway, on with the story….
sandy left oahu on saturday afternoon. for the rest of that day we relaxed.
the following day, after pali lookout, we went to kauai. our plane left early in the morning. funny thing going to kauai, and coming back, was being thoroughly searched. we did the whole nine yards of getting the metal detector ran over our bodies and having our bags searched. heidi’s back had an extra passenger on the outside, which airport security noticed: a cockroach! we figured one of our names was a trigger for being searched or our group size.
rating: ** 1/2 out of 5
quick shot: ron perlman brings hellboy to life, embodying hellboy both physically and emotionally.
what i liked about the film: the look, the story pace, and the comedic elements.
what i didn’t like: the ending was slightly disappointing, when it had every opportunity to be stronger. perhaps a director’s cut of the dvd - which i think is scheduled later this year - will prove to make a better film than the current version.
every wanted to see how a web site looked, oh say, two years ago? [plug the website address in here] to find out. link courtesy of sa - the slient assassin. (ps. just verified the above lyric/title is correct. can you guess the movie?)
made a template change to the weblog page as well as the photos@ page. lmk if there are any problems with the template, as some customization had to be done. also lmk what you think of the template. i like it because
it’s dark, which hides the tables the enclose the photos it looks cleaner the red is a good contrast to a possible all black look the style change on the weblog page is meant to partially match the dark look on the photos page.
the day after hanauma bay, we went did more driving around oahu, specifically toward pali lookout. we could have gone the day before, but after six hours in the sun it was difficult to muster any energy.
the drive to pali lookout isn’t that long. in fact, driving to anywhere on the island doesn’t take too long. pali lookout overlooks the kloolau mountain range. it sort of reminds me of twin peaks in city with the wind and view.
who’s new cadillac is this?
well, let’s ask the car who she belongs to:
yes, farrah’s dad, as of this weekend, is the proud owner of a silver smoke cadillac cts. sweet huh? it’s a pretty smooth ride. six cylinders, sun/moon roof, leather interior, am/fm/cd/xm satellite radio. a very nice car to take on a trip.
well, time to write more about the hawaii trip, since i have some time on my hands. it’s a hot one here today in sunnyvale. i’m not sure if it’s hotter than it was at hanauma bay, but it’s pretty close.
on my first full day on oahu we went to hanauma bay. it was a sunday and the bay was fairly crowded. some things have chanced at the bay. it’s five dollars to get in (the same, i think).
ugh, getting back from vacation has been rough, especially with work being a drag right now. i’m slowly getting the vacation pictures up. log on a take a look when you get a chance.
in order to get it all down, i’ll start writing about our vacation coinciding with each album. for example, arriving in hawaii:
the trip over
i took off on saturday august 7, 2004 by myself. farrah had left with yen and heidi on wednesday.
congratulations to scott and stefanie on their new baby boy! seth emilio salvotti was born on august 18, 2004 @ 12:33. we’ll need to meet seth and skylar soon.
thanks to fina for this link
rating: **1/2 of 5
quick shot: val kilmer does his bit for country and mamet. a good thriller even though the ending is a bit deux machina.
what i liked about the film mamet’s writing. snappy dialog and interesting plot.
what i didn’t like part of the ending (you’ll know what i mean)
[this link] courtesy of sa. here’s hoping th new batman is better than the last two films. check out the trailer also at the [batman begins] website.
ernie and i went to the shooting range after dinner yesterday. it was ernie’s first time, while i hadn’t been to the range in over three years. we shot a rented 9mm and a .40 smith & wesson. ernie did pretty good being the first time out. i was a little rusty but managed to hit the center of the target a couple of times
the web hosting of the janella sites has changed. fina’s galleries are now located at
[http://nothingcouldbefina.janella.us/]
and janella.com has moved to a new web hosting provider as well. why the changes?
at work we had test web hosting accounts for an old service we no longer offer. the test account i had the domain name janella.us. unfortunately my account was accidentally canceled. i looked at this as an opportunity to try a new hosting provider.
did you know that dvd movies can be different from country to country? they are not only defined by region (north america is region 1) but specific countries can have cooler versions than others. this is where a region free dvd player comes in handy!
anyway, a cool site to see what is different is dvdcompare.net for example, look at the different versions of kill bill volume 1. cool huh?
how far can you make this dude walk drunk? use your mouse to control the left-to-right movement.
i’ve been reading comic books again.
it has been several years since i picked up comic books on a regular basis. but late last year i was in a mall and stopped by the comic book store. i picked up two hardback compilations:
[daredevil: yellow] [new xmen: volume 1] both books were excellent in there own way. daredevil was done by the team of loeb and sales. loeb knows how to write a clean story with excellent dialog, while sales can draw in such a minimal but expressive fashion.
i’ve been quietly adding back photos to the page. by quitely i mean i forgot to update this page! anwya, here is what’s been done so far:
most of the birthday photos have been added back a couple of sjsu albums have been restored as well two out of five wedding albums are posted right now new albums
calypte [located under friends] has been added yen’s graduation photos have veen added [under friends] as well as always, viewing of these albums requires login right.
original story appears at
[http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter/05232004/news/17777.htm]
Fan calls it the worst concert ever
HAMPTON - Gloria Dion wants her money back after being subjected to what she calls the worst Jewel concert ever.
Dion, along with her two daughters Nicole and Kaitlin, went to last Saturday’s 8 p.m. Jewel concert at the Hampton Beach Ballroom Casino. The singer performed two concerts that evening at the Casino. People who saw the first said Jewel was at the top of her game and said it was a “rocking show.
pictures from yen’s after graduation celebration are now posted on [photos]. please login to see the photos. yeah, i’m trying to be quicker in posting photos.
today is a day of graduations: yen is graduating from sjsu and john for sfsu. and here i am stuck working at home, not able to attend either ceremony. hopefully i’ll be able to attend the after parties.
congratulations yen!
congratulations john!
farrah, madelyn and i went to see dido at the berkeley community theater. it’s been about four years since the last time farrah and i saw her perform at the warfield (see the [concerts] page which is still under construction) dido was really trying to throw a different groove to her songs then what is on her albums. she put faster beats to some songs, danced a lot and gave the crowd energy to dance with her.
this is a ‘concert’- me list listing all the concerts we’ve been to (so far). updated when another concert comes along.
[Bill Graham Civic Auditorium] 99 Grove Street, San Francisco CA 94102
Who we’ve seen there: Tori Amos (12.21.2002) Oasis (4.13.1996)
[Bimbo’s 365 Club] 1025 Columbus Avenue San Francisco, CA 94133
Who we’ve seen there: Cardigans (6.19.96)
Berkeley Community Theater 1930 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704
Who we’ve seen there: Dido (05.
found this image of bush on a weblog site [american leftist]. the person made it with pictures “of the American service men and women who have died in Iraq. No photograph is used more than three times." You can see a [medium] and [bigger] image also.
trying to get informed before this year’s presidential election? you might want to see [factcheck.org]. the site seem very informative and doesn’t appear to sway left or right.
well, changed the weblog face again as the style previously used (called zen) seemed too light to read. luckily with [wordpress] i’m able to switch styles rather painlessly. the real dilemma for me is the overall site look.
with tools like wordpress and [4images] a webmaster can easily put up a site in a quick amount of time. but the look and feel when going between both products is harsh. there are all-in-one solutions with something like [postnuke] and [phpnuke] but i find those products either too many features to disable or are slow to load.
dvds are cool aren’t they? it’s almost difficult remember a time without dvds. the things i love about dvds are:
the crisp picture and sound (compared to vhs) the commentary tracks (hopefully insightful) the deleted scenes the director’s cut but does a director’s cut make a better movie?
can a director’s cut of a bad movie make it better?
these questions have been posed in newsgroups and on websites with vehement responses by purists and idiots alike.
dave and i had lunch today at the new [hooters] in dublin. dave had never been to hooters before, and i hadn’t been to one in over 15 years. when the one in the city opened up they guys at my last work wanted to organize a trip to go there for our “every-so-often-dinner” get togethers. i don’t know what they heard the place is like but whatever they heard it didn’t meet up to their expectations.
i gotta tell you, i’m really impressed with this wordpress program. i was able to setup this new weblog, import all the data from movabletype, and start posted within half an hour! i was amazing when compared to all the install trouble i went with movabletype. i’m going to test for a few more days, but the way it looks now i just might be a wordpress convert!
last night i went to a rosary for my cousin who passed way last thursday, may 6, 2004. i didn’t know anthony that well. he was always big quiet person, even as a kid. i remember him being very quiet at family parties when i was younger. even when we got older he always seemed quiet, but a happy person when you talked to him. i can say i’ve never seen him sad or even in a bad mood.
slight change in the sidebar menu, where previous entries can be accessed by categories. so if a ‘cool site’ was listed on [janella.com] but is no longer on the home page, simply click the ‘cool sites’ link to browse and find. cool, eh?
rating: **** out of 5
quick shot: continuing the revenge story of the bride from kill bill volume i.
what i liked about the film: slightly different tone from the first movie. i like the dialog an interaction between bill and the bride towards the end of the movie.
what i didn’t like: the audience members who didn’t realize movie’s contain dialog. yeah, this volume is more talk-y then the first but give me a break…it’s tarantino!
rating: ***1/2 out of 5
quick shot: smartly written tina fey comedy. a cut above your average teenager movie.
what i liked about the movie: the way it treated most kids with some intelligence. i also liked that the adults weren’t totally oblivious either. smart script all around.
what i didn’t like: the movie bogged down a third of the way through, though it picked up in the end.
rating: *** out of 5
quick shot: men at sea battling a faceless (for most of the movie) enemy, and amongst themselves. you can feel the isolation at sea, and the camaraderie the crew feels. russell crowe leads by example and charisma.
what i liked about the movie: the chemistry between crowe, bettany (who plays the ship’s doctor) and crew was very good. the chase and battle scenes were excellent.
speakers on! - [cool flash animation find] courtesy of lotte.
rating: **1/2 out of 5
quick shot: jack and diane try to find love at there age! overall good story of may-december romance and how it works for both genders. the writing is good, though gives up in the last ten minutes of the film.
what i liked about the movie: jack and diane have good chemistry in the film. i like the fact that they bared more than their emotions in the film.
general warning brought to you by tage down south. [this tricky modified atm] is geared to grab your card info, pin, and later on your money from your account. if the atm you are using doesn’t seem right it probably isn’t. be cautious.
rating: **** out of 5
quick shot: a tale of bloody revenge tarantino style. loved the bloody brutality mixed in with the animation and poppin’ tarantino dialog.
what i liked about the movie: the bloody mess. the fight scene with the cray 88’s was cool.
what i didn’t like: that i didn’t see this movie in the theater. thank g. for dvd, but still would have been nice to see it on the screen.
i’ve been wavering on whether to take the plunge to go to satellite tv. cable has been good to me for so long, having it here in california since 1992. but lately i’ve been looking at the cable bill, which has grown from $43/month to now a whopping $80/month since 1997 with only minor channel upgrades. so when fina and lotte went with satellite and relayed a good experience, plus with farrah’s family being on satellite for about five years, i thought i was time to take the plunge.
pics posted from my b-day weekend. some are missing (on purposes of course ;) other pics are viewable on fina’s gallery at
[http://nothingcouldbefina.janella.com]
just got back from yosemite, where farrah and i spent about three days. i’ll have a few pictures to post from the digital camera later this week. we only took a few film pictures for some reason.
never heard of it before, but i guess moblogs are the next big thing [cnet article] a moblog is a mobile blog (i guess) in which you can post pictures taken by your mobile phone. then you share the pics and comment as you like in a blog.
might want to check out [textamerica] for an example.
watch [uniform] a short film with jerry seinfeld and superman. the film requires macromedia’s flash.
i’m a batman person myself, but this little bit is slightly funny.
john or lotte, you gotta translate this!
i want to thank everyone for a great birthday weekend! it will be one i will never forget.
the weekend started early with dinner with doug at our old weekly hangout, satsuma’s. it felt like old times sitting, eating, drinking, and talking about everything and anything.
on friday, lotte, john, fina and farrah took me to king of siam for some great thai food. the atmosphere was pretty lively for downtown san jose, and the food was excellent as always.
[can you pass the third grade] is a flash drag and drop game. on my first try i got 21/48 so let’s just say i didn’t. what can you get? link provided by sa
just picked up the playstation 2 game [james bond 007: everything or nothing] it’s a pretty nifty third person game that has you shooting, driving, flying and firing at enemies all over the place. it has the voices of heidi klum, mya, shannon elizabeth, and of course pierce brosnan among others, so it feels like being in a bond movie.
yeah, i know, i was supposed to start playing final fantasy x-2.
some new photos have been added to the photos pages [of all places]! click the above images for a preview or go straight to the photos page to look at more.
celebrating birthdays for
kayla mom rex john please remember, you may have to re-register by clicking the registration link. if you do need to re-register, please use the same login name you used previously so i recognize who you are!
rating: **** out of five
quick shot: a man lost. a woman ignored. friendship [and more?] follows.
what i liked about the movie: the acting, direction and pacing of the movie was very well done.
what i didn’t like: the movie seemed short.
not the most animal friendly game, but try playing [smack the pingu]
just a quick note: you might have noticed that all the postings are now listed by ‘janella’. well, i thought it was a weird thing when doing a search on any search engine (e.g. msn, google, yahoo!, etc.) janella.com would come up somewhere after the top 5! i mean, come on this is janella.com!
anyway, it’s part search engine driven and part whatever.
i have established a few accounts for login from memory. if you try to register for the [photos] page and it says your name is already taken (or in there), then please try logging in with your password. if it’s not in there please continue with the registration.
the [photos page] is starting again, and i emphasis starting. i started a photo renaming project awhile back. i am trying to change photo names from something like
dc0520.jpg to 122503_christmas_02.jpg
to at least track images better on my computer. it helps with searching. anyway, like i previously mentioned all the photo information was wiped out when the database was dumped. so i need to repopulate the photos again. i will do this, trying to get new photos as well as old photos back up.
the pages at [::nothingcouldbefina::] have been partially restored. only certain albums made it through the recovery. if you are a frequent visitor you may notice some missing albums. fina is working getting those albums back up. so please visit the page from time to time for updates.
i think that’s all the restoration that will be done tonight. whew!
till later.
well, hosting company has managed to recover backups of most of the flat files, but the database is shot. so they placed all the files back. unfortunately, the files they put back were in the wrong state, so i couldn’t delete the files. plus the files put the site over quota so the home page couldn’t even be updated!!
finally, they were able to give me full access to the files.
it’s looking pretty ugly outside right now. the winds are supposed to gust up to 40mph down here. in the santa cruz mountains it’s suppose to get as high as 75mph. whew!
so if you’re driving today be careful. if you are not driving, stay home and enjoy a good dvd. (and yes, i’m still trying to get this page back to normal).
btw: this page will probably look kinda funky until i make more postings. i’m not going to try and bother to recreate any of the previous postings i had. please bear with me as we rebuild.
janella.com has, not by choice, had to go another change. the webserver crashed some time this weekend. this affected not only janella.com but over 200 other accounts from what i understand. what does this mean? well, it means starting from scratch on some things.
i do have backup of all the photos. what i don’t have is a backup of the database that drove the new portion of the photo site, as well as what drove this weblog.
my mom heard tigger meowing in a neighbor’s backyard. she rushed over to the next street, knocked on the neighbor’s door and told her our cat was back there. our neighbor wasn’t aware of it and was happy to let my mom back there.
funny thing seeing my mom carry tigger through the front door, seeing how she says he annoys her a lot (all the meowing and need to be petted).
farrah and i went to the pound this afternoon. still no sign of tigger. it’s been almost a week (on monday). i’m starting to get really worried. usually he finds a way to wander back. maybe my mom is right that some kids grabbed him.
went to the local SPCA to see if someone may have found tigger. it was my first time there. i never knew the SPCA had so many animals there. it was both enjoyable and sad to see all those friendly faces, both dog and cat.
i had to fill out a ’lost/missing’ card for tigger. i then took a tour of three rooms of caged cats to see if tigger was one of them.
the lion king was a great show to see (only dampered by tigger going missing yesterday). the costumes, the singing, and the settings were incredible. try to see it in san francisco if you get a chance.
my mom was doing yard work and left the gate open. tigger must have wandered off. funny thing is he usually comes back, but he hasn’t yet tonight. hopefully he will be back soon.
[another loopy flash cartoon]
rating: ** out of five
quick shot: decent run at the vampire mythos. werewolves versus vampire war is somewhat effective, though the story gets bogged down on who did what to whom too much. dave commented that the sequel would probably be better than the original (which i kind of agree with). kate beckinsale makes a kick-ass vampire though.
what i liked about the movie: the movie looked very slick, matrix-like.
rating: ***1/2 out of five
quick shot: good small movie. somewhat predictable half way through, but overall an enjoyable film.
what i liked about the movie: fresh faces and good acting. the characters were some people i recognized and could relate to on some level.
what i didn’t like: some of the direction in the latter half of the film was hokey. for most of the film i didn’t know where it was going, but in the last third it seemed to be predictable.
[let this one play] for about a minute to get the full effect. link courtesy of bigfil
well, the box has been built and ran through the burn-in test without error. so now i’m running a sweet p4 3.0gHz machine. i can only see the difference in running some applications, such as image editing, word, and other applications i run at the same time.
the reason i wanted to build a new box was not just to have a new computer but to get ready to scan a ton of images this year.
another saturday at work. not too many things to do in the queue, but getting stuff done. there are some good football games on this weekend. tomorrow the bay area teams go at it, each in their own division. should be a time to sit by the boob tube as the weather isn’t supposed to be too great.
well, i’ve just slapped all the pieces together. i was a little worried about putting in the cpu as it can be delicate. you have to put this huge fan on top called a heatsink. you need to ‘snap-it’ on top of the processor. let’s hope that went in right.
’m not going to turn it on until tomorrow. there is supposed to be this 72-hour burn-in period where you run the processor for all it’s worth during that timeframe.
[cool clip of the moment] - it requires flash so you may be prompted to install if you don’t have it already. it’s a play on the current outkast hit ‘hey ya!’. pump up the volume for this version. thanks to bigfil for the link.
i decided late last year that i was going to get a new computer system this year. my current system is a p3 733 mHz running winxp and win2k (swap drives). i bought it about 2 1/2 to 3 years ago from micronpc. when i bought it i decided not to get ’top of the line’, which i think was the 900mHz, because i heard the difference wasn’t too much.
here are my quick new year’s resolutions:
watch more movies read more books donate blood - or some deed like that no health resolutions for now. too many people in the gym! i’ll wait until end of february or march in order to start that resolution ;)
happy new year to everyone!!!
hope you have a great 2004!!!
[common sense media guide] - another site i heard on a radio talk show. i think it was on the ron owens show on kgo radio. ron owens likes to talk about movies, music and such on fridays and this was one of the sites that was mentioned.
the reviews seem to be geared toward those wondering about content of cds, movies, etc. which comes in handy when dealing with what children can see.
