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Items Noted Elsewhere: Hugo Tornado Edition

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Posted in Items Noted Elsewhere at 10:26 pm

MovieLog: Cloverfield

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I wouldn’t call it a waste of time, but Cloverfield proved to be rather disappointing. Since I’ve been in a bullet-point mood lately, let’s break it down thusly:

  • Acting: Okay.
  • Big monster: Eh. (Spoiler.) Shoot out his fucking breathing sacks and get it over with already.
  • Small monsters: Kinda scary at first, but cease to be as soon as you think “oh, they kind of look like crabs.” Mmmm, crabs.
  • NYC hipster body count: High. (Spoiler.) It would have been nice of them to kill off Hud a bit earlier, though. Like at the beginning of the fucking movie.
  • Gratuitous references to 9/11: Too many to count.
  • Incidences of military personnel saying really cliché things: Numerous.
  • Likeliness of monster taking a Godzilla-like place in American culture: Almost none, thank god. And if it does, I’m going to have to bust some fucking heads.
  • J.J. Abrams: In serious need of a tire iron to the side of the skull before he tries to top himself. Who knows, if he suffers some in the process, maybe his art will get a bit better.

After watching Cloverfield, I find myself concerned that he’s going to screw up the new Star Trek movie, and I don’t even care about that franchise. Still, I’d have to rate Cloverfield a 5 out of 10, as it was moderately entertaining upon first viewing.

But what about a second viewing? I don’t even want to go there.

Posted in MovieLog at 10:33 pm

Sunday New York Times Statistics for 25 May 2008

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(I pretended today was Sunday. It sure felt like one.)

Number of sections consumed: 4 (out of 10)

Hours spent: 2.5

NYT Magazine opened (Y/N): N

Articles worthy of passing along:

Posted in Journal at 5:53 pm

MinneBar in Review

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Well, this is a severely dated subject now, but I wanted to mention that MinneBar was really impressive this year. My session-fu may have been a bit off with a couple of my session selections, but I did learn plenty, and met some cool folks along the way. Rich Hoeg’s session on Connectbeam and other enterprise social networking tools stood out, and will likely influence a few things I’ll be attempting at work over the coming year. The Lightning Round sessions were great, too: One of the sites highlighed, scribbls.com, is seriously causing me to consider getting a graphics tablet.

(I have a small group of links I picked up over the course of MinneBar over on del.icio.us.)

Challenges facing the Twin Cities tech community, both external and self-imposed, turned out to be a running theme of MinneBar this year. There were lots of questions and conversations about where the talent is going (NYC and SF, even though the opportunities may be better here), whether money is really only available on the coasts (no, but it seems that way), and what the area needs to do to get its entrepreneurial legs back (one option, covered in the State of the State session: stop being so damn timid). It’ll be interesting to see how the local industry is fairing the same time next year. While the view from my place of employment may not be as dim as it is with some other companies in the area, the challenges mentioned of finding quality talent are exceedingly familiar.

Anyway, it was a great time. I’m glad I attended, and look forward to next year.

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:14 pm

Journal for 18 May 2008: Life, Backlogged

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As is probably quite obvious, I haven’t really been in the mood for writing as of late. To be fair, the mix is roughly 40% apathy, 60% preoccupation.

Lisa’s first Mother’s Day was spent in Madison. Not an optimal time for her to visit, but between MinneBar on the 10th, a weird work event for me on the 12th, and a bunch of time for her working online the following week, it was clear we wouldn’t be able to see each other much until this weekend anyway. As such, we decided to defer Mother’s Day to some undefined future date, and just let the weekend pass.

I made the most of my open Sunday. Instead of relaxing–which probably been the best thing for me to do considering I don’t get much down time these days–I painted our bedroom and engaged in a marathon 16-hour spring cleaning session. When done, the air conditioners were in, the office was walkable for the first time in months, my closet had regained its organizational logic.

This weekend was a bit more laid back. Aside from the graduation party in St. Paul, it was mostly made up of playing with the baby, hitting some rummage sales in Richfield (an endeavor alternately bargain-filled and scary), and, of course, more cleaning.

~ ~ ~

Also, I went for my first legitimate walk in months this evening. Up next weekend: Get the bikes out.

Posted in Journal at 10:30 pm

Items Noted Elsewhere: IN and NC Primaries

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Posted in Items Noted Elsewhere,politics at 4:40 pm

MovieLog: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

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If you’re looking for 30 minutes of amusement but have two hours to spend, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story may be just the movie for you. I’d give it the arguably-generous rating of 6/10 only because when Walk Hard is on, it can be brilliant. An early Sun Records parody sticks out in particular, but it’s a high bar the movie only reaches a few more times over its, uh, 120 minutes.

Posted in MovieLog at 11:11 pm

Sunday New York Times Statistics for 4 May 2008

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Number of sections consumed: 2 (out of 9)

Hours spent: 1.5 (busy day today)

NYT Magazine opened (Y/N): N

Articles worthy of passing along:

Posted in Journal at 11:26 pm

Journal for 4 May 2008: Lemons

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I guess the main thing I have to say about the weekend is this: When you spill over six ounces of lemonade on your $2800 laptop, your plans can change rather dramatically.

After a few bluescreens and other unpleasantness, my ThinkPad is more or less running again. Despite a rather thorough cleaning, some of the keys have a weird click to them now, and my LAN connection appears to be toast. More ominously, though, the computer no longer will wake up after I put it in sleep mode. Instead, it requires a reboot.

I see laptop repair expenses in my future. In retrospect, I’m kind of wishing I’d spent the money for the accidental damage protection.

Posted in Journal at 11:15 pm

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