House of Flying Daggers

Another miss by the director of Hero. One of these days he is going to make a great film. I hope he keeps it up even though Daggers misses the mark.
The first half of the film is well done. As was the case with Hero, the cinematography here is better than any Hollywood film. Nothing even touches this. I also liked the first half of the film.

The second half of the film is just plain silly. We get a crazy Bamboo forest chase scene, a plot twist that defies logic and if you think about it is completely flawed, and some lousy 30 minute death scenes.


What a waste of Ziyi Zhang's beauty and talents. The Spielberg related Memoirs of the Geisha should finally make her a star if the movie does not suffer from some of the flaws of the book.(I liked the book but it was missing many critical character elements).
Below is an early shot from Geisha.

Open Water

Whenever a movie can make me say "They did not do that!" then it is definately doing something right. Open Water is not a great movie but is a movie I appreciate and recommend it for a rental just to watch the behind the scenes documentaries.

This was a husband and wife shooting the film on weekends and vacations. All the equipment was purchased on the internet. There was no crew, just the husband and wife.

What is amazing here is how well they edited the film using editors anyone could purchase. The sound and color is just amazing. I watched the behind the scenes movies and couldn't believe they would fly from NY City to the Bahamas on weekends just to shoot scenes. This ofcourse took them 2 1/2 years.

The real amazing feat is the fact that they used real sharks. There is nothing fake here. The director and actors jumped in the water and were filmed with actual sharks in the ocean. They did hire a shark wrangler who helped them find the sharks and some close ups were done with cages.

Check out this film and don't miss the documentary on how to market your home movies to the studios. The couple tries to prove that anyone can make films on a tight budget.

Mrs. Corkum's Curtain

Thank You for the curtain! It fit perfectly!

Notice the normal girl in the background

Super Wedding!

The girl in the back must have been the sister.

Napoleon Meg Mix

More Napoleon!

Richard Simmonds on whose line is it anyways

He's still the same!

Patches

Patches the Horse

She will be mine!

Pictures of the girl eating the giant burger

That is definately a girl after my own heart

Napoleon Dynamite on Letterman

This movie still cracks me up....

Top 10

Whale video

Can you imagine if you were this guy?

Shuffle?

The Ipod shuffle. Man I hate Apple. I hate the company, hate their computers, and in particular there is just something about people who tend to buy Apples. These are the same smug little people who sit at the cofee houses and try to look intellectual or the hippies who threw away all their beliefs and now have to sport what they think are the coolest gadgets and drive in their 8 mile a gallon SUV's. I'm generalizing here which is not a nice thing to do. I realize if you work in the graphic or art business Apples are essential, and they are easy to use and virus free.
I was going to talk about the new Ipod shuffle. Here is a dilemna for me. Apple has created a superior product with the Ipod and now the Shuffle. The Shuffle is even cheaper than anything out there, uses flash memory and supports Audible audio books. This is exactly the product I have been looking for. Do I dare buy and Apple product? I have been dissing Apple for years but I need something that supports audio books. Apple MP3's are one of the few products that does.

Snow!

Lotta snow out there, definately not going anywhere today. We only got a foot of snow but the snowdrifts decided to centralize right around my car. That and the fact that people parked around me, boxing me in, and in turn are stuck themselves. Asking the landlord about snow situations: "just flag down a snowplow." Some of my neighbors were a bit shocked by this. In fact this building is basically falling apart but as long as it lasts as long as I am here thats cool. Anyways the bottom line is I have some time on my hands today which I have not had forever. The Patriots play this afternoon tho which is a must watch.

So whats new? Well quite a bit..New apartment I moved into last week and have been getting organized. I just set up my satelite radio. I am using Sirius. I have a satelite boombox and car unit. This is nice and portable. Is satelite radio the next "big thing?"...I don't know, its pretty cool tho. You can check out Sirius for free at Sirius
Music wise I've been listening to Damien Rice and some other stuff. He played in Portland not too long ago to only around 400 people. Kinda wish I went. Now that he did some songs for the movie Closer he's getting a bit too big hence probably not coming back to Maine.

I'm rambling again. Sorry about that. Here's some pics of the apartment etc.


Every apartment needs a giant Rooster!



Two essential cookbooks that go hand in hand

I found my future wife!

CLEARFIELD, Pa. - A 100-pound female college student is the first to meet the Denny's Beer Barrel Pub challenge: down the restaurant's six-pound hamburger — and five pounds of fixins' — within three hours.

Kate Stelnick, 19, of Princeton, N.J., made the five-hour drive with two friends from The College of New Jersey on Wednesday, after they saw pictures of the monster burger, dubbed the Ye Old 96er, on the Internet and on TV's Food Network.
"I just saw it on TV and I really thought I could do it," Stelnick said, after downing the burger in two hours, 54 minutes.

Stelnick didn't eat for two days to prepare for the challenge. "I felt very full, but I was too excited that I actually ate it to notice," Stelnick said.

Denny Leigey Jr., the owner of the bar 35 miles northwest of State College, had offered a two-pound burger for years and conceived of the six-pounder after his daughter went to college and phoned him about a bar that sold a four-pounder.

But nobody had finished the big burger in the three-hour time limit since it was introduced on Super Bowl Sunday 1998 — not even competitive eater Eric "Badlands" Booker. The 420-pound Booker — who has eaten such things as 49 glazed doughnuts in eight minutes and two pounds of chocolate bars in six minutes — tried three times to eat the burger and finally did on his third effort. But it took Booker 7 1/2 hours.

The burger takes 45 minutes to cook, and those who try to meet the three-hour limit must use no utensils and eat all of these fixins: one large onion, two whole tomatoes, one half head of lettuce, 1 1/4 pounds of cheese, top and bottom buns, and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, relish, banana peppers and some pickles.

Leigey said he was pretty sure somebody would meet his burger challenge, though he didn't have a petite woman in mind.

"I wouldn't have made it if I didn't think it was possible," Leigey said.

For her trouble, Stelnick got a special certificate, a T-shirt and other prizes and — as advertised — Leigey picked up the $23.95 tab for the burger.

Still Here

I'm still around, just as busy as ever. I have so much to say on this site but just do not have the time luxury anymore. Mostly I have some very funny stuff I like to share.

First of all a little bit about the tradegy in Asia. I made a donation today and if anyone wants to I'll put some address info. My boss trippled any donations we made which was a nice thing to do. My heart goes out to all the families who have lost loved ones and to those who still suffer. I hope this money reaches the people who need it most.

Tsunami donations can be used as a 2004 tax deduction

Red Cross

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I posted some Christmas pictures. I have yet to post any of my Fall pictures or Thanksgiving pics, but I guess I will catch up in reverse.




X-mas 2004