Monday, August 31, 2009

Goddamn Mondays

[#] posted at 11:11 am (GMT +1200)

Woke up this morning to the sound of glass smashing. Thanks crappy garage door and insane winds combo. You're a winner.

Meanwhile, well aware how behind I am, have taken measures to catch up on the fact that I've not been watching movies that much. Not as much as usual anyhow. And I seem to be buying lots of DVDs buts not watching them all. I won't mention the exact number/ratio to the total number of DVDs, but it's pretty bad. So the current aim is to watch about two or three movies watched per day till I've caught up, which ain't too impractical of a number, it'll just take a while... maybe a few months. (yeah, that many).

Internet has been pretty quiet the last few days and everything else in general really. Well... nothing worth blogging about. Unless you can write about writing? Pfft. Boring.

So here's an article of pure baddassery where a man wrestled with a 12 foot tiger shark for two hours to save his friend (with pictures!) here.

And a video of epic wtf proportions...



Yeah, I'm just as confused as to why I posted that too. And now I go in search of coffee, cause Mondays suck and my head feels a little like this Gary Busey gif...

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Men Who Stare At Goats Trailer

[#] posted at 2:17 pm (GMT +1200)

This looks good. Not gonna dub it brilliant. But it looks good.



...okay, looks pretty damn good.

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Thursday, August 27, 2009

New Bored to Death Trailer

[#] posted at 4:40 pm (GMT +1200)

My new thing to look forward to next month: Bored to Death, a new HBO series starring Jason Schwartzman as a fake private investigator and also stars the hilarious Zach Galifianakis and Ted Danson. He's the trailer and I can't wait.

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Public Enemies and Fractal Dimensions

[#] posted at 3:33 pm (GMT +1200)

Caught Public Enemies on Tuesday which, while fantastically acted by all (especially Depp) and boasting great art and production designs, fell short on being a great film due to a lack of an interesting plot, next to no character development and the digital photography which while very cool and created some interesting shots, looked like a home movie in many other scenes and really took you out of the experience.

I was hoping for more expansion on the period and the settings, especially how Dillinger's actions helped in the formation of the FBI and the bureaucracy surrounding it and the crime scene, but instead focused more on Dillinger going to one place, getting into a firefight, and then moving on to the next until more gunfights until he's eventually shot.

Michael Mann's a great filmmaker, one of my favourites in a way and as much as I enjoyed this film, it just felt empty and severely lacking afterwards.

Afterwards, returning to my car, it wasn't quick to figure out that I had left my car lights on and my cellphone at home. But luckily knew someone working who could give me a jumpstart. Gotta stop doing that.

Also keep meaning to check out District 9 this week as well. Can't escape the buzz surrounding it (not that I'm expecting it to be bad) and aside from Sunshine (which I love to death), it's been years since there's been a really, really good sci-fi film since Minority Report. Probably check it out tomorrow.

In the meantime, there's this brilliant special article at New Scientist about the many different theoretical dimensions, leading up to string theory (which gets to be too much for me sometimes) and is a good change from dark matter, which New Scientist has been pretty hung up on recently. Mind fuckery to be read here.

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Live! From the Hovering Robot Circus!

[#] posted at 12:24 pm (GMT +1200)

Rejoice! As Depressing Comic Week returns to Cyanide and Happiness. {previous weeks here and here).

Laugh! As a man locked out of his house is forced to break back in while dressed up with a sword and ammo belt for a fancy dressed party get the armed offenders squad called out on him. [article]

Amaze! As you read the background of current music obsession, the rapper known as Cage (Chris Palko). Either through his wiki page, this feature article or this interview.

Enjoy! The website of the awesomeness that is Beck. The man has been posting some brilliant stuff, ranging from videos to interviews and all should see. [beck.com]

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Inception Teaser

[#] posted at 12:57 am (GMT +1200)

Just a teaser and not much too it, but damn I'm excited. Announced this year, began filming only a month ago, teasers already out and it'll be released less than a year away. Christopher Nolan is efficient if not brilliant. (He's totally brilliant).

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Keeping it Simple

[#] posted at 12:47 am (GMT +1200)

Still pretty tired and have to wake up early in the morning so keeping this even briefer.

Cracked.com is great. This new post Clippy Finally Messes With the Wrong Word Doc is pretty amusing.

So is this of a Man Glued to Toilet Seat.

New Scientist presents the Mystery of the Missing Mini-Galaxies and my mind went a little missing reading it.

And finally a very cool Lego animated video tribute to the 8-bit games of yesteryears. Cheers to Fin for the awesomeness there.

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Monday, August 24, 2009

Pretty Brahsome

[#] posted at 2:40 pm (GMT +1200)

Good ol' VG Cats. Now useless at updating regularly, but ever now and again you get treated to some fried gold.

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This One is Mostly About Movies

[#] posted at 12:41 am (GMT +1200)

Still fairly tired from the weekend out so this'll probably be brief.

Caught the 3D Avatar preview and I gotta say, it was pretty damn awesome. Well worth the hype and I so can't wait to see it in full at the end of the year.

Also watched Inglourious Basterds and that was most enjoyable for the most of it. Friends definitely liked it more than me, I just wish Mike Myers didn't have to be in it, or at least wish he had less screen time and a non speaking role.

Other damn fine movies watched this week were Coraline which was gorgeous and wonderfully terrifying, check it out and in 3D if you can. Ip Man was a brilliant martial arts bio-pic, think those kind of films like Walk the Line and Ray, but instead of music, it's kick-ass baddassery. Also, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was surprisingly good, but not great... watched some other films as well, but too tired to remember them anymore.

Was hoping to see the first trailer for Christopher Nolan's new film Inception in front of Inglourious Basterds, but I guess non-US countries or New Zealand at least, doesn't get that pleasure. Strangely not online yet, but apparently it will in a few days time. Found myself enjoying the simple nothingness of the official website for now.

Right, enough yabbering, gonna check out some of these Real Groovy purchases (still a consumer whore) and then sleep. Night.

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Friday, August 21, 2009

Shaped Exactly Like The Earth

[#] posted at 2:54 pm (GMT +1200)

Slow day. Trying to configure phone to be able to blog on the go and solve quantum physics equations. Having more success with the quantum physics.

Everyone watched the new Avatar teaser trailer yet? Half the internet already seems to have. Fin's got some nice screencaps from it on his blog here. There hasn't been much publicity about the 15 minute 3D previews this weekend which is kinda good, cause I don't want to risk not getting a ticket so shhhhhh!

Friend Rocky started up a blog this week where he plans to post a photo from around London once per day. He's already behind, but with his lifestyle sometimes, I'd understand why. [P365 - A Photo A Day]

And then this great article from stuff.co.nz had me gut laugh a bit:
Sting backfires as Aussie police PC hacked
An Australian police boast on TV about breaking up an underground hacker forum has backfired after hackers broke into a police computer system.

Security consultants say police appear to have been using the computer as a honeypot to collect information on members of the forum but the scheme came undone after the officers forgot to set a password. [full article]

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Talking to my shoe like it's my friend...

[#] posted at 9:11 pm (GMT +1200)

It's now Day Two of the No Internet At Home Crisis and tensions are soaring as a twitchy Chris Tan continues to stare at his empty web browser windows in an attempt to meld his mind to the internet and download lolcat images directly to his brain... Actually, it should be all up by the time I get home, but I thought I'd write a little something on just how horrible and sad it is for me to wake up with no connection sometimes.

In some good news, I finally got my Nokia N95 phone back today and thank sweet baby Jesus riding a Giraffe, my contact list and all my data is still intact. Forgot to back it up before taking it into the repair shop and have been paranoid ever since they'd do a hard wipe and send my life spiraling into more chaos than it currently is. Still, it was a fairly expensive repair, even after a discount for all the screwing around they did on me and something I totally should have done on my own for near half the price and within a few days. Ah well, maybe next time, not like anything was throw outta whack because of the loss... sarcasm.

Anyway, just thought I'd post about this one thing found on Warren Ellis' blog... The best damn writer's retreat I've ever bothered to read about and totally wish I could go to.
The Jura Malt Whisky Writer Retreat
Scottish Book Trust and Isle of Jura Single Malt Whisky are working together to offer writers the opportunity to spend a month living and writing on the idyllic island of Jura. Each selected writer receives a month's exclusive use of the luxurious distillery lodge, a bursary and travel expenses. [link]

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Cool Things About...

[#] posted at 1:00 am (GMT +1200)

Copies of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and a Criterion of Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well arrived today and that was awesome. If you're not aware of the awesomeness that is Darkplace (a believable, yet fictitious 80's horror/drama by the well fictitious Garth Marenghi), then shame on you, or more likely shame on me for not spreading enough word on it.

Woke up with the modem and router completely missing from the house and the kitchen rearranged around and smelling of wet paint. Always hate being severed of a connection to the net. People wonder whether they'd survive living a hundred years ago. I wonder how I'd cope with twenty years ago before the internet boomed as we know it. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting on the asshats who've now held my phone hostage for two weeks and still no real garuantee they've actually fixed it yet. Heads will soon roll.

Gonna be in Auckland this weekend for a mass screening of Tarantino's new film Inglorious Basterds and while I'm not holding my breath for it to be awesome, what I do hope to go to and experience awesomeness of is a sneak preview screening of the first 15 minutes from James Cameron's new film Avatar. For free and in 3D. Further details on the event and session times can be found at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0908/S00244.htm.

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Dream Girl

[#] posted at 4:29 pm (GMT +1200)

Still the strong obsession of the week, this is Dream Girl from The Lonely Island's Incredibad album. Quite possibly my favourite and features the hot talented awesomeness that is Norah Jones.

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A Cautionary Tale...

[#] posted at 12:19 am (GMT +1200)

Gwaaah... the start a new week. Always so much fun.

Woke up retardedly early today with two tentative filming gigs offered, which is always a fun start, followed by chasing some growing rumors of a new radiohead album possibly appearing soon, though I'm not holding my breath on that being the cynical bastard I am.

Also caught up with a surprising number of people I'd not talk to in a while and some I just like talking to and then proceeded to get annoyed at the useless bastards who are taking way too bloody long to fix my cellphone. Something I could have and should have done on my own now that I realise how bloody long it actually takes the bastards just to replace a screen.

Wandered the streets crying out for my cellphone to return to me till I realised I was hungry and then proceeded to eat a bunch bakery foods while watching How to Lose Friends and Alienate People which is good, but not great, but still amusing. Paid some bills, sent some emails, fought a mountain lion and then went to work.

Hopefully that fills my personal blogging quota for now.

Been enjoying just posting odd links here and there, it ain't quite as interesting to post things about myself, which are just boring to read as you can see... Well, except for posts about how awesome I am at playing guess who for the future of the human race against robot invaders (their rules of conduct are dumb).

Oh and big congrats to two lots of friends who've announced their engagement recently, Art and Judy; and David and Brooke. I look forward to being drunk at your weddings.

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Monday, August 17, 2009

Man blocks thieves till cops arrive

[#] posted at 11:01 pm (GMT +1200)

Police were called to Sager Road property in Whatawhata after a homeowner found four burglars at his address, one of whom was armed with a shotgun.

"The homeowner managed to disarm the offender who had the gun and hid it in some scrub," a police statement said. [full article]
Ain't no other way to put it. That's just pure baddass.

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They Need to Make a Video For This

[#] posted at 10:31 am (GMT +1200)

From their debut album incredibad, The Lonely Island has Jack Black special guest on this track and while I've got a lot of love for the both of them respectively, the two together is just the best combo ever. Check it out.

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Sunday, August 16, 2009

Quick Articles Links...

[#] posted at 9:54 pm (GMT +1200)

The awesomest job requirement, a real life jewel heist, space stuff still rules and freaky gross nature video...

Shooting the boss (and getting paid for it)
To thank him for letting them spend the last two hours of their workweek playing video games on the company dime, Kevin Grinnell's employees often single him out and shoot him in the head.
    To be fair, the employees at Grinnell Computers aren't firing real weapons at their boss but are instead releasing the stresses of their week in a multiplayer online game known as Combat Arms. [full article]

>£1m reward offered over gems raid
A £1m reward has been offered for information leading to the capture of robbers who stole jewellery worth £40m during a raid in central London. [full article]

US probe captures Saturn equinox
Raw images of the moment Saturn reached its equinox have been beamed to Earth by the US Cassini spacecraft. [full article]

'Alien scene' of tadpoles' feast
"Alien-like" scenes of tadpoles feasting on eggs emerging from their mother have been caught on camera. [full article]

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Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Substance of Style, Pt 1

[#] posted at 5:41 am (GMT +1200)

With just five features in 13 years, Wes Anderson has established himself as the most influential American filmmaker of the post-Baby Boom generation. Supremely confident in his knowledge of film history and technique, he's a classic example of the sort of filmmaker that the Cahiers du cinéma critics labeled an auteur—an artist who imprints his personality and preoccupations on each work so strongly that, whatever the contributions of his collaborators, he deserves to be considered the primary author of the film. This series examines some of Anderson's many cinematic influences and his attempt to meld them into a striking, uniquely personal sensibility.

Great series of videos, worth checking out for any fan. Posting just the first video, the rest are through this page here.

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Friday, August 14, 2009

Nudity, Space Images and How Science Wants to Kill Us All

[#] posted at 2:59 pm (GMT +1200)

Naked Man in Wrong Room
The man told police he been brought back to the hotel from town by a woman but at some point wandered out of her room into the hall stark naked.
    He then wandered into another room, occupied by a husband and wife, had curled up and gone to sleep, he said. [full article]

Spy probe images Apollo landing sites
NASA's newly launched Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has snapped images of hardware left on the moon by the Apollo astronauts... [full article with gallery]

Giant 'soap bubble' found floating in space
It looks like a soap bubble or perhaps even a camera fault, but the image at right is a newly discovered planetary nebula. [full article]

NASA Wants To Move The Earth
Scientists have found an unusual way to prevent our planet overheating: move it to a cooler spot.
    All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system. [full article]

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Why I Love Science...

[#] posted at 2:31 am (GMT +1200)

My brother sent me a video this week of a 3D render of the galaxies imaged in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (wikipedia entry): a series of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope between 2003 and 2004 that looks back approximately 13 billion years ago and images about 10,000 galaxies.

Not stars mind you. Galaxies. Each one possible of holding billions or trillions of star systems.

And this wasn't through a big patch of the sky either, but in a tiny region of space the size of a square millimeter held a metre away from your eye. That leaves out 12.7 million single cubic millimetre patches of sky that possibly yields some similar results.

Like the following video says, all those figures are too huge of a figure to just compute in the human brain. And I'd agree.

I read of this image being taken some years ago, but it wasn't till about a year ago when I stumbled across this image file that compares the scale of our solar system to that of the known universe and the Hubble Ultra Deep Field itself, that I had the pleasure of properly getting my brain's nutsacks blown off.

It's a big file (approx 1.5megs), so I'm not gonna post it here directly, but check it out and scroll through from the top and It'll be sure to put some decent insignificance spice into your food for thought soup. Trivial things happen every day and our lives continually shift because of it, but with a little science, it's pretty easy to put things into perspective of how tiny we all really are and blah, blah, blah, the existential thinking, just check out what I'm talking about here.

Anyway, going back to the original point of it, here's the video and a full in depth examination article of the Ultra Field worth checking out here.

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Whoops...

[#] posted at 12:23 am (GMT +1200)

Yeah, I know it's been almost two months since I last blogged anything. I think that's the longest I've ever gone without posting something in all these years of blogging. But I could be wrong.

Anyway, since then, I've moved house again, caught a buttload of films at the film festival, celebrated several events, saw off an alarming number of friends going abroad and bought and watched many more movies. There's also been some writing going on, but that's still on the down low.

Plenty of people have been chasing me up on the fact that I haven't blogged in a while and well... Can't argue with that. But now I'm coming back at it like a crack addict.

Have spent the week writing up some new code and adding to this website (which is another thing I've been long overdue in doing). You probably wouldn't have noticed, but there's a [#] symbol under the titles of each post now. Clicking on them or the time posted or the post titles themselves now lead to that particular post on its own page. Something I had meant to do since forever and finally figured out how to.

The film section has now been expanded and each film has it's own subpage, though there are some are still lacking in a video, but that'll be fixed soon. The current place I'm at is great, but it's severely lacking in a decent internet connection. More specifically, I've had to do all my surfing at a horrible dial up speed, which makes the prospect of uploading videos to be a tedious task.

There's also now finally something in the extras section: The Saga of the Seafood Stalker. It's something that has been going on for the last few months and while I've been updating people on these strange events through facebook, I've always meant to dedicate a whole section for it here and for the rest of the web to see.

Given the lapse in time since the last post, I figured it's as good an excuse as any to finally get around to writing these pages and have something to show for the near two months of silence, as opposed to a post that just says whoops. Plus I just covered that in the title.

Anyways, enough of all that, I'm back and onto the real blogging...

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