The Academy Awards this past Sunday night were very good. Here’s what I thought:
Ellen Degeneres was a great host - she’s funny, and very real. I especially loved the vacuum skit towards the end.
The dancers who created logos and other things from nominated movies was very, very awesome. I loved the Little Miss Sunshine one with the guy running behind it.
Forest Whitaker for best actor was also obvious, but from the clip they showed from The Pursuit of Happyness (which I have yet to see) Will Smith looked like he had a good chance at it.
And Forest Whitakers’s speech was definitelly better than the Golden Globes one, but it’s so weird how he’s the vicous and terrifying dictator in The Last King of Scotland, and then he’s like so nervous and stuff when he gets the award.
The awards seemed pretty even until The Departed took the last two big ones: Best director and best film.
Finally, I barely recognized Jack Nicholson bald. Here’s why.
I think I’m going to have to revise my Top 5 CDs of All-Time list, because this is seriously the best album ever. Weird Al is out, and Stadium Arcadium is #1!!! But really, I got the album for Christmas (sorta) from Alex, and it’s just plain awesome - doubly, because it’s a 2-disc album.
There are so many good songs on this album! And they’re not all the same - it explores a wide range of music, from alternative to hip-hop. I highly recommend that everyone who reads this checks it out, because it’s simply just great.
Here are some of my favorite tracks from the album:
Dani California (Won 3 Grammys)
Snow (Hey Oh) (The most popular Chili Pepper song on iTunes)
Stadium Arcadium
Slow Cheetah
Especially in Michigan (This one isn’t even a single!)
Wet Sand (My favorite one, the guitar solo at the end is AWESOME)
Desecration Smile
Tell Me Baby
21st Century
That’s about a third of the 28-song album, and those are only the REALLY good songs! So get it now from Amazon!
I actually heard a song on this album (Especially in Michigan) on Last.fm which is what ultimately pushed me to get it, so thanks a lot!
I think that Forest Whitaker will win (or at least he deserves it) for best Actor - he was simply amazing in Last King of Scotland.
Best animated feature has to be Pixar’s Cars.
Achievement in directing will be The Departed most likely.
Best motion picture is tough - I think Babel or The Queen will win.
Visual effects is flat-out Pirates of the Caribbean.
I literally haven’t seen a tenth of the movies that I wanted to this past year, so here are movies I definitely want to rent on DVD, whether or not they win:
The Departed
The Queen
Babel
Letter’s from Iwo Jima
Pan’s Labyrinth
Borat
Blood Diamond
Dream Girls
An Inconvienent Truth
I know, I know you’re saying “And he calls himself a film buff?!?!?!” But I’m really looking forward to seeing and reviewing all of these movies, in addition to some that I’ve already seen like Little Miss Sunshine and The Last King of Scotland.
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OK, I know that they’re not that good, and not that true. But if I’m gonna put a Vista-bashing in this post, I’m also gonna put a Mac bashing. It’s as simple as that.
One month from today (March 24, 2007) is Shutdown Day! That means that people are going to shut down their computers and, get this, not use them for 24 hours. I could probably do this if it weren’t on a SATURDAY!!! I mean, if it were like a Tuesday, then it’d probably be OK, but a Saturday? Still, I’ll give it a try when it happens.
Note that Shutdown Day doesn’t appear to be a “national holiday” or anything, but just a very well done idea that seems to have created a pretty big following.
I’ve just started using Yahoo! Answers, which is actually pretty cool. I think Yahoo! got it pretty bad when Google came around, but they seriously have a very nice array of tools lots of other things that by far out-numbers Google’s. If you’re able to get the fact that it’s Yahoo (always the competitor of Google) they have some REALLY cool stuff - like Yahoo! Answers.
Yahoo Answers is a Q&A online community. Members ask questions on a variety of topics, and other members answer. The different answers are rated upon by the asker and other members, and a “best answer” is chosen that appears as the main and first answer.
I’ve answered a couple dozen questions now, and I’ve earned “points.” I started with 100, and every question I answer I get 2 more. And if it’s chosen as a “best answer” (One so far!) I get 10 more points. With these points you can either brag, or spend on questions. (Here’s the full point system)
Unfortuanally, before you have a certain number of points, you can’t answer more than 20 questions a day! Oh, well then I’m SORRY for TRYING TO HELP THE COMMUNITY!!! OK, I’m done.
Anyway, it’s really a nice community and really fun because you know you’re doing a good thing, and you feel good (I know that’s cheesy, but it’s true.)
Although this is a bit old news, I have just tried out two beautiful Windows XP themes: Royale and Royale Noir…
They are supposedly “lost” Windows XP themes that never made it to the final cut (although Royale is the featured theme in Windows XP Media Center Edition. Royale is basically a more glossy finish for the default blue theme, while Royale Noir is a black version of Royale. Both are very beautiful, but I prefer Royale Noir over Royale, and therefore all other Windows XP themes. You can click on the images to download the themes.
I saw this a little ago while when my grandparents came to town, and I did some of the review shortly afterwards, and forgot about it. But now I’ve finished it! (Even though it’s really short)
In case you haven’t heard of it, Spamalot is a broadway musical by Python Eric Idol. It’s based on the very popular movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The show has been running on Broadway for over a year, and I believe at other locations before that.
The ads claim that Spamalot is “lovingly ripped off” from Holy Grail, and that’s probably the best way to put it. It has most of the classic scenes (I’m not dead yet, that dude who had both arms and legs cut off and who had orange blood, Camelot, and much more including “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Life of Brian) but in addition brings in new storylines and characters
Spamalot doesn’t lose the Monty Python spirit - it’s got the randomness, the silliness and the stupidness of Monty Python skits and Holy Grail. But it also has it’s fair share of originality. It’s new storylines are funny, if not as funny as the “ripped off” ones. But there is singing. Lots of singing.
Spamalot is very enjoyable on it’s own, for someone who has never seen Monty Python, but those people should be aware that this is not the “true” Python. It’s been converted to work for another audiance. But it will still satisfy Python purists with all the classic sketches, songs, and randomness. And that’s because the “conversion” works. You don’t recognize many of the faces, like the Pythons the sketches, but it has a lot of heart of Monty Python along with it, making it worthy of the Python name, even though Eric Idol was really the only one involved. (Actually, John Cleese WAS the pre-recorded voice of God, but that barely counts.)
Ok, not really. But we’re celebrating it today anyway. You see, Warren was on vacation over Christmas, so we never really got a chance to exchange presents. And then Elo and Andrew went to the Carribbean, and other stuff happened, so we haven’t had a chance to get together until today.So even though it’s the middle of February, and there’s no tree - it’s still (sort of) a Christmas get-together.
It’s like Digg, the popluar technology news site - but instead of users choosing what stories are displayed on the front page by “digging” them, they’re doing it by “jigging” music. There’s very little on there now, and of course the music is all independent, but the things that I’ve listened to in their little (embedable) flash player are really quite good. I hope that this takes off, as it’s a great idea, and a great way to discover (good) new music.
Wednesday resumed the 3rd season of Lost, and I have to say that I’m conflicted. On one hand, it continues to be engaging, thoughtful, and creative, but on the other hand, it’s getting to the point where I look back on Season 1 and ask myself “How did we get here?” It’s literally crazy, the amount of unresolved mysteries. But if you suspend belief, it’s a great show, and Wednesday’s most recent episode, in my opinion, was better than any of the six that aired back in October.
The show’s creators have expressed that they plan to end the show after 5 seasons or so, and that’s great. But I can’t help wondering if there are going to be zombies, and perhaps a NASCAR track on the other side yet-to-be-discovered third island by the end of the season.
We recently purchased three 1GB USB flash drives from Amazon for only $15 each. And they are VERY handy. You can backup any file on your computer onto them and then transfer it to another computer whether it be music, word documents, movies, or even programs. There is a new type of program sort of coming into existence - portable versions of open source programs. Basically, they’re popular open soucre programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim optimized to run on ANY computer from a tiny USB flash drive.
PortableApps puts together some of the best there are, in large collection of popular open source programs to use on any computer with USB. (Just about all of the alternatives mentioned in the last post have portable versions.)
Once you install it onto the flash drive (it takes a little while) it runs from a sort of start menu interface from the windows taskbar, and allows you to open any of the programs installed and ready to use, or check your documents and file space. And it also allows you to add more of their portable apps from their website. I currently have 17 apps installed, and it doesn’t even take up half of my 1GB flash drive. Portable Apps rocks.
You can’t directly sync settings between, say, your computer’s firefox and Portable App’s, but you can customize the portableapps version to be just like it, and the same with Thunderbird, so you can essentially access your email and RSS Feeds from your usual interface, on any Windows PC.
This is amazing, and actually a great tool for students - if you need to work on a paper digital word document at school, you just drag it onto the flash drive from your computer, and plug it in at school. In Paris, incoming high school students will actually be given a flash drive next year pre-loaded with open source software.
Austen Squarepants is a 15-year-old high school student and geek. He lives in New York City with his parents and is interested in technology, filmmaking, and anything funny.
Netsua is his personal blog and website, where he writes about a variety of topics that interest him. The word "Netsua" is in fact Austen's name spelled backwards. It literally translates from gibberish to "Greatness on the level of Austen."
In addition to Netsua, Austen also writes for the mac application blog MacApper.
I saw this a little ago while when my grandparents came to town, and I did some of the review shortly afterwards, and forgot about it. But now I’ve finished it! (Even though it’s really short)
