This was an incredibly interesting film for me because as someone from a younger generation I had never heard of Kinsey and in fact had not spent much time considering the fact that only about 50 years ago the whole topic of sex was basically considered an unmentionable. Today sex seems to be *the* topic of choice which you couldn't avoid even if you wanted to, quite a change in just 50 years.

The film itself does well by diving into Kinsey's character from a personal and emotional point of view as well as to follow the path of Kinsey's research from it's conception all the way up until his death. A lot of time is also spent on showing Kinsey's interview method and how he was able to get people to open up and talk about their sex history. This is a good film for those of us from younger generations who take for granted the fact that sex is such an open topic these days.

Well, I hate to say it, but this film was a disappointment. I suppose I had high hopes considering that it is an Oliver Stone film, but in the end the film just didn't seem to have any real direction or purpose. It felt like regurgitated history with no angle of intrigue. The characters were weak, uninteresting, and poorly defined (plus they had horrible accents). Overall it was just boring. If you want to see something more interesting about Alexander try ... Reign: The Conqueror.

Uhh ... incredible? This film is absolutely spot on, just exemplary film making to say the least. Everything from the characters, to plot, writing, pacing, cinematography, animation, etc, it's all just great. So do yourself a favor and go see it. The one thing I do feel is weird though is that so many people have commented to me that they thought the animation "is so real!"

Hmm, I think people are being duped by their animation. I agree that 3D animation technology has grown by leaps and bounds, but still, show some appreciation for the level of detail and texture that makes up the *real* world. Animation does not even come close, and hopefully it isn't actually trying to. If you want to really test this then freeze a frame in the film and go back and forth looking at that frame and out your window. I hope you see what I mean.

This is by far the most suprising film I've seen so far this year, way better than the trailer suggests. It's quite likely that someone read The DiVinci Code and decided to apply that same idea to American history, because that is kind of how National Treasure plays out. And while the concept may be a bit derivative, in the end it works. The characters are funny and likable, the writing is fine (i.e. not overly cliche), and the plot, littered with pieces of American history, makes the film very enjoyable.

This is just a good solid action/adventure film ... well worth it if you are just out to relax and watch a simple film.

Found this little thingy called Word Count on I site I was browsing around today. It shows a breakdown of the most commonly used words in the English language, ranked and ordered. It also has a pretty cool little flash display as well.

I'm a little behind on tunes and in posts since I've been spending so much time upgrading my computer lately. Here's the last set of cds that I got.

Thievery Corporation - Babylon Rewound
DJ Cam - Liquid Hip Hop
UNKLE - Never, Never, Land

This is a pretty diverse selection, but all worthy buys. I was really suprised by the Babylon Rewound cd, which I expected to be not as interesting to me since its a remix cd of an album I already have, but once I heard it I had to buy it. Dubalicious.

DJ Cam - Don Dada  |  Inflamable Records  |  Buy

Thievery Corporation - Resolution (rewound by thievery corporation)  |  Eighteenth Street Lounge Music  |  Buy

*sigh* ... this will certainly be worse than allowing people to choose their own colors in AIM. It looks like Verizon, and others, are starting to offer ringback tones which will allow people to choose what a caller hears when their number is dialed. i.e. you can force people to listen to old Depeche Mode songs every time they call you ... hmmm.

For now it seems that it's only available in a couple California locations, but will be widely available some time next year and costs $1 per month to use + the cost of the ringback tone.

This is one of those features that borders on intrusive/annoying if you ask me. I think it will be fun to see what people choose as their ringback tone, but at the same time I doubt i'll really want to hear it every time I call them. I suppose I'd go for it if I can find a decent tune not from Britney Spears or one of her lame-o-pop cohorts. we'll see.

phew ... i just got done with a pretty big upgrade from the old xfree86 x11 implementation to the newly supported x.org x11 implementation. it really shouldn't have been a big deal, except for 2 things.

1, i use gentoo linux, so upgrading means compiling, and when its a big package like X that takes time. 2, for some reason the version gentoo wanted to compile was not working, so after a few failed builds i tried an older version before getting it to work.

along the way i had to hack, update, and modify a whole mess of other stuff, which has not left my system in a wacky state :( i supposed it's not a big deal, because i'll probably use this as an excuse to finally move to the new 2.6 kernel while i'm at it, but ultimately i just hate upgrades, i'm at the point now where i just like it when stuff works. period. *luckily* linux does just that. it takes a little extra effort to get it setup, but once it's going it's solid as a rock.

sleep time ...

If you buy dvds then you should know about this. Deep Discount Dvd is having a huge 20% off sale for thanksgiving. Coupon = "DVDTalk".

And if somehow you didn't already know ... Deep Discount is the very best place to find your dvds for cheap, sale prices aside. So pony up and buy some dvds, I know I am.

NOTE: sale ends 11/20, so don't wait too long.

Overcompensating ... funny comics :)

First there were blogs, then there were photo blogs, then came audio blogs, and now ... now, we have video blogs. crazy. It's quite natural that any form of media show up on a blog, so video blogging doesn't suprise me.

Especially when it's got a really cool use like the Kong 2005 Production Diary. fun.

Got a little more work done on this library after getting some more info about how the smart playlists work so that i could figure out how to correctly parse them, etc. I've also started writing the processes of being able to write back out to the itunesdb file, but it's only working for a few of the record types right now.

libitunesdb.jar | source code | javadoc

Not sure if this song will make you feel like smiling, but i felt like sharing it. Comes off one of my favorite chill albums ... Dzihan & Kamien - Freaks & Icons.

Dzihan & Kamien - Smile  |  Six Degrees Records  |  Buy

Caught word of this little event via The Drawing Board. A really great idea to get out and draw for a day. Idea and image courtasy of Enrico Casarosa ... so join the fun and spread the word.

Something I've been meaning to pick up for a while now ...

Kruder & Dorfmeister - DJ Kicks

A very solid mix from the masters themselves.

Well, the election is over and Bush has won, *sigh*

I usually don't bring up politics too often for two reasons. First off, political discussions can quickly make friends into enemies when you hit a touchy subject, and secondly because very rarely do I find that a political discussions leads anywhere. They seem to be like philosophy discussions to me, they just go in circles and at the end of it you are just tired and angry.

However, on such a day one must vent at least a little bit. So my question is why? Why are people supporting a man like George W. Bush?

From polls, the two biggest issues surrounding this election were "the war in Iraq" and "Terrorism", and I beg someone to prove to me that Bush is the man to lead the U.S. on both of these fronts. We *know* that while he has a cavalier attitude toward attacking terrorists that he still can't tell which terrorists are the right ones to attack. No weapons in Iraq, no connection to Al Qaeda, and yet we still attacked the Iraqis while leaving Osama bin Laden running around free. And while I will admit that progress has been made in Iraq, at what cost did it come? We *know* that Bush has not managed the Iraq war as effectively as he said he would and I see no reason to suggest that the situation will improve. Colin Powell, arguably the most intelligent person in the Bush cabinet, never supported the war in Iraq and is now expected to leave his position. *sigh*

Now to prove that I am not totally biased against Bush I will concede that if economics is your big issue then Bush (I really mean republicans) are my preference as well. I am a strong stupporter of a free and open economy which favors buisness, and so even though it's painful to say, I do think Bush will provide a better economy for the U.S.

However, I believe that all three of the topics mentioned above are insignificant when compared to the ramifications this election will have on our international reputation and domestic social and environmental issues. Those two topics decided my vote and I don't see how anyone could ever support Bush as the right person to make decisions on these topics. He has proven that the environment is not a pressing issue for him and so basically what we have is another four year delay on important environmental issues. Don't get me started on gay marriage and abortion. And then the biggest disaster of all is our foreign policy. The sad fact is that most Americans have never been outside our country and therefore don't realize how much the rest of the world loathes George W. Bush.

I feel like I'm at the beginning of a four year prison term. Ughh.