GnF’n'R, MoFo!!!!!!

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Ugh

Just to give an update on the state of affairs here… I woke up early last Thursday with a burning throat. I looked in the mirror and my tonsils were HUGE! The soar throat along with fever and tiredness has stayed with me the past week. I went to the doctor yesterday – it's not strepp but it may be mono. Ugh, that does not sound like much fun. I just haven't been very with it this last week. Ugh.

Whoop that trick!

Next-Generation reported that the Sex Workers Outreach Project, an organization for prostitutes’ rights, called for a boycot of Grand Theft Auto.  I say if it offends hookers, it offends me.  Boycot GTA!!!

-Bob

Hot Boll!

I read an interesting interview with everybody’s favorite video game movie director Uwe Boll on EuroGamer today.  I saw his first video game adaptation, House of the Dead, and it was one of the most godawful movies I have ever seen.  Nothing about it was original and every standard tenet of decent movie making was thrown out the window with terrible writing, acting, directing…  Yet the guy’s persisted and made two more terribly reviewed game movies, Alone in the Dark and Bloodrayne, and is scheduled to make three more over the next couple years.  I haven’t seen his last two movies but I have to admit to jumping on the Boll hate bandwagon in bashing them.  After reading this interview, I do have some sympathy with the guy, but continuing to adapt games to movies is clearly not the way to gain respect from the industry.  He needs to take a lower profile project like his pre-game work and really craft a decent film.

From what I know about him, it seems like he’s a guy with a genuine passion for making movies.  But maybe, like Ed Wood, he doesn’t have the talent to back up that passion.  Out of curiosity, I’d see a new film of his that he generally thought was good (and isn’t based on a game).  Maybe I should revisit House of the Dead.  I do love some terrible, terrible movies, and maybe now I can appreciate the awfulness of that film.

-Bob

Nice weekend

As opposed to Friday, this weekend was delightful! Friday ended well with me picking up one remote to rule them all. I got sick of having four remotes to control the home theater and picked up the Logitech Harmony 880 on a deal. I'm enjoying the great functionality of the remote so far and love the ability to program different modes that allow me to operate different components all at once (i.e. when in DVD mode, I can operate normal DVD functions, change aspect ratio on the TV, and control audio on the receiver). I also like hitting "Watch DVD" and having all my components switch to proper inputs. On the flip side, I'm not as impressed with the remote's web-based interface, especially because you HAVE to use Internet Explorer. I would have prefered a specific application that connects to the net to update its product database.
On Saturday, the Kate and I hopped a train to downtown to take a tour of the newly renovated Boston Opera House. The 2600 seat auditorium is absolutely stunning with a tall ceiling covered in ornate oil paintings and beautifully carved plaster. After the tour we caught a matinee screening of Brokeback Mountain. The movie was much better than the overly self-congratulatory previews made me believe. I seriously haven't seen a Hollywood PR machine suck its own dick so much since Dreamwork's heyday. The movie was slow at the start but really let the characters build on screen. The movie was serious but had some light moments which helped it stay balanced. In the hands of a lesser director than Ang Lee, the film would probably feel write at home on Lifetime. Fortunately, Lee brought out some understated performances in some Hollywood faces (Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams of the Dawson! fame). There was only one shot where Gyllenhaal gave an extended "look at how dopey yet sexy I am as I stare off into the distance with yearning for love I can't have cause I'm so indie." He and Ledger had great chemistry on screen and were able to show complex emotions as their relationship develops. This movie is much more than a gay cowboy porno and it tells a complex story of forbidden love over half a lifetime.

So how do you follow up an afternoon of opera and gay cowboys? By watching a documentary of transvestite hookers in Honolulu of course! We caught this interesting doc on HBO during the short time we were getting the channel for free after upgrading to an HD cable box. A great 70's soulful porn voice narrated while hookers pulled tricks in downtown Honolulu ("everyone knows the guys look better than the girls," one of the hookers says). Each hooker has a story about how they were born a girl trapped in a boy's body and followed varied courses to wind up on the corner. Most of the stories were typical and the doc didn't really shine any new light on hookin'. It was interesting for the cool narrator and the novelty of transvestite hookers in Hawaii. Come on, that's a pretty cool premise.

The east coast got pelted by snow Saturday and Sunday. I heard it qualified for official blizzard status. Woo! The Kate and I stayed cozy most of Sunday watching olympics and "Hustle and Flow" but frolliced in the snow for a bit. It was nice to get off my ass and play in the cold.

The best news happened today – I was notified that I'm getting an interview for the master's program at the MIT Media Lab in the beginning of March! I'm really excited because this is my ideal graduate school – a bunch of crazy engineers and artists developing new technologies. I'm interviewing with the Nomadic Displays group, which is a new group headed by Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen, the former head of Intel's display division and current CTO of the Media Lab's $100 Laptop Project. The group will contribute to current display technologies such as liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) and investigate some crazy ideas like using water vapor as a screen. I'm obviously very excited about this opportunity… now I cant fuck it up!

That's the news for now. Time to go home and eat, drink, and watch TV with the Kate.

-Bob

Yeeks

So the big news around Boston is the Entwistle killings. If all the truth is where all the evidence is pointing (Neil Entwistle killed his wife and 9-month old daughter with his father-in-law’s gun), then I am really disturbed. How could a man kill his own family like that? So his online businesses were failing and he was afraid he couldn’t provide for his family, but are you so down that you would kill your family? The Middlesex County District Attorney believes he was going to commit suicide after killing his family but something made him reconsider and decide to catch the first flight to England instead. Yeeks.

In not quite as depressing news, though still pretty depressing, things have been stressful at work lately, especially for my boss, Bill. Bill’s wife of many, many years is in the last stages of terminal cancer. Bill’s been dividing his time between the rigors of a Lincoln Group Leader and taking care of his wife. Our group is really hectic right now because we’re finishing a really large program, getting the run-around on another program, going through staff reviews, and having some high profile meetings with some big sponsors. I came back from lunch yesterday to see Bill being taken out of his office on a stretcher by half a dozen paramedics. He felt really weak and lightheaded and he was rushed to the hospital. He’s just over-exhausted and he’s being kept overnight for more tests. Our Assistant Group Leader visited him yesterday and said he was in good spirits – he was arguing with the nurse over his ability to eat solid food. He’s a very compassionate, intelligent, and effective Group Leader and a great guy. I hope he gets better soon. Yeeks.

I think that’s all the yeeks I have for now. Please say some prayers and hope for the best for everyone in all these happenings.

I might write later about some more positive things. The one upside to the craziness happening at the administrative level in our group is that I get some downtime while waiting to hear what to do next. That means some time to blog!

-Bob

2006 Oscar Predictions

Best Picture – Brokeback Mountain
Directing – Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain
Adapted Screenplay – Brokeback Mountain
Original Screenplay – Crash
Actor – Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote
Supporting Actor – George Clooney in Syriana
Actress – Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line (though I really want Felicity Huffman to win!)
Supporting Actress – Catherine Keener in Capote
Animated Feature – Miyazaki’sHowl’s Moving Castle
Art Direction – Good Night, and Good Luck
Cinematography – Brokeback Mountain
Costume Design – Walk the Line
Documentary Feature – March of the Penguins
Documentary Short – God Sleeps in Rwanda
Film Editing – Walk the Line
Foreign Film – Paradise Now
Makeup – Cinderella Man
Music Score – Brokeback Mountain
Music Song – Dolly Parton’s “Travelin’ Thru” from Transamerica
Short Film (Animated) – The Moon and the Son
Short Film (Live Action) – Cashback
Sound Editing – King Kong
Sound Mixing – Walk the line
Visual Effects – King Kong

There ya have it. I’m guessing I’ll get about 50% right

-Bob