Entertainment

I've been using Rhythmbox for a while now, but it sort of seemed to stall a bit, and it is missing critical features. Such as ID3 tag editing. I decided to try out Banshee, which is a newer music player with a similar (iTunes inspired) interface. Problem is, it is written in C# and requires mono. I had to install a bunch of stuff from the experimental branch, and compile Banshee itself from source, which was not really a lot of fun.

Verdict on Banshee? Slower than Rhythmbox. Searching seems fast (it uses sqlite3, so it should be), but clearing the search box freezes the interface for a long time. Things I like about Banshee are the fact that you can actually edit ID3 tags in it, and that it tries to use path and filename information to fill out missing ID3 information in the interface. It apparently has good support for iPods and Nomad mp3 players, but I didn't test that. Creating playlists and other things seem similar to Rhythmbox. The version I tried didn't honour the "shuffle" button on start up. It would remember that shuffle was turned on and show the button in the right state, but the player itself never shuffled unless shuffle was clicked off and back on again. That is kind of annoying.

Since I was installing stuff from experimental anyway, I decided to try out Rhythmbox 0.9.2, which has some spiffy new features. One thing I really wanted was to be able to read the iTunes (mt-daapd) share off of our MythTV box. Thanks to Avahi, a service discovery system that works with what Apple calls 'Rendezvous', 'Bonjour' and sometimes 'ZeroConf'. And it works! It seems to scan the entire iTunes share, which takes a long time and makes the interface slow, but it does work quite nicely. Once the list has been loaded I can flip back a forth between local and remote music sources very quickly.

Unlike Banshee, searching and unsearching is quick. Initial searches are maybe slightly slower than Banshee, but clearing the search box is just as fast as searching in the first place. Another problem I had with Banshee was that it crashed trying to look at a .tar.gz file I had in my music tree. It should ignore files it doesn't know about, instead of crashing. Rhythmbox also has a habit of crashing when indexing files, but usually because of encoding problems or corrupt files, and it seems to be improving in this area.

Rhythmbox 0.9.2 also includes support for podcasts. I tried out Dave's Lounge, one of Tamara's favorites, and it worked beautifully. I haven't used podcasts enough to know if any of the features power users might want are there, but it sure seems to work well.

I also tried CJSW's feed in Rhythmbox's internet radio section, but it didn't work. Furthermore, it pretended to play it, but played the last item I had been listening too instead. That part needs some work. On a whim I tried editing an ID3 tag with Rhythmbox 0.9.2, and I was kind of shocked when it worked! Another point for Rhythmbox!

Banshee looks kind of interesting, but Rhythmbox's iTunes integration, ID3 tag editing, and podcasting support (and the fact that it is packaged by Debian) makes it the Gnome player to stick with for now.

Well, what have I been up to lately? I've been watching a rather lot of TV: Laurie hooked me on NCIS several weeks ago, which is a bit of a cartoon show, but it's very entertaining anyway. Laurie also showed me clips of Fifth Gear, and then I started watching Top Gear, which isn't politically correct or environmentally friendly, but which is highly entertaining. They have silly challenges, like a Range Rover Sport vs. a Challenger 2 tank, and a race between a Bugatti Veyron and a Cessna 182 from Italy to London. They also play soccer with two teams of Toyota Aygos (Yaris in Canada?), all highly silly and highly entertaining.

Jeremy Clarkson's review of the RX-8 even convinced Tamara that I'm not completely mad; I think she liked the suicide doors, and the fact that it feels like it isn't running on anything as coarse and vulgar as petrol, but that it feels like it's running on double cream! Realistically though, were we to get a new car, I have a feeling it would be some kind of family sedan or wagon... probably a used one at that.

Since I got back from Victoria, I've been bouldering with Ryan quite a bit. Finally, after two and a half months, my balance is coming back, and my finger tips are getting calloused. Yay! Maybe I'll actually be able to climb something outside this spring. Heart Creak in the spring fellows? Maybe we'll wait until the snow melts this time?

I have fallen off the cycling wagon though. I got sick and figured it would be a bad idea to ride in cold weather with bronchitis, so I started taking the bus, since both the 72/73 and the 20 go right by my house to Brentwood Station which is very close to work. Now that the roads are clear, I could ride my bike again, but somehow I haven't gotten around to it. On other hand, riding the bus gives me time to read a bit. I've been working though The Philosophy Gym, which are short philosophical problems that I can get though in a day, but which are a lot of food for thought. Does God exit? Should I be eating that (meat)? What is knowledge? The problems in the book are very short introductions, with references to larger discussions.

Watching the English "debate" Tamara taped last night. Someone in Edmonton asked why the Liberals and NDP and Bloc are pursuing a child care program and wouldn't it be better if Canadians had choice? Paul Martin's response reminded me of Henry Ford. "You can have any colour you want, as long as it's black." Martin said something like "sure, Canadians need choice, and that means making more spaces available in day care..." Yes, that gives so much more choice. Especially if one parent stays home with the kids. Or if your a single parent who works nights. A 8 to 5 daycare is so helpful then. And then he goes and says, when asked about personal income tax reductions vs. GST reductions, that the liberals "believe in putting money into your hands and letting you decide how to spend it is the way to go." Except they don't actually believe that. Or something.

I've lots to discuss, but until next time, Merry Christmas...

Tamara somehow got herself a free pass to a movie at Cinecenta. I think it was free with her iced latte or something. Tonight she redeemed it to see Crash. I had to pay.

Crash is a very good movie. It's a relatively low budget drama, but with a lot of largish names. People like Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, and Ryan Phillippe. It's an ensemble movie that follows the stories of about six groups of people, and how they cross over each other over the course of about two days.

Its got characters, storytelling, plot advancement, acting, surprises, miracles, personal growth, and generally all the stuff that makes a good drama. It is set in L.A., and the early part of the movie focuses a lot on racial tension. That is sort of the root of everyone's problem in the whole thing. Its all shades of grey, nothing is black and white. People are stubborn, rude, angry, alone, and generally just real people. The people you think are the bad guys turn out to be the hero's, and the people you think are the good guys turn out to be evil. But that's an oversimplification; everyone is both the good guy and the bad guy, depending on the situation and the circumstance.

It was masterfully directed and overall put together very well. Good music too. Highly recommended.

Tamara and I went to the Roxy Cinegog (hey, I didn't name it) on Wednesday night. For $5 each, we saw Kung Fu Hustle and Sin City. Kung Fu Hustle had been recommended by various astronomers and physicists, and it was pretty good. It's super-slapstick; no nods to realism at all. People run road-runner fast, make hand prints in metal by hitting it, and so on. There are some really funny bits, but I wasn't that into it.

Sin City is comic book all the way. Someone said somewhere that comic books had always felt unfinished, like a project that only got to the storyboarding stage, and that this movie was what the final result was actually supposed to be. If you like American comic books, you'll probably like this movie. It's black and white, except for hints of color where appropriate. Blood is white or black or yellow. It's got comic book gore and comic book dialog, which is unbearably silly sometimes, but that's the comics for you.

We rented Oceans 12 last night. Oceans 11 is much, much better. While the premise for more jobs in Europe was fine, the heists themselves barely made any sense. Half the time I couldn't figure out what they were up to. And the thing at the end is just silly. And it's all out of order. Ugg.

Our trip to Seattle to see Serenity started on Wednesday, when we sailed to Vancouver. Our escape from Victoria was hindered by a condo fire. A ladder truck fighting the fire took up two lanes of the north bound Pat Bay highway, and traffic was backed way up. We though we weren't going to make it, but BC Ferries has put up a sign that shows how full the ferry is just after Sidney, and it was only 37% at about 4:45, so it wasn't a problem getting on. Seattle is normally a fairly rainy city, but of course the day we go we get a heat wave. Five people in a small car with no air conditioning... adventure! Traffic was also quite backed up on the I5 due to a rather nasty accident, but we qualified for the HOV lane and made good use of it, squeezing by most of the traffic.

After finding the theater, we went to the Space Needle and took a few pictures. The admission to go up was $13 USD or something silly, which we decided was not worth the view. We wandered around and stumbled across the Science Fiction Museum and hall of fame, which is housed in a really crazy looking building. Being a bunch of sci-fi nerds, we decided that it was much more worthy of our $13 USD than the space needle, and we were not disappointed! There was a lot of exhibits on old sci-fi books, and newer ones like Neal Stephenson's baroque cycle. They actually had the hand written manuscripts, pens, and ink bottles Stephenson used. There were a lot of cool props, costumes, and so on.

After the super cool sci-fi museum, we drove over to the theater to see how big the line up was. This was about 5 o'clock, and since there were already people there, we decided to line up as well. There were lots of cunning t-shirts in evidence, and a few people even dress up as characters. After 4 hours of waiting, they slowly let us into the theater. They searched bags for recording devices, and took away one guy's batteries. Some people tried to just the queue, but some angry people near the front of the line yelled at them to go to the back. There could have been a riot if they had gotten in first, when everybody else stood in line all that time!

Finally seated, we found that lining up early paid off, as we ended up with five seats together in the middle about half way back, which is almost ideal. I immediately spilled greasy popcorn all over my blue sun t-shirt... argh!

The movie itself was awesome! There was only one bit of dialog that I didn't like. The film needed a little work, in terms of grain and colour, but I think that was just because it was a one-off print. Other people who know more about film than I know the finishing steps that have to happen. I was so engrossed in the movie that I didn't notice any special effects blunders or the filler music. Others noticed music from movies like The Fifth Element, but it worked fine for me.

This was not a two hour episode either. It's a self standing movie that contains enough information about the characters that people who haven't seen the TV show should have no problem following who's who. The story works well, and explains a lot of really interesting things. The dialog and acting is just awesome. So very, very funny in places, sad in others, subtle and nuanced.

It had less western elements than the TV show did, but I think to a degree there just wasn't enough time to go in to that. It may also help keep things on more of a sci-fi track, for those who think the idea of a space-western is silly, when in fact, it's awesome.

Marli and Walter both have some notes about Serenity, and some photos too.

I look forward to seeing it a few more times when it comes out in September.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith will probably break even on the merchandising and cross-promotion deals alone, even if no one goes to see the movie. Of course, it made a record amount of money on Thursday, and Tamara and I chipped in. We attended an afternoon matinee, and lined up outside for a while after arriving about an hour early. There were already people lining up for the 6 o'clock shows, but the line wasn't very long for us. Went we came out, it was practically wrapped around the theater!

For what it is, a cheesy, special effects laden, good vs. evil epic, it's not bad. I enjoyed it, perhaps in part because I was determined to. There are lots of naysayers out there talking trash about it, and from what I've read, their points are valid. I couldn't help but notice some continuity errors, and the droid personalities bothered me a bit. Star Wars has always had droid personalities of course, and the R2D2 / C3PO banter has always been enjoyable.

SPOILERS...

The iTunes music sharing thing is really nice. I've been listening to all of "Bob Dole's" music over the last few days. He has Rob Dougan's Furious Angels album on there, which is very good. I like it a lot, except for the songs where he sings. The instrumental stuff is better. One of the songs (clubbed to death) was used in the sound track to one of the Matrix movies.

I first heard about William Shatner's Has Been album on Music (for robots) quite a while ago. I downloaded the together track from them and loved it! I mean come on! Lemon Jelly and Captain Kirk together in one song? Can things get any better!? Props to CJSW for turning me on to Lemon Jelly. Hey, CJSW is airing the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show, every night at midnight, between May 7th and May 19th. I guess I missed the start.

In any case, I found another Shatner track on somebody's iTunes share. This one is called, common people, and it is also very good.

So now Shatner and Dougan are battling it out in my head for earworm time. Fortunately for me, neither is annoying (yet).

I can't believe that Tamara hasn't blogged this yet: the Serenity trailer is out!!

It is awsome. That is all.

Our local family run video store has a nice 3 older DVD's, 3 days, for $3.75 deal. Our recent selections were The Birds, The Peacemaker, and The world is not enough. Of these, I think The Peacemaker was my favorite.

If you like Tom Clancy style thrillers like Clear and Present Danger (Harrison Ford is soooo dreamy!) then chances are good that you'll like The Peacemaker. This movie was made in 1997, but it's surprisingly relevant in a post 9/11 world. It probably has a greater impact now than when it was made.

Spoilers follow...

I've been watching Scrubs lately. It is hi-larious at points. They did a little Star Wars parody at one point; I've never before laughed so long and hard about at a TV show. Well, maybe a few times before. But this was certainly right up there. Highly recommended.

And now, back to our regularly schedualed end of semester I-have-exams-and-huge-projects-due panic.

I rather enjoyed The day after tomorrow, even with all the pseudo-science and stuff. The animatroic wolfs were cool (but it was also obvious, so...). Sometimes animatronics and models beat CGI hands down. Anyway, aside from my ability to let my monkey brain love the spaceship rumbles, its nice to get more perspective on the science. Via MetaGrrrl, we have a review of the movie from an actual, honest-to-god, real live, flesh and blood, ice core wielding, PhD holding, paleoclimatologist. It is amusing.

We went to see I, Robot this evening. It was good. The effects were nice, acting was pretty good, story held up alright on the first viewing...

...sucks. Well, it's ok I guess. Maybe I was expecting too much because everybody has been saying that it is better than the first one. Oh well.

I liked the sort of recap of the first movie during the opening credits, and I liked the struggle to deal with the clash between ordinary life and super-hero life. But something was missing; it was somehow hard to suspend my disbelief. I kept thinking that this or that wouldn't work, or whatever. Which is silly, because how often to people who get bit by spiders gain super-powers?

MILD SPOILERS

Another things that bugged me was that Peter's super-powers becoming intermittent was never really explained. Why should his vision come and go? Why should the web slingers stop working? I guess it could be chalked up to tiredness and stress. The spidey-sense could have been used to heighten the conflict between the desire for an ordinary life and the responsibilities of having great powers.

I found the CGI to be really obvious and cartoony in places. It can be hard to do though, because the setting isn't dark and dreary like Gotham City. The brightness makes it more obvious I think. There were points in the movie where I was thinking to myself that they didn't put enough effort into some of the models.

2 and 1/2 out of 5.

I've watched a lot of movies in the last few weeks. I like movies. But most of the movies I've watched haven't warranted their own entry. So here is a little list of what I can remember:

• The Manchurian Candidate - The original, B & W, with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh. Ole Frank smashes a real table in a fight. It's good if you like older classics.
• The Italian Job - The original version, with that British guy. You know, that guy. This one sucked. Skip it and watch the new Italian Job instead. It's sooo much better.
• Wilbur wants to kill himself - This has funny moments, and moving moments. And a nice little love story; a love triangle between two brothers and a former maid. Recommended for people like me.
• Scary movie 3 - If you got nothing better to do...
• Girl with a Perl earring - Slowest. Movie. Ever. A period piece about a guy who paints a picture of a girl with an earring. As far as I was able to discern, nothing actually happened.
• Starship Troopers 2 - None of the cast of the original as far as I could tell. Interesting on a certain level; had sort of a ten little Indians feel to it. So tension was created. Might have been better if I was drunk.
• Panic Room - Jodie Foster. A bit of a thriller. Watched it twice, since Tamara wanted to see it after I watched it when she was out. Had some CGI shots... CGI is so cheap and real now that it's not just for sci-fi and fantasy any more. But it wasn't good enough, because I could tell before the camera did physically impossible things.
• Resident Evil - Like playing a video game, only without the excitement of actually getting to control the characters! I eagerly await the sequel.
• Under Suspicion - I think. A Morgan Freeman thriller about a guy accused of murder. It was decent.
• Paycheck - After MI:2, which has the dubious distinction of been the only movie I've ever been tempted to walk out of, I wasn't expecting much from John Woo. But a movie is an ensemble work, and Paycheck is a pretty good movie. Tamara even liked it.

We went to see Kill Bill Vol 2 on Tuesday night. As with Volume 1, it was pretty violent, but not as much. As the reviews said, it was dialed back a notch, with a little more character development instead.

There was some great spoofing of old kung-fu movies, when The Bride goes to train with and old Kung-Fu master. It's so cheesy delicious you just can't help but laugh, but it's also obvious that that is what he was going for. There is the age old kung-fu movie plot line where some adversary kills someone's master and revenge is required. It's excellent.

If you liked the first, you'll like the second, I think.