19 June 2004, early evening
I watched Love Actually on Thursday night with Gary, Shima and Michelle. It’s a sweet little British romantic comedy, and is quite well done. There are a slew of stories, all loosely linked together, some more entertaining then others. The film is definitely better then the usual romantic comedy crap Hollywood puts out, so you should check it out if you want a laugh.
19 June 2004, the wee hours
I watched Supersize Me today at the princess. I would have to say the movie is quite funny. The film is about a man who decides to eat nothing but McDonald’s for thirty days. Supersize Me provides a humorous look at the serious problem of obesity in America. I wasn’t expecting the film to be that good, but was actually quite impressed. The filmmaker isn’t trying to make the point that eating nothing but McDonald’s is bad for you. I think most people would already know as much. I think he is simply using his stunt as a means of drawing attention to how ridiculous the fast food industry is. (Although, the doctors were all surprised at how bad his body got. The effects of his fatty diet were akin to some serious binge drinking.)
16 June 2004, late afternoon
Valblog looks wicked now. I like the new layout a lot, but you can’t comment on any of the posts on the site, so instead I comment here.
16 June 2004, mid-afternoon
Bush had this to say of Ronald Reagan during his eugooogly of the former president:
Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now,” Bush said, “but we preferred it when he belonged to us. [President Bush gives Reagan eulogy]
Creepy? A little bit perhaps. Now the Club for Growth, a conservative interest group, has unveiled a new ad that implies Bush and Reagan are cut from the same cloth. The former president’s son would disagree with such a comparison:
But my father was a man—that’s the difference between him and Bush. To paraphrase Jack Palance, my father crapped bigger ones than George Bush. [Regan Blasts Bush]
Reagan Jr. has been fairly vocal in his criticism of Bush:
What’s his accomplishment? That he’s no longer an obnoxious drunk? [Reaganite by Association? His Family Won’t Allow It]
I wait patiently for the young Reagan’s words to be turned into an advert as well—without his express permission of course.
“No one has requested the permission to use his image in an ad, nor would we feel it appropriate to give such permission at this juncture,” Joanne Drake said. “We protect his image very carefully, particularly as it relates to politics.”
Comment [3] Politics | Metafilter
16 June 2004, mid-afternoon
How bad can a movie about kids who break dance for respect and money be? Pretty bad apparently. You Got Served was fun to watch, if only to laugh at it. The story is about a bunch of kids and their break dancing crews. There is an evil rich kid crew as well, that ‘serves’ the good guy crew early in the movie, kicking the plot off. Most of the women in the movie were pretty hot—Megan Good was looking very excellent. It should go without saying, don’t watch this movie unless you want a good laugh.
15 June 2004, mid-afternoon
There is nothing more embarrassing then a double post on Metafilter. Normally I am good at finding old obscure links, but today I guess I was lazy. Today I posted my first double-post to Metafilter. (The link was this snarky jab at the US.)
Comment [1] Metafilter
15 June 2004, mid-afternoon
I watched To Live and Die in L.A. with Mezan and Steph on Sunday night. The film is a gritty cop movie from the 80s, bloody and violent at times, but far from an action film. The film is pretty good, a look at this hard-boiled cop basically being a bad ass, breaking rules, and bringing his partner down with him. The hard-boiled cop is played by William Peterson, from CSI. Seeing him playing this basically evil cop was quite strange—seeing him naked didn’t help on the strange front either. The movie is good and worth watching.
13 June 2004, evening time
I went to Waterloo this weekend to attend Summerfest. Summerfest is the big party the Federation of Students throws every summer at Fed Hall, Waterloo’s on-campus night club. Since Fed is closed during the summer, it is usually a very busy night.
I went with Shima and Gary, and met up with Victor in line. He was there with Wendy and Jen, who I hadn’t seen in ages. Patrick showed up shortly after, and we had a few drinks as we discussed the fact Fed was so empty. Last year there was a sea of people everywhere—if you were out on the patio, you couldn’t get back inside, the line up was so ridiculous. This year the patio was empty, as was most of the dance floor. It eventually filled up a little bit, but still no where near the number of people I was expecting.
update: I should also note that I saw so many random people I would never expect to see out. I saw my friend Nadia for starters. I met Nadia when she was in grade 9, and I was in grade 12, at some computer conference all the Scarborough schools with SGI computers were allowed to attend. Nadia works at Music World, so I see her once in a blue moon. I was surprised to see her at Summerfest; I wasn’t sure it was her at first. I try to make it a point not to talk to people I think I know, because more often then not, I don’t know them. However, this time, she saw me looking her way and nodded or something. In all honesty, I was pretty drunk about an hour into the night, so I don’t really recall. I also saw Casandra, who was the super tall girl that played Gitz at Metro square. (You know, one of the many women Mike used to hang out with.) I also don’t remember what I said to her, but I introduced her to everyone we were with. She’s still super tall. Finally I saw Ahilan’s friend Nadia, one of the prettier girls at Waterloo. She was there with another of Ahilan’s friends, Seema. I for the life of me can’t remember what I said to her at all. I just remember grabbing her arm to get her attention, and talking for a few minutes.
The rest of the weekend was probably more entertaining. I had lunch with Gary, Michelle and Shima at Shandiz, which was excellent as usual. Shandiz is my favourite restaurant in Waterloo.
We loitered at the mall after, where I bought an Astrud Gilberto album, which I am listening to now.
Shima and I went to Jeff’s for dinner, and we got to see Liz’s new bunny rabbit. Matt joined us there as well. We tired unsucessfully to get Matt to come out with us, but apparently he is overwhelmed with school. He probably made the right choice staying in, since Summerfest was really unexceptional. While at Jeff’s, Shima also discovered presidents choice green apple soda, which tastes like candy. Shima has a serious sweet tooth.
Today I’ve managed to do nothing, though I have an overdue video due at blockbuster I should probably return.
11 June 2004, terribly early in the morning
I spent the evening watching Hotel with Mezan. The film is by Mike Figgis, of Timecode and Leaving Las Vegas fame. Hotel features a crazy cast; there are too many famous people you would recognize in the film for me to list. That said, the film is for the most part far too bizarre to be enjoyable. I guess this was Figgis’ attempt at making a David Lynch film. I can’t describe the film. The cinematography is quite good, the aesthetics of the film are nice, but other then that, this film is really not worth watching.
10 June 2004, the wee hours
I’ve taken to using an online news reader called Bloglines. Bloglines is very similar to Kinja, though the layout of two programs differ. Kinja, which I have spoken about earlier, displays all the weblogs you read together on one page, as a sort of aggregated weblog. Bloglines takes a different approach, and instead lists all the weblogs you subscribe to in one frame, and highlights those which have new articles for you to read. Bloglines was released much earlier then Kinja, and I think for this reason may have stolen a lot of Kinja’s thunder. Bloglines is just a news reader, so you can only use it to subscribe to, and read, RSS and Atom feeds. Kinja can process some pages that don’t have feeds, for example, Matt’s page—Matt, add an RSS feed to your page already.
9 June 2004, evening time
Mez and I finally watched City of God last night. City of God follows the life of some hoodlums, and those trying not to be hoodlums, living in the slums of Rio. The film is split into a series of stories, and narrated to us by a boy who wants to be a photographer. The film is amazing. Probably one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.
8 June 2004, late evening
I went downtown today to have lunch with my Father and my Cousin. We went to this little Italian deli in the lobby of my Dad’s office tower. They make excellent sandwiches. The three of us at lunch and discussed the up coming election.
The Canadian federal elections are coming up soon, and everyone should really go out and vote. At the very least, voting gives you license to bitch about the government. I can’t stand people who bitch about how the government is screwing them over, meanwhile they don’t take the time out of their day to vote.
Today, I learnt that Dr. Raymond Cho was not a NDP candidate, but was running in my riding as in independent. I thought his sign looked a bit off, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I have no strong feelings for Dr. Cho, but up until today, he was who I thought I would be voting for.
I’ll probably still end up voting NDP, since they are the party whose platform I most agree with. I wish they had a proper candidate in my riding, but since I am almost 100% certain that the candidate in my riding won’t win, I don’t mind voting for this mystery person. As I understand it, the amount of popular support the party gets will be translated into more funding for the party, so it isn’t quite a wasted vote.
Apparently several polls are showing that the Conservatives are gaining some ground. What’s up with that? This election will be quite interesting I am sure.
7 June 2004, terribly early in the morning
I loiter all day, every day. You may have noticed as much if you follow this blog closely, as all I post now are my not-quite-reviews of movies. Some people get frustrated with the lack of something to do—i.e Steph. I am quite the opposite, I enjoy having absolutely nothing to do, it is very relaxing.
I don’t do absolutely nothing of course. Besides all my movie watching, I have been reading Quicksilver, Neal Stephensons new book. I can’t say I like Quicksilver as much as Cryptonomicon, which I highly recommend, but I can say that Quicksilver is still quite good. The novel itself is split into three books. The second of the books has been quite funny so far, and a lot more enjoyable to read then the first book, though it features a lot less of the geekary Stephenson is famous for.
One thing that pisses me off is the vocabulary of the book. I won’t pretend to have a stellar vocabulary, but I can honestly say Stephenson is pulling words out of his ass. I’ve never had to look up words in a dictionary so often in all my life. I feel like he is just showing off his command of a thesaurus. The other problem I have with the book is that it is quite hard to keep track of the characters in the story, and what they have done so far. The story in Cryptonomicom jumped around a lot as well, but it was quite easy to keep track of who was who. In Quicksilver, characters may go by many different names, and several characters go by the same name. It makes for a lot of Confusion. Quicksilver is definitely a very challenging book to read.
I’m typing this up at 3:30 in the morning, because I feel like I need to insert a post that isn’t a movie review in between what will probably be another string of movie review posts.
Comment [2] Life | Comics and Books
7 June 2004, terribly early in the morning
Shaolin Soccer is wicked funny. Stephen Chow is quite talented at making comedies. The film follows a young student of Shaolin kung-fu, played by Chow, as he tries to spread the message of his teachings. Chow’s character is approached by a disgraced soccer star who wishes to start a soccer team. The film features some very innovative special effects, which are all done quite well. The computer graphics are all blended quite seamlessly with the live action. This movie is definitely worth watching. Do yourself a favour and get the Hong Kong version of the movie, because I’ve heard that the Mirimax release is going to dubbed, edited, and otherwise butchered.
4 June 2004, early evening
Our satellite is working again, which probably means even more posts about movies I’ve seen. I just watched Phone Booth and thought it was an entertaining enough film. Most people I spoke to about the movie were unimpressed, but I thought it was a good little thriller. The movie stars Collin Farrell, who seems to have made a crap load of movies recently. The film is about a dude trapped in a phone booth by a crazy dude with a sniper rifle.
4 June 2004, mid-afternoon
I finally saw Dirty Pretty Things last night. The film is about the illegal immigrant community in London, and is really quite good. The story is very well done, and explores how those people who exist outside of the system get taken advantage of. The film is also in some respects a little bit of a thriller/mystery. The acting in the film is also quite good, and the set of characters in the movie are all interesting and unique. You should definitely check it out.
Check out Go Underground, the official site for Dirty Pretty Things.
3 June 2004, late evening
I’m aware that some people like this layout. Apparently some people like it a lot. Here is a site that has totally copied my site. The site is based out of Brazil, so my only hope is that it is made by one of the models from the Bavaria commercials. Those chicks are hot. I can dream anyway.
Comment [19] Life | Web Design
2 June 2004, terribly early in the morning
I designed Ali’s blog today. Ali is Shima’s brother. Check it out. (Eventually Ali will start to change the site, so here is what my site looks like styled with the design I did for Ali.)
Comment [20] Web Design
2 June 2004, terribly early in the morning
The big budget movie of the summer didn’t disappoint. I think the trick was to go in with expectations so low that anything they put on the screen would look like gold. The story was quirky enough to be entertaining, and the special effects were incredible. If you want to see some serious eye candy, go check the movie out. Just don’t spend too much money on your tickets. Oh, and incase you haven’t been watching TV, The Day After Tomorrow is about global warming causing another ice age.
31 May 2004, terribly early in the morning
Howard lent me his copy of the film Equilibrium. The film is set in a post apocalyptic future, where people have decided that since emotion is the cause of war, the best way to avoid war is through the suppression of emotion. People take drugs at daily intervals to suppress their emotions. The film stars Christian Bale, who plays a dude that goes around hunting down people that aren’t suppressing their emotions. Some of the fight scenes are cool, mostly dudes spinning around with guns killing all sorts of people. The plot is alright, though I think the story could have used a little work. If you are stuck for something to rent, I’d recommend you go see the movie, though the film wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.
Here is what they were saying at Rotten Tomatoes. They weren’t so impressed.
30 May 2004, late afternoon
I went to a Wine and Cheese party last night. I drank lots of wine, and ate a little cheese.
The day basically began with my arguing with Ahilan about my dinner. I wanted 6 chicken McNuggets; no more, no less. He was convinced this was a waste of money, since for a few dollars more you could get fries and a drink. Mind you, I didn’t want fries or a drink. We argued about this till he pulled up to the drive-thru window. I decided, why bother arguing, he gave me two bucks, and I gave him money to get a 6 chicken McNugget combo.
“I don’t want the drink,” he tells me.
“I don’t want it either,” I reply.
“Well just leave it outside.”
“That’s a waste of a drink.”
“There aren’t any cup holders, I’m not going to hold it while I drive.”
We discuss what to do with the drink for a few minutes, but finally I end up leaving it in the parking lot. I ate a few fries, and then put the rest of them in this little nook on the dash board. Ahilan asks me to put them on his chair; I do so. We pull out of the parking lot and the fries all fall on the floor—every last one.
“They’re still good!” I tell him. He doesn’t seem convinced. I start to scoop them back into the package they come in, and put them all on the nook in the dashboard. “I’ll eat one if you eat the rest.”
“No, that’s gross.”
“They’re still good—”
It was at this point that the fries fell off the dashboard, and back on to the floor.
So, I ended up eating the 6 chicken McNuggets, and bitching at Ahilan for making us buy the stupid combo.
We arrived at Shima’s house, just in time to receive a call from her letting us know her buzzer number. I thanked Ahilan for the ride and ran off to her apartment.
The door to her apartment was being held open by a little kid. So I just walked in. Shima’s buzzer number was 4 digits. I just assumed that the first two digits were the floor number, and that the second two digits were the room number. I was wrong. I headed back to the lobby, and buzzed for Shima. Her mom told me what their apartment number actually was and I headed back up.
Shima met me at the elevator. The apartment we walked to wasn’t the one I heard her mom tell me, so it was a good thing she was outside waiting for me. We left for Riadhs’s.
28 May 2004, early evening
Krishna’s computer sits on the same desk as my iBook. Krishna’s computer is my old iMac. He’s playing music from the old Final Fantasy games as I type this. I feel like playing FF3 now. And FF1 for that matter. Those games are so good. I am hoping that they will port them all to the GBA. This is my dream.
28 May 2004, terribly early in the morning
I have begun my quest to get caught up in Smallville. I missed all of season 3, which sucks. I spent the past couple hours watching the first 4 episodes of the season, and have to say they were all pretty good. I love the show, it’s the best thing on television. Smallville has all the guilty pleasure of a soap opera, but with better looking people and Superman. What’s not to love?
One thing I remembered after watching the show again is how likeable Lex Luthor is. The audience knows he is Superman’s future nemesis, but by the way he is presented to us in Smallville you can’t help but like him. He is a sort of tragic hero, trying to escape the darker side of his character, but generally failing to do so. Now, if George Lucas wasn’t such an omega-hack, he would have been able to accomplish something similar with Darth Vadar / Anakin Skywalker. After watching Star Wars II, Anakin comes off as a goober-weirdo-pervert. You don’t feel sorry for him or the path he is being led down. The prequels to Star Wars could have been great, but so far have managed to be pretty mediocre—Episode I was downright bad. It is a real shame.
One thing I noticed was the shift they took with Chloe’s character. At the end of season two she joined the darkside, so to speak, but at the start of this season she seems to have had an unexplained change of heart. With the way he treats her in Metropolis, during the season premiere, it really doesn’t make any sense. Her character is more or less back to the way it was last season, and for no good reason.
I need to start downloading more episodes. Gary gave me the first 8 of the seasons, but I imagine I will be able to get through those fairly quickly. I want to get Season 2 on DVD so I can put it next to my Season 1 box. I think it will be one of the first things I buy when I get a damn job.
Comment [6] Life | Television
27 May 2004, early evening
National Security was the last film Martin Lawrence made, which follows his adventures as a security guard. The film co-stars Steve Zahn, who plays a sort of angry white man foil for Lawrence’s character. National Security is hilarious. I don’t think it’s as good as Martin Lawrence’s best film, Blue Streak, but it is damn entertaining. If you like Martin Lawrence, you’ll probably like this movie.
26 May 2004, early afternoon
I checked my unofficial transcript today, as I need to send it off to a company I am applying to work for. Nothing has changed, except at the top, it now says:
– - – Degrees Awarded – - –
Degree : Bachelor of Mathematics
Confer Date : 2004-06-19
Degree Honours: With Distinction
Plan : Combinatorics & Optimization, Honours, Co-operativ
Plan : Computer Science, Honours, Co-operative Program
Looks like I did get my double major. I was always worried I was counting courses wrong. I’ll get my degree on June 19th, then I’ll be an official graduate.
