| Editorial - 27 June 2005 |
| My brain likes his dangerous side - at least when it doesn't have anything
to do with willingly strapping yourself in a mechanical contraption flying through the air at high
speeds. If it's sitting and walking in the sun or staying in the shade, it chooses the sun. Seen
it again the last couple of days : go shopping, walk around, eat outside on friday, go spend the
afternoon in my parent's garden with
Lorn, the little munchkin and finally wash my car again. Next to impossible to do it where I
live (unless I either block the street or the garage-door and carry several buckets of warm water
from the floor where I live to the groundfloor ... don't think that's gonna happen. Song of the week : "Best Of You" Foo Fighters Oldie of the week : "We're In This Together" Nine Inch Nails Last seen movie : "Duck Soup" : slightly longer than an hour long mayhem and chaos movie from the Marx Brothers. When the country of Freedonia has to borrow money from a rich widow, she agrees if Groucho becomes the new ruler. Zeppo and Harpo are spies from the neighbouring country Sylvania. Giving these guys such responsabilities must lead to chaos, more debt and war, shouldn't it ? "Confituur" : Second typically old style flemish movie from Lieven Debrauwer, following his big hit "Pauline & Paulette". Opening with the wedding anniversary of an older couple, it's quite clear the man doesn't want to celebrate things. Not that he doesn't love his wife, he doesn't seem to love himself or his life. Washed out, burned. After a small discussion with his wife during the festivities, he gets on a bus and starts driving - ending up with his estranged sister. This bittersweet drama has it's slightly over the top moments, but also a lot of beautiful scenes where you can see people who don't understand eachother (anymore) grow together. Even if just for once to see the other one's pain. I'm a sucker for stuff like that. If it hurts, it hurts, but it has to be real. No saturday-evening television-movie bullshit please. And trust me, the comical elements make the bitter pill easier to swallow. And it wouldn't be a Lieven Debrauwer movie if it didn't end well. Highly recommended. Doing this week : Since yesterday I've been collecting and checking the last items for the upcoming long weekend on the Werchter festivalground and campingsite. Airing the tent, check the hammer, groundpins and ropes ... basically getting all the survival gear for 4 days of good concerts, bad food, sleep deprivation and fatigue. Yeah ! |
| Editorial - 26 June 2005 | ||
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'Twas a sad weekend in Hundred Acre Wood. Paul Winchell, the early TV pioneer best
remembered for creating a string of cartoon voices, most famously Winnie the Pooh's pal Tigger,
died Friday. A day later, John Fiedler, the veteran stage and screen actor who voiced Piglet,
passed away. Somewhere Eeyore is even more glum than usual. (© e-Online)
"The wonderful thing about tiggers, is tiggers are wonderful things ! Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs !" |
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| Editorial - 20 June 2005 |
 Seems it's a wellknown fact that the month of June is the best period to visit amusement parcs like Bobbejaanland as most kids have final tests to take and their parents aren't taking them anywhere. It sure was the case yesterday when there were almost no waitinglines ... see an attraction you like ? Just hop in ! Usual waiting periode was under 5 minutes. Only once there was a waiting period for like 10 minutes. Which was for the Typhoon : the newest tool of terror for crazy people. The left hand side of the picture below depicts the starting point. Imagine this being several meters high and going straight down.  The right hand side is another one : the sledgehammer : a giant wheel spinning around and swinging from left to right. As I don't like doing these things, I decided to try and get photographs of the people I know who were brave enough to get in those contraptions. And test the sportsfunction of my Nikon. Also cool to catch the wateraction ...  Song of the week : ----- Oldie of the week : ----- Last seen movie : No movies last week due to good weather outside. Doing this week : Either engage the blistering over 30 degrees celsius outside again, or stay safe indoors. Let's see which part of my brain is going to win this debate. |
| Editorial - 14 June 2005 |
| I'm wondering about the available profits resulting from sending spam
to any number of unwilling recipients. Usually you get spam "trying to help you" get a longer
penis with longer lasting erections, guarantueed to satisfy at least 3 women per week who are
all having 2 orgasm before you reach your own. The other half of spam is about mortgages for
houses in the USA. It sounds utterly silly to send spam to european and asian citizens for mortgages on houses in the good old United States of Jesusland, but okay, I can understand it ain't easy to sift through all addresses and only send to the obviously american citizens. But I don't get it that they keep sending spam for blue viagra pills, or cialis or any other herbal stuff that does the same, to the big bulk of netizens. Hell, the biggest part of us isn't in need of that stuff ! We are not 50 yet, or even 60 ... the normal ages when you start thinking about using that stuff. Sure, there are some senior citizens on the net, but the chance of getting your message though to them must be very slim when you compare it to the amount of people that get the spammail. What's the clickthrough rate ? Ssomething like 0.005% ? And who's going to buy your stuff ? Another mere percent of that ? If you're extremely lucky. So if you send 5 million mails, you might get 250 orders. Again, if you're lucky. Having at least a 100 of them fail, gives you 150 purchases. Seems a waste of time to me. Maybe spammers should start selling stuff like nerf-guns, dvd's, Star Wars Lego or any other geeky thing (must not mention the stuffed penguins). Man, that shit'd sell like crazy ... your 5 million mails could get you 5000 orders in no time. But you'd have to sell something that works, wouldn't you ? Song of the week : "All The Love In The World" Nine Inch Nails Oldie of the week : "Monkey Wrench" Foo Fighters Last seen movie : "The Sum Of All Fears" : Another Jack Ryan adaptation, this time with Ben Affleck replacing Harrison Ford, jumping right back at the beginning of the character's life. As a newby at the CIA Jack Ryan is thrown into the deep when things in "mother russia" transform the once quiet state into turmoil. Things get dangerous for the States when a nuclear weapon is stolen and nowhere to be found. With Liev Schreiber as a spy (fantastic casting by the way) helping him retrieve the necessary information, things turn ugly - very ugly. And that's what makes this a good and exciting movie. Daring to go a step further than the usual terror-threat movies. That and good acting from peopla like James Cromwell and Morgan Freeman of course. "Cellular" : Kim Basinger (still looking very yummy despite her age) gets kidnapped out of her house and is locked in an attic. One of the kidnappers smashes the phone up there to pieces, but being a smart science teacher, she puzzels some pieces together and the phone dails a random number. The guy who answers is a typical surferdude spending his days chasing his ex-girlfriend. Somehow she convinces him not to hang up and inform the police. Hanging up the phone is not an option as she won't be able to dail again. What follows is a very engaging and exciting story with some nice twists (some being pretty obvious) and quirky details (the cop who believes things is retiring and is going to start a health spa). Short, quickly paced, exciting, good actors and funny extra's. Just a shame that the reason behind everything falls slightly flat after all the excitement. But being short and cheap I'd even recommend buying it. "Pieces Of April" : Seen it with half an eye and only the last part as I wasn't home yet when the movie started. Looks like a short, slightly tearful, "girlie" movie about a strongwilled daughter who, after moving away from her family, wants to make amends (especially with her mother) and decides to make the Thanksgiving dinner and invites her family to her place in the city. What I've seen wasn't as bad as it sounds. But as I said, I haven't seen much. Give it a go if you like these things. Doing this week : Rushing through as much work as I can. There's some shit I want over and done as soon as possible. Think I'm gonna reorganise things and do some stuff earlier and let some other things slide a few days. At least I'll be able to finish a few things that way. Makes the total list shrink a little ... bored with hanging around the same item week after week. |
| Editorial - 8 June 2005 | ||
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"Where have you gone Mrs. Robinson ?" Anne Bancroft, a great actress and long-time wife of funny man Mel Brooks, passed away on monday. Not only did she portray the never to forget Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate", but she also earned herself several Oscar-nominations and an Oscar, a Tony, Emmy, stageplay awards ... But above all she must've been a good person as she and Mel Brooks stayed together for over 30 years until her death - a rare feat in Hollywood. | |
| Editorial - 6 June 2005 |
| June is always the busiest month for me. Long ago it meant studying for
all kinds of exams, then it meant getting ready for a vacation by cleaning up as much work that
had been swerving around as possible and now it means the busiest period of the year regarding
sales. And above all that it's also the month in which aroudn half of my friends and family
celebrate their birthday. My grandfather was last week, my nephew David on saturday and today
it's my mom's birthday (happy one mom). Still to come : another friend, my father, uncle and
sister. So updates might be slower than the last couple of months. Not just because of this,
there's a lot of other stuff to do and fix ... Song of the week : ----- Oldie of the week : ----- Last seen movie : "S.W.A.T." : Typical american "bigger and better than the rest" copmovie. SWAT (special weapons and tactics) is the LA police department strike-team that's called in whenever the other cops get scared. Just by that you know that this one will be completely over the top. Macho-attitudes, bad ass mentalities, really strict good versus evil situations, superiors who "just don't get it" and "the old guy" called back to save the day. If this movie didn't have actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farell it'd be pretty stale and straight to video. Now it's watchable. Once. With popcorn and some mates to spew comments at. "Closer" : Mike Nichols directs a screenplay about two relationships flowing together, influencing eachother and ultimately changing all perspectives of the four people involved. Using superstars as Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Jude Law and Clive Owen as the main actors adds an extra weary tone to the painful subjects of hurt, loyalty, cheating, pain, lies, sex and consuming passion. Instead of focusing on the people, you focus on the emotions - hitting harder than otherwise. If it had been lesser known faces, you'd start seeing them as real people, by using superstars, you always see the stars and don't get sucked into their personas too much. You see stars portraying emotions that are harsh, demanding and very fucking painful at times. I usually don't get caught up too much in things, but I'm the first one to say that this movie hit me in the face and left a knot in my stomach. There are things you understand and want to scream out yourself, only to be confused a few minutes later by the same character when he or she does or confesses something you'd like to stay far away from. If you want to follow the story and feel, it's an emotional rollercoaster. Deserves all the praise it got. And more. "Lemony Snickett's A Series Of Unfortunate Events" : Jim Carrey being his nutty self in several disguises is always a riot. The movie being based on a series of books with the grim undertones of gothic novels, but loosely in the same genre as the Potter books, helps to add to the overall weirdness. Three children are suddenly orphaned when their parent's house burns down. They are placed under the care of their uncle Olaf (Carrey), but they find out that he's only in it for the money, so they try to escape. Only to be followed around by uncle Olaf in different disguises. So yes, it's a funny children's movie that's enjoyable for adults. I think we'll see this one pop up on the BBC screens sometimes at Christmas. I'd watch it again. Looking forward to the sequels. Doing this week : Whatever it takes. |
| Editorial - 3 June 2005 |
| Last time Trent Reznor and the rest of Nine Inch Nails released an album, they were prominently featured during
some sort of MTV live-show (Music Awards ? Movie Awards ?) with a simple teaser-trailer
projected making the crowd go nuts, this time around they're kicked off the live-set for the
dumbest reason ever : you're not allowed to have a picture of the prez in the background.
Mind you, a normal picture, not one comparing him to a chimp.
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| Editorial - 1 June 2005 |
| Midnight has just passed and that makes it time to release the new and improved look and feel around here. Time to shed the old skin that has been going around for over 5 years and dive into something sleeker. Not necessarily supersharp and nifty as I'm not a big fan of reading text when it's hidden somewhere in between all the spiffy images in the confusing design : a line here, an image there, throw in a few backgrounds and some wonderfully clashing colors ... yuck. Nah, black will remain Dark Life's main color. After all, that's the nature of the beast. |
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