Author: Adam

Gattaca

Opuses

Okay, so I finally got around to watching Gattaca. I’ve heard only that it was a good film but nothing else for some time now. Last time L visited, he told me what the story was about and that I should see it. C was pretty tired on Thursday and I wasn’t. So after she went to bed, I ran down to the local Blockbuster video and rented Gattaca.

I’m not a movie critic but to my tastes, it was more than just a good film. It had a solid moral premise that made the story twice as strong. The writer used the power of suggestion to let the viewer process the issues he raised while immersing himself in, experiencing, feeling the story along with the characters.

I really enjoyed the score of this movie. Standing out was the “concerto for twelve fingers”. 🙂 Since the message of the story is so timely, I positively recommend this movie for viewing.

I have so little time…

Adventures

I have so little time to write but a couple of things to mention:

The Jimmy Eat World concert was pretty good. I’d give it 4 stars out of 5. It was really an amazing evening to go to a concert. The fog was coming in off of Lake Michigan and there’s a magical, a mysterious, a dreamlike quality about fog. I’d never seen fireworks in the fog before so that was intriguing too. As the concert progressed, the band played their hearts out. They played well together and played and sang almost all of the parts that you would find on their albums. Even one particularly satisfying piano part was translated to guitar. However, because of the mix that was given to the audience, we weren’t able to hear all of those parts as well as I would have liked and the contrasts between peaceful passion and frenzied fervor that work so well for Jimmy Eat World weren’t as contrasting as I would have liked. That’s my take on it.

I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to vote for Bob Welch in the Republican primary for US Senate. He’s outspoken about what matters and he’s not afraid to be specific about what he believes. On the other hand you have Michels and Darrow who have so far stuck to their plausible generalities — Darrow more so than Michels. In the end I will support the Republican candidate because Feingold has got to go.

The Village

Opuses

I’d been trying extra hard for two weeks and yesterday I finally got to see “The Village”. By the looks of things it was just in the nick of time. It’s already done playing at the local cinema and the theatre we went to was pretty empty. Of course that was a Sunday matinee.

* s p o i l e r a l e r t *

The nub of the story was good. I did figure part of it ahead of time but I’m having trouble saying what is the really interesting bit. I keep coming back to the conclusion, when the elders decided to continue the farce. If they decided to carry on with the settlement but end the farce, I would have almost agreed with their actions. Howsoever all events seemed to point toward a lesson that they should be learning, they forgot to learn it. I’ll have to process a bit more and maybe watch it one more time.

Once again M. Night Shamaylan has created a wonderfully riveting story, a full-flavoured picture of a time and a place, a thing that makes you go, “Hmm…” Oh yes, and the score was exquisite.

Special Program

Adventures

I haven’t wrote anything in some time because I’ve been busy preparing. I’m going to be giving the message at RiverVallley Church this coming Sunday (Look for the audio early next week). Anyway, something pretty important came up that I just have to post right away!

I’ve been waiting all of my programming life to write a computer program that has an option to “Run Faster”. Today, my ship has come in. Here’s the screen shot:

Moreover, if it didn’t really work, it wouldn’t count. So assure yourself that it’s no cosmetic option. The program runs in 10 minutes if you say “N” and about 3 minutes if you say “Y”.

Saw another road called “Dead…

Observations

Saw another road called “Dead End Road” today. This one was in reality a dead end road.

Also, I used to think that advertisers wrote and rewrote their ads, then rewrote them again. I thought they really scoured them for mistakes, made sure everything was perfect. This morning I heard an ad that had these two sentences in it: “…you probably thought that beauty, affordability, and quality was impossible to attain.” “…[so and so] Builders is ready for you.” So much for my assumptions. The very next ad contained this sentence “…now we have over X Ford Focuses in stock.”

The Nicknames Doctrine

Observations

Have you all heard that I’m single-handedly bringing back the nickname? I’m on a campaign!

It has become my opinion that for whatever reason you wish to choose — a downturn in creativity is my favourite — the nickname has largely fallen out of usage. So I’m bringing it back. And to start with I’ve posited 3 rules of thumb. (A lot of this may have been disseminated on Seinfeld as well but this is what I find in my own experience):

1. You can’t make up your own nickname. (Pretty obvious, I know)

2. You have to dislike it at first. (But it can grow on you)

3. It has to somehow be descriptive of your person (pretty obvious too)