Greg

2007: (so far) the year of bad movie rentals

The weather in late 2006 and early 2007 has not been kind to the Puget Sound region which means that I've been watching more and more movies at home of late.  And almost without fail, they've been bad.  Not bad in a "wow, this is is so bad it's good" kind of way.  Just terrible.  Maybe I'll start reading reviews before I rent movies now :)  Anyway, some of the lowlights of the month include:

Miami Vice:  Absolutely terrible.  So bad that we shut it off with thirty minutes to go.  Someone should ban Colin Farrell from making another movie.  Soon.  What makes this even worse is that it was actually the second time we rented the bloody thing - the first time we never got around to watching it.  How Michael Mann goes from being involved with Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Ali, etc. to making this I don't know - maybe he's lost his touch.

Ultraviolet: I didn't make it quite as far into this one before turning it off.  I'm pretty sure this was based on a comic book - and it is quite possible to make a futuristic movie based on a comic book that doesn't completely suck.  Ultraviolet is not that movie.  If you're looking for something along those lines then rent V is for Vendetta or Aeon Flux.

Crank: By this point my tolerance for bad movies is decreasing rapidly despite the fact that I'm still renting them.  Translation?  I'm even quicker on turning them off.  I went into Crank knowing that I wasn't about to watch Shakespeare but something about the story and the pace and the camera work made me realize that the 360 was calling my name.  Loudly.  I'm guessing that the frenetic camera work was supposed to put you in the mindset of the main character who was trying to pump his body full of adrenaline, but seriously, I'm trying to watch a movie, not give myself a headache.

The DaVinci Code: the book was good, the movie was not.  Tom Hanks was completely miscast and there was enough background detail* for the story that you got from the book that just didn't translate into the movie version.  I was asleep by the end of it.  Even so, I'm counting it as a win that I didn't actively turn it off.

*I'm in no way trying to say that the details you got in the book were accurate, just that it helped move the story along and flesh it out.  The book is fiction - take it with a grain of salt.  Or a shaker.

The highlight of the DVD rentals so far has been catching up on the Battlestar Galactica series.  Now I just need to see if SciFi channel is showing the first few episodes of season three before I start on the current up-to-date episodes...

Unexpected drawbacks of having your calendar on your phone

One of the best aspects of the SmartPhone is the fact that it has your calendar on it synced from Exchange.  This means there's no more walking around the hallways wondering what conference room a meeting is taking place - or a mad rush back to your office to look it up before showing up late.  If you don't mind looking too geeky, then it's also really handy putting your personal appoitments in your calendar.  I almost always have my cellphone handy if I'm out and about, so it's nice having it remind me I'm supposed to be somwhere.

All of this sounds great, right?  What's the unexpected flaw in this plan?  When you go on vacation for a while - particularly in another time zone - you have two options:

1. leave your appointments on your calendar, knowing that your phone will constantly beep at inopportune times telling you to go to a meeting that doesn't apply.  Even worse if you're multiple time zones away so a reminder wakes you up.

2. Spend far longer than you would expect deleting appointments.  Why does this take so long?  Because you have to delete each occurence individually - you can't just say 'delete the next 5 instances of this meeting', and deleting the enitre series means you show back up at work with no meetings.  Wait...  maybe that would be a good thing :)

Convenience photography (photos of 1/1/07 fireworks @ spaceneedle)

I've realized that at the moment I'm into "convenience photography".   What does that mean?  It means that I'm into photography - but I don't really go out of my way to get a better shot or overly delay myself or my travelling companions.  Unless one of them happens to also be whereever we are for the purpose of taking pictures.

Why do I say this?  This past NYE we played it low key - had a few friends over and then went to the parking lot next door to see the fireworks from the space needle.  It was a great clear view of the needle and fireworks for a person.  For a camera though, there were a few obstructions that definitely detract from the pictures (mainly a telephone wire / powerline that is in front of part of the needle).  BUT - I wasn't motivated enough to find a better spot (which likely would have meant going off by myself or trying to convince everyone else to move too).  Anyway, at the moment (1/2/07 @8am) there's only one picture that I've uploaded - it was cropped a bit, but that's just to remove some trees that don't add anything or block anything.  It does still keep the wire I was talking about though :(.

Other notes from the shoot:

• I used the main lens I've been using - the 24-105 lens.  For fireworks on the needle I probably could & should have used a longer zoom since I basically knew where the bursts were going to be and so did not need to worry about just opening up for the whole sky.
• It's not in the pictures, but there's a streetlight just off to the right of the location at roughly the same height as the camera was.  I'm suprised that I didn't pick up more light from it - either way, I would use a lens hood next time if I was shooting from the same spot.
• I accidentally had the remote for the camera set on a few second delay so it was there was a lag between pressing the button and the shutter actually opening.  I don't think it hurt me too much, but for something as fast as fireworks it did alter the shot I thought I was going to be getting a couple of times.
• A tripod is a definite must for shooting fireworks.

The full gallery is online here, I'll be adding to it as I clean up and crop some of the photos.