You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Monks, Movies, Novel

Did you know LaserMonks are real monks? Unfortunately, they aren't some sort of cybernetically enhanced religious order, but a monastery who've decided to sell generic printer supplies. Given the extortionate mark-up for printer ink, I'm not surprised that it's a lucrative market -- so good luck to them, I say.

Something that is exactly what is what it sounds like is The Bunker -- if your data needs to be really, really secure, why not stick your server behind three meter concrete walls, 30 meters underground, and surround it with concertina wire and guard dogs? Ah, the products of Cold War paranoia, is there anything you're not good for?

***

My pen is called "Dr Grip". I didn't name him; it's just his name.

I'm just sayin', y'all.

***

Work gave us a half-day on Monday, and most people went to the venue they provided downtown to watch the Oscars. (C couldn't go, so I took Pete along.) I enjoyed Jon Stewart's presentation -- I thought it was nice that the jokes were slightly more edgy than normal Oscars fare, like joking about pulling down the giant Oscar statue so that democracy could bloom in California.

Also, we won the Effects Oscar -- nominated five years in a row, and won four out of five! It seems really weird to me, since the big studios are... well, really, really big compared to us. Maybe Peter Jackson makes movies that make visual effects shine? In any case, we may have a problem next year, since I wouldn't be holding my breath for X-Men 3 to be nominated.

After the Oscars finished, a bunch of people hung around to boogie at the venue, but I hurried across to the Paramount with Pete to see Asphalt, a 1929 German silent film. There was an American playing period film music on the piano (the score has been lost, but he'd researched the pieces that film musicians of the time would have used), and someone from the Goethe institute to read the cards. It was very cool; it emphasized for me how little dialogue you actually need to tell a story effectively.

I then waved Pete goodbye, and wandered up to Reading to meet C and watch Walk the Line. I really enjoyed the movie; and I didn't realise while I was watching it that the actors had actually learned to sing and play their instruments. Given that I was kinda curious to find out what else the female singer had done, much respect to them.

Oh, speaking of music -- Ellen started out her last broadcast with a mashup of Blondie's "Rapture" and The Doors "Riders of the Storm". Very nifty, and it lead to someone in the office pointing me at various 2 Many DJs mashups, including the vocal track of Destiny's Child's "Independent Women" over the top of 10cc's "Dreadlock Holiday", and "The Peter Gunn Theme" with Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At". Nifty.

***

Having had people over for a turkey dinner on Sunday, I'm getting a little tired of turkey; I may have to freeze the rest. Luckily, the supermarket seems to have run out of cheap turkey, so I don't have to face this ordeal again for a little while. When I invite other groups of friends over, we'll have to have something else.

Turkey sure is tasty, though.

***

Here's an old Questionable Content strip about a bunch of anthropomorphic computers playing a role-playing game, "Trolls and Flame Wars", which I'm pretty much linking to for the last line. Possibly not funny to the non-gamers in the audience.

And while I'm pointing to geeky stuff, here's Cooking For Engineers (which I looked at for turkey-cooking info, though I used very little of it), and Charles Stross' latest novel, online; which is pretty neat, since I've liked his previous work.

Posted by svend at March 8, 2006 7:05 PM