Published by
Pyrofenix under
entertainment on
January 18, 2008
That title definately leaves a bit to be desired in my opinion - it doesn’t do this film justice and fails to tell the moviegoer anything about what they are going to see. But that is about where my complaints end on this movie.
When I heard about this movie being set in New York City, I was concerned…was it too soon to destroy the city again? In watching it, there are definately times when I feel uncomfortable. This isn’t just a monster movie, but a 9/11 movie the same way that Gojira (aka Godzilla) dealt with the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
I have a love/hate relationship with movie trailers and was worried that what I had seen in the marketing for Cloverfield would give away too much. Fear not, as the clips from the trailer all seem to take place within the first 10 minutes of the movie.
The first 10 minutes is also about how long it took me to get used to the handheld camcorder feel of Cloverfield. A decision which could have gone wrong but worked out very well bringing you into the action and making you feel closer to the characters.
I really enjoyed every aspect of this movie from the ‘real’ feel to the performances of (as far as I know) unknown actors to the special effects. I won’t spoil any of the plot for you but would be willing to mark it as one of the best ‘monster’ movies ever!
Published by
Pyrofenix under
Family & Friends on
January 16, 2008
For the last few days, the weather people on television have been warning that a winter storm. I’ve heard that before…and they always miss the Atlanta area prefering the mountains to the north instead. So I was a bit surprised when fat snow flakes began to fall around 5 o’clock today.
I was even more surprised when the flakes began to accumulate on my back deck rather than melt away. I spotted my brother playing in the backyard and couldn’t resist the urge to toss a snowball his way followed by the construction of a new family member. I call him Elliot.
Here is Elliot sitting at my parents house wearing my coat and hat.
The downside comes tomorrow morning when I begin a long day on the road doing inspections…285+ miles in a day is a BIT much…
Published by
Pyrofenix under
Main on
January 15, 2008
There was a great disturbance in the force today when thousands of geeks screamed out in joy. I was one of those geeks. But my audible announcement of joy has trailed off a bit.
For those not in the know, today was Sir Jobs keynote speech at Macworld where all the new and glorious instruments Apple Co. will use to suck money from my bank account are released to the world. Today’s biggest announcement was the heavily rumored ultra-portable Apple notebook computer, here-to-for dubbed the ‘Macbook Air’.
As I sat at my desk refreshing 3 different websites who were passing along the information to us unable to hop a jet to Cupertino, reading through the impressive stats. 20 million songs downloaded from iTunes on Christmas day, 4 million iphones in 200 days giving them a 19% market share, 5 million copies of Leopard installed. All very nice, but i’m here to see the new/updated hardware.
First came Time Capsule - It’s a 500Gb/1Tb hard drive with airport 802.11n so that all your household macs can be backed-up in one place using Time Machine. This is the kind of thing that makes Apple a ‘cool company’. They make nice looking hardware that simplifies tasks that can sometimes be ackward or time consuming. Right now, I’ve just got my macbook but have been considering getting a mac-mini. If I do, perhaps I’d consider getting this…though more likely, i’d just get an regular external HD for the mac-mini.
Next we were given iphone/ipod touch updates (software updates - no new hardware here). Yawn. (I don’t own one, and don’t have any plans to get one.
That was followed up with updates to the AppleTV - a neat “but I wouldn’t buy it” device made more tempting for the fact that you can now buy/download music, tv, and movies directly from the unit to play on your HDTV. Speaking of movies, you no longer buy them…you rent them. Eh, don’t really care much as I still like my DVD’s.
Lastly, was what was so hugely rumored to be coming (What happened Steve…usually everyone is pretty tight lipped but this rumor seemed to gain traction early) is the new Ultra-portable macbook ‘Macbook Air’. A 13.3″LED screen, 2gb ram standard, an optional 64gb solid-state HD (at a huge cost over the standard 80gb HD) and it fits in a manila folder. It’s a beautiful looking wedge shaped notebook that is barely 3/4″ thick on the ‘fat’ end and seemingly only as thick as a credit card on the thin side (0.16″ thin). It’s missing an optical drive as so many ultra-portables do but has two options for installing software - use the $99 USB superdrive or use the one in your other networked PC or Mac. That is pretty slick.
I was working out in my head how many ‘indescribable acts’ I would have to do at the local 7-11 to afford this new beauty (it starts at a hefty $1799) but luckily I read all the details first as I found one of the biggest flaws. The battery. Sure it will supposedly last for 5hrs but it’s not a user-replaceable item. WTF Steve, this isn’t an $1800 iPod…make the battery replaceable! So the excitement has warn off but i’m happy that my credit card won’t be getting a workout this evening.
