Archive December 2010

A few very short movie reviews!

Black Swan: Horrorier than a horror movie.

Little Fockers: When the funniest thing of a comedy movie is, during the end credits, a youtube-style "remix" of a scene that wasn't actually present in the movie, that says something pretty bad about the movie.

The Tourist: Johnny Depp looks a bit chubby and can no longer act (unless he was being directed to act like a chubby Jack Sparrow for a character that should be nothing like that). The ending is the most predictable ending ever, except that I was pretty sure I'd read a review that said it wasn't that ending so I was a bit surprised after all (and disappointed because I was expecting a better twist). Not bad, not memorable. [11:49] [0 comments]

There's some really strange phrasing in the AP version of the "tourist unexpectedly dies kind of in the vicinity of a Disney bus" news story today; phrasing which also made its way into the television news.

Okay, my version there is exaggerating the case, but the real version says "A tourist from Massachusetts was killed when he walked in front of a bus at a Walt Disney World resort." and "stepped in front of a Disney bus ... died at Orlando Regional Medical Center."

The story sounds like he happened to be in front of a bus when an assassin or cholesterol got to him - how can they say the same thing in two distinct paragraphs without mentioning the bus hit him? The man was hit by a bus.

To make up for this bizarrely distractingly over-gentle phrasing, I would like to present this balancing headline "Disney bus murders innocent tourist." [10:17] [2 comments]

Thursday 23 December 2010

A palindrome: "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!"

A Palin-drone: "A man, a black, a scam, Obama!" [10:06] [0 comments]

Tuesday 7 December 2010

If you're in the market for a computer case, and this is mostly really a note to my future self in case I'm ever shopping for such a thing again and search my blog thinking I might have noted it, I quite recommend the inaptly named Rosewill DESTROYER Mid Tower Case. I put a bunch of components in it and it didn't destroy them at all, nor does it show any sign of planning to. It runs cool, is arranged well (power supply at the bottom, instead of being top-heavy? Who'd have thought of such a crazy idea?), is reasonably priced though not the cheapest. Comes with three fans and more screws than you can shake a stick at individually one after the other without your arm getting tired. Hard drives are screwed in through little rubber gaskets, presumably to reduce vibration being passed noisily into the case.

I also got a Rosewill power supply, but for most purposes I wouldn't recommend that since it's a 350W supply, probably no good for most people's desktop computer needs. [15:26] [2 comments]