Our good friend Danny is spending the next few months in Texas living on a farm and learning organic farming practices. It’s a big change from his roots in Columbus, OH. The cool part: he’s blogging about it.
Jess and I went to college with Danny. He was in our wedding. He also moved out to California, near where I grew up, befriended my friends there, and then ended up spending Christmas 2007 with me and my family. Whenever Danny comes to visit he brings us something great. Like, freshly roasted coffee or the most amazing ice cream from Jeni’s in Columbus. He’s a good friend.
So. Now he is living a simpler life in Sunset, TX with a family he hadn’t met until four days ago, learning to farm. His blog is just starting out, but let’s give him some readership and support and maybe we’ll learn a few things too.
(500) Days of Summer released to Saint Louis theatres yesterday. We drove out to Landmark Theatres’ Plaza Frontenac cinema in Saint Louis to catch this film. A couple weeks ago Jessica and I heard an interview with the director, Marc Webb, on NPR that built our excitement for this film into near-frenzy. See, we rarely go see films on opening night. This one was different.
The way Webb described their method in making the film, was to try and convey the emotions a young male goes through when falling in love. And they wanted to communicate that through music and song choices. So, right off the bat, the soundtrack is fantastic. It’s up there with a Cameron Crowe soundtrack, I think; especially so when combined with the sort of story this is.
We’re warned at the start that this is not a love story. And it certainly isn’t. Witty to melancholy, hilarity to downright despair, (500) Days of Summer puts the viewer in the middle of the thrilling uncertainty that comes with infatuation. And it does so with such exacting precision that you feel each elated moment and every painful word.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (one of my favourite actors) and Zooey Deschanel were cast very well. Interestingly enough, Deschanel, in my mind, seemed to become less attractive over the course of the movie — an oddity when you consider most guys find her really attractive. I’m not sure if that was done purposefully using visuals, or if it was just my mental and emotional involvement in the characters. The acting from the leads was superb, creating an effortless chemistry that was entirely consuming, while the supporting cast was cohesive enough to create a believable world.
Definitely go see this movie. But be warned, it’s not all happy and feel-good. If your life and sensibilities are at all similar to mine, you’ll connect to this movie on a level that truly affects you. It will bring forgotten memories back to the surface and make you appreciate devotion.
I just pushed stop on my DVR after a half hour of non-stop craziness from two Finnish man-boys racing across Russia experiencing whatever they can lay their eyes and hands on.
Exploring an abandoned city that was the site of nuclear holocaust, being treated with and then eating leeches, jumping off of St. Petersburg rooftops attached to a bungee cord… The sneak peek of Travel Channel’s Madventures was insane. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about a new television show.
It’s not just that they do crazy things. No. The show is shot with so much energy. Tunna, one of the hosts and the show’s director/cinematographer, is brilliant. His shots are amazing. The programme itself is just really gorgeous. The image quality, camera angles, and editing make the show high-energy and a joy to watch.
Past that, the hosts, Riku and Tunna, are infectious. They are exciting, energetic and funny. I can’t wait for this show to start up in full swing this September. Here’s the opening so you can get a taste of what it’s like:
This 1080i music channel is pretty phenomenal. In last two weeks of getting acquainted with our HD programming, I’ve seen footage from countless UK music festivals and Coachella 2006, Oasis in concert, music videos and tonight, All-American Rejects live in concert. All in glorious high definition. I’ve got Weezer live in Japan set to record to the DVR next.
Imagine my surprise to find out Palladia is an MTV channel! An MTV channel that only plays music?? Amazing. They’ve definitely done something right with this channel. It’s fantastic and my favourite.
The day has finally come. My upgrade protection has finally kicked in and I have managed to install Adobe Design Premium and Production Premium CS4 on my work machine (Mac Pro). That means I FINALLY have native AVCHD support in Premiere, making the cumbersome task of importing AVCHD video from my HD camera’s SDHC card through a Windows VM and then copying it OS X for import into a video sequence non-existent. Praise Jesus. Really. Praise Him.
Interesting note on that though. Premiere CS4 does not import that AVCHD video footage the same way it would DV cam footage. And that ends up meaning that after I place the clips in my sequence timeline, I have to render them out to even get them to play. Which is fine. But it would have made more sense to just import them that way at the beginning.
Also, you should uninstall CS3 first, if you’re on a Mac, backing up your custom brushes and whatnot. THEN install CS4. It will not automagically upgrade and then you are left with two versions of every program which is a lot of hard drive space. And if you were thinking of uninstalling CS3 after installing CS4, think again. It won’t work. You’ll break Photoshop (at the very least) and have to reinstall it anyway.
If you’re on a PC, as far as I can tell the upgrade is automatic–though it takes a hell of a lot longer to install than it does on a decently spec’ed Mac. Just warning you. It was about 30 minutes to install Design Premium on my Mac and I’m going on one hour on just the first disc on a hoss of a PC running Windows XP SP3.
Overall, I am so far happy with CS4 – I think the color profiles were updated in Photoshop… and that’s good.
It’s amazing. And totally worth a free download. They also are offering the Mike Dunn & the Kings of New England EP for free at their site. I bought the EP last summer and it’s really really good. Panda will be releasing their full length soon.
Last night we ventured into the Delmar Loop in St Louis to that most historic (hah) of concert venues, The Pageant. Vampire Weekend was billed and we were excited as our plans to see them were twice thwarted over the summer.
Anyway. The show was great. They literally played every one of their own songs that they knew. That included three new ones that I thought were pretty cool. And they were spot-on the entire time.
Vampire Weekend at the Pageant
Apparently this was their first trip to St Louis. That’s good. St Louis, despite it being really diverse and just weird, has a really good concert-going scene. The crowds are usually great, and last night was not the exception. The guys from Vampire Weekend mentioned how much fun it was to play in St Louis and that they’re excited to come back with two albums worth of material next time.
What I was really impressed with (apart from the drum kit and guitars sounding FANTASTIC) was how gracious they were. They don’t come across as rock stars. And maybe it’s because I know a lot of people in bands, but that’s the same vibe they put out: just your friends who happen to have a band. And that’s nice.
Wow. So, Google Chrome was announced yesterday and introduced today. I downloaded it and am running it in Fusion on my Mac Pro at work. And it is SPEEDY. And I like the design. I wish it was a bit less cartoony and a bit more flat. But overall, I’m enjoying the experience. The browser itself really does just get out of the way. And Gears is built in.
I can’t wait till they release the Mac version. It could very well become my browser of choice. So far I’m impressed. We’ll see how this thing goes.
I’ve posted a few snippets to this blog from my high school history teacher’s posts. He’s a really insightful guy when it comes to politics and the big picture. In the light of CNN and just about every other news agency reaching and digging to find fault in John McCain’s pick for a running mate, it’s nice to read something maybe not less biased, but a bit more rational.
Anyone that has been in my class for long knows that I have been touting Sarah Palin for the VP pick of the GOP for a long time. So today, finally, I am actually excited about this election season. (I am on record as officially “tepid” concerning the campaign of John McCain)
So, why, exactly have I supported Sarah Palin for so long you might ask?
…
Sarah Palin has the additional upside of having true outsider credentials. No one will be able to claim that she is either a Beltway Insider (both John McCain and Joe Biden face this charge), or a Machine Politician, a charge that Barack Obama faces in David Freddoso’s recent book.
In any case, I definitely recommend reading it. He makes some points you’re not going to read in the newspaper or see on FOX News (like any of you actually watch that channel) or CNN.
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Hearsay