Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Avatar

Yesterday I went to the movies to see Avatar and boy was it good. The movie was totally awesome amazing. It really felt like that Pandora and it's ecosystem was real. All the weird animals and plants were really something different.

I was so happy that the movie did not explain too much. It just gave you the story and did not resort on explaining every little detail about the technology and why people acted the way they did.

Granted the story is not that revolutionary, but it makes many good points that we as humans should be thinking every once in a while.

The 3-D effects were not that impressive but I think they were a great supplement in creating a great setting for a great movie. I guess that how you should use 3-D effects, as supplement, not as the main attraction.

I must say that I really liked this movie. At one point I was really feeling bad for the na'vi and was a bit teary eyed for a moment. Go and see this extremely beatiful movie.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

What Do You Think About Raditude?

Weezer released its new album a couple of weeks ago. It is called Raditude. It has a really stupid cover and it is their seventh album. At the moment I kinda have mixed feelings about the album. I am not sure if it is totally awesome or the most mediocre album in the world.

The album statrs with one of the most catchy tunes I have heard lately. Somehow "(If you're wondering) I want you to" sounded like the best song ever when I first heard it. The next two songs do not have anything that important to say. The mood in them is quite alright and when you are listening the album they do not catch your attention in any particular way. They are fillers.

The fourth song is "Can't Stop Partying" featuring Little Wayne and it is something we have not heard from Weezer. The song is very trippy, but somehow very cool. The next song is a bit traditional Weezer song with really emo lyrics. The song flows nicely and has nice rising intensity. There just is no reason to start inventing the wheel once again.

Songs from six to ten are not as good as songs from one to five, but they are still quite ok and that is probably the problem since there are four truly brilliant songs in the album. Out of the last five songs I'd like rise up "Let It All Hang Out", it has a killer guitar intro. The album ends with slower song "I Don't Want To Let You Go".

As fan of Weezer I liked "Raditude" quite a bit, but I do not think the album is such an great listening experience to those who have never listened to Weezer. When you listen to the objectively it lacks some coherence. The flow from song to song good be better. Clearly the quality of the material is not that even, but at least the mood in the songs is similar or what I mean they form a unified album.

If you are not a Weezer fan "Raditude" probably does not offer you anything special, but as a fan I would go even as far as saying that this album is way better than their previous album or "Make Believe" ('05).

Songs you should check out:

"(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To"
"Can't Stop Partying" (featuring Lil Wayne)
"Put Me Back Together"
"Let It All Hang Out"

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

New Raditude!

They called me from the record shop. Raditude is here. Will post my opinion after I have listened it for couple of days.

We are living exciting times!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Muse

I bought the new album by Muse the other day and I like it. I've never cared for progressive music are complicated moledies. So as the songs on the new album are much poppier and straight forward than on the previous albums it makes it much more easy to approach the Muse's new album. Some songs even sound like Queen (U.S.E.A.) which is not a bad thing. The album is a very tight package and songs flow quite nicely.

Me like Muse.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Name Your Poison

Because it is Friday I'd like to give a tip on what to drink. Couple of weeks ago I felt like I was about to get ill, my throat was sore and I had no energy. Everyone knows that you can try and stop the early signs of flu by drinking some hot drink with alcohol (rum), so I went and bought a bottle of Rhum Pecoul. After two cups tea with healthy pours of Rhum Pecoul and good night sleep I felt a lot better. So I highly recommend this for anyone who feels that they might have caught a cold.

My recipe for mixing Rhum Pecoul was the following:

- hot water
- tea bag
- sugar
- 5 - 10 cl Rhum Pecoul (according to taste)(don't go over 1 dl, this stuff is really potent stuff, 54%)

Mix this all together and enjoy!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

One more chance for Bloc Party?

I have been quite a big fan of Bloc Party for the past few years. Their album "Weekend in the City" was my sound track for 2007 and I still listen some songs from the album quite frequently.

I noticed the new single "One More Chance" in the beginning of September on YouTube went to iTunes and downloaded it straight away.

The song starts with keyboard riff that could (maybe it is) be from any 90s pop song. Somehow it brings to mind Rick Astley. The rest of the song is pretty much the basic Bloc Party quality. Song is quite catchy and you can hear that it is not made by with no musical talent but still it does not make you listen to it again and again like Flux when it first came out.

Even though I am a big fan of Bloc Party, I must say that I am afraid they might have showed us everything they've got give. The fourth album must be something completely different and awesome for me to give one more chance to Bloc Party.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Bastards

So on Saturday I went to see "Inglorious Bastards". I really liked the movie and do not understand why some people are whining that it is not as brilliant as some other movies by Mr. T. Of course it is not as good as his best work. This movie does not try to be a very meaningful or revolutionary movie. It is just simply a very entertaining adventure movie with really good characters.

My favorite was Colonel Hans Landa, he was the true bastard in this movie. Also I must mention Diane Krüger as Bridget von Hammersmark. She was like reincarnation of movie star from the 1940's and extremely attractive. However I do not think Brad Pitt's performance was all that great or worth mentioning. He did a solid role but there is no reason to call it especially good.

The movie also flipped the role of Jews to the role of the mass murderer. Just proves that mass murder is mass murder irregardless of the party that actually does it. Actually all of the characters were not particularly likeable. Everyone seemed to be bastard of some sort and definitely everyone was killer.

But in some situations turning the other cheek just is not enough.

PS.

Crap. Now I started to search for meaning in this film, which it really does not have. If you really like a good adventure film with ambiance from the 1940's, go see this film.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

New Weezer rocks!

Have you heard the new single by Weezer? It's freaking awesome. Go and listen it here.

This song just makes me feel that it is 2001 again when first heard Hash Pipe. Of course Weezer was not to me in 2001, but somehow I they just went vanished after 1994. I guess for a nine year old anything that does not play on MTV does not exist. Maybe the situation is still the same.

Listening to Weezer (and Clash, and many others) was my coping strategy through High School. Weezers melancholic songs about people that were not on the main stream seamed to comfort me and kept me going.

I really hope the new album is as good as the new single. If I remember correctly the album is out October 27th. What I know for sure that it is called Raditude.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Give me freedom.

If someone would ask me right now to go for trip around the world, I'd go in a heartbeat it. I'm just so sick of it all. All the pressure and sheet load of work I should be doing.

Even though there probably is no absolute freedom, I'd be really happy with being free to choose the shit I have to do everyday. Now I can't even choose. I wish I could just snap my fingers make it all go away or have button in watch that would put time in pause mode so that I could breath for a while.

In the end there is only one way to get out of this big pile of dung. Pick up the pitchfork and shoveling.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Yesterday I went to the movies to check out the new Harry Potter movie. I'm not big Potter fan, I haven't read the books and I've never watched the first film from start to finish. The bits that I've seen of the first film I've always regarded as bit childish and not that exciting (story about bunch of 12-year-old kids, childish?. How can that be. I don't understand).

The Half Blood Prince surprised me positively. It was way more sinister and scarier than I thought. Malfoy was great character, somehow he represented to me the outcasts of the school world. I could not help having impressions of these school shooters while watching Malfoy.

Even tough the movie was scary it also managed to be funny and heartwarming at the same time. Seeing Hermione and Ron squirming around waiting for the other to take the initiative to tell about s/he feels, was quite entertaining. Also the other small side plots were quite alright.

The movie in its entirety was totally perfect. I felt some trouble on the flow of the film. Some how all the events did not tie into each other seamlessly. Anyways the movie was so good that I may go and see the next Potter movie to be out in 2010.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Things to do

For a week or two I have been dreaming about January. I've been having this very vivid impression of me in Vienna, alone of course, on clear and freezing winter day. I am carrying a newspaper and I'm going into a cafe. I see images of frozen trees in parks and the magnificent old buildings that Vienna has abundantly as I walk leisurely on the streets of a capital of bygone empire.

I dream of hot cup of coffee and croissant. I read the news paper. As the day starts to turn to evening I start to walk into my hotel. The sky is red and the cold wind bites into my nose. Somehow I could not feel any happier.

I must go there.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Year One

If you are in a mood for watching a really lowbrow, but funny movie, I really recommend that you go and see Year One starring Jack Black and Michael Cera.

I went today to see the movie and was constantly cracking up. Somehow this movie just hit me in the laugh nerve. I had to hold the laughs back a bit because I noticed that other movie goers did not sem to think that the humor was that fun. Maybe the others did not get all the jokes or then I am bit weird.

Eventhough the humor is really stupid the movie has a great positive vibe. There is also level in the movie that makes fun about religions and human nature. This probably gives the movie some depth and thus making Year One pretty darn fun and quite watcheable movie.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Complaints and grievances epidsode 2056

Yesterday I changed a hard drive for the first time in to a tabletop computer. It is remarkeably easy to change a hard drive, you just pop out some connectors and loosen a few screws, put it all back together again and your done.

booting the computer is also very easy and installing XP on your computer fairly simple. After the xp installation you start to face the problems. One thing I do not understand why does not xp show, as a default, when it is downloading new updates. If you know anything about computers you normally will head straight to Windows Update after you have installed XP. However going to Windows Update will result to a situation where your computer is downloading updates simultaneously from two different channels, since the automatic update tool is doing the same thing at the same time.

This is infuriating because it has, again, resulted in to situation where my freshly installed XP is completely stuck and I do not know how to make the update work so that I would KNOW WAHT IS HAPPENING.

Please Microsoft, add a feature to your next OS that enables users to see in real time what kind of updates OS is downloading.

***EDIT***

I just want to add how I solved the updating problem. The XP version I was trying to update was XP SP1 and the OS was not able to update itself over Windows Update after installation. After several attempts trying to update over internet I did the following. After installation I only registered XP over the net and then pulled the ethernet wire off from computer then I just installed the latest SP3 to the computer. Do NOT try to install SP2 it fucks up the OS too, atleast that is my experience. After installing SP3 I was able to turn on the automatic updates on and update XP over internet.

Case solved.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

First whisper

Somehow you start to hear it whispering around mid July. The first whispers are so low that your barely even notice them. You see it in the colors and around midnight when you should already be sleeping. Birds fly more anxiously, they sing differently than in spring. Then you realise what the silent whisper is trying to say...

It autumn whispering ... I'm coming.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Isaac Asimov and Audiobooks

Today at work I started to listen Isaac Asimovs "The Caves of Steel " on my ipod. Now I've listened about one third of the whole book and I must say that Asimov was genius as observer the human society and making remarks about the current situation and trends that drive this world but he was also a talented writer. Somehow his text flows freely without being shallow. There really is some deep shit in those books. (In this context "shit" is not meant to be understood as literally as shit, but as representation of well thought out observations about humans as a society and individuals). I do not understand how he can explore the relation of artificial vs. natural intelligence, different approaches organising human society and depicting the life of human individuals in such realistic fashion in only one book, and do that in the most wonderful way.

I've all ready read the three Foundation novels and did enjoy them tremendously. Asimov does not seem to ever fail my expectations.

P.S.

Do you think that 10 degrees centigrate is a proper temperature for summer? I don't. It sux.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Summer Memories

Bicycle wheels on rolling on tarmac. Sun is high up there in the sky and air feels warm and thick and feels like it is sticking to your skin. All around you hear birds and your nose is bombarded with sweet smell of summer flowers. It is the best time of the year.

There is just something magical in summer. Particularly the early mornings. Somehow nature just seems to on overdrive after the winter. Also you tend to notice that the world really does not need us humans to survive. We should not be that selfish. We should appriciate this world more.

Go out there and stop for a moment. Try and feel the colors and the beat of nature. It will change you.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Tonight Show with Conan "Coco" O'Brien

Now that Conan's new show has been runnig for couple of weeks and I've seen more than one show I want to share with you what I think about The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

First of all I was really excited about the new show and my expectations were really high. However I knew that the new show would not have as much of the dark humor and dirty jokes as LNWCO that I grew up with. The first couple of shows were clearly not that funny. They were trying to do a more cleaner version of Late Night but it was not working. Sometimes I felt that they were trying to replace the dirty jokes with just being silly and that is what they ended up with, something silly that was not at all funny.

I think that the show has been working a bit better for the last five shows mainly because they have brought back the same kind of comedy as in Late Night. The show will propably loose some of its older viewers but what can you do. Interview with William Shatner was the same kind of over the top humor as in Late Night and it was one the first times since the new show started airing that I have been really laughing.

But still I think there are lot of things they need to improve. The monologue is too long and the stupid pre-filmed jokes they show are not that funny. I also hate the Twitter Tracker bit, its totally brainddead joke. I do not see what part of it should be considered funny. I just hope that the show starts to feel more real. Now it looks like all the jokes are written in advance and have been approved by the network executives.

Anyhow I hope all the best for Conan's show and that they get their act together.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Rotten Apple.

Yesterday I faced a terrible crisis. I dropped my ipod touch on the floor. I picked my ipod from the floor and started to check that nothing got broken. Luckily nothing got seriously damaged however the home button seemed, at first, to be totally shot. I started to pushing the button and tried to fix it with various methods. Nothing worked.

In slight state of panic I started to browse the net for some instructions for how to fix the problem and found lot of people with same problem. So at this point it seemed that Apple can not equip ipod touch with two buttons that would last more than a year in normal use.

After I had rebooted my ipod to its factory settings and the home button still was not working I was pretty sure I would need to part ways with my dear ipod. Then I thought that maybe the button and it its contact surfaces were full of dust and decided to blow some air in and around the button. This meant that I gave my ipod its first "kiss". This was the only way to get enough air pressure to blow out all the dust under the home button. (yes, yes, i could have bought a can of pressurised air)

And hey presto , after blowing the dust out my home button was working normally once again. Well normally is a bit too much, the button still has some problems, but it works most of the time.

Anyway I felt like a genius for the rest of the day. And I did not have to spend 299€ getting a new ipod touch.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Philosophy of actively doing nothing

For the past month i've been in situation where I have not been able to do anything since the communication in place where I work has completely broken down. Therefore I have had to seek ways to spend eight hours a day by actively doing nothing. It is harder than you think. Usually you have read all the news by 9.30 and then you have to resort into playing online games.

You might ask why don't you try and fix things in your working place. The answer is that my status and position in the power hierarchy does not allow me to that. I would just have to step on too big toes.

It just shows when there is no communication(atleast I do not notice it or happens through unofficial channels) between the leaders and subordinates the goals of the organisation get blurred and causes waste of resources in the organisation.

Okay. Enough of me complaining. I'm of to spend another day doing nothing.