The Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King, has done almost one half of a *billion* dollars business in a little over a week!! I've only seen it twice, maybe I should go once more while I'm on bacation this week.
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Sent to me this morning by one of my co-workers. This is actually pretty funny.
What NOT to do at Return of the King (or other LOTR movies):
1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait... where the hell is Harry Potter?"
2. Block the entrance to the theater while screaming: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" - After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."
3. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time someone says: "The Ring."
4. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.
5. Ask everyone around you if they think Gandalf went to Hogwarts.
6. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mr. Anderson."
7. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"
8. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off someone's finger and fall down the stairs.
9. Dress up as old ladies and reenact "The Batt...
We just got back from the Sony Online Entertainment Christmas party. It was a fantastic weekend. I will try to post a complete review of the event later, but for now I just wanted to publish a link to the photo gallery . It was just great to spend some time with old friends, like Jeff Dobson and Ben Hanson, as well as to make new ones, like Alan and Karen Pickett. I am not going to overwhelm the website with images this time. Just click on the gallery link and you can review the festivities there. Of course, I can't resist just a few:
Tomorrow morning, early, my wife and I will be leaving for San Diego. We will be attending the annual Christmas party for Sony Online Entertainment employees. Even though I have already turned in my letter or resignation, I am still going to be allowed to attend the party. And, why not? I put in my time this year. We will be staying at a nice resort hotel through Sunday and I intend to try to enjoy it. At the party on Saturday night I will have the opportunity to say my goodbyes to all of my co-workers and to the executives who made all of the decisions that changed my life over these last four years.
In a recent post I mentioned that we are not having our annual big blow-out Christmas party and gift exchange. However, my wife just mentioned that we do not currently have anything scheduled for Saturday December 20th . So, while we are not throwing our big Christmas bash, we may have a more relaxed evening and movie showing that night. Let me know if you are interested.
Last night I finally got the wireless adapter to work on my Pocket PC. All it needed was a new driver for the 2003 edition of the Windows CE operating system. Wireless on a PDA is simply awesome!!
I can check my email from wherever I am at. I can also google and check news and even check up on weblogs. Of course, very few websites are PDA friendly, but I imagine that will change. I decided that I would go ahead and make a PDA friendly version of my movie list and, at the same time, revise my weblog with a new template. So, along the sidebar, you can now see a fully detailed description of all of my feature films. This is complete with synposis, running time, etc.
That's all for today.
Today's blog post will be a small photo-journal of my Saturday night. Before I get to that, I guess I have to apologize for spamming everybody in my contact list with email. There is this new service called Plaxo that is moderately useful. It is a web based repository for contact information. If anyone in your contact list is also a member of Plaxo, then all of their contact information is always up to date on your system. It seems mildly useful, and I went ahead and joined. However, it acts like a chain letter since it has to offer everyone on your contact list the 'opportunity' to sign up for their free service. Well, no harm no foul, and considering the amount of spam people normally get on a day to day basis, I doubt my one extra email will have broke the dam. The first photo in the photo journal is of our foul cat, lounging in a repulsive fashion on our foyer furniture. I did not take this picture, I found it in the camera when I transferred my own. Nevertheless, here...
I hope Steve doesn't mind, but I couldn't think of a better blog posting today than this email I just received. An old friend and co-worker from almost 20 years ago stumbled across my weblog today and, after reading my postings, felt as if he had caught up after all of that time.
It's a great email and I really appreciate the effort Steve went to recall those old times when we used to work together and how his life has evolved over almost two decades. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, Weblogs are a great way to keep up with your extended family!
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From: "Steve Smith"
To: jratcliff@infiniplex.net
Date: 05 Dec 2003, 03:01:33 PM
Subject: Old Friend
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We lost contact about 10 years now but somehow I stumbled onto your blog and it
seems like I haven't missed a minute of ...
You know something is weird when I stay up programming till after midnight for 'fun'. Yes, you heard it correctly. For fun. I am writing a VRML97 parser I am going to call TinyVRML that uses an embedded syntax generation system so I can implement an entire VRML parser in just a few hundred lines of code.
The typical VRML parser involves actually creating classes for every single one of the nodes and all of their fields. That makes sense, of course, but since one of the features of VRML is the ability to extend the language within the language, heck, why not just define the entire language that way. So, it parses a response file that defines all of the nodes, their syntax, and contents, and then you need a very small amount of code to actually parse the entire file.
This only refers to parsing the file in and saving it back out, it says nothing of actually interpreting the data in a meaningful way. That *is* a huge project and takes way too much code. However, tha...
I received my copy of "Beetlejuice" and it completely re-affirmed my faith in 16mm film collecting. After dealing with bad films, getting ripped off, with scratched, faded, and worn prints, you get really burned out on this hobby. It takes a mint condition LPP print to just completely reinvigorate you.
My copy of "Beetlejuice" is perfect, and I would not want to watch in on DVD under any circumstances. The film is just beautiful to look at, it's sumptuous and silky smooth. I can't wait to show this one at Halloween next year.
And, even though I said I wasn't going to buy any more features, an opportunity has just come up that I can't turn down. A film I wanted to buy previously has become available again because the sale fell through. It's a mint condition LPP print of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". I can think of no better summer movie than that!
Now, if I can just lay my hands on a copy of "The Night of...
Well, I don't normally talk about work on this Blog but every now and then I can make an exception. Today I turned in my letter of resignation to my current employer, giving them five weeks notice. Of course, a lot of that time is during Christmas break, so I made a committment to work even through Christmas time off to complete outstanding tasks I have been assigned to.
The reason I have decided to leave the company is because they are closing down the office here in St. Louis. They are moving the team to San Diego, where it is beautiful and warm and only occasionally on fire. We did discuss options where I might be able to continue to work for the company, with a combination of telecomuting and frequent trips to California, but we were unable to come to any specific terms of how that would work out. It was still a very generous offer though.
I have been with this company for four years, a very long time to stay with one game company. When I started, it was a relativel...
I just added a new feature to my growing 16mm film collection. I scored a magnificant LPP copy of " Beetlejuice " for only $300! Surprisingly, for a film pretty much universally considered an all-time classic it has a tomatometer rating of only 86%. Now I am set for Halloween next year, with Beetlejuice to show outdoors for trick-or-treaters and Rocky Horror to show inside the house afterwards. We had a movie showing in our new home theatre on Saturday night. We showed "The Last Starfighter", a mint condition LPP print. About 8 people showed up and it was a great showing. We continue to rework our home theatre till the setup is near perfect. Terry put up flashing marquee lights with a large banner announcing the film we were showing. We had lots of very comfortable seating, and the screen fills the entire end of the rom. I got all of my movie posters put up and it all looks great. I intend to take a few pictures and post them up here sometime soon. With the purchase...
Today is the one year anniversay of this Blog. I began this Blog a year ago in memory of Suz Dodd . Suz was a dear friend of mine, and a beautiful person. Even after I stopped working with her I was always able to keep in touch by reading her Blog. Even when I went for months without a phone call or conversation I still felt connected to Suz by reading her thoughts in her journals. Suz was missed then and still in my heart today. I began this blog in her memory. In the last year of writing this blog I have found that I stay in much closer touch with many of my friends scattered around the country who drop by from time to time and read my journal. This journal has been personally rewarding because it acts as a great helper for my weak and flawed memory. Over the last few months I began to make it more of a photo journal because I enjoy having pictures to accompany the words when I try to remember the times of my life. Over this last year I have had movie showings and great times with my...
I have decided to have a movie showing this Saturday night. We are most likely going to be showing " The Last Starfighter ", a near mint condition LPP print. The party starts at 5pm so we have plenty of time to socialize before the film begins. I will be ordering Pizza or something else so you don't have to worry about dinner. It is BYOB though, and drinking is encouraged. If you plan to come please email me so I know how much food to order.
I invested in a new film last night. I just purchased my very own copy of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Now I have the perfect answer to anyone who dares suggest, "you know... I've never seen that movie." Different people have varying opinions about the film, but after having recently watched it at The Fabulous Fox during their film festival I was reminded just how great a musical it is. I am proud to add this to my growing collection of features, now up to 15 films.
Well, I'm back from the MEIC conference and, while it's fresh in my mind, I thought I would post a review. I came back a day early so I could enjoy my Sunday before I went back to work and to spend some time with all of my kids. I took my son Alex to the conference to offer him a unique life experience. MEIC stands for the Midwest Entertainment Industry Conference. It is in it's fourth year, and this year incorporated film, comic books, and video games in addition to the original music festival it stood for. The conference is the brainchild of Stephen Zimmer, a remarkably mellow and laid back fellow. The conference was a huge success and an abject failure at the same time. Give Stephen credit for assembling such an incredible collection of talent for a conference in Lexington, Kentucky. There must have been fifty bands, film makers, and industry leaders from the field of comics and video games. I definitely felt the conference had value personally, if for no other reason to...
I had a decent weekend. On Saturday morning I gave some technical advice to people who are way smarter than me. It's kind of ironical when you think about it. On Saturday evening we took three boys to City Museum . If you haven't been to City Museum yet, what, are you nuts? You don't need kids to go and enjoy it, though that doesn't hurt either. On Saturday evening they stay open till 1am.
They had an amazing musician playing hypnotic techno music to acoustic guitar accompaniment in Beatnik Bob's bar. Next door, in the theatre, they had book readings and were showing movies and cartoons. Unfortunately the movies were all on DVD, it would have been so much cooler on 16mm. I find it interesting that we in the film community get all paranoid about public showings of films, but City Museum will just pop any old DVD into their machine and show it as a 'bootleg movie'. You gotta love it.
On Sunday morning Alex and I went on a nature hike in Bable...
We had a great Halloween evening. We really didn't have that many individual trick-or-treaters, but roving bands of kids would come by every 30 minutes or so. We set up the movie screen in front of the house and showed "The Wizard of Oz". It was very well received by all. On several occasions I had huge groups of kids spontaneously break out into song when they recognized a tune. Once, two little girls came by and just sat down in the grass and started watching the movie. Their exasperated father told them it was time to go, and the little girl curtly responded, "Daddy, we're watching a movie!" After the trick-or-treating was over, we showed my brand new scope print of "Ghostbusters" in our newly remodelled basement-home-theatre. We finally got most of my movie posters up on the walls, and it looks fantastic down there. This morning I purchased a 1997 BMW 328i convertible, red, with stick shift, and only 55,000 miles for the low-low price of only $...
I have been tracking my weight loss progress, weighing myself daily, since I started my diet on August 20th, 70 days ago. I have lost 25 pounds so far, but want to lose another 31 pounds to reach my goal. Like many, I lost a lot of weight in the first two weeks, then weight loss slowed. I began to have stalls, but then the weight loss would pick up. In recent weeks I have started to have problems cheating on the weekends. I am going to have to build up some will power and stick more rigidly to the diet to continue the weight loss. The main reason for 'cheating' is that my clothes are falling off of me, and I am so pleased to have lost 25 pounds. I look better and feel better, and I am not gaining weight. I have a personal motivation issue to start getting hard core for the next push to continue the weight loss progression. I have adjusted my expecations and realize this is a long haul. If I lose no more than an average of one pound a week, I will still be completely satsified. ...
The Atkins Diet Poster Girl: Most commonly sighted on the Atkins Diet Bulletin Board Brook is the walking talking inspiration to thousands in support of the Atkins way of eating. And, she's even wearing Cardinal red. My diet is going well. The pace has slowed down, but I stay on a downward trend. The fact that I'm down over 25 pounds, and I am wearing much slimmer clothes, look and feel better, is plenty of reward to give me patience for a long trek towards my ultimate goal of 180. And, Brooke continues to remain an inspiration to all us "Atkineers'.
Car crash update. I was unable to get a tow truck out yesterday, so this morning I thought to myself...hmmm..I wonder if the car even drives? So, I went to the crash site and tried to start the car. It started up but died. Then I popped the hood and saw the air flow hose was disconnected and I put it back togther. This time it started and ran normally. So, I started giving it some gas and after scraping around a telephone pole I got it out of the ditch.
Since the car hit the telephone pole broadside, on the passenger side, it is mechanically sound. Meaning nothing happened to the engine or the drive train. The frame is bent, but all of the wheels are clear. Basically the whole passenger side door is now shaped exactly like a telephone pole. I drove it home, and it drove fine. There is so much body damage, the entire passenger side pretty much destroyed, that it would cost far more than the value of the car to fix. However, it does run fine and would be a great parts ...
Wow.....my Alfa Romeo is dead. I just wrapped it around a telephone pole. I walked away with just some bruises on my right hand. I was out for a country drive at lunch, now with leaves all in their glorious fall colors, and coming out of a curve it started to fishtail. I hadn't done anything remarkable to start it fishtailing, and I almost got it recovered, but it just refused and went into a ditch, slamming into a telephone pole at about 30 miles per hour.
I survived, the car did not. At least it can't cost me money any more, and I can't undo what has just happened, so life goes on. It's just a car.
I am terribly fortunate I was not killed in the accident. Had I not hit the telephone pole the car probably would have flipped, and with the convertible top down...well..let's not think about that.
Well, I got a shipment of films from Naushad. It did not include the films I paid for. This package contained 13 feature films that Naushad wanted me to sell for him. Turns out, of course, the films are in terrible condition. They have sat in storage for about 20 years, and at the time they were put there they suffered from extensive wear. Most of the splices are old and ready to break. The film is brittle and needs to be cleaned. When I clean a section of film, my rag is covered with black filth.
Surprisingly, the films generally do not have any fade. They generally have excellent color, good contrast and sound. However, they are scratched up to all hell,and are not worth much money. I imagine after selling them all I will make enough money to cover the original shipping cost from South Africa and not much more.
Naushad is sending two more batches, one of which is supposed to contain the prints I paid for. I suspect there will be a few hidden gems in these piles of tra...
I have a 150 pounds of 16mm film showing up tomorrow from South Africa. I am going to the airport in the morning, will fill out the customs forms, and hopefully will be home with the film early in the day. I have decided to take a day off of work so I can get a head start reviewing my haul.
I sure hope I'm not setting myself up for dissapointment. I'm imagining stacks of cartoons and TV series episodes. All easy to sell for a healthy profit. I could, of course, end up with damaged goods, faded colors, and bunch of educational reels nobody wants.
It's going to be an exciting day, it's like Christmas in October.
My copy of "The Last Starfighter" showed up yesterday and it was one of those rare occasions where the film is in much better condition than I expected. It appears to be in near-mint condition, perfect LPP color and virtually no wear at all. What a great, great, film to show to family and friends.
I'll update when I find out how g...
I just added a new feature film to my collection yesterday. I won a copy of "A Raisin in the Sun" from my friend Steven Sigel for only $70. Even though my wish list is composed mostly of animation, comedies, and science fiction, I still like to add classics to my stable as well. I have just started collecting the closing prices of features in my 'must have' list. This allows me to track availability, current owner, and the price the film sold for so I can budget accordingly. For example, here are some films that recently closed that I would like to own some day. "Time Bandits" : closed at $180. Actually this was a big mistake, I meant to win this auction but didn't get my bid placed in time. "Ghostbusters" - $590 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - $1,025 "Star Wars" - $2,025 "The Empire Strikes Back" - $1,634 As you can see, this ain't a cheap hobby. Halloween is coming up and my wife had a neat idea. She suggested w...
For some time now I have been keeping a list of the movies I would love to own someday. In general I tried to keep modern movies off of this list, since they are rarely if ever available. A few modern films have crept into the list, simply as an indication of how much I love that particular film. I believe this list is fairly complete. As you will note it is heavy on comedies and science fiction. This is a reflection of my personal taste in films and the kind of films I like to show. If you feel there are any absolutely gross errors of omission, please let me know. The top of the image shows the films in my current collection. There is a blank area leaving room for new acquisitions. This list represents my 'bidding list'. I do not intend to bid on any films that are not on this list. Likewise, if any of these films ever come up for auction, I will pursue them if it is within my means to do so. Here is the list, in a pictorial format:
My copy of "The Wizard of Oz" showed up today. I will review it as soon as I get home from work. Update later!
Ok, here is the update. The print has slightly faded color, moderate to heavy wear, somewhat poor contrast, and poor density. Other than that, it's great. I paid way too much for it, and I'm generally dissappointed. Of course, it's my own fault for getting too emotional about it in the first place. I should have shown more patience all along. I contacted the seller about returning it, or possibly a discount, but I don't see much hope there. I can show it, but it is an awful lot of money to spend on such a flawed print.
Blech.
Final update on this. I spoke to the seller and we worked out a partial refund. I will still have paid way too much for the print, but at least it's not as severe as when I started. I also have been told that there are some film cleaning products which may help with the base scratches on the print. I wil...
We spent the day working on transforming the basement into a home movie theatre. We still have a long way to go, but it's a promising start. I sold my Foosball table for $465. The auction closed at $495, but I offered a $30 discount if they would come pick it up today. It was a lovely (very lovely) young girl buying the table for her boyfriend. Wow, what a lucky guy! She did not get the additional $20 discount for beating me at a game. I suppose that was an answer to a rhetorical question.
My back is simply killing me from moving so much furniture this weekend. I hope it feels better, I would hate to have it get as bad as it was a year ago when I had to have physical therapy.
Also, today, we had a professional installer come out and get our high definition system set up properly. I now get all of the satellite high-def channels and most of the local channels too. I watched the Rams game in high-def, and I'm getting so spoiled I can't stand to watch any norm...
Well, I lost another $200 in my 401k yesterday. A hundred, two hundred dollars a day, big deal, who's counting.. I know, technically, I haven't 'lost' anything unless I transfer the funds, but the bottom line is, you contribute a $1,000 on a Friday, and a week later $400 of it is off your balance sheet, well it gets damned frustrating. Oh well, I will try to show more patience, but I have little faith.
Speaking of losing, I keep losing weight. I'm down to 213, which is just 4 pounds away from being statistically 'overweight'. Currently, according to the BMI calculation I am still statistically 'obese'. What an ugly word.
None of my clothes fit me right now, they are all falling off. However, I am not even half way to my goal of 180 pounds. I still have 33 more pounds to go, so what do you do? I guess I have to go out and buy some 'losing weight' clothes. Today I found one pair of shorts that didn't get throw out that are 4...
Can someone please explain retirement investing to me? Because my reality is not anything like I was ever told. First, I was told you sock money away in a fund, managed by really smart people with a big name company, and forget it is there. Then, after a few years, when you look at the results you will be shocked and amazed at how much your money has grown.
Well, I have been shocked and amazed all right. I have been at my current job for almost 4 years. This is the first time in my life I have worked for a big company with lots of benefits, including 401k. I have invested the maximum allowable since I was hired. And, since I was hired, today, I would have thousands of dollars more for retirement had I stuck it in a shoebox under my bed.
When the stock market crashed a year or so ago, I lost thousands, and I was continuing to hemorage. My friends I spoke to all had an attitude of "well, I made money for years, so even with all of my recent losses, over time, I'm s...
I am proud to announce the biggest addition to my movie collection of all time. In baseball there is the rookie Mickey Mantle card, in stamp collecting...well there's that one stamp, and in coin collecting there is that..I don't know..one old coin everybody wants.. but, in movie collecting, there is one movie that virtually every collector strives to add to their stable of features and that one movie is "The Wizard of Oz" !!! Yesterday I purchased a copy of "The Wizard of Oz" directly from a seller I have dealt with in the past. I made a fair offer for the print, and at least I didn't have to get involved in a bidding war. There has been only one copy of "The Wizard of Oz" offered for sale in the last 16 months, and that was by Thornhill and it was an IB Tech print. It sold for $5,200. My print is not nearly so good, it is LPP with perfect color, however there is wear and some green emulsion lines on the second reel. An IB Tech print is the mos...