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...
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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...
I'm having a fire sale. I'm selling two 16mm films, my sons Euphonium and my Foosball table all on Ebay. Here is a link to the auctions.
I'm selling the foosball table to start clearing out room in the basement. We have a small basement because we have a lower-level garage. The foosball table just takes up too much room and it hardly ever gets used. After we clear out the basement I want to set up a movie screen down there so I can have in-home showings. I also want to have room for a weight bench.
Well, I had my last outdoor movie showing of the year this evening. I showed my brand new mint condition copy of the classic comedy "Mr. Mom" with Michael Keaton and Terri Garr. I even went so far as to do a showing on the boat. We had one other boat tie up next to us, and in the middle of the second reel, another pontoon boat tied up on the other side. Before the feature, we screened the cartoon short "Bugs Bunny Rides Again" and the classic comedy routine of Abbot and Costello "Who's on first". I have been trying, and trying, to take some photographs that can somehow convey just how awesome it looks to watch a movie projected on an 11ft screen out in the middle of the lake at night. This evening, I messed with the digital camera, and finally found an exposure setting that let me take some pictures that look pretty good. Of course, they are rather blurry since I had to turn off the flash and increase the exposure, but the color and and backgrounds rea...
So, how did you celebrate 'talk like a pirate' day? Terry and I went to some garage sales this morning. There must be 40 garage sales in the neighborhood today. I didn't buy too much, just a small surround sound speaker system and a little digital radio. I also got some toys for the kids.
My weight loss is finally fairly noticable. I have gone from a size 42 pair of pants fitting snugly to a size 40 fitting comfortablly. I'm still a long way from my ultimate goal of 180, but at least I'm seeing some real progress. In six more pounds I will go from being statistially 'obese' to only 'overweight'.
Here is my first official before - after picture. The before picture was taken around July 4, at a BBQ, and the after picture taken this morning.
I just scored a copy of "The Secret of NIMH" for $125, shipping included. It has excellent, if not perfect color, but a fair amount of wear and some come and go lines. For that price, and for how much I love this movie, I think I will still be happy with it. Here is a link to the Secret of NIMH webring. By the way, you will see I revised my website poll in the sidebar on the right. It now contains my current feature list.
I'm trying to be very scientific about my weight loss plan. This morning the 'whoosh fairy' arrived and I dropped 3 pounds overnight after having been stalled for 3 days. That seems to be a typical profile from what I have heard. You diet like a bear but the scale doesn't move for 3 or 4 days in a row. Then you wake up one morning and drop two to three pounds overnight and, typically, it stays off. I'm now down 21 pounds and so long as I keep losing 2 to 3 pounds per week my motivation is secured. You may have noticed I added a little snapshot icon on my blog page, just like Dave Metzener does on his. Of course, that is an old picture, from about 12 years ago, the last time I weighed 180 pounds. Now, due to age, I might not look the same when I get down to 180 this time. However, I think, other than a few wrinkles in the corner of my eyes, I will. I have made some fine 16mm purchaes in the last week or so. I'm pleased that I picked up four new features. I plan ...
The weekend is over. I worked all day on Saturday and on Sunday spent time with my son Alex. On Saturday morning I tried to finish up some things at the office and in the afternoon I met with some guys I have been helping out with business advice. It's essentially free business advice with the exception that they usually buy me a meal. The thing is, now that I'm on a diet, that doesn't really seem worth that much anymore.
There was a sig I saw on a forum that I kind of liked. "Being thin feels better than anything tastes." I agree with that sentiment, but it's still a challenge. I have been faithful on the diet, though my rate of weight loss has slowed. I promised myself I would not have unrealistic expectations and today revised my projected weight loss from 3 1/2 pounds per week down to 2 1/3. Basically, from a pound every 2 days down to a pound every 3 days. I think that is an achievable goal, and that would still get me at my target by Januar...
Score!!! I just won the complete Bankin/Rass edition of "The Hobbit" on 16mm! Three 1200 foot reels!! I couldn't believe all of these bozo's bidding on the auction for a week, propping it up $2 bids a time, even down to the last few minutes. I am absolutely certain that the idiot who lost the auction to me by my $2 over-bid in the last 4 seconds is steaming. Well, live and learn, he should have bought his own copy of 'Auction Sentry'.
I can't wait to get the film. Now if I can just score "The Secret of NIMH" I will be totally set.
Update: Crap, " The Secret of NIMH " auction was cancelled by Ebay, and the seller already sold it to someone else. He told me this morning he might get another copy of it, and would let me make an offer on it.
Nothing official yet, but I think I might have a formal showing of "The Hobbit" the weekend before "The Lord of the Rings" comes out. I don't know about y...
I have been searching the web for commentary on the new Dune books and have found very little. It is for this reason I have decided that if I want to find some commentary, maybe I need to write my own.
First of all, I am a huge science fiction fan. I prefer Science Fiction over Fantasy, but I enjoy both. I have read "The Lord of the Rings" something like 18 times; though by now I have lost count. I've even read the Donaldson series about 3 times. I am not capable of picking up just any fantasy book with a magician, a sword, or a ring and reading it. However, if it presents a new twist on the genre, then I can certainly find it enjoyable. I really like the Zelazny Amber series, even though they peter out over time. The Guns of Avalon is simply awesome and is the highlight of that series in my opinion.
On the Science Fiction front, I have read a lot of stuff, but the problem I typically find is that it's either bad character development or bad science. ...
Wow, I'm getting really excited. Naushad told me that today some of my films are actually being sent from Tampa to St. Louis! This is great timing because there are a bunch of incredible films up for auction right now on Ebay that I would really like to own. Including "The Hobbit", "Airplane!", "The Secret of NIMH", "On Golden Pond", "The Graduate", and "Gone with the Wind"!!! A couple of new sellers are auctioning off huge collections! These shoudln't really be competition because the titles I am getting from Naushad are in a different genre.
Of all of these, if I could own "The Secret of NIMH" I would just die!
Hmmm..the good news, high-definition TV on the highest end and largest model made is awesome. The bad news, a non-high-def input on such a TV looks like ass; and getting a high-def signal into your TV is a real pain in the butt. There are two ways to get a high-def signal into your TV, one is using off air signals from local TV stations and the other is using a HD digital satellite receiver. Well, even though I bought a huge powered off air antenna, I cannot get a signal from where I live about 40 miles outside of St. Louis. It's very frustrating. Secondly, my high-def satellite receiver requires a special dish with three prongs that must point to three seperate satellites simultaneously. Well, I can get two of the three satellites but after days of messing with it I still can't get all three at once. So, now, I can only receive about 3 high-def channels, when I am paying for about 10. I guess I'm going to have to pay a professional installer to get this thing set up, becau...
Today was a pretty sad day for our household. We had to put our beloved pet Clinton to sleep. He was 11 years old; an overly large and very loving golden retriever. We got Clinton just a few months before Alex was born. For months now Clinton's health has been deteriorating, and in recent weeks he could no longer go up and down stairs. This morning he couldn't get up and when I came home for lunch he hadn't moved. When I coaxed him up to go out the front door to the bathroom he collapsed. Eventually he did get outside, but was obviously in a lot of pain. It was an extremely difficult decision to make. When I came home to take him to the vet he was up and about, and wagging his tail. It was very hard to do.
Well, I got my high definition receiver installed and set up last night. High definition is simply mind-blowing. After you watch even 30 minutes of high-def television going back to normal broadscast signals makes you want to puke. I can't even begin to stress how big a difference high-def is from normal broadcast signals. Even a nice clean pure digital signal from the HD receiver, but on a non-high-def channel, looks fuzzy and blurry by comparison.
My next major task is to figure out how to run an RF wire from an attic off-air antenna to the living room so I can get off-air local high-def broacasts. Most important coming up is the Rams game. DirectTV currently offers very few channels in High-Definition. One channel of HBO, two channels of pay-per-view movies, one 24 hour movie channel, ESPN, and the Discovery channel. I am hoping, especially for $11 a month, that they start adding a lot more high-definition content soon. I can't stomach this blurry crap for long.
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Well, my HDTV is coming today. Last night I went out to "Ultimate Electronics" and purchased an HDTV DirectTV receiver and dish. The manager of the store was simply amazing. He spent two hours with me explaining all of the issues involved in getting the system hooked up. There is a lot more to it than I realized. One of the most important things I learned is that you cannot do picture-in-a-picture where one input is HDTV and another input is not. I also learned that even way out where I live you can get an HDTV signal from an off air antenna in your attic. Since the HDTV signal is digital this is simply awesome. You either *do* get a 100% perfect digital signal or you do not. Nothing in between. On a scale of 0-100 the manager was getting a signal strength of 85%, and he lives further away from the city than I do!
The hook-up for this is going to be extremely complicated. My old Tivo and satellite reciever are now going to act as a slave; doing nothing but recor...
Well, I finally got around to updating my resume. It's really more of a curriculum vitae , since it lists all of my publications and products in addition to job history. I found it by getting my old dead notebook computer to be resurrected from the dead. I also found a bunch of other stuff too, including a bunch of old photographs, and source code I wanted.