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