by Matt | Feb 2, 2002 | Imported Entry
Well, the Count of Monte Cristo was pretty good. I saw it in an older theater so my butt was falling asleep most of the time, but otherwise it was pretty good. Not that my butt numbness should be blammed on a movie… unless of course it’s Lord of the Rings. Anyway, CoMC wasn’t half bad. Guy Pearce did a good job of playing both sides of the main character (strung-out prisoner and a noble count). I haven’t read the book so I’m afraid I can’t compair the film in any literary aspects. What I can say however is that the screenplay is very well paced and follows the Shakespearian “act” system and divides up the story nicely. There are distinctive “acts” and the transitions between them are done fairly well.
Example:
1. Normal guy enjoys life
2. Normal guy goes to jail, becomes crazy guy
3. Crazy guy gets out of jail
4. Crazy guy gets rich, plots revenge and becomes Count
5. Count’s plans for revenge revealed
Something like that. There’s a distinctive timeline in the story and they do a good job of making sure we can follow along. Another well done aspect of the film was the action. It wasn’t overdone and constant. Not that constant action is bad all the time, it worked for things like Mask of Zorro, but if this was shot in a similar way it would have ruined the story. Anyway, its not half bad. It’s a bit cheesy at times, there’s an occasional “modernization” of dialog, but it’s not “bad”. There’s action, drama, love, comdy, a bit with a dog, everything a movie needs. Ok, I made that part about the dog up, but still.
The Count of Monte Cristo – 7/10
Later.
by Matt | Feb 1, 2002 | Imported Entry
Slight change of plans, but in a good way. Now, instead of a night “in” we’re gonna go see Count of Monte Cristo with one of Lauren’s roommates and a guy she kinda/sorta likes. One of those “support your friend” double date kinda things. So, dinner and a movie. My kind of night. Especially when the dinner is Italian and the movie is Action. Which reminds me, I should go to the ATM before I pick up dinner. Later.
by Matt | Feb 1, 2002 | Imported Entry
Well, I got a basic plan laid out for the next 24 hours or so. This afternoon, Lauren is going to work on projects and I’m going to play Day of Defeat (if the lag ever clears up). Tonight, I’m going to pick up dinner from our favorite Italian place, Bella’s. Then its an evening of R&R for the both of us. Tomorrow morning we’re planning on going to the Hilton Head outlet stores so I can look for a pair of pants. That’s about it.
I think I’ll also ask my parents for $500 so I can upgrade this piece’o’crap computer. Something tells me that very soon a AMD-K6 III 450 ain’t gonna cut it. I’d like to only spend the $500 but a little over is ok with me. Jason has some PC2100 RAM I can buy off him for next to nothing (Thanks Jay!) and so I’m only planning on getting the power supply, Mobo and CPU. Everything else I have is still fine. I’m planning on getting the Gigabyte GA-7VTXE as a motherboard (cause Chip tells me its bad-ass) and an AMD Athlon 1600+ or 1700+. Then probably a 300watt power supply to keep it all running nicely. Throw in a headsink/fan and I’ll be done. I dunno. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?
by Matt | Feb 1, 2002 | Imported Entry
Ok, last thing before I get some sleep. DoD 2 is sweet ass! I didn’t know that DoD (Day of Defeat) was going to be part of this round of Valve Beta tests, but it is. I loved playing DoD on nights when Counter-Strike idiots were getting on my nerves. I liked it well enough, but at the time CS was drawing more of my attention. It also had some technical flaws and “kinks” to be worked out. This is no longer the case. The DoD team has done a fantastic job. It plays like a completely new game. Everything is smoother, the attention to detail is top notch, the new maps are great. Everything is great. Move over CS, I think DoD v2.0 is my new favorite Half-Life modification. And let me just say it takes A LOT to unseat CS. This game delivers. As soon as this puppy is out of Beta, I urge all my CS buddies to give it a try, you’ll love it.
Ok. Sleepy time. Later.
by Matt | Feb 1, 2002 | Imported Entry
I would like to give a big resounding “FUCK YOU” to FilePlanet tonight. A long time ago, in a browser far far away, it was still a cool site. A place where you could download useful game updates and nifty addons. This is no more. Now, unless you shell out $x.xx for a personal account, you have to “wait in line” to download something. Umm… no. If I wanted to wait in line, I would be at the fucking grocery store. So, I choose one of the “unknown” servers without a wait time. I end up trying to download a 101Mb file at 2.5k/sec. WTF?
This brings up some serious issues, and I’ll try not to fly off onto a wild tangent, but some things have been pissing me off lately. Advertising for one. We (as a public) need to step up and say enough is enough. Do you know how many things large corporations have figured out that they can get away with. Lemme ask you a question. Do you remember not paying ATM fees? Do you? Because I sure do. Now, estimate how many people, across the globe, are getting zapped with $2 charges, all day, every day. They obviously didn’t “need” to charge for them 10 years ago. Why now? The convienence of an ATM hasn’t changed. They haven’t added new features they need to pay for. So, why the $2? Because they can. To even further add insult to injury, the local ATMs around here now have started ADVERTISING between screens. ADS!!!! Doesn’t anyone have a problem with this! Why are we sitting here taking this crap?
I heard something even more disturbing the other day. Some shithole of a company wants to install “Smart Carts” in your grocery stores. These carts would be smart enough to know what isle you’re on and respond by advertising the appropriate products on a built in LCD panel. Has the world gone fucking nuts??? If I’m at a grocery store, and my cart starts talking to me, telling me to buy Minute Main instead of Tropicana, I’m libel to smash the little fucker to bits right then and there. NO ONE has the right to interfere with my personal shopping, especially in the juice isle.
I can understand TV/Radio ads. They need the ads (sometimes) to produce a source of income for their station. Their mediums are paid for by advertising. I can even understand internet ads a little. The cost of a sever and a service is a lot. But that doesn’t mean that my downloads pause, an ad pops up for 30 seconds, and then it contiues. No one would put up with that. But, somehow we are. We’ll get to that point. Unless we do something now, every aspect of our personal lives will be influenced by commercialism and marketing schemes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to turn a page in a book and have to wait for an ad to load before I can continue reading.
*deep breath*
Ok, I’ll stop there. Obviously I could have continued on for quite sometime on this one. I just have a real problem with it. But we’ll stop here for the night. So, the moral of the story is “DAMN THE MAN”, buy t-shirts without Nike “swooshes” or A&F logos, and smash the fuck out of any shopping carts that talk to you.
Oh… and my download finally finished too. Damn FilePlanet.
by Matt | Jan 31, 2002 | Imported Entry
Hey. tell me what you guys think of this. It’s a possible new layout. I kinda think it’s so/so myself, but the teacher seems to like it. Originally I was going to make the colors red/black/white, but then I remembered that I don’t like red all that much. So, it changed to blue. I think the “navigation” will more than likely be some java pull down menus or maybe even flash. At the very least they’ll be roll-overs. The images to the left, well, I dunno about that yet. Anyway, just looking for some input. Lemme know what you think.
[LINK]
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