Year: 2006
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Taking advantage of the time zone
Happy New Year, approximately one hour early. I spent the last week in Colorado, on Mountain Time, so I’ll use that as my excuse. Not that I’d be staying up to midnight anyway. 😉
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Movie: The Good Shepherd
Our Christmas evening movie this year was The Good Shepherd. This dark look at the CIA and its founding, through the fictional story of the director responsible for planning the Bay of Pigs invasion, is generally strong, and worth the nearly 2.5 hours it asks of the audience. Still, I didn’t enjoy it as much…
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Book: Sick Puppy
2006 is coming to a close, and before I head up to bed (no late evening for me), I must note another fun Carl Hiaasen read: Sick Puppy. Take a trust-fund enviromentalist with anger-management issues… and that’s your hero. I finished this one just before Christmas, and passed it on to other family members. Wasn’t…
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CacheCheck is a nifty present
OK, I’m biased. But I think OpenDNS CacheCheck is remarkable. Very simple, sure: you can see what address OpenDNS has for a domain, and ask OpenDNS to refresh that address if it’s not correct. Nothing more. Read what I wrote on the OpenDNS blog for more. But if it’s so simple, how come no one…
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Movie: Gosford Park
Gosford Park won out over football on Sunday night. Metacritic gave this film a 90. User ratings, though, are down at 59. I’m more with the users. There are sparkling characters, but the interactions are uneven. The scenery and setting are fantastic: 1932 England, at a divine country estate. Yet the dialogue was like West…
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Death of a hard drive
On Sunday December 10th, after I had backed up about half of the 250GB internal drive on the iMac, things went wrong. I’m not sure what exactly finally brought the drive to its knees, but some sectors were problematic as far back as January 2006 when I first tried to get serious about backups. (And…
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Christmas Classis, 1 mile and 5K
Been a light training period since racing three weeks ago, so I was tentative going into this morning’s Christmas Classic races, another 1 mile race followed by a 5K a half hour later. Both races are in Golden Gate Park. The mile is blessedly downhill most of the way — just a gentle slope up…
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Movie: Kill Bill, Volume 2
Kill Bill, Volume 2 didn’t match my opinion of Volume 1, but just as well to see them in rapid succession. I did enjoy the “chapter” form of telling the story, and the back-and-forth between the current killing spree and the history between/among the characters which broughts events to these extremes. Yes, it’s all a…
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Movie: Casino Royale
Been looking forward to seeing Casino Royale, and Friday’s viewing did not disappoint. The most stunning scene is the one right after the opening titles. I had noticed the credit for “free running stunts” and wondered why that kind of stunt, especially, earned beginning of the film mention. Then I saw the scene and wondered…
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Why can’t we all just get along? (bicycles and cars edition)
Magnetic Yellow Card is a semi-polite way to make the point that the road is for sharing. Still, despite the non-invasive, non-marking nature of this method of spreading the gospel of good manners, I’m quite sure that attaching these magnets to offending vehicles will not improve relations between drivers and bicyclists. Politeness only dulls the…