Reviews

So my friend Matt showed me this today: Squeezebox 3. For those of you not familiar with this device, it is a little wireless (or wired, if one wants to be archaic) receiver that sits on your shelf & plays music from your computer or the internet (via Shoutcast, Live 365, Pandora, etc). The coolest feature (besides it being small, sexy & very easy to use) is that it can listen to those net-radio stations without talking to the computer.

Oh yes. So easy that maybe even my girlfriend can turn it on. All for $299 USD + shipping… So it’s not super cheap, but not that expensive either.

NYT article: Matchmaker Pairs Computer and Stereo

BTW: if you don’t know about Pandora, well it’s just a cool service that streams music according to your preferences. You tell it you like a song and it starts streaming similar music to you. if it plays something you don’t like,. then you tell it no & it then it won’t play that song or songs too similar to it again, you tell it you preferred a song and it plays more songs similar to it.

Now you might think you get bored after a while or that it might repeat. Well, somehow it doesn’t. Instead it pulls from a vast repository of music (my guess is Apple’s iTunes repository, since It allows you to buy the track from iTunes…).

I told it i liked Korn, A Perfect Circle, Madonna, Justin Timberlake (shut up..), and a couple other artists and whalla.. great music.

You can listen to my station by clicking the “My Radio” tab on my header (next to the Gallery, Blog, About, etc tabs).

Oh! That’s another thing, you can have multiple Pandora stations depending on whatever criteria you want, like mood, style, tempo, etc. No limits. Mine is a general what-I-like-to-listen-to station.

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Ok, so for starters I went to see Harry Potter IV last night with a couple friends, Rhonda was too tired to go, as it was after 9pm and she had to get up early. We got there and we were going to see the IMAX showing… Erika & Michelle got their tickets but the automated ticket agent was sold out within the 30 seconds between us, so we had to go in and talk to an agent and they told me that the machines are set to “sold out” when 10% of the tickets are left. She gave me a ticket and we figured even though we were like 30 mins early we would go get in line. OMG, holy Harry potter fan-boys… the line was like 300 people long (no lie), so we turned around and got tickets for the 10:15 show on a normal screen. We got to sit at the beginning of the line and even when we got in it wasn’t too full. Good stuff!

The movie itself was pretty awesome, though Michelle pointed out that it was not true to the book in many places, I wasn’t too surprised, but I guess they actually changed stuff. It was still really good though. Warning: I would not likely take a 10 year old to see it, it is PG13 for a reason. There is torture, murder and mild sexual innuendos, plus a good smackering of violence (my kind of movie). I’ll be going to see it again soon with Rhonda.

I’ve also been playing Dragon Quest 8 (AKA Dragon Warrior 8 ). What a cool game, they put SOO much detail into the characters, monsters, dialog, etc. even the funny little things the monsters and characters do in scenes & battle. My fav monster(s) to date are Mum, Bo, Jum & Boe, which do a silly power-ranger-esque union into a bigger monster called, can you guess it? Mumboe-Jumbo I seriously recommend any serious RPG fan pick it up, is for PS2.

Ok, now for the Fleur naked bit.. yes, i kid you not, a buddy of mine sent me this link: http://wwtdd.com/index.php?type=one&i=325 (Warning: NOT WORK SAFE!). Apparently Clémence Poésy, the french actress who plays Fleur in the movie, was in a french film where she was topless for a scene or two. Before you stab your eyes out for feeling like a dirty old man, she’s like 23… But still… did the producers know this? Do they know the backlash that is about come from the right? Oh well, nice jumblies!

btw: if you do a google image search for her name spelled wrong: “clemence poesey“, you get the actual scene… again.. not work safe. the right spellign would have been “clemence poesy“.

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Ok, so I just wrote my review on “Constantine”… Well, I decided to see what others wrote (I never write a review AFTER reading other reviews).

I just have to ask, “Did any of them ACTUALLY WATCH the movie?” My god! In many of the reviews, the facts were wrong! WRONG! not just misinterpreted, but out right WRONG!.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***
Here are examples: correct me if I’m wrong…

from Reel.com’s Review by Tim Knight:

from Jam! Showbiz’s review by Bruce Kirkland:

Ayway, if you want a GOOD review, Read these:
- by RollingStone.com’s Peter Travers
- by The Onion’s Tasha Robinson
- by FilmCritic.com’s Annette Cardwell

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So a few friends and I went to see Constantine on the weekend. I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting to be “meh” about it, I’m not a big fan of comic-based movies, most are soo disappointing. Of course, I’m also not a big fan of most comics (or “graphic novels” to those who are offended by the word “comic”). Back to the point… I was again surprised by Canoe-head Reeves (Keanu), I thought that The Matrix was the only movie he was suited to do, but he really did a great job, that is, I didn’t hate him in it, in-fact, I really couldn’t see anyone else pull it off, with the exception of Christian Bale, (*drool*, there’s a guy I might actually be convince to turn gay for a day for…). Anyway, the “game-world” that Constantine was based in was pretty interesting, a bit reminiscent of “The Prophesy“, but a bit darker with the “struggle” much more obvious and commonplace. Tilda Swinton was a PERFECT Gabriel, and is always great in everything she plays. Another surprise was Gavin Rossdale, who plays one of th main side-characters, again, I didn’t hate him, but I thought he was probably there for pretty-factor more than anything else.

Overall, the movie was well done, I wasn’t bored for a minute, and the effects were cool, and you kinda got to see Rachel Weiz’s tits! Always a bonus The rest of the cast was well-put-together was well, including Djimon Hounsou (of “Amistad” and “Gladiator” fame), Peter Stormare (plays a lot of little roles in movies, but is quite talented), and the young Shia LeBeouf.

I’m going to see it again.. And I’ll prolly buy it (second-hand).

4/5 meows

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