Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Freebie Battle: Amazon vs iTunes

This week, iTunes' free download of the week is from an unknown band (The Ting Tings). Amazon's MP3 Store is offering a free song from Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton this week--click link this week only--come too late and you'll have to pay. iTunes is losing this marketing battle?

Monday, April 28, 2008

Vid of Week 2008-04-28: What Your GPS Thinks

In my search for a GPS, I came across this...

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

GPS Research Tools


I've been in the market for a new GPS for a few weeks now. I bought a new car and didn't like the integrated GPS options. I found several great resources to help me in my research that I thought that I would share. In no particular order:

So based on these resources, I narrowed my selection down to the Garmin Nuvi 660, the TomTom GO 720 and the Dash Express (pictured). More on my decision, how I made it, and the impressions of my new device in future posts.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Vid of Week 2008-04-21 There Will Be Blood Puppet Re-Enactment

In honor of last Week's DVD release of There Will Be Blood. A decidedly un-geekazoid take on the film.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Impressions of The Fountain

I just finished watching The Fountain on a recent cross-country flight. Watching it on a laptop screen was probably sacrilege, given the mind-blowing and groundbreaking visuals that were achieved by using micro-photography in lieu of CGI. However, I had this fim home from Netflix for weeks and hadn't found the opportunity to watch it, so... I was quite impressed by Director Darron Aronofsky's previous works, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, so I was excited to see this film.

The story travels in time but is not about time travel per se. Rather, it follows three parallel couples (played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz) in the past, present, and future. I found that even on the pathetic laptop screen, it did live up to the hype as far as the visuals were concerned, and not just on the 'future' segments that included the micro-photography. The set design, lighting, and cinematography all combined to create vivid moods and a complex cinematic painting. Like in Aronofsky's previous works, the film is not necessarily a coherent narrative, but is rather a exploration of themes of love, death and immortality, and spirituality. I highly recommend the film, but don't go expecting to see a nice neat story wrapped in a bow or satisfying character arcs with a sense of closure. Weisz and Jackman gave good performances, but their characters were more or less just brush strokes on the larger visual canvas of the film. Fans of either actor will not likely rank these performances among their best. I wouldn't call it the fault of the actors themselves, they did what was asked of them expertly, it is just that not much was asked of them (though Jackman did shave his head and chest for the future segments).

The award winning score by Clint Mansell, (performed by the Kronos Quartet and Mogwai was also notable.

In all, I highly recommend the film, especially if you can watch it on a nice TV with a good sound system.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

I'm So Proud


My son said, "I want an iPod" today. So what--a thousand kids ask their parents for iPods. I agree, this would be unremarkable except that he is only two years old. No, I didn't prompt him to say it. He's just a microchip off the old block... No, that's not my kid in the picture.

Monday, April 7, 2008

The Inevitable Has Come to Pass

Save Journeyman!--The news we have been dreading…

Get in line now for your 3G iPhone

I am pretty stoked about this. I just hope that it is not a memory upgrade of the same old same old. Strange to be saying same old same old about one of the hottest tech products in the last decade....

Vid of the Week 2008-04-07: Nokia Morph Concept

I checked at Best Buy. They don't have these in yet.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008