Dean Christakos« April 2005 | Main | July 2010 »
May 30, 2005
Welcome MIT Alumni Association Visitors
Somehow, I became a featured weblog on the MIT Alumni Association's list of class of 2005 weblogs. The very week in which they selected my weblog as a featured entry was also the week in which I blogged entries made up almost entirely of Star Wars tidbits, and the description of the weblog seems to have reflected that.
So, for those of you who are new visitors here, let me provide you with some links to some of my other favorite entries, which will give you a flavor of some of the other interesting things here:
The opening of the art show of Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh
When I saw Howard Dean during the Democratic convention
My take on New Jersey-themed movies
A Visit to Brooklyn Superhero Supply
Guide to Salutations (this is, strangely, a popular one)
What happens when a Nokia 6600 gets run over by a bus
Create your own South Park character
High school class projects on the fall of Constantinople
Enjoy.
Posted by Dean at 12:04 PM | Comments (1)
May 27, 2005
My brain is slightly more relaxed now
From my youth, I had a hazy memory of having watched an animated science fiction movie that I really liked. It involved a young boy working in mines, a robot who yelled "Son of a Bitch!" at the ship's computer (this was shocking to see in a cartoon to a 10 year old, remember), and the inevitable sword used to fight evil. I liked it so much because it was a blatant rip-off of Star Wars (which, as you can see from my previous entries, has been a major obsession of mine). I had this irritating feeling in the back of my brain over the fact that I could not remember the title of this movie, nor could I remember enough details of it to find out what it was called.
Finally, however, on a weblog discussion of Star Wars, I finally put out a call for anyone who might remember something about this movie (because the discussion had earlier referenced another old-hazy science fiction movie memory of of mine-- Battle Beyond the Stars).
It turns out that someone actually remembered the movie I have been trying to remember for years-- it's Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, and it is due to be released on DVD on June 21st! What fortuitous timing.
I can rest easy now that the mystery of this movie no longer vexes me.
Posted by Dean at 4:15 PM | Comments (1)
May 25, 2005
Why, this is the way to Amarillo
By this time, I'm sure many of you have already heard of or seen the music video of Britain's Royal Dragoon Guards lip-syncing Tony Christie's "Is This the Way to Amarillo?" (or download from a video archive of the spoof)
This is hilarious in and of itself, but it's actually a spoof of a spoof video done by British comedian Peter Kay. Download that video from torrentspy. (Or download the torrent directly)
Honestly, I "get" the spoof done by the British marines. It's pretty amusing. But what on earth inspired the original Peter Kay spoof?
Posted by Dean at 1:53 AM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2005
Great Moments in Failure
A few weeks ago for Easter, I decided I would make some Texas-style chili using an online recipe I had found. It turned out pretty well, and I decided to make a regular habit of trying out new chili recipes. I decided that my next project would be to make some of (I swear I am not making this up) Barry Goldwater's Chili Recipe, which was the senator's entry in a US-Senate Chili-cook-off. Making a few little changes, I subsituted black beans for pinto beans and set off.
The result: failure. An equal amount of beans and meat resulted in a chili recipe dominated by the beans with a resulting disintegration of the meat... which normally creates a nice texture, but in this case comes across as just a thickened bowl of beans, which overwhelm the entire dish. Maybe this is because I used black beans instead of the prescribed pinto beans. Or maybe I should have used fewer black beans, perhaps by halving the amount used.
So, my cooking experiments aren't universally successful. Perhaps I'll make this an ongoing series of attempts at chili-making.
UPDATE: Adding some more water when reheating it for lunch to make the chili more soupy helps some, so it's not a total failure, but there are still too many beans.
Posted by Dean at 9:08 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
I saw it...
... and it was good, actually. It was bad in every way you'd expect-- bad dialog, some wooden acting, and a plot that wasn't as deep as it thought it was-- but Revenge of the Sith was actually good. Now, one might wonder why I'd say this, given that Episodes I & II had similar drawbacks.
A few things make Episode III hold together a lot better than previous installments. First and foremost, Jar-Jar only appears briefly and has no lines. Getting that out of the way, there's the simple fact that Episode III was a story with a reason for being told. The groundwork had been laid, so there was ample setup and expectations had been set. Meanwhile, there was no real reason that Episode I's story needed to be told. Trade Federations? Gungans? 9-year-old pod-racing, robot-building, starship-piloting slaves? All of them conspired to make the audience wonder, "Why am I watching this?" George Lucas ultimately admitted that the plot was thin for Episodes I and II. By contrast, we all knew why we were watching Episode III, and the payoff was worth it. There was a plot that needed to be resolved, so it was more worth watching.
Then there were the better special effects. One thing that Episode I showed to be was how CGI was just no substitute for models. Everything looked, if not completely fake, just a little too smooth and a little too shiny and not that real-looking. This time, however, due, probably, to a combination of improvement in teachnology, critical reception of the first two, and the fact that Episode III's world is a much different one than the world of Episode I, the CGI renderings of the ships look more realistic, more "used," and more like actual physical objects.
Posted by Dean at 2:34 PM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2005
A few more Star Wars tidbits
Here are just a couple more pieces of Star Wars reading material before I head out to the theater. My friend Marleigh pointed me to The Sith Explained from HowStuffWorks.com. Next, we have a contrarian view of the Jedi. It turns out that they're just a bunch of unaccountable elitists in robes that aren't worth trusting!
Posted by Dean at 8:41 PM | Comments (1)
On Childhood Obsessions
As I wrote earlier, the release of Episode III today marks the end of what has been a 20-year-long anticipation of the prequels. Seriously. Many of us who grew up in the 80s had always heard that George Lucas had some big, grand plan that would involve 3 separate trilogies, and the one I was always really interested in was the first trilogy. Starting around 1989-1990, I heard rumors that in 1997, 20 years after the release of the original Star Wars, the Episode I would be released. This, of course, turned out to be slightly wrong, because, in fact, in 1997, Lucasfilm released The Special Edition of the original trilogy, which I saw with my friends in Pittsburgh, PA while I was studying at Carnegie Mellon.
Two years later, in the spring of 1999, Episode I was released, after I had returned to MIT. I specifically went to see the movie Wing Commander simply because it would feature a new trailer for Episode I. In fact, it became almost a nightly ritual for me to watch the Episode I trailer. George Lucas has a talent for making great tailers. Movies, not so much. After buying my tickets a week ahead of time and seeing the movie opening night, it was clear that Episode I was awful. I won't go into my complaints here, except to note how easily the movie lends itself to parody.
Episode II I had lowered expectations for. It was still bad, but better that Episode I. That said, there are plenty of reasons to hate it. As one reviewer points out, particularly with respect to the bar scene in Coruscant, "it’s a ten year-old’s idealisation of the kind of 'adult' place his big sister goes to when she’s dressed up for the evening."
So today is opening night (ok, last night at midnight, technically) for the final installation of the prequel trilogy. An old friend from college e-mailed me today to say that she had "one of those 'what ever happened to...' moments" about me because of the hype surrounding the release. In a sense, much of my youth and young adulthood has been spent watching Star Wars, thinking about Star Wars, and anticipating new Star Wars films. Now that's just about over. Time to obsess over something else.
Posted by Dean at 3:15 PM | Comments (0)
What I have to look forward to
Via Kontraband, we have a sample of what I can look forward to seeing this evening: Star Wars: Episode III: A Lost Hope.
Warned you, we tried. Listen, you did not. Now screwed, we all will be.
Posted by Dean at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 18, 2005
Of Course I Am
By Thursday night, an obsession with Star Wars prequels lasting almost 20 years will finally be relieved (more on that later). Meanwhile:
Posted by Dean at 1:05 AM | TrackBack
May 12, 2005
Teachers with a sense of humor
As an amateur student of Byzantine History, I found this class project on the fall of Constantinople to be pretty amusing.
The project: Assume you are a representative of various European powers in the mid-15th century and defened yourselves against a lawsuit for damages due to loss of life and property (not to mention liberty!) from representatives of the Byzantine population, including relatives of the last imperial dynasty. They defendants get slapped with this letter from "Allworld Farmers Insurance":
You are hereby notified that Sophia Palaeologus, wife of Ivan III (grand prince of Moscow and Vladimir), and niece of the late Constantine XI Palaeologus, filed a claim as the beneficiary of Constantine XI Palaeologus, for collection of "life insurance" and "property" insurance for the loss of the Byzantine Empire.
I should also mention that the above page has a pretty good bibliography of links and articles related to late Byzantine history, including Emperor Constantine XI's heartbreaking final speech to his troops in 1453.
On a related note, here's an interesting article about the role of a huge volcanic eruption in influencing the foreboding omens that appeared during the last days of Constantinople. This article appears in, of all places, the magazine Saudi Aramco World, the official mouthpiece of Saudi Arabia's national oil company
Posted by Dean at 6:20 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2005
Coffee Flavored Coffee
As a fan of coffee-flavored coffee, I took great amusement with the last episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, in which Bill Maher ventured:
New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande half-soy, half-lowfat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one NutraSweet," ooh, you're a huge asshole.
(via Daily Kos)
Posted by Dean at 1:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 8, 2005
If only it were like this...
I have to make a confession that will likely surprise no one. I am a sucker for all sorts of science fiction. This spills over into being a fan of Star Trek. I've watched all of the series. I can even discuss the interactions of the characters in detail. I don't own a Star Trek uniform, but I have been known to own a Star Trek communicator pin and a transporter novelty mug.
However, in my own way, I also have a loathing for Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future was marred too much by a desire to create a utopia of the sort that people don't really live in. It always seemed a bit too much like you could substitute "The Party" for "The Federation," and you'd never see the difference. The world was a little too squeaky clean for my taste, particularly since I was raised on a steady diet of the gritty Star Wars and Alien universes. And don't even get me started on the thinly-veiled allegories that turned too many Star Trek episodes of every single series into an after-school-special. There were some groundbreaking social landmarks in Star Trek, but subtle it was not.
Worst of all is how, with every series, the writers would make the same mistakes over and over again. Can you name a single series that didn't take at least 2 seasons to become worth watching? One of the most egregious offenders of this was Star Trek: Voyager, which took quite a long time to realize that viewers really didn't want to hear about Chakotay's Spirit Guides or listen to Neelix's singing and was instead interested in, you know, science fiction and how a crew would deal with being stranded and forced two separate crews that disliked each other to cooperate. My favorite episode of the entire series didn't come along until the last season.
On those notes, we come to "Enterprise," which is going off the air at the end of this season. It was no exception to Star Trek's various problems. The first couple of seasons were awful. Eventually they started a season-long plot with a thinly-veiled "terrorist attack" on Earth around 2003. Through the entire season, they persisted in having an awful, syrupy-sweet opening sequence. We're supposed to be inspired while we listen to "Faith of the Heart." This was a long decline into new-agey flightiness that started with the ST: DS9 theme.
Now, of course, is the last season of Enterprise, and sure enough, the series has gotten better. A two-parter in February was placed in the mirror universe, and the episode featured a new opening-credits sequence with new music. While watching it, all I could think is, "I'd kind of rather watch this series than what I was stuck with before."
Posted by Dean at 2:13 PM | Comments (1)
May 7, 2005
Another victory for Tivo
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the FCC's odious "broadcast flag" idea was illegal. As I've said before, I love my Tivo, and I was relieved when the proposed anti-sharing restrictions where struck down. This latest restriction would have made it impossible for a show to be recorded at all when the flag is set on a broadcast-- or, at least, it would be impossible to digitize an incoming broadcast and make a clip in one's own format (as I have been known to do).
Now the issue goes up through appeals and, perhaps, ultimately to Congress, where politicians who rant against Hollywood will actually be forced to prove they're really "anti-Hollywood" or if they really just enjoy campaign donations from the MPAA.
Posted by Dean at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
May 4, 2005
For the Godfather fan who has everything...
With Mother's Day coming up, if your mother is a fan of The Godfather, what could say "I love you" more than greeting her with a gift like this on Sunday morning?
Posted by Dean at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)