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Right now is a good time to be Jeff Bridges.  I mean, it’s always good to be Jeff Bridges, but this week is probably as good as it gets.  For starters, he won an Oscar on Sunday for a movie that I didn’t even hear of.  I guess he played an alcoholic, and the Academy goes nuts for that sort of thing.  I’m wondering if this character enjoyed White Russians, because he looked enough like The Dude.

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Yesterday, the next part in the greatest week in Jeff Bridges history was revealed… the trailer for Tron Legacy hit the Internet.  Now, just let me start by saying that I’m not one of these people with a strong personal attachment to the original Tron.  The reason for this is that I had never seen it until about two or three months ago… but when I did, I could see why so many socially awkward people my age love it.  It was pretty neat, a lot of fun to watch, and funny, too.  It was one of those movies that Disney did a great job with in the late 70’s/early 80’s… and they seem to have lost their touch when it comes to that sort of thing.  I’m pretty optimistic, though…  it looks slick, the designs are sweet, Olivia “13 from House” Wilde is hot… well, just take a look for yourself.

Oh, hell yes.  Too far away.  I’m going to have to freeze myself until it’s time.

And, oh yeah, Jeff’s got a great website.  Handmade.  Literally.

I was just watching the Bruins game on NESN and saw an ad for the new “shrimp taco” at Taco Bell.

Not exactly a conventional equation

Who came up with this one?  Who really wants to eat this?  Maybe you’d think to yourself during a lazy Friday night with some friends thinking, “Hey, guys, I’m real hungry for a taco but it’s Lent; what do I do?”  If you did it at home, where you know that you have control over the environment, you might think it sounds like a good idea.  Maybe you’d put it on the Internet and think you’ve beaten Bobby Flay to the punch.  But this is Taco Bell we’re talking about.  The idea of getting Mexican food from a place where I can’t directly see it being prepared frightens me.  Now we’re throwing shellfish into the mix?  I’ll pass.  Why?  Because I’m scared, and I’m man enough to say it.

Well, now I’m hungry.  I’m thinking Moe’s for lunch tomorrow…

There’s a deleted scene from Pulp Fiction in which Uma Thurman explains to John Travolta that there are two types of people in the world:  Beatles people and Elvis people.  Everybody knows who they like better.  Sure, you can like both, but you don’t like one more than the other.  And while I may share my birthday with the King, “Burning’ Love” is about as close as I get to being a fan.  Give me the Fab Four any day of the week, although I’d rather the Stones… but that’s another story altogether, isn’t it?

Why do I bring this up?  Well, back last September, a box set I’ve been waiting for ages to get had finally been released.  I didn’t really know that it was being developed, I just knew that it had to happen some day.  Sure enough, George Martin had emerged from Abbey Road like Moses with the tablets.  Only instead of some guidelines handed down from God, it was the complete works of the Gods of Rock, remastered in stereo.  Although I owned a couple of the Beatles’ albums already, their presentation left something to be desired.

The Beatles Stereo Box Set is part of a balanced breakfast.

Now, I don’t consider myself to be an audiophile.  but I know when something sounds like crap.  I can’t buy a set of headphones without trying them first, I was a freak about finding “good” cassette tapes in junior high, and I once spent a beautiful spring weekend indoors, re-ripping 200 CDs for my iPod at 256 kbps instead of 128.  So I don’t know, maybe I am an audiophile.  That’s why this set got me excited.  Finally, we’d have the Beatles in true stereo, cleaned up and mixed to sound as good as possible.  After about a month of listening here and there, I’m happy that I spent the money on it.

Now, sure, I was skeptical.  Just how good was this thing going to be?  Could it really sound like I always imagined “perfect” recordings of these songs could sound?  I’d read a couple of reviews that seemed to point me in that direction.  I figured that, at worst, it’d be the albums with the levels turned up and the left and right channels panned this way and that.  At best, though… well, I couldn’t put a price on it.  Considering that Amazon had a pretty good deal going on, I took a chance.

When it arrived, I was immediately impressed by the packaging.  The box is simple, and very neatly carries all sixteen discs in their cardboard slipcases.  I’m still a fan of the jewel case, but I guess that the slipcases were meant to be like record sleeves.  Each one is stuffed with great photos of the band, as well.  Almost too nice to do anything with.  It’s all super-glossy;  you’ll want to hold everything by the edges even if you’re not an obsessive collector-type.  I popped all the CDs into the computer and ripped them in an afternoon.  Listening on the laptop speakers, I could tell that everything sounded good, but I knew that the true test was to play them in the car.

That’s when I was able to truly appreciate the work that went into the set.  My favorite time to listen is while I drive, and I decided to throw The White Album on first.  I was in love all over again with my favorite Beatles album.  ”Back in the USSR” screeches in and it sounds great.  No more of the “flat” sound of the mono mix that I’d heard for years.  Sure, I loved my old copy, but this was like having Paul in the car with me.  And the whole album sounds this good.  I was never a big “Bungalow Bill” fan, but the new mix absolutely surrounded me, Paul’s bass seemed to envelop me, and the voices of the whole band (plus Yoko) were alive… sounding like they were having a good time, even.  ”While My Guitar Gently Weeps” remains George’s masterpiece, and “Helter Skelter,” well… let’s just hope that this thing is kept far away from Charles Manson.

INVISIBLE SKATEBOARDS

I was also dying to get this set because I absolutely HATED the quality of my old copy of Magical Mystery Tour.  I’m very happy to say that “I Am the Walrus” is everything it should have ever been, not the muddy and even choppy mess that I used have to put up with.  ”Strawberry Fields Forever” is probably the track that I can say is the finest achievement of this set:  I heard things in this mix that I didn’t even know were supposed to be there.  From what I understand, nothing was added on throughout the set, which probably speaks volumes to the job done.

I won’t bother to analyse Sgt. Pepper’s because to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of that album.  I will say that it sounds great, and it deserves to.  As for Abbey Road, well… it was probably the easiest to remaster seeing as how it was recorded in stereo to begin with.  Accordingly, it sounds incredible and the “second side” is more majestic than ever.

The older, EMI/Parlophone/Capitol albums are great in their own right, but I’m not as big a fan of the stuff pre-Rubber Soul, so I can’t really tell you one from the other.  Still, I’m glad to have all of it.  I mean… it’s the Beatles.  By default, it’s better than a good chunk of my iPod.  There’s really too much to cover here.  I haven’t even watched the DVD with “mini-documentaries” about the albums.

If you’re a Beatlemaniac, you might do well to invest in this set.  You owe it to yourself if tape hiss or inferior mixing practices distract you from a good song.  Or if you want “Eleanor Rigby” stuck in your head again.  Hearing is believing, and you’ll believe that the Beatles are better than ever… at least until science invents a way to just plug music right into your brain.  Don’t worry though, that won’t happen for a few months.

I’m the kind of sports fan who wishes that ESPN 8 (the Ocho) was an actual channel.  I love learning about sports I didn’t even know existed.  As long as there’s at least two people competing for some sort of trophy, I’m probably going to watch.  That’s why the Olympics are great, and it’s the winter games that I enjoy the most.  Sure, there’s plenty more stuff to see at the summer games, but I’m more about the idea of pushing yourself to the limit in the cold and ice than in nice sunny weather.  Don’t believe me?  Well, here’s my top five winter Olympic events.

I find this photo slightly arousing.

For one, the biathlon is a sport that I’m especially fond of.  I love to watch all of the cross-country skiing events, but I usually find myself saying, “You know what this race needs?  Guns.”  And BAM, there you have it, the biathlon.  I first learned about this sport from the classic C64 game, Winter Games from Epyx and I was stunned.  Who thought this up?  Wasn’t there a James Bond movie that started with Sean Connery jumping out of a helicopter onto a ski-slope?  Was it even Connery?  Well, it was thought up by the Norwegian army.  Good thinking.  After all, how are you going to defend yourself against invading Swedes?

Speed skating is another fave.  My first Olympic memory is seeing it during the ‘88 games.  I might’ve even seen Dan Jansen wipe out.  I just thought it was cool as hell to see someone skate so fast with what seemed to be minimal effort.  These days, the short track is what gets me pumped.  It’s like rollerball or something.  In my experience, making a sport faster and smaller in scale will usually make it better in some ways.  Look at arena football.  Yeah, I said it.

"No shotgun, you're all sitting in the backseat. Stop kicking your brother."

Fast pace is a recurring theme at the winter Olympics.  Try the bobsled.  It combines the luge (which I think is stupid, whether someone died last week or not) and soapbox derby racing (which I think is awesome), and adds a teamwork element.  You end up getting a sport that’s just dangerous enough to think “Those guys are crazy” but in a sled that looks like a nuclear submarine.

TOOOOOOMBAAAAAAAAAAAA

Downhill skiing is the best kind of skiing, whether you’ve got guns or not, but if pressed, I’d say that it’s the slalom that I love the most.  Nobody did it better than the immortal Alberto Tomba, and he’d be the first to tell you.  These days, though, the skiers fly down the hill so fast that I wonder how a human being can go that fast on snow and ice and not die every single time.  Bode Miller wipes out a lot in the Olympics, but he stays alive, so I guess that has to be worth something.

And of course, I’m sure you could guess what my favorite thing about the winter Olympics is…

Do you believe in a career in motivational speaking? YES!

I love da hockey, and when da hockey is good, I ain’t complainin’.  I can understand when people still grumble about keeping the Olympics as an “amateurs only” competition, but let’s be honest.  If the NBA is allowed to send the Dream Team to the games to (more often than not) destroy the competition every four years, then other team sports should get to do it, too.  Since the NHL has been allowing its best players to represent their countries, there’s been no doubt about who’s got the most talent.  The league didn’t even bother to have an All Star Game this season.  Why have one game with two teams when you could have several teams play for two weeks… in Vancouver, of all places!  From where I’m standing, I’m thinking that the final four this time around will be the U.S.A., Canada, Russia, and Sweden.  After that, who knows, but if the Americans keep playing like they did against Canada the other night, we might have another miracle on our hands.

I’m Morgan Freeman for Visa, and I’ll see you… at the games.

The last time I posted about the Bruins, they had just won the Winter Classic in exciting fashion and were looking to start a second-half push to the playoffs.  A month later, key players went down with injuries and we lost ten excruciating games in a row.  Slowly but surely, the likes of Lucic, Savard, and Ference made their way back to the ice and beat the Canadiens a week ago in Montreal.  Three more wins after that, and the B’s are right back in the thick of it, seventh place in the conference and, for the most part, resting up over the Olympic break.

Baaaack in the saddle agaaaain!

All during the bleak month of January, there was all sort of talk going around… fire Claude Julien, kick Tim Thomas out of goal on a permanent basis, etc… the most interesting storyline was the question of whether or not the B’s should have traded for Ilya Kovalchuk.  Kovie is one of the most natural goal-scorers around and there’s no doubt that that’s the one area that the Bruins are truly lacking.  It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Cam Neely or Bill Guerin, so why not get a guy who can score 40-50 a year without much effort?  Well, we didn’t because he’d have only had been a late-season rental.  The team would have had to have given up a lot of great players (not to mention the all-important Toronto pick in next year’s draft) to get it done for a guy who in all likelihood will not even come back to play in the NHL next year; rumor has it he’ll go pick up a huge contract back in Russia.  In my opinion, the Bruins have actually built a great team that only needs a fire lit under them – or that high draft pick next season – to finally get back into the Stanley Cup Finals.  And believe me, that’ll be a sight to see.

My only hope is that the coming break doesn’t mess up any new rhythm the guys have.  They’ve finally started winning again, and it feels good.  We’ve got a lot of guys in the Olympics, but it’s the rest of the team getting their rest that makes me more optimistic than not.  At this point, all we need to do is make the playoffs… sometimes, crazy things happen when you’re there.

If you like Bruins blogging, go check out HubHockey.  It’s not the best written, but like NoMaas does for the Yankees, it’s funny, smart, and goes against the grain from time to time.  It also helps that it’s probably the only Bruins blog that is actually updated every game.  And check out the fight log!!

I have nothing to say tonight.

Here’s a link to a blog that features mostly screengrabs of Commander Riker.

Setting course for Risa (LIKE A BOSS)

YOU’RE WELCOME.

I’ve had February 2nd marked on my calendar for a while now, and for a multitude of reasons.  It is, of course, Groundhog Day, one of my very favorite holidays.  Punxatawney Phil did indeed confirm that we’d have another six weeks of winter, but I really didn’t need him to tell me that.  Tonight is the debut of the final season of LOST, which I’ve been counting down to since last May.  But the thing I’m most excited about… the Oscar nominations were announced this morning.

I was more excited this year than I usually am because this year the Academy decided to up the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten.  Part of me assumes this is because there was nerd rage when The Dark Knight got snubbed last year.  It seems to me that us geeks will be pleased, and I’ll tell you why.  The noms for Best Picture are:

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
A Serious Man
Precious
Up
Up In the Air

I only saw four of those (Avatar, D9, The Hurt Locker, and Basterds), and really only wanted to see one other (the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man).  I didn’t hear about An Education at all.

Evicting some fookin' prawns

You already know my feelings on Avatar, so let’s get to the other pictures I saw this year, starting with the geek-vindicating District 9.  In many ways, this flick is like the anti-Avatar.  Whereas James Cameron had access to zillions of dollars, South African/Canadian director Neill Blomkamp scored $30 million from Peter Jackson and was left alone by studios to make a feature-length version of his spectacular short, Alive In Joburg. What you get is a film about alien-human relations that tackles some of the same issues, but does so in a half-documentary, half-action thriller.  It’s smart, it’s funny, it looks great, and although far-fetched, it’s much more terrestrial than Avatar.  The film is quite deserving of its R-rating, with plenty of profanity and incredibly over-the-top violence.  The final act is on par with Robocop as far as ludicrous amounts of bloodshed goes, and dare I say, just as much fun.  I’d buy that for a dollar!

I was most excited to see this as one of the Best Picture nominees because, as good as I thought it was, I didn’t expect to see it get picked out as one of the year’s best.  Part of that might have to do with the fact that it also made over $200 million worldwide with its modest budget, but maybe I’m just being cynical.

Hans Landa - Tarantino's most sinister character yet

Meanwhile, where Avatar was the ultimate pet project of Cameron’s career, Quentin Tarantino finally released his own long-in-production opus.  Inglorious Basterds is another film geek’s dream come true; QT’s vision of World War II as a Spaghetti Western, with all of the trappings you should expect from the original Video Store Director.  I’ve seen (and for the most point loved) his films up until this point, and I can safely say that this is his best.  Not as in “best yet,” either.  If you’re here for a serious account of WWII, then you’re sadly mistaken.  QT essentially uses the war as a backdrop, as a way to tell a new kind of story.  It’s rather difficult to really describe Basterds without recounting his whole career, so if you’re not a fan, it’s not for you.

If you are a fan, though, then you’re in for plenty of great Tarantino Brand dialogue, as well as some great characters, such as Brad Pitt’s Aldo “The Apache” Raine, Eli Roth’s Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz, and Melanie Laurent’s vengeful Shoshanna Dreyfus.  But without a doubt, the film’s best performance comes from Best Supporting Actor nominee Christoph Waltz, playing SS Colonel Hans Landa, known as “The Jew Hunter.”  Waltz plays the villain with true relish, making him at once engaging and repulsive.  Landa’s sinister nature goes beyond Nazism and into the realm of inhumanity.  Whereas some men wore the Nazi armband because they felt they had no choice, Landa is the kind of man who wore it because it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Seeing the competition, Waltz should have no problem winning.

Tearing a car apart has never been so exciting

When it comes down to it, though, I would vote for The Hurt Locker for Best Picture if I had the chance.  Not to mention Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow and Best Actor for Jeremy Renner (above).  Set in Iraq in 2004, we follow an Explosive Ordinance Division unit through the final month of their tour.  Their new team leader, Sgt. William James (Renner) is kind of like Mel Gibson in Leathal Weapon: brilliant, yet slightly unhinged.  Throwing protocol out the window, James would rather defuse a roadside bomb by hand than send in a remote-controlled robot that could spare his life and those of his squadmates.  Not to mention bystanders who like to hang out and watch the events unfold in the scorching Iraqi sun… and might be holding onto the detonator, too.  The film’s tagline says it all: “You don’t have to be a hero to do this job.  But it helps.”

What makes The Hurt Locker great is the suspense.  Think of your favorite bomb-defusing scene of all time.  Remember how exciting it was?  The suspense, the sense of doubt that the hero can render the device neutral in time, sweat rolling down his determined brow…  Now multiply that feeling about a hundred times and repeat it four or five times.  Now imagine a hero who’s genuinely likable, even though he’s a conventional anti-hero.  Just when you think that he’s a total jerk to his squadmates, he turns around and proves himself a true leader when the chips are down.  But The Hurt Locker doesn’t just deal with the heroics.  When Sgt. James returns home, he has trouble adjusting to civilian life.  Will he stay home after risking his life countless times in a hellish environment… or will he go back to the one thing he knows he’s good at?

If Bigelow wins for Best Director, it would be sweet: she was married to James Cameron from ‘89 to ‘91.  I’m unsure of who the winner will be, to be honest.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Avatar win, simply because of the fact that it’s topped Titanic as the all-time highest grossing film (although ticket prices were higher for 3D showings, etc).  Then again, Titanic wasn’t up against nine other films.  We’ll have to see come March 7th.

Apparently, it’s “Doppelgänger Week” at Facebook.  The idea being that you’re supposed to put up a picture of a celebrity who people say you look like.  Well, I don’t do stupid crap like that.  But if I did, I’d have put up a picture of Ice Cube.

Straight outta Worcester!

Spittin’ images.  I almost don’t recognize myself sometimes.  Okay, so I’ve never actually been mistaken for Mr. Cube, but I always saw a resemblance.  In my family we always say, “You can tell your own.”  I just didn’t feel like going with the old “HEY COSTANZA LOL” treatment this time around.

ANYWAY.  This is just an example of the kind of thing that I hate to see at Facebook.  MySpace was rife with this sort of thing and now it’s creeping up on my cleaner, more streamlined social network of choice.  Soon enough there’ll be plenty of embedded music players and migraine-inducing animated backgrounds.  That’s how this sort of thing starts.  There goes the neighborhood.

I’ve got more to say about social networking… it’s a video I’ve wanted to do for a good long time and once I’ve got a weekend to myself, I just might do it.

For at least a year, the sweating, greasy masses (of geeks) have been speculating amongst themselves about what Apple’s Next Big Thing™ might be.  After the touch-screen advances made by the very cool iPhone and iPod touch, geekdom decried that the next step could very well be a tablet.  Take into account the popularity of Apple’s Macbook,  which has proven that they’re fully capable of making a thin, yet powerful laptop.  Now look at the popularity of the Amazon Kindle and the Nook from Barnes and Noble.  They’ve proven that people are actually willing to read books and newspapers on a handheld device.  The iPhone gave us the ability to surf the web on our phone with relative ease.  Simply put, we are quickly moving toward a world in which we will all have Starfleet-issued PADDs.  Apple, logically, should be the entity to nudge us in this direction, seeing as how they revolutionized listening to music with the iPod and everything that followed.  It was a concept in motion, but it took Apple to make it cool.

Get ready to get told!

We geeks love talking about the future of technology for two reasons.  The first can be seen in the previous paragraph.  We love to look at what we’ve got and where we’re going.  I was fortunate enough to hear the great Leo Laporte on the radio this weekend and he was talking about what he thought this new product might be.  His ideas sounded great, and sounded a lot like what I had in mind for such a tablet-like device.  “The great thing is that Apple really gets our imaginations going,” Leo said.

The other reason we like to speculate on upcoming tech is because we are almost inevitably going to be disappointed, and we take lots of pleasure in that kind of grumbling.  When Steve Jobs emerged with the iPad yesterday, I was left wondering where all of the features I expected to see were.  I expected to see a camera and some USB connectivity.  These just seem to be no-brainers.  The cheapest cell phone has this kind of stuff.  I also figured that there’d be some sort of OSX interface; instead it’s the iPhone’s operating system running things.  But I think that the biggest surprise was the fact that 3G is not standard on the iPad.  In the end, the basic model goes for $500.  So not only do I think it’s underpowered and underequipped, but also overpriced.

I’m sure that this is only the beginning for the iPad, though.  The iPod has been improved upon numerous times.  The iPhone had a newer, better version released only a year after the original.  It’s how Apple does things.  Only this is the first time that it makes me kind of angry.  I love Steve Jobs, but I feel like this is really the first time that he’s actually holding back on consumers.  Did Apple not flesh this thing out on purpose?  Is there a grand plan to come back in a year with a superior version?  I can hear him now…

“Oh… and one more thing…  I know that a lot of you weren’t all that enthused about the iPad when it launched.  You didn’t think there were enough features.  You didn’t think it was powerful enough.  Well, we listened to you, and that’s why I’m proud to present the newest generation of the iPad.  We’ve literally been working on it since launch of the original.  And it’s remarkable.”

Search your feelings.  You know it to be true.

Of course, I haven’t gotten my hands on this puppy.  Maybe it is cool.  Maybe it’s a great little gadget to have and a lot of fun to use.  But $500 to $829 for what pretty much turns out to be an underwhelming accessory is pretty steep.  I hate to say it, but Apple’s winning streak may have come to an end.

It’s been about a month since Christmas and I’m still getting a real kick out of my favorite present. When I heard that there would be a new side-scrolling Mario adventure, I knew I’d had to get it. Call me a purist, but I think that Super Mario Bros. 3 was the series’ zenith. All these years later, downloading Super Mario World on the Wii was an incredibly underwhelming experience. This was it? This was the game that so many people I knew thought was so great? I don’t need to ride a cute dinosaur to have a good time. Give me a leaf that turns me into a raccoon, that’s all it takes to make me happy. I haven’t even bothered trying Mario 64 or any of the other 3D adventures since. That’s why New Super Mario Bros. was the one to watch.

Oh, HELL yes.

The thing that makes NSMB so good is that it gets right back to those basics while incorporating new elements in a seamless fashion. I’m too inept to deal with more than two buttons when I’m playing as Mario, so it’s great to know that stuff like the spin jump were not mapped to the buttons, but instead could be activated by shaking the Wiimote. Another thing I was VERY happy to see was the long-overdue addition of the wall-jump. Now I can save myself from dying in pits fifty percent of the time rather than watch helplessly as I drop off the screen.

The entirely new stuff is also a ton of fun to learn.  For instance, some new mushrooms have been added (as far as I can tell), like the Ice Flower, which lets you throw snowballs that freeze your enemies, the Propeller Hat, which lets you fly with a shake of the Wiimote, and my personal favorite, the Penguin Suit, which includes the snowballs and also lets you walk easily on ice or slide on your belly.

Of course, the game’s biggest selling point is the fact that you can now play with up to four players on the same screen simultaneously.  I initially assumed this would mean the game would use the Wi-Fi capability of the Wii.  It doesn’t, and now that I’ve played it with my sister, I can see that there is serious trolling/griefing potential with this game.  When it comes to Mario, you don’t want to piss anyone off, you just wanna have fun.

And believe me, there’s plenty to be pissed at when you’re playing.  Not in a bad way.  It’s just that the game is just diabolical enough to make you curse and try to throw your controller, before you remember that you strapped your Wiimote to your wrist.  You did read the safety advisory, didn’t you?  But you’ll be back.  You’ll come back, you’ll plan your jumps and maybe even get your friends in on the action, but just remember… when you’ve beaten one Koopa kid, there’s always another lying in wait.

I haven’t beaten it yet.  I only get the time to play a little here and a little there.  But I kind of like it that way.  I don’t like sitting around and plowing through a game, especially when there’s no replay value.  But even when I’m done with it, I’m sure that I’ll be ready to start all over again.  There’s always more hidden treasures to find when you go back.  And since I’m playing without a walkthrough right now,  I’m sure there’ll be a lot of good stuff waiting for me on the second run.

If you’re a Mario fan, you’re doing yourself a big disservice by not playing this.  If you’ve got kids, they’re going to love this game, too.  Play it with them and show them a thing or two about stomping goombas and dodging Bullet Bills.  It’s time to pass it on to another generation!