Gnubbs Blog

I hate doing this to a company, but today I am pretty annoyed. I am heading out on vacation on Sunday, and needed headphones for the trip. My trusty Grado SR60s are great in quiet environments, but on an airplane they just don’t cut it. So, I am poking around on Amazon and see a pair of Altec Lansing InMotion 616 on sale for ~$43 from ~$150.

I do some research and see that they are based on headphones from Etymotic Research which makes incredibly nice in-canal earphones. For $40 it seems like a safe bet.

I got the phones yesterday, pop them in, and am very happy with the sound. The bass is a bit thin, but the detail and clarity are incredible. Very nice sounding overall. Luckily they fit my ears well so I didn’t have any of the comfort issues people complain about. Life is good and I listen to them for about an hour.

Today I go to start coding, pop in these headphones, and they sound terrible. I discover that one is working perfectly, the other is barely audible. I dink around with them for a while, but make no progress. They are broken. I don’t know how they broke when they weren’t being used, but they are broken none the less.

Back to amazon they go, and I would definitely recommend against buying Altec Lansing headphones, even if they claim to have good pedigree. I don’t have a recommendation for portable phones at the moment, but if you want something for the office definitely buy Grado.

I have been going to a lot of shows lately in Denver, and have come across a couple of really good bands.

1. Bad Weather California — I only saw the lead singer solo, but he was very entertaining

2. The North Atlantic — This band is excellent live. I have one of their albums on my ipod, so hopefully they are as good recorded.

3. The Draft — These are some ex-members of Hot Water Music. Their sound contains most of the things that have made recent Hot Water Music albums good.

4. The Lawrence Arms — I have been listening to this band for a couple of months now. Very good chicago punk.

There are a bunch of others, but I can’t get to the Denver Fest myspace page to find their names. Stupid corporate web filters…

gnubbs

I was reading an article about the decline in box office sales for the third year in a row. I am sure there are a lot of reasons for this, but I thought I would share why I don’t go to the movies much any more.

1. Remakes. F*ck remakes. In 2004 there were 4 major studio remakes of old movies. This year there were 14. This doesn’t even include foreign movies remade for american release, or television shows made into movies. I don’t go to see them. Period. If I want to watch the Manchurian Candidate, I can assure you that it is going to be in black and white.

2. Quality. We have skimmed off the remakes and that leaves us with original movies. These suck too.

3. Cost. Why would I want to spend $30 for two tickets, popcorn, etc. when I am pretty sure the movies is going to suck. I will pay it for something like Narnia which I have heard is very good, but I am pretty sure Fun with Dick and Jane (remake by the way) will be left out in the cold.

4. Annoying Crowds. Cell phones, talking, sweat hogs stuffing thier faces with nachos. Clapping. Who the hell are you applauding for? Do you think the movie stars are in the audience? How about some inappropriate laughter. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” stars Jim Carey, when he says something it must be a joke. All of you just shut up so that I can hear the movie well enough to rail against it later on my blog.

5. Length. No one mentions length. 3 hours for King Kong? Stephanie’s brother had a good idea — for $3 give me 30 minutes of just the ape running around breaking shit. That is worth $3 and 30 minutes of my time. I just don’t have 3 hours and 7 minutes for King Kong if the original could become a clasic at 100 minutes flat, so could the remake. But I guess you have to justify $207 million somehow (the original cost $670k or about $10m in todays dollars.)

In the end though, i am pretty willing to put up with annoying crowds for a good movie. I am willing to pay the money for a good movie. The problem is that there is so little chance a movie is going to be good that I am not going bet those $30. Instead I will use that to pay for 6 weeks of netflix.

And rent movies like “M”, “The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari”, “A Fistful of Dollars”, “The Great Escape”, “Cool Hand Luke”, etc. The number of good movies available to me is countless, just not at the theaters.

gnubbs

Ah, horror movies. I love crappy horror movies. I Spit on Your Grave, Dawn of Dead, Living Dead, House. They are all great. The best part about it is that all of these movies are basically comedies. They claim to be something more, but at their heart they really are comedies.

So, when I saw that someone had made a spoof version of Dawn of the Dead, I made sure to add it to my netflix queue. Last night, Stephanie and I watched Shaun of the Dead. I would just like to say this is the absolutely funniest movie in a very, very long time. The key is, horror movies are so funny to begin with that if you spoof them you have the potential for it to end up hilarious. Plus, it was british (or at least set in England) and I find the british entertaining.

Some highlights of this movie are when the cast has to pretend to be zombies to get to the pub, and when Shaun is planning out killing his zombie step father. Good, good stuff. The type of situation that is so inherintly that I kind of wish for an outbreak of zombie-ism just so that i can get some new stories to tell my friends.

So go out and buy some english beer, get a nice warm bowl of brains, and queue up Shaun of the Dead.

gnubbs

(it is saturday night and I am kind of drunk, so no links. Use IMDB your damn self)

Stephanie and I went to see Good Night, and Good Luck on Saturday night, and I wasn’t too impressed. There is a lot of press saying how great this movie is, and I just don’t agree. The acting is good. The sets and atmosphere are also very appropriate. The use of only historic footage for McCarthy is interesting, but I don’t like the message it sends.

The use of historic footage sends the message that McCarthy is gone, and these days that couldn’t be further from the truth. In an environment when any questioning of our government is considered aiding and abbeting a terrorist, McCarthy is alive and well. To me, using an actor for McCarthy and only historic footage of the daring journalism of Murrow would have sent a much more powerful message.

The movie failed in more respects though. This was not the story of McCarthyism, it was not the story of Edward R. Murrow, it was not even the story of thier historic battle. The problem with calling this movie the story of anything is that I expect a story to have charactor development, and there was none. I have a hard time even calling this a Docu-drama because it is constrained to such a narrow portion of a very important series of events. Watching this movie was like watching the highlights reels on ESPN — in the end you know who won the fight, but you miss the spirit of the battle.

gnubbs

Last night my wife suckered me into watching Beyond the Sea. It was admittably pretty okay, but I have a general rule against giving too positive a review of musicals. They are just all a bit goofy. This one was less goofy than most musicals, and making the movie as a musical made thematic sense.

The movie is about the life of Bobby Darin (played by Kevin Spacey) and his wife Sandra Dee (played by Kate Bosworth). I thought that Kevin Spacy did a great job although at times he reminded me a bit too much of Christopher Walken (I think it was the singing and dancing. Nothing makes me think of that creepy f*cker like a jig.) One reason that the movie was so good is that it is filled with the songs of Bobby Darin, which are pretty hard to top. If you have every listened to the oldies chanel, watching this movie will quickly teach you how memerable his songs are — even if you couldn’t name one before watching the movie. (Splish Splash, Dream Lover, Mack the Knife)

Overall, I am going to admit that I did enjoy the movie. I would probably not watch it again, but I will keep my eyes out for some Bobby Darin records next time I am at the record store.

I finally watched this movie over the weekend, and I gnerally pretty happy with it. I kind of wish Author Dent wasn’t as clueless, but I guess he is in the book as well. Overall I thought the movie was pretty true to the book, although I haven’t read it in years. The humor was doubtlessly british in nature, but that shouldn’t preclude americans from finding it entertaining. The specials effects and costumes were goofy, absurd, and basically dead on. This goes in box of movies that I would recommend, and I hope that they make a movie from the next book as well.

gnubbs

First of all, let me just say that somnambulist might just be the greatest word in the world. It is a near perfect word for the semi-concious state that I spend the first few hours after waking up in.

The other night I finally finished watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari which is the story of Cesar the Somnambulist and his handler Dr. Caligari. It was made in 1925, is silent, and absolutely fascinating. The sets alone make the movie worth watching. There pretty much isn’t a right angle to be found — the walls fall inward and out, people pearch above desks more than they sit at them, and rooms narrow ominously. My favorite effect is painting a white star on the ground to represent the light being thrown from a streetlight. It is all very surreal and dreamlike — exactly as I would expect the world to appear to a sonambulist.

I guess the movie is an example of German Expressionism, which are the roots from which Film Noir later grows. The movie is considered to be one of the first modern horror movies, and also one of the first cult hits after it played in a theatre in Paris for seven straight years.

The acting is terrifically overdone, which is a requirement of mine when watching a silent film. My only complaint is the amount of time that bits of dialogue are left on screen are a bit long. This is a movie that I would highly recommend, is a great entry into silent films (it is pretty short with lots of action), and is perfect for around halloween time.

gnubbs

I was just reading Phillip Greenspan’s post about some new toys he got for listening to music. It links back to his thoughts on Stereos and his stereo in specifc. After reading his thoughts, I purused some of the comments people have made. Man, there are some people out there with real hostility issues. I guess I should know this from driving everyday but…

I have noticed in other places that there seem to be some people who lurk about audiophile sites and attack people for being audiophiles. I am fine with people thinking that it is a waste of money, I am fine with people thinking I am an idiot for having a stereo that is the most valuable thing I own (the bank owns my car…). What I don’t get though, is why someone would waste time attacking another persons hobby instead of spending that time on a hobby of thier own. Although, I guess attacking audiophiles is a sort of hobby. Considering how dorky being an audiophile is, it is a sad laughing at the kid with glasses type of hobby though.

While on the topic, I should state that I am an audiophile of sorts. Not a latest fad type of audiophile, but someone interested in listening to music that sounds good in my home. To that end I have put together a stereo of nominal quality. The highlights are my Martin Logan SL3 speakers and Linn Axis turntable (not quite a sondek…) My preamp and amps are both Arcam and do not suit my speakers at all. I have been hoping to buy an old used Krell or Classe amp one of these days, but I have not had the money about for such things.

I do listen to a lot of records, although I admit that I spend more time listening to my iPod than anything else (about 6 hours a day at work.) The other day one of my friends who is a very serious audiophile was pleasently surprised when he listend to my iPod through my Grado SR-60 headphones.

If you think that CDs sound great coming out of your Coby brand stereo, then please by all means listen and enjoy. If you think that my stereo is an absolute waste of money and can’t believe that I spent $80 on headphones for my iPod than be thankful that I used my debit card and not yours. If you hate recorded music then by all means spend your time and money going to live shows. Whatever your choice, I am not going to attack you for making it. Although I welcome discussion, please don’t waste your time attacking me and my choice of listening to vinyl on an expensive stereo.

gnubbs

I really enjoyed this movie. I am talking about the original, not the remake. The story revolves around the wife and mistress of a school headmaster as they plot and then carry out his murder. After being murdered the body of the headmaster mysteriously disappears. The rest of the movie focuses on the wife and mistress as they cope with the stress of trying to get away with murder.

The acting in this movie was very good, and the story was truely top notch. This was a mystery movie where I didn’t figure out the ending until moments before it happened. Good flick.

gnubbs