Movies

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Things have finally settled a bit, this is perhaps the closest to a proper day off yet: played Raven Shield for a few hours on the [SAS] Proving Grounds, took a break for chores and followed that up with some Quake Live, then went back to the [SAS] Proving Grounds for a couple hours. Then a few rounds of Clan Arena in QL before dinner.

I don’t play much Clan Arena in Quake Live, because it is rarely my `style` in the public servers; maybe more formal matches might be better. CA games basically amount to a round based last team standing form of competition, where everyone starts out with a Mega Health, and virtually all standarded weapons, plus plenty of ammunition; the catch of course being, there are NO power ups, no health kits, no extra ammo. You best have rocket launcher skills as well ^_^. Managed to get in a few good team games, before ending up in a mixture of 2vs2 / 1vs2 games, giving great chance to practice weapons selection and application. I also learned of a spot on one of my training maps, where you can rocket jump over (or camp on top of) a wall. One cool feature of Clan Arena mode, is you can rocket jump freely without taking any damage; it lends itself to a very fast, furious, and high octane form of combat. Although, it often becomes a crazy melee.

For lighting things up a bit, Charles Dickens Great Expectations, and Wanted. The former redefines the expression (from the more modern vernacular), of “Gee, what a small world! While the latter, is a gritty but enjoyable action flick, with some very nice fight scenes—that kid is to fighting ability, what a Terminator is to durability.

A day behind schedule, but I’ve also taken the time to burn a SMGL disk, that I’ll likely setup on my desktop, and experiment with porting code to x86_64, as well as playing Quake Live under Linux. Sourcemage is a GNU/Linux distro, that I actually found when Googling for some git operation lead me to their wiki; it also looks like a distro on par with my tastes. I was smiling the other night, when I read a section header in the install docs, about knowing thy `compiler`, until I realized it said `computer`, and my glasses really needed a cleaning lol.

Wew it’s been a jumpin’ hopin’ day!

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I was up all night fiddling with Code::Blocks and Stargella, plus work this morning, and ideas for an interesting project. However it’s a project that would call for C++, and I hate C++, lol. I like C, but hate C++… funny. On the upside, I’ve finally gotten Stargella builds sorted out, and I’m tempted some what to hunt down and eliminate ‘itches’ here and there, but I’m not sure whether or not patches would be welcomed for some things that seem to be, to be good ideas. They’ve accrued a fair number of open patches and bug reports, so I don’t think it’s a highly active project. The code base is only about sixty some thousand lines, not to big for all it does.

Sigh, nothing but work on the horizon o/. At least there’s something on TV tonight that I haven’t seen before, the original Night of the Living Dead. Geeze, what is it with all the zombie flicks lately? Compared to what I’ve seen of the remake (beginning / last half), it certainly has a more spirited beginning, bah I need some pop corn lol. I’ve no idea ottomh what they filmed it in, but it does give an interesting feel to the movie, different then most contemporary films of the era.

Marley & Me

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Tonight I was watching a movie called Marley & Me. The films an excellent glimpse into what life can be like, for anyone who hasn’t bee living with their head so far up their arse to notice 8=) It’s about a couple of newly weds, who trade the winter for a warmer location in Ft. Lauderdale, south Florida. In order to stave off his wife’s plans for a family for a few years, journalist John Grogan springs an early birthday present on his wife Jenny: they adapt a yellow Labrador Retriever, the clearance puppy. While successful in his intentions, Johns plan backfires when young Marley proves to be one of the worlds most hyper destructive dogs, yet too much of a lovable lug to just get rid of anytime soon. The movie charts a course that I would call “A slice of paradise” with all of it’s pitfalls to go along with it. Marley & Me follows the lives of the Grogan family, and dear but incorrigible Marley, If you love dogs, you’ll love Marley, if the exact opposite is true, well you’ll be relieved not to be in such deep doggy waters >_>. I love animals, always have and likely always will; having dogs, I can also be sympathetic to the whole ruckus caused by Marley. Hmm, for some reason I can’t help but remember a dog named Milo, that I used to help look after years ago as part of this business; he too failed obedience school (horribly lol).

For me, I would say it is fair to say that I feel a bit of a personal connection with this film. Fort Lauderdale is the city that I grew up in as a child, so Broward county is a name I’d know anywhere, and the news paper in South Florida, is also one that my parents used to deliver for… it’s a small world, isn’t it? Even closer to home then that, their first sons name, Patrick was also the name of one of my elder brothers: most people that know me fairly well, also know that I have an older brother but there’s more to my families history then that. In short, my brothers Reese and Patrick were twins, but only Reese survived. My father also had a son, long before I was born, but Jeffery never quite made it into this world :'(. Whatever the afterlife holds, one thing that I have always hoped, is that someday I’ll see us all together in heaven.

As everything must someday, life on earth eventually comes to an end, and Marley is no exception to that rule. Years role on, and take their toll: Marley grows old, as we all will some day. The ending is very sad, but I would have to say that he had a very good life, and it was one full of much chewing too ;). I think that perhaps, this line from the film sums up best what it’s like to have someone like that in your life:

John Grogan:

A dog has no use for fancy cars, big homes, or designer clothes. A water log stick will do just fine. A dog doesn’t care if your rich or poor, clever or dull, smart or dumb. Give him your heart and he’ll give you his. How many people can you say that about? How many people can make you feel rare and pure and special? How many people can make you feel extraordinary?

If anyone can watch Marley & Me, and take the ending without drawing a tear along the way: I truly feel sorry for any animals in that persons care.

We all have people in our lives, animals as well, that are such an integral part of our life, of every thing that makes it worth living. You can’t hope for more then that.

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There was nothing on TV, that I haven’t seen a gazillion-times, so I ended up catching the last hour and a half of Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet while waiting for AVPR to come on. While Romeo and Juliet is one of my favourite articles of Shakespeare, I’ve avoided watching R+J for years: the attempt at mixing a modern setting with the classic dialog, just makes me scratch my head and wonder what on earth they were thinking lol.

While much of the setting (but not the poetry) is fairly easy to translate to the 1990s, not everything quiet an fit so well; not to mention being condensed!

I feel that Lord Capulet’s commandment for Juliet to marry Paris, would simply be lost on a modern audience; at least in the States. Not only is arranged marriage simply not done, Capulet’s order would nether hold in court of law nor communal practice here; in a modern setting, it would also have effectively solved all but the family feud!

CAPULET 

Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!

I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday,

Or never after look me in the face:

Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;

My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest

That God had lent us but this only child;

But now I see this one is one too much,

And that we have a curse in having her:

Out on her, hilding!

— Act III, Scene V of the play; as rendered in my archived copy.

Friar Laurences use of a postal service was a nice touch, but the ending was somewhat “Lacking”, perhaps I’m just spoiled? The only good thing I can say, is they were so kind as to censor Juliets death—should we say that an ACP round to the temple is likely to be a lot messier then a dagger! I really don’t care uch for the film, just not my cup of tea. Since the goal was to pass time until Aliens versus Predator Requiem came on (which is closer to my style), I suppose that was a success :/. Alternatives would have been Tremors or the Last Action Hero; all of which I have seen much of over the past couple years.

I still remember the first time I read Shakespeare’s play, a good friend had recommended it as a potential source for inspiration. While it yielded none, it was however a good read; Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet are two of my favourites. I have however, never cared for any of the film renditions of Hamlet. And quite purposefully, I’m not familiar with any of the formal adoptions of R&J to the big screen.

BENVOLIO 

Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

ROMEO 

Not mad, but bound more than a mad-man is;

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,

Whipp’d and tormented and–God-den, good fellow.

— Act I, Scene II

Chuckle of the day, 2009-09-13

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Lucas entered into a wager with long-time friend Steven Spielberg during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Lucas was sure Close Encounters would outperform the yet-to-be-released Star Wars at the box office and bet 2.5% of the proceeds of each film against each other. Lucas lost the bet and to this day Spielberg is still receiving proceeds from the first of the Star Wars movies.

— source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV:_A_New_Hope

nights log

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So far it has been a fairly uneventful night. I’ve been contemplating taking up another language, I’m interested in both Latin and Spanish, but have started studying neither yet. Mathematically, I would have to favour Spanish… because shall we say, while exposure to Spanish is fairly easy for me, Latin is a bit of a dead language! Really the only languages of value out here, is what *passes* for English, and of course Mexican / Puerto Rican dialects of Spanish. Considering the simpler grammar, studying Spanish in the long run: might also help to improve my German, which is useless at the compositional level, but occasionally handy at the reading level. I think the entire world would agree though, that I should work on improving my English skills, or at least stop the mixture of US/UK elements.

For time passing, I setup sudo on my laptop; had done it some years back, when I was running PC-BSD, but haven’t used it since an updated overwrote my sudoers file, as I had forgotten to backup /usr/local/etc. I knew that PC-BSD was taking ownership of /etc/rc.local and making overwriting changes to sudoers, but didn’t use sudo enough to care lol. That’s one thing that has always pissed me off about PC-BSD, yet I have always respected about the *real* BSD projects: a concept of user edited files. You can play with /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.conf on FreeBSD without getting biten, on PC-BSD you should use an rc.conf.local file: OpenBSD style. I’m always running the latest FreeBSD STABLE branch on the laptop, in this case RELENG_7, and anxious to see RELENG_8 become a practical reality. Heh, even on the OpenBSD box (which as sudo preinstalled) I don’t bother using sudo that much. What I like about sudo however, is the ability to skip ‘su – root’, and limit access in a more general way—to specific commands. It’s probably one of the best programs of its kind written, since su.

In getting playful, I split up my word lists (:help spellfile) in vim, into smaller organized chunks, and added a few more entries from FreeBSDs system dictionaries. As time goes on, I might expand things further, based on the kinds of texts I end up editing. All of my text editing is basically done in vim, so it also does most of my spell checkin’ by virtue of that. Of course, Vi IMproved has an excellent spell checker, and perhaps the only one I’ve met that could be considered superior to MS Words. While I utterly hate word processors, and find them to be useless paper weights; I generally consider Microsoft Word the best known example of spell checking lol. I’m happy to say though, that I’ve evolved somewhat in the past eleven or twelve years ;). Now if only I could do something about the having-to-type-as-fast-as-i-can-freaking-think-problem, maybe my writing might actually be worth something, someday lol.

The ‘Burbs was on TV, and coming on in a little bit is a good film that I really haven’t seen in a long time. It’s called Throw Momma from the Train, best described as a comedic remake of Strangers on a Train. I plan to log off, lay down, and try to relax for a bit…. hopefully relax. Probably will try to dig up another quick snack, something light but useful.

The internet connection has been offline for the last couple hours, first found out it was up when an instant message popped up on me mid-sentence! Hmm, got about 10 minutes until the movie starts, so it’s time tos tart winding down. I’ll probably be awake early tomorrow, assuming I get any sleep before work….. sigh.

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It’s been a long and tiresome day.

Played some Urban Terror to pass the time, hoping that SWAT 4 would pick up some steam. I found a funny server running a Simpsons inspired CTF map. After getting tired of the “LMG Battleship” approach of going for the flag, and timing between the waves; I took up a picket position with an eye on the enemies secondary advance-point to our flag. As such, I was the only mook using solid cover, but hey, I was head huntin’ them blues 😉

Swapped my Minimi and flak jacket for a helmet and a G36, tap-tap at the enemies centre mass and follow up until clipin’ their heads resulted in fatal damages. Whenever necessary, I’d just move around cover in order to fire at the enemies primary and thirdary avenues of advance; leaving my sector to the run & gunners on my own team, and an occasional smoke grenade hehe.

Once I closed the game, I noticed that Duke, COT, and Filter had finally gathered, so I made ready to join the fray. I find the wolf in an ant-hill a good way to let off steam, but it’s ever so more relaxing to have a decent game with friends, especially SAS style games!

Shortly after Duke called it a night, it was time for me to make a beeline to dinner, exercising plan A. I stuffed my face with my usual zeal—I’ve always been an expedient eater lol. The Undefeated was on tonight, which I enjoyed. It’s especially nice to see, after so many years of brother against brother, ex union and confederate troops can still get along (and brawl) like brothers! Something that sadly, was quite a bit rarer in the post war years :/. Then again, between the pissing contest, Sherman, and the carpetbaggers, who can blame people for not getting along?

I also got to enjoy a nice 10~15 minute nap, and all this time, my laptop has been compiling updates; practically since I got home lool.

The Man Who Came To Dinner

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Tonight I got a bit of a rare treat, The Man Who Came To Dinner was on tonight. It seems that TCM has been doing Bette Davis all day, and I’ve missed some of my darn good movies :'(.

The man who came to dinner, is one of those films that is not on, but you just have to make waves to sit down and see it when it is! Sheridan Whiteside as portrayed by Monty Woolley, I feel is one of the best cantankerous characters I’ve ever encountered on the screen. Whiteside is the ultimate and supreme bastard, and one selfish mean old son of a bitch to say the least. It’s like take every chipper and nasty thought you ever had, roll it into a big tight ball, and let it roll on over everyone else kind of a part to see. Yeah, you could say I’m a “Nice guy” that envies such a bit lol. What can I say, the villian is always more fun then the hero, until the end of a story >_>.

Every time I watch the film, I always crack up, it really is deliciously funny. Oh, and when the sarcophagus shows up at the end…. mahuhauha! Although I would have to say, the thing wraps up in a hugemongus feat of deus ex machina; it is still hilarious. The second it arrived, my brain clicked, “Hmm, hey why not …”, and sure enough they did xD. I generally have an exceptionally fine memory for cinema compared to most of my peers, but this is a movie I get to see maybe once every year or three, so I can’t remember every single nuance of it, without a little jogging. And of course, the finale is a perfect and fitting ending to the whole scheme hehe.

And an excellent summery of just how nasty the old bastard is, here’s his Nurses parting words after friend Banjo chases her off:

Nurse Preen: I am not only walking out on this case, Mr. Whiteside, I am leaving the nursing profession. I became a nurse because all my life, ever since I was a little girl, I was filled with the idea of serving a suffering humanity. After one month with you , Mr. Whiteside, I am going to work in a munitions factory. From now on , anything I can do to help exterminate the human race will fill me with the greatest of pleasure. If Florence Nightingale had ever nursed YOU, Mr. Whiteside, she would have married Jack the Ripper instead of founding the Red Cross!

and that is an understatement 🙂

In reading around Wikipedia, as I usually do before adding an IMDB link to one of my blogs; I’ve learned that The Man Who Came To Dinner was written by the same people that wrote another of my very dear favourite films. Which of course as it so happens to be, is also an uproarious comedy in its own right xD

Old remarks

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Was searching through the forums for something En4cer or Rouge said a year or two ago, when I found something I once posted about tactical fire & maneuver used in films:

* for context, IRL = In Real Life; IHW = In HollyWood

My list of differences between Real world Elite and Holiwood Elite.

IRL a 9mm probably will bounce off a windshield at 50m

IHW a 9mm will take out the engine block of a truck if its on Full Auto.

IRL a solider might not have a full mag all the time, to prevent jams. (editors note: not all are created equal)

IHW, magazines have bullets 4 a breast so you can reload off camera

IRL a [good] solider can snap off a head shot at 50m /w an MP5 as fast as they can think.

IHW, the hero can pop the running squiral in the left nut at 25m with a sling shot.

IRL, a 12.7mm M2 || M82 will make your day.

IHW, some how a pistol packs more punch then a 30mm Gatling gun.

IRL, you want strong cover like a CBS wall so bullets won’t penitrate.

IHW, you can use a lamp post or a dead guy as cover agasnt 7.62x39mm ammo.

Some how I can’t help but chuckle whenever I think about that running squirrel part xD. For some reason the Last Action Hero also comes to mind…

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I feel much better at the moment, lately life has just been a bit overly negative; the more things go on, the more deeply I am reminded of what it so terribly missing. The past couple weeks has felt a lot like limbo, just passing grueling time.

One of my favourite films was on tonight, The Teahouse of the August Moon. You could say, I really needed the chance to sit, enjoy, and laugh; there hasn’t been much joy in my life for a good long while now. In all honesty, I think I would take the slower way of life given the chance, hmm; what was the last time I could have seen the sun rise or set, and be at liberty to do so? The movies ending is also priceless! In a way, Sakini’s words also struck a cord:

“Pain make man think. Thought make man wise. Wisdom make life endurable.”

I find truth in it.