The Animation Show

I went to see The Animation Show at The Oaks Theater tonight. My review: meh. There were only one or two shorts that I really liked. The rest were mediocre and boring. Don Hertzfeld can usually be counted on to produce a great short, but his submission this year ( The Meaning of Life ) was art-house crap. The best short of the bunch was Ward 13 , a claymation comedy. It was genuinely funny, as claymation violence is wont to be. It also heightened my anticipation of the forthcoming release of Wallace and Gromit - The Curse of The Were Rabbit .

Don't waste your money on The Animation Show, but do watch Ward 13 if you get a chance.

Mark Cuban on Fixing Movie Distribution

Mark Cuban has published a spot on blog entry about why theater admissions are down year-over-year and what to do about it. His suggestions, while radical, make a ton of sense. Specifically, his thoughts on "defining the value of the theatrical experience" seem incredibly rational and, at the same time, revolutionary. I went to see Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room last weekend. Why wasn't anyone trying to sell me a DVD of the film on the way out of the theater?

Revenge of the Sith

Warning: Minor spoliers.

The office went to see Revenge of the Sith today. I went into the theater not expecting much, after being very disappointed in The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Happily, Revenge of the Sith is a better movie than other other prequels, but it's not great. The special effects are awesome and the action is fast-paced, but when you don't really care about the characters, none of this matters.

I found it almost impossible to form any kind of emotional connection with any of the characters. Anakin would be the most likely character to care about, but it's pretty hard to do so when his attitudes bounce back and forth between good and evil like a ping-pong ball. One moment he's threatening to arrest or kill Palpatine, and then, 30 seconds later, he's calling Palpatine his master. This kind of inexplicable shift in attitudes happens 2-3 times, which really kills any kind of bond you might have with his character. The painful love scenes and occasionally terrible dialog don't help either.

The key to enjoying this film is to have suitably low expectations. If you've seen the first two prequels, then you should be set.

(Note: I am a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy. When I was in middle school I wore Star Wars t-shirts to school. If you think Revenge of the Sith is great, then I'm happy for you. But please don't try to insinuate that this prequel can touch any of the films from the original trilogy. The original trilogy is the one true Star Wars. Have a nice day.)

The Awesome Power of Laziness

I've needed a few pieces of furniture since I moved into my apartment in January. Specifically, a table (suitable for use with secondary computer equipment), bookshelves, a coffee table, and a dresser. I hadn't bothered to get these items, since:

1. I'm lazy.
2. I'm cheap.
3. I'm a slob.
4. I don't have a vehicle capable of hauling large pieces of assembled furniture.

Today when I got back from the JCC, I saw a sign advertising free IKEA furniture in the mailroom. I ran up to my apartment and called the given number, hoping that I'd be the first to inquire. I was, and I ended up getting the following for free: 2 bookshelves (approx. 4 ft. tall) and 1 bookshelf (approx. 3 1/2 ft. tall), a 7 drawer dresser (approx. 5 ft. tall), and a table (approx. 5 ft. by 2 ft.). All of the stuff was in excellent condition, and the guy giving it away even helped me carry it down to my apartment! Apparently he had just gotten new furniture and wanted to get rid of this stuff fast. I definitely owe him one, so I told him to come get me if he needs a favor in the future.

Maybe later I'll take some pictures of the stuff I got, but see #1 above.

The Smartest Guys in the Room

I went to see Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room last night. I'm a fan of business documentaries, so I expected to enjoy it, and I wasn't disappointed. The film does an excellent job of telling the story of Enron and helping to understand who the players were, and what they did. While I had certainly heard of Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andrew Fastow before, I now have a much clearer conception of their motivations and roles.

One of the best aspects of the film was its refusal to take the easy way out by just portraying Enron as a case of a few bad people ripping off the virtuous masses. Instead, the filmmakers pointed out the amazing level of complicity (or at least, willful ignorance) necessary to commit the fraud. They even invoked Stanley Milgram's famous experiments to show that ordinary people can become monsters under the right circumstances, which really made you think about how you would act in an Enron-esque scenario.

Speaking of complicity, especially damning was the evidence of wrongdoing by the investment banking industry. I've never placed much credence in stock analysts, and this film has reinforced that attitude. There are just too many conflicts of interest when analysts make recommendations.

I was a little disappointed that more specifics weren't given about Enron's various accounting and trading schemes. For example, the simple descriptions given of Fastow's LJM partnerships sounded so blatantly illegal that I don't understand how the auditors could have even considered allowing it. I guess that was partly the point, but I still feel like I'm missing something. At least concepts like mark-to-market accounting and incidents like the Nigerian barge deal were introduced and explained.

Go see this film. It's really well done, and it'll make you think.

Mixed Martial Arts

A few weeks ago, I noticed a show called The Ultimate Fighter on SpikeTV. It was a reality show, where contestants competed for a contract to fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship . Three bouts were televised during the show's finale, which intrigued me since the UFC is normally only on pay-per-view. I decided to record the finale on my ReplayTV to see if I liked it and to find out how it compared to my previous conception of the UFC.

My sole prior experience with the UFC was watching one of the very early UFC shows (back in the mid-90's) on videotape at a friend's house. It was entertaining due to its novelty (slogan: There are no rules!) and the shear insanity of it all. There were no weight classes, almost no rules, and guys had to fight up to four times in one night. There wasn't much substance to it, though, so although I enjoyed watching it once, I wasn't itching to see more.

The fights on the finale of The Ultimate Fighter were quite a bit different than the fights I remembered from that old videotape. They took place in the same caged octagon, but now there were weight classes and more (mostly common sense) rules (e.g., no groin shots). The fights were also of a much higher strategic and technical quality than the old fights. Instead of two guys with beer guts running at each other and punching wildly, competitors were using proven fighting systems (notably Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ). In addition to being able to take a punch, the fighters clearly possessed a great deal of skill.

I enjoyed watching the finale show, so I decided to rent some some UFC and PRIDE (a Japanese organization similar to the UFC) DVDs from Netflix. I've been really impressed with how far the sport has come. It even has a proper name now: Mixed Martial Arts . You can count me as a new fan.

Taqueria Mi Mexico

A new restaurant opened in Squirrel Hill on Murray Ave. today: Taqueria Mi Mexico. New restaurants are usually exciting, but this one is particularly exciting, since until its arrival there were no Mexican restaurants in Squirrel Hill. Six of us from work decided to eat lunch there. It's unassuming, cheap, and authentic, which are great characteristics for a restaurant. The menu is simple: tacos with a variety of meat choices ($1.50/each), tortas ($4.50), and huevos ($5). They've also got a selection of Mexican soft drinks. I had three tacos: chorizo, carne asada, and barbacoa (goat). They were all good, but my favorite was the chorizo.

Taqueria Mi Mexico has earned a spot in my weekly restaurant rotation for sure. Its arrival also means that there are now restaurants of almost every popular cuisine within walking distance of my apartment.

PeterB also wrote about our lunch.

Hotel Wi-Fi

I went to a wedding this weekend. On Thursday night I stayed in a cheap Best Western . They had free Wi-Fi. On Friday and Saturday night I stayed in a fancy schmancy inn (don't worry, I wasn't paying). Even though this place was more than twice as expensive as the Best Western, they charged $10 a day for broadband. Also, a "day" was defined as "until 3pm", so if I wanted a connection from, say, 11pm Friday until 11pm Saturday, I would have had to pay $20. What's up with that?

Judging from the advertisements along the highway, free broadband at hotels has hit a tipping point . I think it's unlikely that I will ever book a room for myself that doesn't have free broadband.