To List Old Data

I Have My New 3g iPhone!

2008-07-11T11:00:00.001-05:00

Woot! I was in line at 5.45am and only the eighth person to arrive. By the time the doors were open there was about 40-50 people.

Geolocate this post

Posted with LifeCast

Winelibrary TV!

2008-02-07T08:07:00.000-05:00

Be sure to check out the show Winelibrary TV, hosted by the enthusiastic Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk :)

Also if you have time, take a look at the video i did "365 episodes of WLTV in 3.5 minutes"

Cross breeding?? ;p

2008-01-30T19:16:00.000-05:00

My mum actually sent me this link. She came across it via stumble upon, the browser plug-in that discovers fascinating websites at the click of a stumble button.

The page is a hefty one, being picture after picture of various animals. However each picture is not quite left untouched, post process...

Gmail Tips

2008-01-30T19:10:00.000-05:00

Some handy tips for all you gmail users (em-powered or not). They come from Matt Cutts and include:
1) drag-drop images into gmail
2) un-read filter for your inbox
3) migrating between gmail accounts
4) resizable text composition box
...and more! :)

enjoy

Remembering Heath...

2008-01-28T17:58:00.000-05:00

Heath Ledger, his life tragically cut short last weekend, is remembered by "The Dark Knight" film director Christopher Nolan, in this moving and honest newsweek article.

Bic Art

2008-01-28T13:44:00.000-05:00

Absolutely stunning photo realistic artwork... with a bic pen!

Train Graveyard

2008-01-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

A fun "weird and wonderful" blog in its latest post, talking about a fascinating train graveyard in Bolivia:

Hellboy

2008-01-24T21:55:00.000-05:00

Just saw Hellboy on blu-ray. Not my first time seeing the movie, maybe my third or fourth, but my first time in HD. This is a very good HD movie, I was definitely noticing things that i hadn't in standard definition. Also the blu-ray version is the directors cut, which adds a few extra story enhancing scenes. Overall very well worth the watch!

If you do get to see it on blu-ray do not miss the extra with Scott McCloud. In a 12 minute segment he intelligently describes a short history of comics from the Egyptians to present day and analyzes Mike Mignola's art style for Hellboy. Very fascinating and interesting stuff.

20 Points In 4mins

2006-03-07T14:23:00.000-05:00

Great story

Crash different

2006-03-07T14:22:00.000-05:00

I dont think my dad will appreciate this.. :)

NJ Bill Outlaws Anon Posting, huh?

2006-03-07T14:21:00.000-05:00

Will this ever pass? What does this really mean?

Sounds like someone in the government got burned by an anonymous posting on some forum.

Would this affect anyone who does not live in NJ or have business with a NJ website?What if someone registers with bogus information, how can this be enforced?

*boggle*anyway..sorry...just seems rather odd to me

Spore

2006-03-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

You simply have to see this, it is a 30 minute video of this interesting upcoming game.

QUOTE
What exactly is Spore?Spore is the next game from Will Wright/Maxis, probably best known for being the makers of Sim City and The Sims. Spore takes elements from many of Maxis' previous games such as Sim Earth, Sim Life and Sim City and blends them into a simulation that allows the player to influence the development of a life form from a single-cellular stage, through multi-cellular life in the oceans and on land, to the development of sentiency, tool-use, and eventually interplanetary and interstellar flight!This is a 30 minute video of this interesting upcoming game.

X3

2006-03-07T14:15:00.000-05:00

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/tls/trailer/large.html

One blockbuster i cant wait to see!

EDIT: 22/1/2008 - hindsight is 20/20....yepper...

Big budget films are dead...

2006-03-07T14:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/397167p-336664c.html

or by 2025, so says Lucas. $15 mil for the average flick by then.

I didnt see the Oscars (shame! hehe) but i heard that there was something mentioned in the opening speech about how important it is to see movies as they were designed to be seen, in the theatres.

Some of the reasons given were: the big screen, ok i can see that, especially for the theatres with those reeeealy big screens; the surround sound experience, huh? these days its much easier to get that sort of sound in the home (for the most part)...not buying that; and finally, being around strangers, wow...i think he made a bad choice of words there, thats about the worst part for me. If he had said to go with friends and then dissect the movie apart afterwords in the pub with a few beers, i would have been all thumbs up. But strangers? kids crying, cell phones being answered, packed opening nights, and looking over someones shoulders....sigh.

Its an interesting theory by Lucas though, and I tend to agree that hollywood style production studios are going to need to rethink budgets, and almost follow the lead from indie films. In this digital age, and year of the home theatre 1080p HDTV, with 5.1 (7.1?) surround sound and on demand movies, the 'cinematic thrill' gap becomes much slimmer. When you add onto the price of that $12 ticket, some popcorn and a soda, then 'going to the movies' almost becomes limited to first dates (so you dont have to talk as much until after, when you can talk about how everyone else was talking DURING the movie..lol), or those big blockbusters that will eventually fade away...( © Lucasarts).

I still enjoy going to the movies, although my regular saturday trips have become once a month or even less. I prefer going to either the first showing of the day, or the last. They are usually vastly different experiences, and thats actually why i like to go at those times.

The difference between home and theatre has become far less of an attraction for going to the local cinema than seeing a new film on the day of release. Ive also become a little naughty as of late, and download some movies via bittorrent....ssshhh! I dont do it that much, and I totally agree with supporting artists. I would happily pay for content like a newly released movie if it was available as a file download or a release to dvd the same day as Cinema. Steven Soderbergh recently did that with his film Bubble, and scared the Cinema owners silly, with quotes such as "completely collapse the domestic theatrical industry and you would have a spate of bankruptcies..". But i feel i would like to see a movie when i want, and how i want these days (and paying what they want!), is that too much to ask?

Fave Movies

2006-03-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

Some of my favorite movies (in no particular order):
Fifth Element - modern day classic
The Lord of the Rings series - a classic classic
Aliens - "Game over man... Game over!"
Seven Samurai
Unbreakable - Shyamalan's tale of a contemporary superhero
High Fidelity - Jack Black and John Cusack. Very funny
Serenity - Shiny!
Kung Fu Hustle - Martial arts meets loony tunes..it works!
Hero - Love the calligraphy & swordsmanship connection.
Amelie - Audrie Tautou is wonderful, great film on so many levels.
Memento - "What's the last thing that you do remember?", "My wife...", "That's sweet.", "...dying"
Its a Wonderful Life - Brilliant heartwarming fantasy
Office Space - hehe ;p
Fargo - Coen brothers and Steve Buscemi, fantastic.
The Incredibles
Monty Python and the Holy Grail & Life of Brian - "All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
Crash - Not the spader one, but the incredibly powerful racially oriented multi oscar film.
Ong Bak - Little known martial arts flick
The Sting - Paul Newman, Robert Redford and some great music in one of the best con films.
Unforgiven - Clint Eastwood directed and starred in this end of age westerns
Se7en - Love the style
The Princess Bride - of course! "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father: prepare to die. Now, offer me money."
Shawshank Redemtion - Morgan Freeman is very good in this, but he seems to act the same no matter which movie he is in. Either way, great film.
Indiana Jones movies - "Oh, that's just my pet snake Reggie." hehe
Pulp Fiction - One of the early originals in total Tarantino style that has become his trademark.
True Romance - Another lesser known Tarantino film written by him but directed by Tony Scott. Might be less well known, but it has soooo many stars in this thing!
Blazing Saddles - "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges."
Ferris Buhler's Day Off - Matthew Broderick..but dont let that stop you
The Matrix - 1999 movie that defined art direction and action choreography to this day!

Oblivion Release Official

2006-03-07T14:07:00.000-05:00

Shipping March 20th! Getting close now :)

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=249750

Bethesda guys haven't released a single screenie of what will be beyond the portal of Oblivion but I managed to find one:

http://koti.mbnet.fi/aop13/oblivion.jpg

Florida!

2005-09-26T08:32:00.000-05:00

Wowsers! Great weekend :)
I arrived late afternoon on thursday, greeted by my good pal at the
airport. We drove the short distance to his house, situated in a very
nice growing community. I got a call from work, but it wasn't for long,
the rest of the evening consisted of bbq, movies, beer and good
company...with just a little snoring on the sofa late at night ;)

On friday we covered a lot of the magic kingdom. Interrupted by my work
for a call of almost 3 hours...seemed like I was going to be flying home
at one point. But that didn't happen and I never got another call for
the rest of the weekend.

We strolled around magic kingdom, doing all the big rides, then switched
to epcot to do all the big drinks. We had sake in japan, beer in london,
wine in italy and topped it off with a nice dinner in italy too.

Saturday I was a little bit under the weather...hehe. We started in
epcot again and went straight to the rides this time. Mission:space is
very cool! After our rides at epcot we went to mgm studios: tower of
terror, rock and roll rollercoaster, lights motors action some of the
best rides/events I remember.

Saturday evening we drove to tampa, for an ice hockey game between tampa
bay and floriday. Tampa bay (stanley cup winners) proceeded to trounce
florida and finish with a shut out win of 5-0. Yaya!

All in all a great, fun, busy, drunk (I'm a lightweight), working (for 3
hours), best company (their daughter is adorable with her 'star wars'
speech) weekend.

I took a lot of pics and some movies...so ill follow up with those later
on...
--Dan from sidekick

Leaving on a jet plane..

2005-09-22T09:33:00.000-05:00

Did you see that emergency plane landing in california?? Great piloting!

...soooo, im just about ready to leave for my plane to Florida, im all packed, headache included.

Work has been busy recently, with quite a few emergencies of our own. Im going to be on call while on vacation, which sucks..but ill deal.

As well as epcot, we are planning getting a hockey game in, so im looking forward to that :) The flight home was changed recently from 3pm sunday to 10am sunday though..so thats almost a whole day less time :(

Ahh well..on sunday ill just get home and rest i think :)

Lost

2005-09-13T14:00:00.000-05:00

I know last week was all about "The O.C." tv drama, well at least one post was...but anyway, over the weekend i saw all of "Lost". Its a drama, mystery, sci-fi (maybe?), survivor series, i really like the mystery side...what is inside the hatch? what is the monster? what did Kate do? and of course why did the plane really crash?

So i had a relaxing weekend, and monday was a quiet work day, even though the project at work really needs to be finished this week (it wont be).

Today is patch day for WoW (1.7 notes), and expansion day for EQ! (depths of darkhollow) yikes..so much new content ;)
I just have to hope all my mods for both games live through this ordeal..

Its too hot here lately, does look like some rain on the way to cool things down though..hotter in NJ than Dallas yesterday.

My friend in Flordia says im heading down in the middle of the hurricane season, with the tragedy in N.O. im in no doubt about what that can mean. However they say they have a fully protected basement and Orlando is usually ok...

urrgghh..

2005-09-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

Couldnt really sleep last night...also had work paging me every hour to fix some server issues. I started to get into a new series that i bought on dvd, called The O.C. Quite engrossing and some witty dialogue, so i stayed on the sofa until morning, drifting in and out of sleep.

Now my head hurts...hehe

I did get a fedex delivery today for a new computer laptop bag from Booq! Woot..nice bag :)

Ottawa and Florida pt 1

2005-09-08T17:30:00.000-05:00

Today, I gathered together most of the documents I need for my trip to Ottawa at the end of October. I'm going there to get my passport updated with my latest H1B extension (8th year!). Ill be there for 3 nightstotal and it should be fun.

My other planned trip is at the end of this month, when I go stay with a friends family down in Orlando. We are going to visit epcot and have a neato time at the rides there...can't wait!
--Dan from sidekick

Sleepy...

2005-09-08T07:12:00.000-05:00

Was a long night...but i won my class legs! This makes my fourth Cenarion, with bracer, belt and those shrubbery shoulders. Last week i won my tier 2 class hat from Onyxia, so im starting to get pretty uber *wink*.

Boy, was it a late night though, then i couldnt sleep and woke at 2am, i got myself some water and read a bit of my latest comic book...im such a geek...sigh ;) Kingdom come is very cool though.

Omg! I love my sidekick...

2005-09-07T19:29:00.000-05:00

I can post blogs, surf the web, get my emails...in fact just about do
anything except make a cup of tea or play EQ on it....maybe they will
add that functionality with a patch...hmm
--Dan from sidekick

2005-09-07T18:54:00.000-05:00

my cousin and I (me on left)...obviously (or not!?) a few
years ago :)

testing entries with sidekick

2005-09-07T18:32:00.000-05:00

....will this work?!

Latest from the Dan Man

2005-09-07T15:30:00.000-05:00

First!
...as world of warcraft fans are eager to say whenever Blizzard makes a new sticky post on thier forums.

Welcome to my blog, aptly titled the Life of Dan. Being a brit and a Monty Pythonite this has particular reference.

Last night i played around in EQ a little bit, going to the Tacvi zone. My guild is kinda new to Tacvi, so we are still struggling with the second boss, we did take him down to 4% before wiping though, so not bad :)

Tonight i play some WoW. Our plan like in the previous few months will be to kill Onyxia first, get the buff and head over for some Molten Core(MC) action! yeah! The buff is fun as it gives a whole bunch of stats and crits and such..weeee.