Sounds like a Clooney Movie

Remember those aptitude tests you took through college and HR sometimes gave you? I think Myers-Briggs was the most common one I took.

This RHETI exam is a new one to me. Pretty interesting. My results (7/8) are fairly predictable and describe me pretty well:


free enneagram test

Curiously, this result was only one point behind (6/8):


free enneagram test

"Complacent" and "Driven" seem to be opposite, don't you think? Then again, I am a Gemini.

The Writing's On The Wall

....or, in my case, my LCD monitor. The kids decided to use it as a writing pad. *sigh* I'm a bit annoyed that they were able to get ahold of a pen (when we specifically try to prevent them from ballpens...crayons are okay, since they're easier to remove), but what can you do? They manage to climb stuff and get into places and do things you don't think they can.

Sometimes they use various objects around the house as stepping stools, or pull themselves up by sheer strength. It's actually impressive sometimes, if it wasn't so exasperating.

So I managed to get most of the ink off using alcohol (the "Family" brand...wasn't there some silly ad in RP which featured a boxer? Or was that "Green Cross"?). Yeah, it's probably not the best solution and I've probably ruined the screen, but the LCD was unusable otherwise. Oh, well.

bookoftheweek: Fragile Things

I finally got around to reading Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. It feels like his stories shine when the have room to breathe--the short story format just doesn't suit him as well. Most of the stories here feel like beginnings, the first chapter in a forthcoming novel; they don't really feel complete.

There are some gems in this collection, though: A Study in Emerald is fantastic, especially since I'm a big fan of Sherlock Holmes; The Problem of Susan, while disturbing, is quite excellent; Other People has a twist which is pretty cool, and the last story, Monarch of the Glen is something I've read before (in Legends II), but is still quite enjoyable. Heck, we get to see Shadow again.

The way I judge how much I enjoyed a book is how often I can re-read it; for example, I must've read Good Omens a dozen times. Other than the stories I mentioned above, I won't be re-reading this one any time soon.

Super Hero Dating Quiz

Huh. Actually a toss-up between Kitty and Lois Lane. Fits with my previous Superman - Luthor results, huh?

Watchlist 2007

Black Dahlia. Yikes. I was expecting a lot from this movie (Scarlett Johanssen! Naked!Mandy! Brian de Palma!) Sadly, it was a dull, plodding movie. I fell asleep at one point, woke up, and got confused by the "solution" to the murder. Turns out the part I missed gave the backstory. I really wanted to like this movie. Unfortunately, it was a mess.

Red Eye. Now this was worth the rental. It started out fairly mellow and then just hit the gas around 10 minutes in. Rachel McAdams is cute, and the chemistry with Cillian Murphy was great. Short movie (85 minutes), but Wes Craven made the most of it. Bonus points for Hiro's girlfriend appearing in it.

Magni-lana?

I was reading through the Television Without Pity Forums when I came upon an entry discussing the rumor that Magni and Dilana were an item. Say what? I immediately sought confirmation via Google.

From what I can gather, Magni got divorced/separated from his wife/SO because they had "drifted apart"--probably because of all his touring. Because Dilana had spent a lot of time with Magni (what with her visiting Iceland and touring together and all), they became linked in the press. I've also read that he's requested that his personal life not be discussed in public, so nobody quite knows what's going on, except that he's playing guitar for Dilana in the RS:SN concerts.

Whatever their status is, it's still sad that he got separated, what with his toddler and all.

Humanity To Others

So I finally went ahead and began looking at Ubuntu. I've had a couple of 5.10 install CDs lying around since early last year, but I never got around to doing anything with them. Part of the reason was I didn't really have a machine to install them on; I couldn't get Ubuntu to boot up on my desktop, and PJ didn't want me installing it on the laptop unless I backed up the data there.

Well, I finally got my ass in gear and backed up the data on an external hard drive. I downloaded Edgy and burned it to a CD, placed it in the laptop disk tray, and then rebooted.

First impression: Wow, that background's pretty tan.
Second impression: Yikes, this thing is SLOW!.

I gave it some allowance seeing as I was running off a LiveCD. Still, though, it took forever to bring up anything, so I did some more research. Turns out the laptop only had 256MB of memory, and I guess the newer versions of Gnome are memory-hungry(?). I wasn't going to purchase any new memory for this laptop, so I looked for another distro (heh, forgive me for speaking the lingo). I settled on xubuntu, seeing as I was really interested in what the fuss over Ubuntu was all about. So, I downloaded Edgy and burned it to a CD, placed it in the laptop disk tray, and then rebooted.

First impression: Hey, that background's OSX-y..
Second impression: It's definitely much faster than Ubuntu.

So now I'm installing xubuntu on the laptop. We'll see how that goes.

Watchlist 2007

More movies:

Talladega Nights. Just like Deep Impact and Armageddon, we have Cars and Talladega Nights. NASCAR, boy loses way, boy makes comeback and learns a Mighty Valuable Lesson, finding romance along the way. Except Ricky Bobby doesn't really learn anything. Oh, and romance consists of who has the best set of boobs. Silly, mindless fun. Thank you, Baby Jesus...

The Illusionist. Something about gaslights and hansom cabs have always been appealing to me, so I enjoyed this, even though it's fairly predictable. Paul Giamatti shines again, and Edward Norton is pretty good as well. Unfortunately, Jessica Biel still can't do anything but stand around looking pretty. I was also surprised that the crown prince wasn't Jude Law--sure looked like him. On to The Prestige and Scoop (the informal "Magic" trilogy of 2006).

Apples and Oranges, part 3

I almost convinced PJ to upgrade the MacBook to a MacBook Pro. We visited an Apple store, where she played with the various Apple notebooks. She was impressed with how sleek 'n' sexy the MacBook Pro was, and was amazed at the weight. She went to the Genius bar to ask whether we could upgrade our unopened MacBook by just adding extra cash, and the so-called Genius said yes. When we walked out of the store, we had agreed that we would upgrade.

This didn't last, though. Five minutes later she realized that we would be adding $900 in order to upgrade; add $200++ for a Windows XP Pro license (yeah, yeah, I know. She's comfortable in Windows, and would rather not take the time to learn something else), and that took us to $1,100! Then the question of the Windows software (specifically QuickBooks) being supported on a BootCamp install of WinXP was raised as well.

So, no go. We decided to just sell it. We eventually sold it for less than retail, but hey--at least we have the money towards just buying a regular ol' laptop (probably a COMPAL or an ASUS).

Oh well. Maybe some other time.

Watchlist 2007

I told myself that I would keep track of what movies I've watched this 2007. Currently I've seen four movies:

My Super Ex-Girlfriend: Fluff, but an interesting diversion. Uma's pretty cool, although the plot pretty much sucked. Lots of comedy potential here that was sadly unrealized. Glad we rented it.

Casino Royale: Wasn't expecting too much from this, but (a) this is the best Bond movie I've ever seen (no gizmos to distract us), and (b) Daniel Craig is the best Bond I've seen. I thought Pierce Brosnan was an inspired choice, but unfortunately his movies were parodies of the Bond franchise. Still, though, I wonder what Clive Owen would've done with the role. Impressed with Craig, and looking forward to the next one. Best movie I've seen in 2007 by far.

Little Miss Sunshine: Cute. Not as great as advertised, but what was cool was that they road-tripped to states I've been to--New Mexico, Arizona and of course, California. The pageant itself was scary--the other contestants looked like living dolls. Plus points for Chloe!

Lady In The Water: Not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was actually interesting and moved pretty quickly--no wasted time, no goofy forced "twist". Definitely better than The Village. I kept thinking what a wonderful book it would be--at least I wouldn't have to watch Shymalan ham it up. Paul Giamatti and Bryce Howard were great, though. Howard, especially--skin like paper, but she has that ethereal beauty that made her perfect for the title role.

Spare the Rod

So this California assemblywoman wants to make spanking a crime. This is just so annoying on many levels--not the least of which is that this same assemblywoman doesn't even have kids.

Growing up I don't recall ever being spanked. What I do remember is getting kurot by my yaya whenever I did something naughty. Those pinches were pretty nasty--she had long nails, and her kurots were very, very fine, so they hurt like anything. I must've been three then; it made quite an impression, considering that I can still remember it.

Fast forward to now. I have kids of my own, and they get naughty sometimes, like all kids do. Do I hit them? No. I raise my voice, when I scold them, and usually that's enough to scare them silly. I don't advocate hitting a child, but I don't want the government telling me how to raise my children either (that's what my mom and my mother-in-law are for).

I can't stress this enough: This woman doesn't have kids! And yet she thinks she has the right to tell me how to be a better parent. How screwed up is that?

And so it Begins...Again

First off: 24. The first four hours were pretty kick-ass, but it pales in comparison to last season's four hours. The emotional toll last season was scary. This year? I made the crack to PJ that maybe they should call Jonas from The Unit to save the day. Heh.

Second: Idol's back. Jewel's looking pretty hot nowadays. Not difficult sitting next to a seemingly-drugged out Pauler. Funny how Daughtry's outselling Taylor and probably Katharine. I'm still convinced that some of the weirdos are actors, particularly the "girl" who sang Pussycat Dolls and her "mother". I'm almost sure they were in a fatsuit and in drag. If they're real people, I apologize. But yikes--heavy make up, mannish voices...

Oh, and Zayra from Rock Star has a hit song! Although it's singing backing vocals for Blue October. Still better than how Lucky Charms is doing, in my opinion.

Watching Ice and Fire

Great Eddard's Ghost! Variety is reporting that George RR Martin's masterpiece A Song of Ice and Fire is being turned into a mini-series by HBO. Wow! I mean...wow! Couple of thoughts, though:

• GRRM is producing this as well! C'mon, George, stop wearing too many hats and finish the darned series first!
• Who are they going to cast, I wonder? I can see Liam Neeson as Ned Stark, but everyone else? The twins Jamie and Cersei? The screen might melt from all that prettiness! Tyrion? Malkovich, maybe?
  
• This is going to be one expensive series. Then again, Rome is pretty impressive from what I've seen.
  
• I'm going to have to seriously consider getting HBO once this is out. I resisted The Sopranos, but this might be too much.
  

This can be very, very, good or can be a nightmare. Knowing HBO, though, they can pull it off.

250 Million Reasons

David Beckham, LA Galaxy. A quarter-BILLION dollars.

"I want to make a difference with the kids." Yeah, that and $50M a year.

The Apprentice LA: You're Fired

I got the chance to watch The Apprentice: Los Angeles last night while ironing some clothes (ironing is always boring, so I have to have the TV on while doing it. Usually it's X-Files re-runs). Yikes.

One of the girls, upon being sent to live in Tents (losers!), proclaimed that she felt like she was living in the "Third World", because there was no electricity. Right, princess, because we third world folks all live in mud huts and use two sticks to create fire. Idiot.

The first firing felt wrong to me. Not that the guy didn't deserve it, it just felt that Daddy Trump was just catering to his daughter's wishes. I would've thought that the other guy would get fired, seeing as he kept interrupting the Donald and didn't let anyone get anything in edgewise. Instead, Martin gets fired because Ivanka thinks he's pompous and won't fit in with the company. Yes, because there's only room for one pompous guy in the Trump empire. Remember that.

Pic of the day: Generalissimo

Haven't done this in a while (the 365 Days photoessay has sadly fizzled out). Loved this picture, though--Amelie looks like she's commanding her troop of Disney Princesses.

Movie Beat: Past and Future

We didn't really see that many movies in 2006, with the kids and all. We tried bringing them in to watch Cars, but wound up bringing them out of the theater because they were making too much noise. So, most of the films we saw were on DVD. We did manage to see the big ones, though.

Best movie I saw was, surprisingly, The Devil Wears Prada. Anne Hathaway FTW, but Meryl Streep's performance was just superb. You didn't think she was a mean boss, just someone extremely competent and someone I'm actually willing to work for. Also some good indie films there, like Brick and Everything Is Illuminated. Oh, and we saw My Neighbor Totoro for the first time.

Honorable mentions go to X3 and POTC2. Not that impressed with the aforementioned Cars--Over the Hedge and Monster House were much better (the latter being underrated, in my opinion).

Looking forward to: Stardust (yay!), Transformers, Spiderman 3, Harry Potter 5, Ratatouille, FF2/Silver Surfer, Die Hard 4 and of course, POTC3. Bring back Jack!

Note that everything's pretty much a sequel. Who cares if there's "nothing original" in film anymore--all I want is to watch something good.

Which Supervillain Are You?

So I'm such a goody-two shoes that I forgot to take the counterpart supervillain test. Interestingly, I'm Lex Luthor. This proves that I'm a Gemini, since I'm two sides of the same coin. Or maybe it's the "Are you bald?" question that tipped the scales.



Your results:

A brilliant businessman on a quest for world domination and the self-proclaimed greatest criminal mind of our time!

Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

Which Superhero Are You?

Apparently, I'm Superman.



Your results:

You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

House Hopping In Arizona

Just got back from spending Christmas with in-laws in Arizona. We looked at a couple of houses there in the desert--compared to California, they're practically bargains. There were a couple of houses we looked at where the backyards were so big, you could build (a) another house, or (b) an olympic-sized track and a pool. All for about the same price as ours at current market prices. Sheesh.

Of course, the weather isn't exactly agreeable. It was fine when we were there, but that's because it was winter. Otherwise, during summer, it's HOT. I like my environment to have a bit of green.