Monday, October 31, 2005

Robot Rebellion

It turns out that my Halloween weekend wasn't quite over yet. I went trick-or-treating for the first time tonight in the name of Unicef to collect money (people were quite generous) and ended up with a good amount of candy. Afterwards, I went to Bethany's boyfriend's place for a small Halloween gathering where we watched Dagon, which is a very campy but also very classic horror movie. I've actually been curious about it for a while, and it's best to watch in a group like we did so you can poke fun at it. Oh, and I also found out tonight that I landed an interview with Microsoft for next Thursday. I feel like a sell-out to even be applying there, but if I end up getting an offer I can always keep it as a backup. I didn't want my post title to be Halloween related once again, so I thought that I'd talk a little bit about surviving a robot rebellion. A CMU roboticist actually wrote a book about this very subject in a humorous, but almost half-serious, manner. Supposedly, you'll see a movie about it in the near future, but the book sounds like a good read regardless. He tries to defeat some common stereotypes and who knows, maybe you'll need it someday.

There's really only a couple of big things for tech heads today. In an amazing show of support, Apple has sold a million videos on iTunes in the less than 20 days the feature has been available. This can only mean good things for the growth of legal video downloads, and I think it'll definitely turn the heads of some television executives. Remember, all those sales are coming from just music videos, Lost, and Desperate Housewives. Meanwhile, Google is trying to buddy up to nerds everywhere by paying software engineers to help out on the OpenOffice project. Do they have a vested interest here? Probably, since they run their servers on Linux and have to be noticing that Microsoft is changing gears to ward off losing market share to Google. At least it's something productive though.

Click to enlargeDoes that look like a Wookie to you? Well it does to me, but it's actually a piece of concept art from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It kind of sucks that after I've left Houston they do an early screening of a movie I want to see: A Scanner Darkly. AICN has a good review for it and a lukewarm one, and I still have high hopes for it. All I have left for you are videos. There's a teaser trailer up for Final Destination 3 and it's almost the exact same plot as the original except for that they cheat death in a roller coaster rather than an airplane. Lastly, I have a bunch of new clips from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for you, which is just a few weeks away now. If you're a fan of the series, I think the clips will totally get you excited.

Now for some Monday Madness:

1. Name 1 comedy movie you've seen.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

2. Name 2 black and white films you remember seeing.
Chinatown. I know I've seen a few others but not for a long time so I can't remember their names at all.

3. Name 3 dramas you thought were worth watching.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Fight Club, and Goodfellas.

4. Name 4 television shows you watch on a regular (or semi-regular) basis.
Lost, Desperate Housewives, 24, and Prison Break.

5. Name 5 things that, in your opinion, are advertised on television too frequently.
I'm going to cop-out on this one because I don't watch live tv that much.

2 comments:

Connie said...

good luck with microsoft interview ! :P

LizzieDaisy said...

Geico. Man, they are ALWAYS on.

Um, Desperate Housewives? Really? That's hard to picture. I'm not allowed to watch that one cause they all cheat. Sigh. Looks so good too.

And you absolutely HAVE to see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" - it's a personal fav.