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The World According to Scott
This is the section of my site that is strictly reserved for my opinions, my beliefs, and whatever I feel like talking about at the moment. It's updated generally on a fairly regular basis, so check back to see what the most recent things on my mind are.
The views and opinions expressed on this page do not reflect that of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department or Cornell University.
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As of Friday 7/22/05 1:11pm Pacific Standard Time, I will be back in San Francisco on vacation & loving life for the next nine days.
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We decided to maximize every last bit of available funds we have to bring with us for our vacation & rolled all of our change & returned our bottles & cans over last weekend. Sounds stupid, huh? We made $100.00 by doing it ($80.00 of it was from the change alone)!! And on top of that Kat found a $50.00 bill in an old Anniversary card while looking for change, so that upped the total of "found" money to $150.00. Not bad for only a couple of hours of work, huh?
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Whoa, found some absolutely amazing pics of San Francisco & other places in CA. Check these out, they're great. Here's one that we've actually seen when we were out there that's really cool.
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What do you get for pretending the danger's not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes.
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.
I was listening to the song "Sheep" by Pink Floyd & Roger Waters' lyrics seemed very descriptive of the current state of affairs in our world of late. Things really are what they seem & nope, it's no bad dream. Where's it going to go from here?
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Found a cool site - The 80s Rewind. It's a site dedicated to strictly movies released during the 80s. Was very glad to find this, because I was driving myself nuts trying to remember a movie I'd seen in the mid-80s that I could not remember the title of for the life of me. Turns out it was "Dangerously Close."
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Went to see Batman Begins finally. By far, the best of the Batman movie series to date. Christian Bale was a great choice for Batman, I thought. One of the most crucial factors of the whole Batman thing, was to strike fear into the hearts of criminal element. Bale really pulled that off well. Much, much better than either Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer or George Clooney did in the previous four (1, 2, 3, 4) movies before him. The whole film had a really dark, gritty feel to it. Gotham City really came off as kind of an ominous place which had succumbed to organized crime to the point where basically only a vigilante working outside of the law could make an actual difference - a role that suits the Batman character perfectly. To me, Batman has always come off different that most superheroes. He doesn't have any super powers, so he has to make up for it with physical strength & ability, as well as ingenuity. Not to mention, that Batman has always struck me as a particularly driven character, who relentlessly soldiered on no matter what, because he just would not stop. Bale really brought those qualities out of the character in the film. I thought that this movie was much more true to the ideals & vision of the original DC Comics version of Batman as well as one of my personal favorite interpretations of the series, The Dark Knight Returns (to me, this was THE ULTIMATE Batman story & really captured the true persona of who Batman was).
All of the special effects were very cool. The Batsuit & weaponry that were used could possibly have been real (well, for the most part...). The Batmobile was awesome! From what I've read, it was built specifically for this film, & was designed to be able to do all of its own stunts, without the aid of computer generated effects.
It was a different twist to see Gary Oldman playing a good guy for a change, as Jim Gordon, the supposedly only good cop left in all of Gotham City who couldn't be bought. The way the film ended, they left it wide open for a sequel (I believe that I read they've already decided to make another one & that Bale has signed on once again in the title role). Considering the first half of the movie gave you a fairly detailed version of how Bruce Wayne actually became Batman, it will be nice to see the next movie where he'll be featured more as the character Batman. Katie Holmes was the eye candy/love interest in the film & she basically slept-walked through her lines. They could have plugged in any young actress with a pretty face to fill that role, so it's not like she made a really significant contribution to the movie. My guess, she'll be replaced in the next one.
Overall, I would recommend this film. These days, most "blockbuster" type movies are nothing but a big letdown. Batman Begins puts its money where its mouth is & is worth the price of admission.
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Both concert ticket sales & movie ticket sales are down & suffering a big slump. Gee, wonder why? Could it have something to do with the fact that maybe people are just plain getting fed up with paying ridiculously high prices for no good reason? Corporate greed is a pretty ugly thing.
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MTV apologizes for sucking so badly & plans to re-run the Live 8 show again WITHOUT interruptions this time. Idiots...
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Check out this site. Click on the TOONS link at the top of the page & see some of this stuff. Pretty funny stuff.
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Can't say I was all that impressed with the whole Live 8 thing. Of the bands that I did see, I'd have to say that bar none the best was the original lineup of Pink Floyd. Seeing Roger Waters smiling & actually enjoying himself while he played the music he wrote along with his original bandmates was nothing short of spectacular. As this show sparked a huge increase in sales for their back catalog, the band has chosen to donate the money they'll be making from this increase to Live 8. Not too shabby, considering they could just be reaping in the profits from this. David Gilmour was quoted as saying, "If other artists feel like donating their extra royalties to charity, perhaps then the record companies could be persuaded to make a similar gesture and that would be a bonus. This is money that should be used to save lives.” Pretty noble. Of course, Floyd has already ruled out the notion of a reunion tour, citing that they're "too old." Time will tell. I'd pay to see them again, that's for sure.
And, just to re-confirm what I've known for years, MTV absolutely sucks. Floyd wasn't even done playing "Comfortably Numb," & they break in to flash to two of their brain-dead VJs who know nothing about music, so we can watch & listen to them tell us what a historical thing it is we were watching, as opposed to, you know, LETTING US WATCH IT instead. So lame, so typical...
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