Kimputer's Weblog

Rate 1 (sucks) to 5 (cool). Only rate the latest pictures, otherwise I can’t keep track of the average.

Total: 660 out of 204 votes > Average is: 3.235

Spooky eh ?

Hanging in the phone in Phone Booth must have inspired this movie (Well, actually, the pitch is from the same writer. The script however, is not). So, comparing it to the “original”, I can say it tries it on a whole other level. While Phone Booth was fought out on the psychological level, this one has the usual cat and mouse chase approach. Kim Basinger is a very able cryer, and for comic relief you have up and coming Chris Evans (to be seen in next year’s Fantastic Four as Johnny Storm, alongside Jessica Alba’s Susan Storm) and the typecasted William H. Macy. Using conventional but proven methods, it blasts away from the very start, and keeps going on munching away on rare coincidents along the way. If you leave your mobile phone, I mean, brains, at home, it’s quite enjoyable.7+.

For an independent movie, this movie feels pretty bland. Usually, due to a small budget, they excel in storytelling. And if not that, there should be some other special thing to be found.
Not this one though. With three periods to be seen (kid, teen, mid-twenties, with the first being the most meaningless), the drug use and overall gayness make it hard to feel any emotional attachment. The story itself is pretty straightforward, laced with subtle hinting and veiled feelings. In any other well written script, that would make you think and feel, but this movie doesn’t touch you at all, it just flies by (and at a slow pace too). Luckily, the end is always near (only 90 minutes or less away), and when the credits start rolling, you’re left feeling, Is this all ?? 5.

Where is this world going to ???

Playing the ten songs for the tenth time already (I never liked Vertigo, hence only ten tracks are left), I can only say the high anticipation is not met with the same satisfactory feeling as with their last old school album. Only a handful have potential to grow on me, but somehow don’t have the feeling of the same punch the previous album had. It seems all the riffs they’re pulling off have some monotonous thing going on. And with that, I can’t even choose a song I’d consider an instant hit (for instance, Kite or Stuck in a Moment or Walk On on All That You Can’t Leave Behind). These new songs are definitely all pure rock, it just doesn’t rock me.6.

Incredible opening for the group of superheroes The Incredibles, storming the number one position with $70.7 million.
Jamie Foxx as Ray, stays at number 2 with $13.8 million. Third is last week’s number one, $13.5 million for The Grudge. Another Halloween left-over is Saw, with $11.4 million at number 4. Alfie opens at number 5 with $6.5 million, obviously Jude Law isn’t as charming as Michael Cain’s original Alfie from 1966.

Rate 1 (FR#^&% MESS !) to 5 (how very tidy !). Only rate the latest picture, otherwise I can’t keep track of the average.

Total: 1216 out of 380 votes > Average is: 3.200

Another edition of the World Tour series, this time we’re touching down in Italy. Again, it’s a subtle taste. If you compare the tomato part with the Lays Heinz Tomato Ketchup flavored Superchips, you can say it’s toned down by a factor 2. The mozzerella part however, is almost not noticable. Combined though, it’s still as addictive as the other favorite flavors, as I just finished a whole can in one day. Definitely a must-taste.7½.

Plagued by sliding ratings, the numbers don’t reflect the quality of this show at all. The WB’s faith in this series made it the first time slot swapper, but ratings are still anything but uplifting. While not reaching the excellence of the first four episodes, it proves the creative team behind it has things under control. Different writers and directors deliver solid episodes in the same style every week. Already past a third of the season, it’s clear it will finish it with the same high quality it has already shown. And that’s the only consolation, if the inevitable axe comes down.

This is UPN’s first legal drama entry headlined by actor/producer Taye Diggs. The simple outline is an upperclass lawyer (and a party-hopper at night), “inherits” a ten month old cousin, a baby girl. The following stories cover parenthood and dating (predictable fiascos) mixed with a new law suit every week. It’s not high profile writing, beneath the good looks and superficial glitter, the drama is simmering at best, and the humor isn’t that sophisticated either. Stories follow a pretty strict line, and it’s quite predictable. For now, it’s on the edge of repeating the same themes too often, and the cases aren’t too intricate. While it’s not really must-see TV, it’s an able time-filler.

A stellar cast pulls off a mediocre performance in this sixties remake. It’s not really the actors fault, the director, writer and producers are really to blame. A farfetched story to begin with, is designed in a such a revealing way, 95% of your guess work will be shown to be correct later on. Not only that, story threads are are resolved sloppily, something you’d better steer clear off with an unbelievable story as this one. Type casting all the characters, even in the tiniest roles, is the next mistake, and that means, no suprises to be found. Then comes character interaction, another design gone awry. It feels like either a lot of scenes have been cut up, or the character just don’t behave really normal. In any case, it’s noticable.
And last but not least, Jonathan Demme delivered some nice character driven movies in the past (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia), but this event driven movie isn’t worth mentioning at all. This movie would’ve probably been best served as a direct-to-video.6-.

With the previous post, you might actually think I do nothing else than watching TV. But keeping a weblog spam-free is actually an intense task. So here’s something for the more tech-savvy:

How to keep your WordPress Weblog Spam-free

Some of you might have seen one or two spam messages (about online poker and about cheap medicine) in the comments, which mostly happens overnight, and I don’t have time to delete it. It’s quite simple really, just one well directed URL is enough. It’s actually so easy, millions of zombie PC’s roaming the internet (usually for email spam) have this routine built-in nowadays.
The first step of course, would be to deny the IP addresses access to your webserver. This is done through the .htaccess file (using Apache of course). Till now, it’s kept quite short.
Then came yesterday. I already saw a small increase in this type of abuse, but had to leave for the movies. When I came home, I was bombarded with no less than 620 of these messages. With the attack continuing, filling the .htaccess would prove time consuming and in the end, probably worthless.
On to analyzing the exact spam messages and their methods it is (assuming I’m smarter than a botnet level spam engine):
– This new spam engine is quite effective. It distributes the post commands to other zombie PC’s, and each will post a spam message on another post, nicely increasing from 1 to, in my case, 600+)
– uniform posting reveals: 1. no http referrer 2. same url 3. spam contains URL
Actually, this is all I need to effectively block the messages. While using only one of the above would be enough, I built in all three.
1. build in code where the posting will stop and give an error message if the referrer is empty (use getenv(“HTTP_REFERER”))
2. rename the post.php file, and edit the originating (popup.php) to redirect to the renamed file. The static bots will keep hammering on the original post file which does not exist anymore.
3. build in code where the posting will stop and give an error message if the comment contains “http” (use strpos($comment, ‘http’))

By now, it’s already 2.00 am, but with a grin on my face I see all the return error messages fly by. Waiting for the next leap of intelligence of the bots then. (Actually, 3 leaps, which will probably take some time)
Who says I can’t teach you anything ?

With some 6 new episodes in my download queue for just today, I figured I may benefit from finding out what exactly constitutes as a TV addiction. First, here’s my current schedule:

Sure hits:
Jack and Bobby
Lost
South Park
Battlestar Galactica
CSI
Smallville
Everwood

Try-out bench (new series):
Boston Legal
Veronica Mars
Kevin Hill

Dangerzone (weak writing or due to repetitiveness repetitiveness):
CSI:NY
NCIS
Star Trek: Enterprise
Joey
Father of the Pride

Axed (either cancelled by the network or dismissed by me):
Medical Investigation
Last Comic Standing
Hawaii
Clubhouse
Drawn Together

Waiting for a 2005 continuation:
24
Tru Calling
Alias
The Dead Zone

Try-out bench, Waiting for a 2005 premiere:
Johnny Zero
Numbers
Blind Justice
Ricochet
The Office (NBC version)

As you can see, it’s pretty crowded, and I didn’t even include the occasional late night show (Jay or Conan or Jon).

So on to the exact definition. Well, I don’t have one. I stumbled upon this article, and then I stopped. It’s a pretty interesting read, and an excerpt goes like this:
those who are committed to their work cannot become addicts to television
Well, that satisfied my curiosity. Off to watch some more TV it is.

Rate 1 (sucks) to 5 (cool). Only rate the latest pictures, otherwise I can’t keep track of the average.

Total: 651 out of 199 votes > Average is: 3.271

Who designs a notebook with a keyboard that lacks the Windows Key ???? (It’s spells sumding like Idiotic Brainless Mobile-pc-wannabee) C’mooon, it’s been around for 9 years already, don’t tell me some engineer just forgot ?

It was like a proto-after-nightmare. You know I didn’t stay up for this. So I got up in the morning, and with half closed eyes I surf to cnn.com. Then I see this:

My heart sinks in, and I cursed half of all the US citizens. Four more years of that stammering unprepared pausing moron, with his silly 4th grade jokes.
I found out a bit later there’s still one more day to go before the counts are in. Anywayz, TOLDYASO you didn’t have to stay up all night for excitement !