Kimputer's Weblog

A late entry for Fox, with almost the same formula as NBC’s Medical Investigation. While I scrapped MI off my list weeks ago, I’m pretty sure I can scrap this show off right now, instead of waiting a few more weeks.
This show features a, what seems to be, brilliant MD (doctor House, played by Hugh Laurie) with some serious bedside manner problems (right, like we haven’t seen that before). Serving under him, is a self-chosen team of talented doctors. The formula is instantly visible. Opposed to MI, where they fly off to locations all over the country to stop supposed outbreaks, House will get special unsolved mystery cases coming to him. This is the first sign of monotony. With one location to film week in, week out, the stories must be pretty good, you’d think. But sadly, these are also heavily formulised, with the patient coming in, then the first diagnosis. Then it appears the diagnosis was wrong and everything seems worse. Without a diagnosis, the next step is to treat a theory, rather than wait for lab results. Repeat this step a few times, till almost the end they finally do solve it. After three weeks, it’s pretty tiresome, like you’ve been admitted in a hospital yourself for a few weeks.
It’s pretty strange why the usually sharp Bryan Singer (from the X-Men movies fame, executive producer of this series and director of a few episodes) didn’t have deja-vu feelings filming his second episode, as even the dialogue follows the same repetitive path the rest of the series does.
With no hope for any character development so far, I confidently declare this series DOA (dead-on-arrival).

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

Total: 1226 out of 387 votes > Average is: 3.171

The FDA (US’ Food and Drug Administration) is not willing to approve the sex patch (based on testosterone) from Proctor & Gamble just yet. This supposedly “female Viagra” boosts sexual desire in woman and hence, should produce more satisfying sexual experiences.
Well, maybe it’s for the better. What if you’d have had a year of great sex, but you now have a wife or girlfriend with a mustache ?

Betreft: Groot Charlois distiributie

Geachte Wegener Huis-aan-huiskranten B.V.,
graag wilde ik via deze weg mijn ongenoegen uiten. Heden vind ik, wederom een krant. U zult zich afvragen waarom die zin zo kort is. Weldra wordt het allemaal duidelijk, deze brief heeft als onderwerp combinatie.

Ten eerste, de anti-reclame sticker die op mijn brievenbus is geplakt heeft de combinatie NEE/NEE.

Ten tweede, de krant wordt onder deze combinatie van omstandigheden bezorgd (en zonder enig benul van tijd, het kan er ‘s ochtends vroeg liggen, of ‘s avonds laat):

a. In de brievenbus (deze hangt onderaan het trappenhuis). Moet ik weer hebben, een bezorger die lijdt aan de volgende combinatie: een kleurenblinde analfabeet die niet kan tellen (aangezien dat de drie kenmerken zijn om de oranjegekleurde 3 letterig-tellende NEE van de groene 2 letterig-tellende JA te kunnen onderscheiden).

b. Op de deurmat net voor mijn deur. Moet ik weer hebben, een overijverige bezorger die perse toch de krant wilt afleveren en daarvoor de trap helemaal naar boven neemt.

c. De krant ligt onderaan de trap. Moet ik weer hebben, een superluie bezorger die de straat doorrent en het zomaar ergens neerkwakt, zonder zich te realiseren dat met een stevige wind alles op straat komt te liggen (en de bewoners hebben ook geen tijd om het weg te halen, omdat het op tijdstippen wordt afgeleverd waar geen normaal mens meer naar buiten gaat).

Zoals u ziet, genoeg overtredingen die leiden tot een berg reclame en kranten (zie bijgevoegde foto van een stapel verzameld in slechts anderhalve week). Dit doet mij wensen naar de tijd dat bezorgers nog de weg wisten naar het dumpslootje hier drie straten verder. Of toen fikkie steken nog geen verloren kunstvorm was.
Graag ga ik nu over tot mijn combinatie van conclusies:

a en c leiden mij tot het denken dat bezorgers niet meer worden opgeleid. Noch worden ze verteld aan welke simpele regels ze moeten houden.
a en b leiden mij tot het denken dat bezorgers worden verzocht de kranten ten alle tijden af te leveren zodat de oplage hoog blijft (is dus meer reclame-inkomsten) ongeacht hoe dit de milieu aantast en overlast aan de bewoners bezorgt.

Hoe u het ook bekijkt, ik ben er niet blij mee. Via deze weg wilde ik dan toch ook uw kant van dit verhaal horen, voordat er een goed overwogen klacht richting de Reclame Code Commissie gaat.
Een financiele tegemoetkoming zou ook niet misstaan, aangezien ik slecht ter been ben en dus maandelijks de zoon van de overburen moet raadplegen om de berg aan kranten en reclame richting de oud-papier-bak te kunnen sturen. Elke keer 5 euro is toch 60 euro op jaarbasis !

Hopend uw reactie ooit uit een bijna lege brievenbus te kunnen halen,

K.N. Ung

Thriller suspsenser works its way through to almost the end without a hitch. While hanging on the same thread too long, the director has enough skills to keep it visually engaging, while the story focuses on just one thing.
Julianne Moore does most of the acting, and she does it like she always does. Perfect. Tears on command, a little shriek of insanity in her voice when necessary, lingering to a psychotic breakdown. The rest of the cast fares along just as well.
That said, towards the end it begins to feel a bit sloppy, storywise. But as a whole, it’s still a good average movie. It will be forgotten someday, but not as fast as most reviews will have you believe.7½.

Or so we hope. Spam should be canned. But how ? Law isn’t going to help, since the internet falls into a limbo of international mess. So now Lycos decides maybe we could drive the cost up for the spammers, by designing a screensaver that graciously visits a few of these “Get your Viagra here !” and “Rolex for cheap !” sites every day, in the background while you’re not using your PC. This way, if enough people join the fight, traffic of those sites should reach Terabytes, making the bill for the spammers somewhere between a pain in the ass and unbearable.
So, ya gonna join the fight or what ? Head over to http://makelovenotspam.com and well, the site is rather slow. Maybe it’s under attack by furious spammers.
Fire with fire ?

A truly scary movie, say reviewers like Rogert Ebert and Owen Gleiberman. Maybe cocaine was distributed through the airco during the screening at Sundance, because the only scary thing I noticed was in my imagination. The imagination of ticket-paying movie-goers sitting through this movie without a fast forward button at their disposal. I luckily did, but for reviewing’s sake, I only skipped the non-verbal scenes. Which, actually, is still quite a lot.
To describe this movie in one word, amateurish would do just fine. Filming with a cheap digital camera may save money, but if you think back to the Blair Witch Project, it doesn’t really assure quality on the silver screen. Then throw in two C-actors, a few cute little sharks and nothing can really scare you anymore. The dialogues that follow are childish and yawn-inducing.
Another case of “don’t believe the hype”, your money is better spend on a day in Seaworld.3.

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

Total: 1219 out of 383 votes > Average is: 3.183

How’d ya like the logo anyways ? It’s in front of every post in the category General. The K is of course, too obvious. The circle is to denote special Kopyright. As in, the (C), but then especially for me, which means, you can’t Kopy anything from this site, without at least paying a considerable amount of cash.
And second, you have these people who always start a sentence with ‘k (as in, short for okay. As in, “”K, it went sumding like this”). I don’t do that, but the appearance that I do, won’t hurt either.

FROM:
“Tory Swan”
DATE: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 18:56:34 -0400
SUBJECT: Kimputer Need software? Click here

It’s sad. But they’re on to me. Even though I never mentioned my email address (during last my post, I urged everybody to mail me at nickname @ gmail . com, which, again, sadly, no one did. So either I’m a sad loner, or the spammers solved this oh so hard puzzle before you did).
Oh, one more thing. I don’t need software.

Nicolas Cage is still treasure hunting at the top spot, spending another $33.1 million on National Treasure. The Incredibles are still strong supercharging the total box office to $214.7, with this week’s earnings at $24.1 million.
The first Christmas movie this year is for Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. Christmas with the Kranks opens at number 3 with $22.7 million.
At number 4, The Polar Express gains speed, taking in more than last week. $20.1 million brings the grand total to $82.2 million. Still needs double that to break even.
Also still doing well is The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, with $17.8 million at number 5.
And the only one not to really gain in this Thanksgiving holiday weekend is the supposedly great Alexander. Oliver Stone directed and Colin Farrell starrer movie did anything but conquer the box office with just $13.5 million, just enough for a top 6 spot.

As the title suggests, it’s not your average weekend movie, and you’d better not go for enjoyment. It’s something of a documentary with slight dramatisation (an ending like this doesn’t need much anyways) filmed with a mostly impartial lense. The end is of course, well known, but the director is still able to create an anxiety driven atmosphere. As for the feared humanisation of Hitler, don’t. While there might be moments that could validate this, you just can’t feel sorry for someone you don’t understand. The movie doesn’t give insight into the character, no how’s or why’s, you just get to see a few character traits. The big surprise for me was that the acting is pretty well done (as I don’t get to see many German movies), especially Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler deserves two thumbs up.
If you go for historic value, you won’t find much, besides the obvious ending. If you go for entertainment, order a few bottles of your favorite liquor and drink away a depressing weekend.7-.

It’s a quality Disney/Pixar production, as always, but not as incredible as expected. First impression is the old Superman cartoon turned 3D (both in mood, music and visual style). Second impression is a normal Saturday morning Marvel Cartoon (all characters and superpowers can be traced back, with the Fantastic Four being the main template). After the lead in, comes the settling down. Both literally and figuratively. This can be long stretch, but actually creates a bit of depth previous animation didn’t have. And then slowly, it climbs back to the all action finale where everything happens just the way most people like it. The danger in this kind of movie is that you never have the feeling something really bad can happen. The build up drama doesn’t hold and you’re left with nothing too special or daring. Still it’s enjoyable, even though the laugh out loud moments are harder to find than usual.7½.

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

Who in #)(*#(%*#()@ , with a sane mind, would design a notebook with a touchpad that doesn’t click on tap ??? Now I have to use TWO fingers at all times instead of one !

Are you ready for the next step ? Every single one of you, of course, has a mobile phone by now. First there was SMS for text, then there was MMS for pictures. Now that those markets are overcrowded, it’s time to move on to the next step. Mobile TV/Video !
First there’s Vodafone. With new UMTS phones, bandwidths of 384/64 kbps are reality. Hence the push of video to the phone is just as easy. With just a few bucks an hour, you get special content. Vodafone already ordered special episodes of the hit-series 24. The spin-off series called 24: Conspiracy will be packaged in 24 mobisodes of 60 seconds.
Then there are the new mobile phones featuring real TV chips and a special antenna. More resembling old fashioned TV set (as UMTS is an all digital two-way communications network), Nokia’s handsets will be able to access some 20 to 50 TV channels. No pricing is available yet. But a small price to pay is the bulkier apparatus.
As you can see, tons of new revenue possibilities (subcriptions and new hardware sales) for the coming years. Which one will you choose ?