Kimputer's Weblog

This ad is going around in the newspapers these days:

Well, all I could do was roll on the floor laughing my ass off (and that, only because of one word: immediate. So follow-up questions are not possible). What would you expect if you’d send an SMS with just your gender and age ? I guess the responding SMS would be something like “We were just measuring the gullibility of the Dutch population. YOU DUMBASS, HOW CAN WE DECIDE IF YOU GET ENOUGH VITAMINS IN YOUR SYSTEM WITH JUST THESE TWO LOUSY PIECES OF INFORMATION !!! Oh and THANK YOU FOR SENDING THE SMS, WE REALLY LIKE ALL THE MONEY WE’VE EARNED ON YOU”.
Of course, they get more info, sometimes your phone number, but that could be useless, as a prepaid would be virtually untraceable. With subscriptions, you can trace the owner, and using a linked database, like the one of the Airmiles, you could get some extra info. Then again, linking databases like that is still illegal. So, you have a better (valid) explanation, that doesn’t always answer YES YOU NEED EXTRA VITAMINS ?

As you can read in my previous post, I was kinda pissed at my favorite public transport company here. But I just saw it on the electric announce boards, the planned cutbacks on the earlier and later rounds are off the table, or delayed. Maybe they did some more digging on my name and discovered my ties with the chinese mob and got scared.

Labeled as an erotic mysterious crime thriller, it’s none of the above. From the very beginning, it’s nothing but dialogue that makes no sense. The director doesn’t know which direction to shoot, and hence, all the scenes and events happening don’t make much sense either. After 30 minutes, it starts getting on your nerves, and you just don’t care anymore. The basic storyline is simple at best, and they try to “thicken” it with the aforementioned nonsense dialogue. But put simple and shit together, and you end up with shit. The clues for the mystery and thriller part are too obvious and guessed within seconds when in sight. Cartoons in the newspaper cut, shifted, and pasted together have more coherence then this whole movie. So, a low grade, but then higher, for all the full frontals of Meg Ryan. Yeah, I can appreciate that.3.

We already use the term stiff upperlips for the British island wandering human beings, but I’d like to add another term. Boring nutcrackers. Why ?
The London Film Critics’ Circle Award. With over a hundred critics for TV, newspapers etc. voting, most awards went to mind-numbing Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and none to LotR: The Return of the King. If you consider that watching a glacier melt is more exciting, you can understand my frustration.
Ah well, hopefully the Oscar jury will set things right.

Do you, by accident uhmm, have $50 billion on ya ? If you have, you might just have enough to buy Walt Disney Co. This includes the numerous film studios, the themeparks, all the rights to the cartoons and movies and the characters, the ABC TV network, sports network ESPN.
This is the current bid coming from cable operator ComCast Corp. but somehow people expect the bid will be overthrown by one or more rivals. Who’s up for $55 billion ?

Update 13-02-2004: Currently Disney is valued at roughly $59 billion. Better dig a bit deeper in your pocket if you still want it.

As you may or not may know, XS4ALL now includes free antivirus and spam filter. A lot less mail to go through (ranging from 50 to 200 a day). Spam filter technology is like antivirus technology, always playing catch up. So a few will slip through now and then. Here’s the most interesting one of today:

From: “Klossie”
Subject: SH00T Out Amazing Amounts Of Sp.erm!

Treating it like a real ad, I can only ask myself, WHY WHY WHY ? What’s the point of shooting …. well, y’know ?

Okay, just found my keychain, with of course the keys to my house here (at work), laying besides that thing I did last, yesterday late.
Of course, I was in my house in no time, as I distribute duplicate keys to my chinese mob minions.

What about you ? If you lost your keys, what would have to happen ? Break in the door ? Break in the glass ? (Come to think of it, this question applies to singles only, others will probably call their partners)

Search engines are, though certainly helpful, far from perfect. With these past 2 years marking the blog-era, search engines take everything from one page, and parse it through to their databases, not taking into account every day, every blog entry, is totally unrelated (well, mine is, and most of what I read are). So, let’s dig through my web access logfiles and find some unintentional search hits, thanks to Google, Inktomi, MSN and the likes.

Office + 97 + Systeemfout in Google.nl – rank 8
kristin kreuk and grace park in Google.ca – rank 16
“10-8 Officers on Duty” ratings nielsen in Google.com – rank absolute 1, no other returns !!
karen cisco tv series cast in Google.com – rank 6
shut up -black eyed peas sing word in Google.co.il – rank 2: If only that Israelian dude used lyrics instead of sing+word, he would’ve gotten lot more relevant hits.
kurt nilsen album download in Google.nl – rank 1: Sorry dude, I don’t do illegal stuff.
Finding Nemo screensaver in Google.nl – rank 44
sunglasses Diane Lane Underneath the Tuscan Sun in Google.com – rank 2
bad boys II chinese subtitle download in Yahoo search – rank 3
janet jackson superbowl video slow motion High Resolution in Google.com – rank 2: NOW_ you wish you bought a TiVo eh ?
“janet jackson” “high resolution” “super bowl” in Yahoo search – rank 24
paint shop pro 7 cruck download in Google.pl – rank absolute 1: Kinda too funny to be true.
download copy of Dirty Dancing Havana Nights in Yahoo search – rank 15: Too early dude.

And here some intentional hits:
paris + hilton + video in Google.nl – rank 91: Hahahah, this was an evil blog entry I made, that, as you can see, worked quite well.
paris hilton sex video in Google.nl – rank 36: How evil am I ?
paris hilton video download italian mpeg -xxx in Google.com rank 26: Very very evil, it seems.
paris hilton sex video excerpts weblog in Google.com – rank 36: Why an excerpt when you can get the WHOLE video ?

So, do you have anything nerdy or funny to say about your http logfile ?

Yupz, it is as I feared. No Grammy’s for Matchbox Twenty, Faith Hill or even Shania Twain. Look at the winners list here.
Winners are for instance:
Justin Timberlake got a few statues. Didn’t know there was a yelling screaming teen girl section in the jury.
Evanananannannosense. Guess there’s a granny section too. Without batteries to power their hearing aid.
Outkast. Irritating.
Luther Vandross has a few too. No offence, he’s a great singer, but his album is BOOHOOOORING.

Totally lost my faith.

Showing off a new haircut is this week’s number one, Barbershop 2: Back in Business (Opens here unknown) with a nice price tag, $25.1 million. It beats out the $20.1 million opener 2 years ago.
Olympic Ice Hocky movie, Miracle (Opens here unknown), gets a silver medal. Based on a true story, Kurt Russell plays coach Herb Brooks in the 1980’s Olympics. Having been blessed with good reviews, it earns $19.4 million.
You Got Served drops 2 places, and ends up at 3 with $7.7 million.

The new Lion is supposed to have a new bite eh ? Well, trust me, if you want to try it out, just because Anouk is yellin’ it on TV, DON’T !!! It’s practically the same. I just ate 5 of’m, I’m _PRETTY_ sure.

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

Total: 990 out of 283 votes > Average is: 3.498

Really nothing going on this weekend, so here a quote from a famous dude, but keep in mind, I said it first ! (See my post a few days earlier)

Mikko Hypponen, Antivirus Research Director for F-Secure:
“I’ve lost my faith in education. It never helps, people will never learn…. They will click on everything”

Just a tiny bit more subtle than how I put it. Oh right, he earns money with it. That’s why.

Fast action, or serene silence. It seems the director knows how to shoot every scene with so much passion, it almost knocks you down. This movie combines it all. Fluid martial arts, immersive storytelling and stunning visuals. The director knows how to catch the audience with simple things. Color, motion and music. Subtle use of wind and objects, camera moves and intense acting. All this highten the emotionally laden story with psychological and philosophical twists.
While there have been rumors of a 20 minute longer cut for quite a while now, I can assure you that there’s absolutely no argument not to see this “normal” version in the theatre.8½.

Starting off with fast dialogue, that seems a bit contrived, the jokes and funny bits are nicely spaced between each other. Later on, the dialogue feels more natural. The first half will keep both corners of your mouth pointed upwards, although the story is quite predictable. Acted fairly standardly, there’s nothing suprising here to be found from either Jack Nickolson or Diane Keaton. Then comes the second half, a bit long winded. And the fourth quarter is nearing… slowly. By now, time has almost stopped, with only the law of linearity keeping it going. It keeps going on and on and on with no jokes, only cliches. It ironically becomes what it was meant for. Old nagging grannies. So, basically, here are the points earned for the first half. 6+.