December 2003 Archives

MSNBC has an interview with Peter Jackson in regard to bloopers in the Lord of the Rings series. i.e.

“During the scene with Sam and Frodo in the field with a scarecrow, you can plainly see a car cruising past in the distance, from left to right.”

I wished I had known this while it was still out in the theatres. They edited it out for the DVD release, though, so you won't find it there. My favorite one?

“In shots of Fangorn Forest from a distance, it’s an evergreen forest. Seen from up close or inside, it’s a deciduous forest.”

. . . some movie-goers have way to much time on their hands.

http://not5150.com/signals2.htm

early fall 2002... check out that huge outdated CRT monitor! yeach!

so that was a little over a year ago at my old apartment. i can't believed i've moved twice since then. i can't believe i moved 5 times in 2.5 years! let's see...

(05/01) - duke manor to west village
(11/01) - west village to evergreens
(07/02) - evergreens to evergreens (diff. apt)
(07/03) - evergreens to west village
(12/03) - west village to west village (diff. apt)

arg... i just can't seem to settle in one place. well, not my fault really, just that either roommates leave, rent gets too high, or, if you've been reading my blog, noisy neighbors up and down, left and right. but still, moving that many times can't be healthy!

since the links are broken in the previous posts, i've made local copies on this machine for the "end of the world" and "milk and cereal" flash animations. eesh, i hope google doesn't find these copies, otherwise my machine is toast!

end of the world - a hilarious (yet highly possible) view on how the world will end... sheet sheet! file zhe missiles!!!

milk and cereal - a couple of college kids with wayy to much time on their hands lip-syncing g-love's milk and cereal song.

...i finally sat down and finally transcribed and learned a piece on the piano :p... but the thing is, i don't know how to play piano (>:o), so i had to learn it first! haha, and transcribing was a pain in the ass, since i only had the song from a movie itself to listen to over and over again.

anyway, i usually don't post recordings cuz i find out they're too embarassing for me to hear, but for amusement's sake, you can listen to it here. such a pretty piece, i hope i didn't butcher it too badly.

the computer that this blog is running on has been, for lack of a better word, going kaput. this is probably why, if you've been trying the check in the past couple of days, it hasn't been responding.

-begin nerd talk-

i narrowed down the problem to an ailing SCSI hard drive, which i ended up replacing and re-installing everything (redhat linux 9, movable type), while salvaging the contents of my blog. while installation was pretty much exactly as i had done before, it turns out that i ended up getting the common error of the elusive DB_File.pm file not found.

well, for future reference (much like i had recorded in this very early entry), it turns out that the required DB_File.pm and associated auto/DB_File/ directories are supposed to be in /usr/local/perl5, not /var/www/cgi-bin/db/ as i had previously indicated.

-end nerd talk-

i've only just gotten around to this problem because of my move-in to my new apartment. i must say, there is *no* noise whatsoever, which is a huuuuge contrast from the burly twins above and the barking dog below. it ended up taking a lot more of my time than i had planned, but, its finally over. maybe later i can write a more interesting blog entry...

sandwiched between noisy upstairs neighbors and a barking puppy down below, life in my new apartment since july has been extremely aggravating, to say the least. luckily, after four noise complaints and a growing aversion to earplugs, i finally got the management to give us a new unit within the same building. this time, we're on the top floor (foh sheezy), and move-in starts tomorrow. i'm look forward to get a good night's rest uninterrupted by the two obnoxious twins stomping around at three in the morning. god, i don't know how i've put up with it this long.....

ahhhh, this month has started off so great! after an awesome thanksgiving at home, spent with continuous eating, watching all 18 hours of "taken" on dvd, and having a blast w/family and friends, i felt quite refreshed after a dreary november. (uh-oh, i just remembered my "sweet november" entry earlier last month, so i better not speak too soon!).

indeed, my life is a non-stop korean drama. it's kind of trippy, really, and is certainly a source of entertainment for some people [1][2][3][4] who probably dread or are anxious to find out what'll happen next :p but i've decided i'm taking this month off. y'all are gonna have to wait until season 25 comes out :)

a scene from "The Last Samurai"

amidst an audience of supposedly modern and culturally sensitive southern folk, i sat and watched a showing of "the last samurai." in my opinion, i thought this movie was excellent, despite its cliched plot reminiscent of such films as "gladiator" and "dances with wolves". while i admit i am no historian, especially one whose speciality is in 19th century japan, i felt the delivery of japanese culture and the riff caused between the east and the west was done so well, i enjoyed nearly every minute of it. i would have enjoyed the entire film, had it not been for the audience.

i dunno, there's something eery about watching on screen a bunch of ignorant, culturally insensitive 19th century americans scoffing at the ways of eastern tradition amidst an audience, 130 years later, that's laughing along side them. at first i thought maybe the audience was laughing at them, but after an hour or so, i realised they were laughing with them. perhaps i am being overly critical/sensitive, but i think many of the scenes that were meant to be taken seriously were taken with a bit of western arrogance which, as hard as it tried, failed to enlighten.

anyway, aside from that and my fascination with japanese culture, i must say i also enjoyed the fact that this was indeed a guy flick in that there was a lot of blood shed and heads rollin'. but more intriguing to me was the display of cutting edge military warefare of the time... the howitzers and especially the gatling guns, all shiny and new firing 600 rounds a minute. man, i would have hated to be the first guy who felt its wrath, with my last thoughts most likely being "what the fuck was that??"

anyway, tomatometer says 69%. but i've long since trusted that thing, so it means nothin' to me.

Note: these numbers are _daily_ averages!

Wow... It's only December 5th, and already 350+ hits per day! Typing "phil's blog" in google brings me up as the #2 hit! w00t!

As you can clearly see, I'm bored. 너무너무 심심해요... Not much going on these days, having finished my only class (korean 01, no less), and passed a lot of presentation/paper deadlines for work. I've been toying with the idea of starting photography, but it seems like such a huge investment (more time than money), but I guess if I do start, I'll probably start of with the Pentax K-1000... It's a fairly old camera, production started in 1976 and stopped in 1997 (design unchanged), and its a fully manual camera. Been reading a lot about it, and going fully manual seems to me the best way to go. I've just been so frustrated with the results I get from my point-and-shoot digital camera, for reasons that would be too long to explain. But luckily, my brother has on his blog :)

so hungry... jin, you need to call me so i can eat!

roobik* sez: "i wanna play wif da phone"

*one of my brother's twin cats... so cute (and dumb)!

a link to some coldplay videos...

holy shit! check this out!!! the japanese are freakin' nuts!
(you may have to right click to download first before playing...)

http://www.philsblog.com/archives/matrix-pingpong.wmv

one of my brother's friend sent this e-card from korea... who'd of thought a carrot could be so goddamn cute??

click here to see it!