Movies that make me cry
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 29, 2007, 9:46 pm
I don’t claim to be a movie critic or anything, but I think it’s just because I’m an optimist when it comes to such things. I want the movie to be good, and if I want it badly enough, it always comes true. Some movies, however, are so touching and emotionally involving that they make me tear up during certain scenes.
Yes. I’m a guy, and I cry during certain heartbreaking scenes in movies.
Here are a few instances that I can think of right off the bat:
In The Majestic, Jim Carey gets amnesia and is embraced by the citizens of a small town, who are convinced he’s a war hero that they had all thought was killed in battle. Jim realizes he really isn’t who everyone thinks he is, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell the townspeople. On the cusp of his epiphany, he is rushed to see his “father” (who really isn’t his father), who is lying on his deathbed. He breaks down in tears and begins to confess, but decides the man should die happy.
“I’m not…” dramatic pause as Jim (and the entire audience) chokes back a sob “…ready to say goodbye.”
In another Jim Carey movie, The Truman Show, Jim plays the unwitting star of an elaborate reality tv show. Near the end of the movie, he begins to realize his situation and tries to escape. Despite the best efforts of the cast and crew, he manages to sail the endless sea at the edge of the set to find a door to the outside world. With the turn of a phrase (“In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night”), he walks out the door and the movie ends. I couldn’t help but wonder how he would live the rest of his life. What kind of job would he have? Does he have any hope of a normal life now that he’s suddenly a celebrity? How would he cope with the fact that his entire life up to this point has been a fraud?
I didn’t actually cry at any point during the first time I saw The Truman Show. I was didn’t want to seem like a wuss in front of the girl I had asked to come with me. Maybe I should have let my feelings out. Girls love a sensitive guy.
In Stranger than Fiction, Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, a man whose life is being narrated. Through the course of the movie, he meets Ana Pascal (played by Maggie Gylenhaall) and falls in love. During one scene, he meets her outside her bakery with a dozen flours (no, that’s not a typo), and manages to woo his way into her heart. The whole movie is wonderful, but I have to say that when they wrote that scene they were really on their Ps and Qs. The scene made me wish I had the romantic genius of dear Harold during those few moments.
A dozen flours. Frickin’ genius!
…and then there’s the scene at the end of the movie where Karen Eifel (aka “The Narrator”, played by Emma Thompson) is talking about all the wonderful things in that keep us from getting caught up in the fear and uncertainty of life: Bavarian sugar cookies, a familiar hand on your face, a kind gesture… and nose plugs. It’s a montage of the lives that were affected by the plot of the movie, and it just makes you think.
It’s movies like the these that give me faith in Hollywood.
Camino
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 25, 2007, 11:05 pm
So, since Daniel Miessler thinks Camino is cool, I decided to try it out. For those of you that don’t know, Camino is a Mac-only browser that boasts “Mozilla Power, Mac Style”.
There are a few things I like:
- It’s as fast as a bat out of hell. No. Faster.
- It integrates with the keychain, so my web info is safe (well, as safe as my password)
- Certain Firefox addons are already part of the build — like Adblock, Flashblock, and (to some extent) Tab Mix Plus. Honestly, I’m not sure why Firefox doesn’t build these functionalities into the main program.
…and a few things I don’t like. For one thing, I miss Aardvark and Foxmarks. I can do without Aardvark, but Foxmarks is pretty important to me.
I thought I could figure out how to write a Camino add-on to do the same thing as Foxmarks… so I researched all last night and some this afternoon to figure out everything I could about how the extension works. The hardest part was figuring out the xml structure for the file you sync to the Foxmarks server. So, after all this research I decide to start looking at some sort of API for writing Camino add-ons, and I couldn’t find anything!
I do some poking around and find out that Camino doesn’t support add-ons at all… at least, not that I can find. Man, that sucks.
It also seems to be a bit buggy. No matter how I set the browser.tabs.loadInBackground option, links from google reader will open in the foreground (which forces me away from my reader session before I’m ready). Is anyone else having that problem?
Oh, and how come I can set exceptions to the pop-up blocker, but not to the flash blocker?
Well, Camino’s pretty cool, but it’s still got a long way to go before I can use it regularly.
The right to bare breasts
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 20, 2007, 4:10 pm
Is it just me, or has there been a rash of women fighting for the right to be topless in public?
Don’t get me wrong. I like seeing boobs. They make me happy. In a public setting, however, it’s not acceptable for a girl to go topless.
The women in question often argue that it’s commonplace for a guy to walk around without a shirt, and women should be allowed the same treatment. What a load of bull.
Let me jump onto a tangent here and say I think it’s bullshit that everyone should be treated the same. If you’re dumb, you should be held back in school. If you’re violent, you need to be locked up. If you’ve got boobs, you need to cover them.
I guarantee you that if women got the right to walk around boobs akimbo all day, they’d start bitching when everyone starts to stare. I think if I ever see a girl walking down the street topless I’ll make a point to stop and stare and draw attention to her.
Sorry girls. I prefer to enjoy boobs in a private setting.
Also, I think the guy from Men are Better than Women should write an article about this fad.
"Tom smells like a dog"
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 19, 2007, 10:35 am
My supervisor and I had a discussion about ambiguous sentences, so I did a google search and ran across this little gem, in which a forum poster (“bubu”) asks about the ambiguous sentence “Tom smells like a dog”.
An ambiguous sentence is a sentence that can be interpreted in more than one way. The sentence in question can mean either “Tom has the smelling ability of a dog” or “Tom gives off an odor similar to that of a dog”.
Anyway, “bubu” asked for graceful ways of saying “Tom has the smelling ability of a dog”.
Although Jim had a good idea about how to deal with the ambiguity, I don’t think one should rely on the audience’s knowledge of grammar to disambiguate such a sentence. In my opinion, Franco had the best suggestions:
“4) Tom is inhuman.”
“5) Tom is a filthy mutt.”
Ha.
Seriously, I think Franco’s on to something. Though these sentences obviously lean toward the incorrect interpretation of the sentence, they do so in a sarcastic way, which leads the audience to interpret the statement in the originally intended way.
You're not going to die! Say the fucking words!
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 18, 2007, 8:51 am
Threadless has the best t-shirts ever.
(I copied Wil Wheaton here, but unlike him I have no aversion to cursing on my blog)
Works Cited
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 17, 2007, 9:26 pm
Wow. I’m amazed this kid even got a D. Wait a minute… what kind of fucked up paper requires research from tubgirl?
(If you don’t know what tubgirl is, you’re better off. Trust me. Do not go to that site.)
Vista still sucks
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 17, 2007, 2:47 pm
Given the other story links on the page (“Microsoft’s Antispyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer” and “Microsoft Purchase [sic] Evil from Satan”), I seriously doubt it. Besides, I doubt that Microsoft will ever realize just how much Vista sucks.
Non-Player Character
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 14, 2007, 10:22 am
I caught an interesting piece of fiction yesterday from digg. I found it to be increasingly unsettling since I play a lot of games.
Strange how, even at the end, you’re left pondering the lines between reality and virtuality.
Comment Spam Solved?
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 12, 2007, 12:10 pm
Hey, it looks like I’ve hit a good lick stopping the comment spam I was complaining about, thanks to a link to a techie article someone passed my way (via a comment on my last post — Thanks, j!).
Here’s a link to my previous post if you’re interested.
I’m still working on implementation of a few of the suggested countermeasures, but I seem to have outsmarted the spambot(s) that were hitting my post about free software. Only time will tell if I’ve actually fixed the problem.
Spam
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 6, 2007, 3:27 pm
I remember back in the day where we didn’t have to worry about spam. In my lifetime, junk (snail) mail has been an ever present annoyance, but there was a time that you could open your email client and not get any spam. None. If you got email, it means someone sat down at his computer and typed something out to you. That’s not so true anymore.
Nowadays it’s not even restricted to email. If you’ve got a public forum, there’s spam in it. Guestbook? Spam. Comment section? Spam.
I’m posting this rant because of that last bit about comment spam. As you may have guessed, I’ve got some asshole (or group of assholes) constantly spamming comments on a certain post I made some time ago. He isn’t exactly hammering it in, just a few messages every day, but that’s always how it starts.
I have two bits of protection in place: an intermediary “preview” step when posting a comment, and a limit of one post every two minutes. I know of many bloggers that don’t even have that kind of protection, and I don’t think they have any problems with it — bloggers that are much more popular than me. What gives? Am I an easier or more desirable target for some reason, or do these other folks have to deal with comment spam the same as I do?
Wacky world of the web (again)
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 6, 2007, 9:43 am
Lots of stuff has happened in the past 24 hours.
First off, there’s the hubub about the changes to the apple store. Apparently the 8GB iPhone got about $200 knocked off the price, and Apple has upgraded the iPod line
Let me first say that it sucks for everyone that bought an iPhone before yesterday. You basically got screwed. Honestly? That’s the way the cookie crumbles. You wanted to be the first to get the product, and it’s cost you an extra $200 to get it two months before the folks that have been waiting for a price drop. Two months after I got my Verizon Razr v3c, the v3m came out which just made my Razr look like crap, but did I cry about it? No.
So to all you crybaby iPhone owners, I say this: Boo-frickin-hoo. Go cry me a river, build a bridge over it, and jump off it.
I’m more excited about the iPod touch, or “iTouch” as some are calling it. It’s basically an iPhone without the phone. Finally, a kickass touchscreen iPod for people that don’t bow down to AT&T.
Next we have this little piece of forum art. Is it a sad tale of a lonely robot looking for love in all the wrong places? It it a statement about loneliness and death? Is it a tale of true happiness? I’ll leave that for you to decide. Discuss.
Oh, and look, Google reader finally got a search bar. What’s that? A Google app with a search feature? WHODATHUNKIT!
Also, I really wish I didn’t have to deal with comment spam. I changed the title of one of my posts because some fucking spammer apparently did a google search for a specific term. I think I’ll just leave it as is. If the spammers want to bomb a post I made a year ago, let them do it. I’m tired of deleting comments.
And a bit of sad news — it appears the Three Tenors are down to two. Luciano Pavarotti, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, gave in to the disease soon after a related surgery last month.
Vista sucks and other things
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 5, 2007, 2:26 pm
If anyone hasn’t caught on, Vista sucks donkey balls. Your local geek can’t fix your computer if the root of the problem lies within the OS itself.
In Soviet Russia the United States, video game control you!
So, this company just developed a game controller that reads brain wave activity as input — a “Brain Controller Interface”. Scientists, however, worry about the safety of the device, saying that the device could cause the user to enter some sort of impaired state of mind while using it — a form of mental fatigue perhaps.
You’d think Dr. Octavius would have come across this problem earlier and fixed it.
In other news, it’s possible to make your lawn green. No, silly, I know your lawn is already that color (unless the summer heat has killed it off). You can make your lawn more environmentally friendly by seeding this “Eco Lawn” stuff.
Apparently mowing your lawn twice a month and spilling gas all over creation is a problem. With this grass, you only need to mow it once a month, you almost never have to water your lawn, and it survives just fine in both shade and shine.
You know, I have to stop a minute and bitch. Is there really anything I do that doesn’t contribute to a dying environment? It seems like you have to go to great lengths (and expense) to be completely green:
- buy a hybrid car
- use solar panels in your home
- wash clothes in cold water (which actually saves you money)
- …with special “biodegradable” detergent (which counteracts any savings from using no hot water)
- … (I could go on, but I won’t) …
- re-seed your lawn with something that costs $15 for a 5-pound bag.
Screw all that. It’s called the second law of thermodynamics, people. No matter what you do, it’s all going downhill in the end.
Maybe someday I’ll buy a few bags and go for it, if nothing else so I don’t have to worry about mowing it so often. I just don’t have the money or time to rip up my old lawn and re-seed.
In still other news, this post makes number 100! Granted, five or six of those posts were test posts or whatever, but still… 100 posts!
Dragon*con 2007 Pictures
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 5, 2007, 10:56 am
Jessi took a few pictures when we were at Dragon*Con, and I thought perhaps I would share them. See if you can spot (among several Con-goers in costume):
The James and Oliver Phelps (the Weazley Twins)
Matthew Lewis (Nevil Longbottom) and his girlfriend
Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk)
Brent Spiner (Lt. Cmdr. Data)
Jonathan Frakes (Cmdr. Will Riker)
Mac Singer (The Beastmaster)
Richard LeParmentier (General Motti from Star Wars)
David Lloyd (scriptor and artist of the “V for Vendetta” comic)
Dragoncon 2007
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 4, 2007, 10:08 am
I went to Dragon*Con on Labor Day this year. I had lots of fun (several people commented on my Kingdom of Loathing shirt, and I got a few signatures:
Matthew Lewis, aka Nevil Longbottom, signed a picture for Jessi.
David Prowse, aka Darth Vader, signed an (unopened) action figure. Jessi bought the action figure for Joel, who’s birthday is today (9/4).
David Lloyd, author of the V for Vendetta graphic comic, signed my copy of said comic and sketched a picture of the Guy Fawkes mask on the inside of the cover. He used crayons.
Peter David, scriptor of the Dark Tower comic series (which follows the plot of Stephen King’s novel series) and several other comics, signed a copy of “The Gunslinger’s Guide”, another gift for Joel.
James and Oliver Phelps, aka Fred and George Weazley (respectively), shook my hand and said hello. I would have gotten autographs, but at that point I only had enough cash for one signature and I decided that if I could only get one, I’d prefer to get one from Matthew Lewis.
I managed not to buy a t-shirt (like I need another one anyway), but I did manage to spend a good chunk of change on comics and signatures. I’m just glad I didn’t get a weekend pass — I would have gone broke!
Oh, and Happy Birthday, Joel!
Web Design
by Tim Faircloth on Sep 4, 2007, 9:28 am
I caught this from one of my rss feeds, and I figure it about sums up my experience:
