Ketabcheh

My new car

UPDATE: Pictures removed.

Here is an ESPN story about a distant relative.

[Via Jamshid Bakhtiar Iranian.com]

This is possibly the coolest piece of technology news I have read in years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6725955.stm

A clean-cut vision of a future freed from the rat’s nest of cables needed to power today’s electronic gadgets has come one step closer to reality.

Get on over to a friends site and enter his Oscar Pool.

SPOILERS BELOW !!

The Academy Awards will be handed out tomorrow night and I’ve been frantically trying to see as many of the contenders as possible. Unfortunately I’ve been met with nothing but disappointment the last few week. 2006 wasn’t a great year for amazing movies. There were many good, even great movies but nothing blew me away like in years past. I’m not gong to predict winners, for that you can see my pool entires. I just have a few things I need to get off my chest about the top nominated moves of the year.

The Departed

It was good movie but I think the movie will do better than it deserves because there is no dominant movie to sweep the awards and it’s about time Martin Scorsese gets some Oscar credibility. Leonardo DiCaprio was great and stole the movie and that’s saying a lot about a movie where Jack Nicholson plays a bad guy. The story just wasn’t compelling and the other actors were too wooden and the dialog was very stiff. I hope Scorsese wins because he deserves it for his body of work. If you think this was a great movie then think back to Raging Bull, Taxi Driver or Goodfellas and tell me you really think The Deprated ranks up there with those classics?

The Last King of Scotland

A nice biopic about a not so nice dictator. This movie had a good story and was well made mainly because it was all shot on location but Forest Whitaker is what made the movie great. When he wasn’t on the screen you just couldn’t wait for the next scene with him. From what I’ve read Idi Amin had that kind of charisma so it’s safe to say Whitaker hit this one out of the park.

The Queen

Didn’t see it.

Babel

This was probably my favourite movie of the year. I say probably because I’m reserving judgment until I see Letters from Iwo Jima. This movie was haunting and gut wrenching and epic in its around-the-world story telling. Every scene was intense and director Alejandro González Iñárritu has hit the trifecta following Amores Perros and 21 Grams.

Volver

Good movie but not great. Penélope Cruz was very good and her face and facial expressions are so intriguing but she had little to work with. I just didn’t care about the characters or the story. I think this Almodóvar movie pales in comparison to Todo sobre mi madre. Did I mention it’s hard to keep your eyes off Penélope Cruz?

Letter from Iwo Jima and Flags of our Fathers

Didn’t see “Letters …” but I understand it’s better than “Flags …” and that means it’s going to be pretty damn good. The first film in this duology was very good. It’s not quite a war movie but it’s typical Eastwood with all the pained and anguished souls you can handle. I can’t wait to see the second film. The story of Iwo Jima is one that needed to be told from both sides so Clint Eastwood probably deserves an award for taking on the task.

Little Miss Sunshine

Very good movie. It’s a “quirky comedy” as everyone has labeled it. It’s got the best aspects of an Indie film and a comedy so I guess it is a quirky comedy. Strong performance from everyone int he movie and it’s well made and well written. Why shouldn’t it win just because it’s a comedy?

Blood Diamond

Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor and he makes this movie. The story is good and it’s well made but he makes it. The movie was more of an action film than anything else but it told the story well and looked good with on location shooting. I also liked it for treating the main character, who wasn’t very politically correct, fairly and allowing the audience to sympathize with him.

Children of Men

I think this was the best made film of the year. The long tracking shots in this movie were amazing and the scenes were unforgettable. It reminded me a lot of V for Vendetta and that’s a compliment.

Pan’s Labyrinth

Am I the only person who didn’t like this movie? It was pretty ambitious but I just couldn’t get into it. To be honest if they had decided to make just a wartime movie and followed those characters or just a fantasy movie then it may have been better. I didn’t like the characters, the little girl was annoying and the religious overtone of “the great beyond” wasn’t compelling. It’s pretty easy to tell a story with despicable characters like the Capitan and little girl that makes your heart bleed but if it doesn’t draw you in and make you care then you get a movie like this. Sorry I just didn’t like it.

Apocalypto

Loved it. I think it was one of the best movies of the year.

The Good Sheppard

Great movie but it’s not for everyone. If you’re a history buff with an interest in the last 60 years or so then you might like this movie. After seeing this movie I’m convinced that that Cold War really played like it does in the movies; all cloak and daggers like.

The Pursuit of Happyness

Nice vehicle movie for Will Smith and his kid. It also tells a good story but the story is tired and although watchable I didn’t find it all that great. I bet the book is better.

2006 will be a year to forget for movies. With the movies from last year being touted as these great works of art I can’t help but think our standards are lowering and if a movie doesn’t suck then we think it’s a masterpiece. This is what I call the “Sixth Sense” syndrome. That was not a good movie but it was a dry year for movies and with its gimmick ending everyone thought it was our generations Citizen Kane.

UPDATE: Just in time to coincide with my post the folks over at Wired have posted something similiar. How to Explain DRM to Your Dad

DRM stand for Digitial Rights Managment. Basically it’s a means for protecting copyrighted digital material such as music and video files. We’ve been hearing about DRM in the media for years and for the most part it just hasn’t affected me. I buy my music online and listen to it on my computer or my iPod and never really came across the situation where my protected music was much of a hindrance to me. When I buy my music from iTunes the files are protected in such a way that I can’t share them with anyone. That fine.

But recently I came across a situation where I really feel my rights as consumer are being violated. A few years ago I bought this nifty little music server called a Roku. It’s a really cool piece of tehcnology and one of the best pieces of electronic gadget I”ve ever bought. In a nutshell it lets me stream music directly from the Internet or any other computer in my house. I usually listen to streaming radio stattions from the world but recently I decided to listen to my music collection using iTunes sharing features. I use iTunes to share my music then use my Roku to listen to it in my kitchen or whereever. Well lo and behold iTunes won’t let me stream the music I bought from the iTunes Store. It only lets me listen to music I’ve ripped from my own CD’s.

I suspect this is a feature to stop a person from sharing their bought music with another person but in this case I’m trying to share it with myself. I paid for it but I can’t listen to it. Does that seem fair? DRM sucks!

Just got back from a week in the B.C. Interior which included 4 days of cat skiing at Retallack Resort and Alpine Adventures. I’ll post a write up later but for now here is a little video clip to show the nice but not epic conditions.

UPDATE: Pictures and video removed.

Introducing the 2031 Formula One World Driver’s Champion …

[MEDIA not found]

October 31st.

Only 2 more days to go …

[MEDIA not found]

I remember seeing this video clip years ago and the other day as I was day dreaming about going to the World Cup in Germany this year I thought about this clip and with the help of Google I managed to find it within seconds. The video was taken during warm-up before a match I just love the pure candid camera aspect of it. Enjoy.

[MEDIA not found]