Brent's Two Cents

All Aboard!

Today we embark on a journey that will certainly bring us a number of new experiences: We're taking a cruise to Alaska. Who knows what awaits us aboard ship and among the wilds of the north? From the research I've done, we can expect to see lots of water, in both liquid and frozen forms. There should be abundant wildlife -- possibly in the form of fish under the water where we can't see them, or bears and other large mammals in the woods, where we could easily miss them because of their natural camouflage. I also understand that there is a Brothel museum in Skagway, which I am certainly not going to miss.

I fully expect there to be some form of net access on the boat, so stay tuned for progress reports!

The Kennedy Files

Even today, in the age of digital music distribution, there are still reasons to buy CDs (like the freakin' iTMS still isn't available in Canada). I had a pretty great experience buying John Opferkuch's CD The Kennedy Files from CDBaby yesterday, and I thought I'd share.

First of all, John is one of my colleagues at Art & Logic who is apparently also a fantastic Jazz pianist. He released his first CD recently and I decided to buy the CD mostly because I know him (he drove me to the Norton Simon Museum during this year's A&L annual meeting in April). So, the decision to buy was already pretty much a lock. But then it turns out that CDBaby streams hefty sections of the whole album, so you can actually listen to a couple of minutes or so from each track. It's very nice -- from my vague recollections and the series of 2 minute clips streamed from CDBaby, I can confidently recommend it. Finally, CDBaby accepts PayPal payments, so it was a no-brainer. I've got a hefty balance in my PayPal account from all those eBay sales I've made in the past couple of years and I've been looking for opportunities to lighten it.

No, I will not send you money.

Worst (Russell Crowe) Movie Ever?

We watched No Way Back last night. I've generally liked Russell Crowe's films, but this thing was a real stinker, perhaps not as bad as Soldier (which I actually kinda liked), but basically just boring and predictable, sometimes verging on the ridiculous. The film's got a pretty great opening where this hot Japanese undercover cop takes out a whole apartmentful of tattooed skinhead gangsters, but that's pretty much the highlight of the film as it degenerates into sappy stereotypes (gruff single-dad cop/dad trying to save his son), bewildering extraneous characters (ditzy airline stewardess who's somehow along for the ride even though any sane villan would have put a bullet between her eyes the first time she opened her mouth) and ridiculous events (747 landing on an airstrip more suitable for a Cessna). After about 45 minutes or so, I realized that I didn't care about anything that was going on in the film, but I persisted nonetheless to witness the highly-improbable shootout between the cop, his formerly-captive-but-now-buddy Yakuza, and the L.A. mafia, with the day being saved by the ditzy flight attendant who manages to subdue something like six mafioso guys using only a radio tracking device, and manages to shoot the last bad guy straight through the heart with one try.

This film was made in 1995, before any of Crowe's big roles, so I won't hold it against him, but if this thing had come after the Insider or Gladiator, I'd feel ripped off. Actually, I do feel a little cheated: during the movie Crowe's character never assumes the gangsta sideways-gun pose featured on the movie poster.

Downtown Living

(Sadly, some spambot villan hacked my site and destroyed the content of this post. I think it was about a lovely walk that Stella and I took around downtown, finishing up at the Crime Lab, but now I can't remember any details. Bastards. This is my memory they're f*cking with.)

Paint and Wood

Well, after four years of living in a stark, white and off-white off-the-rack condo with mediocre furniture and an awkward layout, we've finally come to terms with the fact that we are without hope when it comes to interior design, and have handed the problem over to a professional. Rebecca visited us this week and helped us pick a colour scheme, and will be taking care of all the parts of the redecorating that require any kind of artistic talent, while Stella and I exercise veto power and our cheque-writing skills.

The floor will be beech. The walls will have paint on them. Non-white paint. There will be furniture.

Here are the Benjamin Moore colours: From the top left we have OC-96 gentle cream, CC-290 straw hat, CC-120 stone house, CC-210 dijon, CC-300 sombrero (the main colour for the living room walls), HC-14 princeton gold, HC-15 henderson buff, CC-810 hudson bay, CC-600 mossy oak, 2163-30 penny, and finally R-9930 villa.

SCO vs. Linux Primer

If you're anything like me, then you are somewhat confused by the events of the past few weeks concerning SCO's claims that it holds copyrights to some Linux code? This should help to explain it.