I want this car...

...and I'm not even really a car fan. Motorcyles, baby, the vehicles of free men everywhere! But if I must drive a car...

So utterly and completely rude, without redeeming social value. Perfect!

Uncle Jimbo, plain talking

Who is Uncle Jimbo? Don't know, don't care, just loves what he says and how he says it. Rated PG-13, or maybe even R.

Link to YouTube page here. H/T to Annika.

Of movies and music

Like an idiot, I ordered up a flock of movie soundtracks this last week. I'll be eating Top Ramen this month, but now I've got my copies of Underworld: Evolution (Marco Beltrami) and Birth (Alexandre Desplat). The Aviator (Howard Shore) is on the way, as is Courage Under Fire (James Horner). I am resisting -- so far -- the urge to run down my Amazon wish list and click buy, buy, buy them all! My creditors would be dismayed. Besides, I have to be ready to buy the soundtrack to The Fountain (I hope that's the right link; music by Clint Mansell).

Not too long ago, I wrote about James Newton Howard. I mentioned I miss the glory that was and is Jerry Goldsmith. I still do. I looked at the post and saw where I referred to this, this, and this. (Hey lookee, this time I included the links!) Those are just samples of Goldsmith, and arguably not his best. (They're just my favorites.) I look at the soundtracks I've ordered recently (see above) and still find myself wondering: Who is the next Jerry Goldsmith?

Contenders:

• Marco Beltrami
• Michael Giacchino (robbed when he didn't get nominated for The Incredibles)
• James Newton Howard

There, that's my short list. JNH already produces moments that make me cry, he's just a little all over the place most of the time. Beltrami just rocks and is having waaay too much fun. Some day he's going to crank out a seriously serious score and the heavens will weep.

So there's no point to this post. I'm just rambling, thinking out loud. And I really miss Jerry.

Battle of the Browsers, Chapter...I've lost count

I'll be honest. I lept on Firefox the moment it was born, using decimal releases (when it was called Firebird) that led to v1.0. I was never a fan of Netscape, but didn't mind jumping to Mozilla. When they stripped out the browser, though, and gave birth to Firefox, I never looked back.

Until now. The son unit swears that Internet Explorer v7 is marvelous. He swears, I tell you. So I'm giving it a whirl. My desktop is turning into Microsoft city anyway, what with Office 2003, Office 2007 (Beta 2TR), OneNote, and now the beta 2 of OneCare. (Hell, I'm writing this post using Live Writer 1.0 Beta.) The vast Seattle corporate diety owns me more and more, so why not the browser, too?

Well, because it crashes more often than the mind can comfortably comprehend. "Unstable" is praising with faint damnation. About the only time it is usable is when running Microsoft Update. It does that all right, but I can't even log onto (Microsoft) Hotmail and check my email without a lock-up, and "this program ain't responding, shall I kill it?" (Which, BTW, XP does with frightening efficiency, sort of like killing a portion of itself with glee and joy.)

And don't tell me it's because it's just a "release candidate", because just to even the playing field I'm running Firefox 2.0 RC2. It runs perfect, not even a minor hiccup. Meanwhile, I can't finish a single browsing session with IE v7 RC2. Looks pretty good, dies pretty fast.

And so, Little 'Fox, you shall remain my bastion against the evil infiltration of Seattle. Lead me, on to OOo!

Coming Soon: 300

All right, another movie to get excited about: 300. (Oh, movie website here.)

I wrote about this battle before. And there's at least one brilliant book about it, too. This new film is based on a graphic novel.

The trailer just looks...awesome. Oh, some historical inaccuracies, like the Spartans wearing nothing but Speedos and capes (like, dude, where's their armor?), but way-o. The film was done in a style similar to Sky Captain, in that there were no "sets" in the conventional sense. Most (all?) of the acting was done before green screen with the world computer generated around them in post production. While Sky Captain wanted to go all pulp comic, 300 seems to aim for a...different look.

Love the look of those in the silver masks. Xerxes's immortals? Great tag line:

Before this battle is over, the world will know that few stood against many.

Some of the genuine lines are still there, about arrows blotting out the sun and dining in hell. The real battle has had a lasting impact on the world; I hope this film does it justice. And if not, it still looks totally kick-ass.