the primary server at the office crashed sometime last sunday night... as you can imagine, life for me has been hell. got most of the services and roles transfer to the newer, secondary... so starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Bridget's sister had her baby last friday; a beautiful baby girl. big congrats to them...
lost the desire to post the past few months... sorry.
~m
so apparently the us$148 million was an estimated box office take. sony has updated the numbers...
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE MILLION DOLLARS
once again: $151,000,000.00
in 3 days.
can anyone even qunatify what this amount of money even is?
~m
us$148 million dollars. that’s ‘148’ followed by six zeros. in three days.
in case you are wondering, that’s how much the third spider-man movie made in its opening weekend. this is, as you may guess, a record, which in the long run in great because I like the franchise and this type of reception (i.e. the profitable kind) greatly increases the probability that there will be a forth or even fifth installment.
honestly though, i have to say that i liked the first two movies better. my initial complaint is that there seems to be too much going on in the movie for any one of the different plot devices to be truly played out. by my count there were 3 separate villains and thus 4 separate plot devices (3 bad-guy plots and spidey’s personal life plot) to blaze through in a relatively short amount of time.
now i still recommend that all the spidey fans get out and see it... if for nothing else as to see venom on the big screen. oh... and about that... i really have not been impressed by cgi in the past few years. jurassic park’s t-rex, blew me away, but lately it seems that the technology has become so prevalent that it just seems to blend in (exhibit a: the last 3 starwars movies) and to me... that’s kinda, well... meh. this movie however has some stellar effects, not just venoms webbing and symbiotic suites movements but also how every grain of sand on the sandman’s body behaves appropriately... just awesome.
so there you have it, on geeky chindians review of what is arguably the most successful comic book movie to date. take that as you see fit.
in other news, i am apparently an omnivore.
out.
so lately i have been listening to this band called The Hush Sounds a lot. i really like their stuff, both lyrically and in terms of their musical talent. for a bunch or really young kids they seem to shown not only a great amount of musical talent but also a great deal of lyrical maturity whilst still remaining playfully youthful.
so color me impressed. i highly recommend you give their album “so sudden” a listen. i like the songs “the artist” and “echo” particularly much. their second album “like vines” doesn’t disappoint either.
here is a vid of the song “the artist”:
anyway, here’s hoping you have a great Easter.
out .
~m
things have been a little stressful at the job lately and i have been a jerk an making excuses about why i have not posted lately. so here are the updates:
my dad had open heart surgery: triple bypass and a heart valve replacement. the surgery, i am told, was grueling but extremely successful. he was sent home after a little over a week and is apparently doing fine. those of you who know my mother will understand that, while i was genuinely concerned about the welfare of my father, it was her health that i was really worried about. my father, as my brother so eloquently put, is as hard as nails. my mother on the other hand, well... let’s just say tofu would be an over statement when thinking of her fortitude... or maybe i’m wrong... i mean she did survive cancer and all so maybe i am mistaken. still all seems to be kosher in the old homestead right now so there.
i had a prior post all planned (the contents of which are mostly described below) when i found out about his condition and thus failed to post: so here’s the skinny...
through a series of completely random events, i have now become the owner of a Microsoft Zune; bg’s mythical ‘i-pod killer’ and i must say that, whilst i do, as always have some gripes, i am very happy with this nice little media player. there are some definitely well-thought out features that i have become quite attached to as well as something’s that really get my goat. am not gonna waste time with a review here as there are ample on the net. although i admit that most of them being skewed towards the negative puzzles me a little, i guess, i know the MS haters and Apple fanboys are gonna diss the player so i am not that surprised. i like it though, the sound quality is great, the larger screen quality is very impressive, the customization is excellent and the software is simple enough to use. the wifi is a nice feature but i think that it is being stifled by MS themselves. where’s my wireless syncing? my wireless streaming? my wireless downloading? i mean come on... we know the hardware is there to accomplish these tasks (802.11x compliant)... so what happened? sacrificed to the gods of DRM? i don’t know. maybe EMI announcing that they are allowing itunes users to purchase DRM-free content (at a small preimum) and MS stating that they are working with vendors to remove some more from their marketplace, maybe i'll see these features yet.
still a pretty sweet player.
also, Vincent is a short film by tim burton, his first, i believe. anyway it is being re-released together with The Nightmare Before Christmas in stereoscopic 3d in october. i really like this film so here it is:
to say that digital media piracy has really come into itself in the last few years, to me, would be as understated as calling Noah's flood a "light drizzle"
as hollywood tries in vain to save us from the evils of the like of those at The Pirate Bay, it is invariably spelling its own destruction.
this is a topic that is quite close to my heart so i was thrilled when i read this article in Vanity Fair that a friend fowarded to me.
it is a slightly long read, but definately worth it.
i just installed windows vista.
it is pretty awesome. lots o cool interface crap and all. took a while to get it to run the way i like though. but it is doing great now.
love Aero. in case you haven't seen it you gotta check this shit out.
most of you know the situation Bridget and i are in now. those of you whom i haven't told in person have alluded to the knowledge of it anyway. so i'll leave it at that for now.
should be an interesting few weeks ahead.
oh, by the way check out the band "the hush sound" and their album "like vines"
saying that the weather has been alittle harsh lately would probably qualify as the understatement of the season.
saying that the weather has been alittle harsh lately in anywhere Erie or the surrounding 'snow belt' areas would probably get you stabbed.
we have around 3 feet of (permafrost) snow on the ground. last night we got about a foot. i was up to shovel my driveway this morning at around 4:45 a.m.
i didn't even get into work until around 8:45 and just the drive in should qualify me for some hazard pay.
out for now...
~m
a bunch of stuff has gone down since i last posted here.
my dad had a double heart attack. he's out of the red for now but it is more than likely that he'll have to have a bypass.
also another event has come to light but i am not at liberty to discuss it just yet.
i know i promised updates. i'll try real hard to make it up.
out for now
~m
i know you can't choose you family....
that is why i KNOW how lucky i am that they have not disowned me (yes, yes i know that they still have time. thanks.).
anyways check out my cousins Diana and Chris's blogs if you get sometime (in the all-new "BlogRoll" section of the sidebar! now with 30% more sodium!)
sorry for the lack to posts. you can blame me/my job/the fact that i haven't had time to do anything lately other than work/get ready for the trip.
speaking of which...
most of you may already know that we are on our way to Malaysia for the holidays... so i decided that it would be fun to photoblog the whole trip!
anywho... check the site for dailies!
i know that, in the grand scheme of things ... this really isn't late... but what can i say? i'm getting old. plus i have been in the office from like 7 am to about an hour and a half ago. long day to say the least.
it has been suggested that i clarify the reason for the name of this blog, i figured it was kinda self explanatory so i let it go... maybe i should have been more explicit. so for all my racially and pop-culturally deficient readers (yes, all 2 of you...) "life, the universe and..." is an homage to the late Douglas Adams's literary masterpiece "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"
as for the Chindian part, well being of Chinese – Indian decent, Chindian is a colloquialism that one becomes aware of at quite a young age.
so there. going to sleep now... have another 18hr day ahead.
stupid unfair having to work so hard for money.... lousy work... (or as Homer so eloquently once put it... “I can’t take his money, I cant print my own money, I have to work for money...., why don’t I just lay down in the corner and die!)
~m
great weekend. period.
though quite a contradiction in terms, we actually got a lot of stuff done over the weekend and still managed to kick back and relax...
the holidays are coming so Bridget and i decided that since we are not going to be here this Christmas that we would do most, if not all, of our holiday decorating this weekend. truth be told, we actually did quite a lot.
we got all the lights up, placed and trimmed the tree and even cleaned a little. oh, and get this: our fireplace got delivered! it is just such a nice touch!
less than 4 weeks to out trip and we are really getting excited about this... i’m not really sure why but this trip seems to feel a little more special.
hope you all are getting as excited as i am about the upcoming holidays!
someone said something really hurtful to me today. and it really bothered me. i’m not going into the details but i believe it can be summed up to me be being an arrogant, stereotypical american. concordantly, the verbiage “so Bush” was used to illustrate my actions.
this really hurt me.
i think it did for several reasons. firstly, this is the second time this person publicly belittled my actions, pointing out my glaring ignorance and other shortcomings for all to see. i didn’t think that was the way you pointed out the mistakes, if you believe them to be, of people you care about. if a child does something stupid, do you yell and scream at him in front of everyone, publicly humiliating him or do you pull him aside and reprimand him privately explaining the error of his ways?
secondly and i think maybe more importantly it hurt me because of who he is. i have always looked up to this person, his strength of character, choice of career and educational aspirations have always inspired me. i have always tried to emulate these things in my own life but have never quite measured up. i spent a lot of my childhood with my grandparents, he was the apple of their eyes, and though he wasn’t the oldest, most of his siblings often went to him for advice. how could i not see him as the definitive role model. so to have this person say this kinda stuff really does bother me.
additionally what if he is right? did i deserve this public chastisement? have i become this stereotypical, arrogant, empty, ignorant, childish jackass? am i really bothered, not by how he said what he said, but by the truth of what he said?
because of who he is, i would be inclined to believe him to be right but i don’t know. i'll need to think about this.
lots o’ other stuff going on. really can't bring myself to write at this point.
i have been living in the united states for about seven years now. that means that i have been driving in the united states for about six years now.
yesterday was the first time since being here that i was actually afraid that i might die whilst driving.
alright, i understand that the first real snow fall of the season is usually quite taxing on most people because it is the first time in a while that you have to remember/renew you winter driving skills. yesterday’s storm was something else completely. firstly, Bridget and i were driving separately so all the way home i was soo worried about her getting home safely.
secondly, it was whiteout conditions for a good third of my way home. for those of you who have not had the distinctive privilege of experiencing “whiteout” conditions... well try driving with white paint on you windshield... there you go...
still i can’t complain... i do love this time of the year....
in other news:
if last (work) week was likened to cranial blunt-trauma, then this week can be likened to a mild beating by, oh i don’t know.... lets say the local school yard bullies. things have settled down a little and it is stable enough now that i can actually get home at a time that affords me the opportunity to actually see my wife. that’s nice. we may even take in a movie this weekend (The Prestige with Christian Bale and Wolverine).
only about six more skull-drudging weeks of work before Bridget and i embark on our highly-anticipated trip to Malaysia... and brother you better believe that we are counting the days (43 as of this posting)..... i'll have the laptop with me so hopefully i'll get to post more when i’m on vacation...
out for now...
~m
wow what a few weeks this has been. work has been like being in a slave farm or at bootcamp or something (not that i have ever experiences either of the aforementioned allegorical situations… but i believe my experience to be … well at least comparable. at the very least. am i being overly ostentatious? pretentious maybe? perhaps).
Bridget and i will be at a really promising halloween party tonight. we both helped decorate the venue a little, and Dave, the host and his wife Joyce really get into the whole halloween thing so i am excited too. it is kind of an ‘office party’ actually but there will be spouses in attendance and of course there will graciously be made available a healthy dose of everyone’s favorite social lubricant.
sunday will bring with it the other party that we will be attending this halloween. we will be having a very civilized, southern themed dinner at the home of some good friends. and more like than not, some prodigious quantities of alcohol. premium quality, lest there be any confusion.
after sunday’s party comes something else that i have been yearning for, for some time now: a little bit of absolutely nothing. period. it seems like lately both Bridget and i have been so preoccupied with everything extra curricular, it is just gotten to be ludicrous . everyone needs to have some time to spend with someone you love and not do anything.
absolutely nothing.
just being there… or maybe playing a little 1-on-1 tekken on the ps2.
anyway… i really don’t feel like ranting right now (i know, i know: it is too late. you are all firgging hilarious. hah ha ha.), these last few weeks have really take it out of me. but i am making a conscious effort to keep this baby updated. so there.
also, i did take some cool pictures of the setup of dave’s basement all festooned ala ‘night of the living dead’ or ‘tales from the crypt’ or something. i’ll throw up a link after i post them.
out for now
