Battlestar: The Final Season

The actors and writers talk about the final season of the excellent Battlestar Galactica.

Lost: The Return

It looks like Lost Season 4 is almost upon us :) This trailer looks excellent!

Plates: Oonst

What's next? Duf duf?

Plates: Jessica

Jessica or Gessica?

Plates: Foibles

Zeroes

A hilarious piss-take on Hereos:

Horton Hears a Who!

Check out this trailer for a very funny "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who". It's from the makers of Ice Age and looks just as (if not more) funny! :)

Trailers

It opens on the 20th of March 2008, down under! :)

Holy Cuteness

I had a comment on one of my posts (thank god!) from a blogger from Holy Cuteness. It's an interesting blog about animals in cute poses. There is an excellent video on Knut's first b'day as well. Check it out! :)

Lionel Richie - I Call it Love

Lionel Richie releases a new song after ages and ages! :) It stars his daughter Nicole.

The Dolphin Hotel Welcomes You...

We saw the movie 1408 last night. I was expecting great things after seeing the trailer a couple of months ago. It stars John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson. John Cusack plays Michael Enslin, a cynical writer who is trying to make sense of his daughters death and does so by staying in supposedly haunted hotels around the country and writing reviews on them. He is disappointed although, because he never really sees anything paranormal in all his visits.

Then he gets a postcard from the Dolphin Hotel asking him not to enter room 1408. After much hassling from the proprietor (Sam Jackson) he manages to get the key to the infamous to room. The movie kicks off from there with the room retaliating against Enslin in one way or another. There are plenty of jumpy moments during the movie which initially starts out very eerie and somewhat scary. Unfortunately throughout the movie this formula becomes quite boring, with nothing new happening from then on. Also a good plot twist is ruined for anyone who watched the trailer. Enslin in my opinion wimps out rather easily for such a badass disbeliever of the paranormal. In under 10 minutes in the room he's pleading to be let out. Not really the reaction I was expecting! Hmm.

A rather less-than-satisfying horror. I'd give it a 3/5.

Pic: Emergency Exit

This is probably the last exit I would take in an emergency. The scariest exit in Brisbane maybe?

Thou Shall Not...

Check out this hilarious song/rant by dan le sac VS scroobius pip (Thou Shalt always Kill) :)



When I say "Hey" thou shall not say "ho"!

Pic: Hard at Work

I captured this guy working himself to death on his laptop at Roma Street Parklands. It was much too nice a day to be working anyways....

Phone Fingers

Tired of smudging your ipod touch, screen? Sick of making your PDA look like a crime scene? Phone Fingers are latex gloves which you roll onto your fingers when using your ipod, PDA or other device with a touch screen.

"This is probably the funniest accessory for touch screen enabled devices available!

Our Phone Fingers are made to prevent smudges and fingerprints. With Phone Fingers you won't have to clean your touch screen all the time and it's an eye catcher too."

Phone Fingers sell for around EUR 6.90 for 25 pieces (5 bags) of varying size.

Roldy and Kuuuuuumar

Harold and Kumar make a come back in Harold and Kumar -2. It looks hilarious! :)

Demonoid Exorcised?

I recently visited Demonoid and was greeted with this somewhat disturbing message:

"The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.

We have brought online a forum in order to help the community stay together. This forum is not file sharing related in any way, it's just a mean to help the community stay together - please read the forum rules before posting.

You can visit the forum by clicking here"

What's the world coming to? What's next? Actually buying software and movies?! :P

Chuck Norris - Top 10 Facts

I recently stumbled upon an old favourite - Chuck Norris facts! I've listed my top 10 CN facts:

1. When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
2. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
3. Chuck Norris has two speeds. Walk, and Kill.
4. Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
5. Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.
6. Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.
7. Chuck Norris gave Mona Lisa that smile.
8. Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
9. Chuck Norris does not get frostbite. Chuck Norris bites frost.
10. Guns don't kill people. Chuck Norris kills People.


Chuck Norris reading his top 10 facts about himself :



Google gets some chuck action:

1. Open a new browser and go to www.google.com
2. Type in find chuck norris
3. Click I'm Feeling Lucky

Grappino Restaurant

Grappino in Paddington, is fast-becoming one of our favourite restaurants. A review can be found here.

Marvan Atapattu - Muppets

Atapattu's take on why the Sri Lankan team to Oz is just so so bad:



While this take on Sri Lankan cricket may sound extreme, it unfortunately is more plausable than you think. Corruption is rife in Sri Lanka and the selection of the cricket team is a heavily political process. Hopefully this will stir things up for the better for the Sri Lankan team in future.

BSG: Razor

"In the crucible of war, A soldier must let hesitation and doubts burn away, until all that remains is the honed edge of a living human weapon — what Colonial veterans call "a razor." But an edge so fine cuts in more than one direction. It can cleave an enemy to pieces … or it can carve away a person's soul." - scifi.com

The special two-hour episode "Razor", kicks off somewhere between seasons 2 and 3. It focuses on Lee Adama's first mission as the commander of the battlestar Peagasus, with flash backs on how Admiral Helena Cain and the crew of the Peagasus carried out many brutalities to stay alive. The episode has a dark brooding feel to it as it themes on the casualties of war and sacrifices made for the greater good.

There are cameos from the Cylons of the original BSG (which is cheesy goodness) as well as details on the creation of the original Cylon-Human hybrid. It also delves into why there is a tortured number 6 ("Caprica") in the brig. There are plenty of dog fights and emotive moments and Starbuck also makes a comeback so it is all good! :)

Oh yes.... and there is a prophecy thrown in for good measure as well! Woohoo!

All in all, a worthwhile watch for any BSG fan! :)








Teaser:

Pushing Daisies

Annie and I have started watching Pushing Daisies, staring Chi McBride (who's funny as!), Lee Pace and Anna Friel. It's a somewhat gothic comedy about a Ned, a pie maker (who works @ the Pie Hole - I told you it was funny!), who can bring back the dead by simply touching them. There are a few disclaimers though: If he ever touches someone he has resurrected they will die again, but this time he won't be able to bring them back. Also if the resurrected person lives for more than a minute, someone else in the vicinity takes his place and promptly drops dead.

As with any gift the protagonist uses his gift to make himself some dough. He teams up with a detective to solve crimes by bringing back to life any deceased victims and asking them what happened! They then simply collect the reward and go on with their merry lives.

Each episode it narrated (by a narrator?!?) and has a somewhat Tim Burtonesque feel to it. If I had to compare it to something I would say it was a combination of 6 Feet Under and Sleepy Hollow - dark, yet funny in places while taking a rather interesting look at life and death.

I know. Sounds a bit macabre and I guess it is somewhat... but it's also very funny, if you like dark comedies!










Have a look @ some snippets below:




comic-con interview with an interesting twist:

Russell Peters: Sri Lankans in London

In the standup below, Russell Peters does some standup about Sri Lankans in London. I've got a few standup shows of RP and he is funny as hell. His comedy is about racial stereotypes and he goes from Blacks, to whites to Asians, to Jamaicans.. and now Sri Lankans!

This portion of the standup mainly focusses on Sri Lankan Tamils, an ethnic minority that rocked up from India (so they are basically Indian's anyway). It's partly accurate since they only make up about 20% of the population! Shame on you Russell, do your home work the next time you decide to take the piss! :P

J 2Da T

Yes, we went and saw Justin Timberlake in concert. There. I said it. Everytime we visit the BEC I swear it can't get any busier and everytime it gets busier! What thaa? We arrived 1 hour before the concert and we were in a parking queue over a mile long. Jeez man! I thought rocking up early would be the way to go but I guess everyone else had the same brain wave...only they arrived even earlier.

After wasting away in the pre-concert parking carousel for about 20 mins I noticed an unused parking area, Parking Area 4, directly ahead. Unfortunately a traffic guard stood between us and a park and a way out of this madness. When we drove up to the traffic guard I inquired if we could park in parking area 4 (as no one seemed to be allowed to park there and hence it was vacant). The following conversation similar to an Austin Powers skit ensued:

me: Can we park in Parking Area 4?
traffic guard: what?
me: Can we park in Parking Area 4?
traffic guard: what?
me: (thinking I was talking gibberish) Can we park in Parking Area 4?
traffic guard : (damn! 3 times!) go for it!

So he sends us (and only us I might add) from a sea of about 200 cars to parking area 4! The beauty of this was that there was no "charge" for parking there and, and, it was directly in front of the concert hall!! I mean what thaa? How good can this get? :)

Once inside we were ready to be disappointed by usual horrible food for sale. The BEC have definitely got to get some better food going on.

The concert itself was setup in a different format to the usual. It was a "Arena" concert. (see pic below) allowing for even more people to pour into the same space! Aha! So this is how they crammed more people in there!






The opening act was a chick from Melbourne with beautiful voice but who's music bore no resemblance to that of JT. It was a bit of a mismatch to say the least. Anyhoo after about 4 songs she was off and everyone was getting excited for the arrival of JT.

Since this was an "Arena" concert, the singer would be facing in one of 4 directions at a time there were translucent screens which projected his image onto the other 3 directions.




I must say I was quite impressed with JT mainly because he played 3 instruments, danced for about 2 hours, gave away Au$100,000 to Steve Irwin's "Wild Life Warriors" on stage and started the show with tequila shots with the band!

I was also impressed by a full live band supporting JT and the rockified version of "Cry me a River". The light show was amazing, probably the best we have ever seen @ the BEC. Good on ya JT! :)

Damn Spotty!

Mac OS X version 10.5 “Leopard”, is the name of the newest release of the Mac OS X operating system for Apple Macs - the successor to Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger". What's with all the wildlife references? Speaking of references, isn't a Tiger more ferocious than a Leopard? What's next? Mac OS X 10.6 "Mier Cat"?

Leopard was released on October 26, 2007, and since its release Mac users have been behaving (even more) strangely than before. Firstly they seemed to have lost all artistic skills, many being reduced to primary schoolesque caricatures of real world objects (an example is shown below):


Secondly the "I just won the lottery" syndrome of users who pre-ordered the little sucker. If only you had thought ahead, you could be as happy as I am right now! You fools! Hmmm.



And finally the unstoppable need to take dodgy pictures of the Leopard "packaging" which is "way cool".




Bringing "sexy back":




Here's an overview of what's new:

Resident Evil - 3

I saw Resident Evil - 3 a couple of weeks ago at the cinema. I know lots of people were turned off by the 2nd movie (surprisingly I was not!). I really liked part 3, but then I like any movie with super human zombie-killing hybrids in it - call me easy to please! :)

If you liked parts 1 & 2 you'll definitely enjoy part 3. Check out a sample trailer below:

30 Days of Night

A decent-looking horror movie on the horizons @ long last! 30 Days of Night seems to be the goods and is doing very well @ the US box office currently. Check out the trailer below:

Whole Lotta Love

We've all heard "Do it with Madonna" but not much else from the Androids. I saw them live @ Pink's concert a few months ago and they rocked the place even though they were only a support act. They mentioned an upcoming album which is yet to be released. What's going on guys? Check out the video for "Whole Lotta Love" from their new album:

Funny Foster's Add

BSG Season - 4

I was pleased to learn there will be a 4th (and final) season to BSG! Yay! The 3rd season did end with a huge cliff hanger, so it would be good to find out how everything wraps up. Enjoy this promo for the new season starting 2008:

iPod Touch

Macworld does an unwrapping and first look @ the new ipod touch:

Linkin Park

Annie and I went to the Linkin Park concert this Monday night. I have yet to see the BEC as busy and as jammed-packed as I did on the night. We had to stand in line for a good 20 minutes just to buy memorabilia - something that has never happened to us before! Who knew LP was so famous down under.

Chris Cornell opened for LP and totally rocked the place with songs such as Black Hole Sun, Spoon Man and a heap of other faves from Audioslave and Soundgarden.

The guys from LP received what I've seen to be the loudest welcome ever @ the BEC (surpassing Pink and Aussie lads Powerfinger!) Every song was fully loaded delivering 100% everytime! The concert was concluded with Chester Bennington singing the last song on the shoulders of mosh pitters - a truly aswesom finale! :)

We then spent a lovely 45 minutes waiting to get out of the car park! Woohoo!!

Dodgy phone pix follow:

Iron Man

Every other super hero has his own movie so why not Iron man? The trailer looks very cool!

Hitman

Hitman is yet another PC game turned movie. It looks semi-decent. Check out the trailer:

What is (Red)?

What is (Red)? (Red) is a business model used by businesses to allow consumers like you and I to determine how our money is put to use in helping others in need - in this case helping those with AIDS in Africa. Part of the profits from (Red) products and services is donated so that medication for AIDS can be purchased and given to those that desperately need it in Africa.

The products themselves are very well designed (clothing, mobile phones, ipods, credit cards etc) and are offered by many well-known companies such as Gap, Motorolla, Apple, American Express etc. As such your fashion sense will not take a hit when buying any of these products! The only qualm I have is that we can't buy these products in Australia at the moment. I think that would be a move in the right direction as I know many people who would like to buy these products and help this cause/business model in Australia.

Many Artists such a Common, Joss Stone, Elle McPherson and Bono have also made statements publicly supporting (Red) either through their work or on their own.

Below is the (Red) manifesto:




Have a look at the (Red) website here and become part of the solution.

Bono on joining (Red) for world Aids day:



Bono on making helping Africa "sexy":



Common and Joss Stone speak about (Red):



Hallmark (Red) Ad:



Chris Rock, "Use (Red), nobody's dead" :

Tell Me What Were Gonna Do Now

Annie put me onto this cool new song by Joss Stone ft Common (there he is again!) called "Tell Me What Were Gonna Do Now". Check out the video below:

Jumper

Finally, and interesting scifi movie on the horizon staring Samuel L Jackson and Hayden Christensen: check out the trailer here:

Supernatural Season 3

Yay! Supernatural Season 3 is finally here! Saw episode one a few days ago and it rocked. Check out the promo below:

Living Darfur

A cool song by Mettafix about the distaster in Dafur.

Fact or fiction?

Friends put me on to Derren Brown. Is it real or just trickery? Have a look for yourself.

Backstreet's back a'ait!

The backstreet boys are back with their new single, Inconsolable. Enjoy! :)

Drivin' Me Wild

Enjoy the video to this catchy song by Common (Ft. Lily Allen). Enjoy! :)

Kanye West - I wouldn't Trust the Media!

Here's a Kanye skit on himself! Hilarious! :)



"Oh! Hell No!"

Van Tramp

I recently received a link, to a song from band I'd never heard of before, named Van Tramp. The song is called "Hope & Pray". They sound like a cross between Train and Maroon 5 and I'm looking forward to hunting for their album at HMV.

Check out the video, it's pretty sweet:

Heroes Season - 2

I saw episode 1 of the new season last night and it's very good! Yay! A few new players and an interesting twist @ the end! :) Check out this teaser in the meantime:

Matchbox 20 - Exile on Mainstream

Matchbox 20 recently released their Exile on Mainstream album. Quite to my surprise the album was released in Oz before the states (Well, actually before Amazon, so I could be wrong!). You can get it for around $22 at HMV. The biggest let down is that it is not a full length album (although there are 2 discs). There are 6 new songs and 11 "oldies but goodies". This why I haven't purchased the album....yet. I'm sure I will in the coming weeks though! ;) Here's the current track listing:

Track Listings

Disc: 1
1. How Far We've Come
2. I'll Believe You When
3. All Your Reasons
4. These Hard Times
5. If I Fall
6. I Can't Let You Go

Disc: 2
1. Long Day
2. Push
3. Real World
4. 3am
5. Back 2 Good
6. Bent
7. If You're Gone
8. Mad Season
9. Disease
10. Unwell
11. Bright Lights

I recently heard a Rob Thomas/MB20 song I had never heard before. The song was unfortunately not on the new album. I later found out that the song was named "Little Wonders" and was off the "Meet the Robinsons" soundtrack.

Zen Habits

I recently came across Zen Habits It's a web site that focuses on habits and practices that make our lifes more fulfilling and enjoyable. I found the articles very helpful and insightful. Give it a go and see what you think.

What the Hadoop is going on?

I recently started researching Hadoop, which is a framework for running applications with very large data sets and/or high computational requirements across large numbers of commodity hardware. Large data sets in this case range from TeraBytes to PetaBytes and large numbers of commodity hardware range in the thousands! :) If you are wondering how you could get over a 1000 pcs in one location have a peek at the pic below:



Commodity hardware implies your average pc and related hardware made for consumers. So basically these types of frameworks give you massive processing capabilities by networking heaps of regular PCs.

Hadoop is an implementation of MapReduce. MapReduce is a technique which facilitates the fragmentation of very large processing into smaller fragments (Maps) which can be executed in parallel across the large number of machines. The intermediate results of this processing are further simplified - the reduce.

Hadoop is based on Google's MapReduce implementation. Google's MapReduce further runs over GFS (Google File System) which is a distributed file system. Hadoop has its own MapReduce implementation and HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) which it runs over. The distributed file systems are needed for scalability, performance and fault tolerance.

If you want to give Hadoop a go there is an excellent tutorial on how to set up single node and multinode Hadoop clusters on Ubuntu.

Will Anderson - Wil of God

I'm gathering a group together to go and see Will Anderson at the Powerhouse this November (6th-18th). If you are interested in coming along drop me an email. I will probably buy tickets by next week. A description of the gig can be found here.

Oktoberfest hits Brisbane

This year the Oktoberfest Brisbane will run from Friday the 5th of October at 2pm to Sunday the 14th of October at the new Musgrave Park venue. Details can be found here. If anyone is interested in going let me know.

Something for Kate

We went to see Something for Kate @ the Zoo over the weekend. They sounded excellent live and there were heaps of SFKers getting into it. One in particular, who seemed to think he was at a rave...must have been the recreationals he was on!

I must say I like the Zoo a whole lot better than the Arena and BEC. We'll be going for more gigs there I suspect. All I have to show for it is this dodgy pic taken with my mobile phone! :) (and a fantastic time ofcourse!)

An excellent "Last Lecture"

Here is a small video of a last lecture given by a professor at Carnegie Mellon University which is pretty awesome:



"If you live your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you" :)

Genesis

Hello, and welcome to my blog! :)

Stay tuned for craziness and some insights! :)