it was a promotion for a cartoon show

Clearly, Boston law enforcement officials need to learn about cartoon characters during their training.

What I want to know is, how can an object like that be left unattended for two weeks across many metropolitan locations and nobody notice anything? Yikes.

Oh, and, who's bright idea was it to leave a black box with lights in these unattended locations in this day and age in the first place?

I managed to make a train a little over an hour later than I normally would have....but to add insult to injury, my train was stopped for ten minutes on the tracks outside of Back Bay station due to some sort of switching problem.

Posted by jennj at 07:21 PM | Comments (16)

i'm never going to get home

Not only did a project completely go into urgent, emergency mode an hour ago and I'm still talking with the vendor, but as of right now they've shut down the red line and are bussing people between two important stations I go through on my way to South Station due to hoax bombs. *sigh*

Posted by jennj at 04:18 PM | Comments (2)

crossing movies off the list

Mess, Annie and I went and saw Babel this afternoon.

Spoilers and thoughts behind the extended entry.

What a boring, boring POS. What a lot of work for nothing.

We determined it was trying to be Crash (which is brilliant) and failed miserably. Crashed and burned, you might say.

There was one thing I liked in it and it involved a techno club and the deaf Japanese girl. The director cut to showing her and you can hear the music and then it would cut to showing the club through her eyes and it was completely silent. Too bad it couldn't have been in a better movie.

The string that ties these people together is stupid (a gun that the Japanese man owned, but gave to a farmer in Morrocco on a hunting trip and then cate blanchett was shot with it). I don't even know what the point of the movie was.

I have to admit, the acting by the Mexican maid and the Japanese school girl was very good. I wouldn't mind seeing them in something else.

Oof.

Posted by jennj at 05:32 PM | Comments (2)

fan grrl

Nbh worked from home today so we could have Verizon install their fiber cable tv stuff. Yay. This means that right now I'm watching "Shindig" in high def.

Jane: "I say Zoe should get naked."
Wash: "No."
Jane: "I could get naked."
Everyone: "NO."

Posted by jennj at 09:15 PM | Comments (3)

stuff that irritates me, part of a long series

People who put graphics in their e-signature. It looks like every e-mail they send me has an attachment.

People who invite me to meetings on Fridays that are so important I can't wear jeans to work that day.

Posted by jennj at 04:38 PM | Comments (2)

plan of attack

The Oscar nominations are out. I don't know if I consider the following ramble as a spoiler, but just in case if you are sensitive about spoilers stop reading this now.

Anyway, I'm happy to see Pan's Labryinth get nominated in many categories (but I don't hold any hope that it'll win in the big ones), especially since it got snubbed at the Golden Globes. Children of Men I think got three nods (oh well). Little Miss Sunshine - happy that Alan Arkin got nominated. He's fantastic in it.

I have to admit, I don't quite get Meryl Streep's nomination for The Devil Wears Prada (her golden globe win either). After awhile I didn't find the movie _that_ funny and to be honest, she kinda seemed like she was just "there". You don't hear her side of the phone calls to the Anne Hathaway character, you just know that she's barking an order (over and over and over again - we get the point). Meh.

Cinematography will be a tough one for me to figure out how to vote. Children of Men, The Illusionist, The Prestige and Pan's Labryinth (didn't see Black Dahlia). All good stuff (although, if I had to pick between the illusionist and the prestige, I'd pick The Illusionist).

Animation is an easy one for me. I liked Happy Feet, but not near as much as Cars. I have put Monster House on the netflix queue, but I suspect I won't like it as much as Cars.

Nbh and I have a lot of movies to watch in the next month. The good news is that many of the films are still in the theatres or I can netflix.

The following are the ones I'm interested in but just hadn't made time for until now:

* The Departed (probably ASAP as it's appears to be in one theatre locally)
* Babel (again ASAP as it's in a few theatres locally but not _that_ many)
* Blood Diamond
* Little Children
* Volver
* The Good Shepherd
* The Queen (ooh...it's playing at the premium cinema!)
* Jesus Camp (Netflix)
* Half Nelson (Netflix)
* Last King of Scotland (again ASAP as it's in a few theatres locally but not _that_ many)

Not interested (but will probably netflix at some point):
* Dreamgirls (I just can't bring myself to go see it.....not sure why....)
* The Pursuit of Happyness
* Notes on a Scandal
* Venus (even though it has my favorite, Peter O'Toole, just not sure I want to see it RIGHT NOW...I may change my mind...)
* United 93
* Letters from Iwo Jima

Even though the list appears long, I have seen many of the films nominated. No, really.

Hmm. Maybe I should put together a MS Project plan.....hmmm....

Posted by jennj at 01:46 PM | Comments (8)

bruce alert!

My bud Newt posted some good news...!

Bruce Campbell movies coming out:
My Name is Bruce (February 2007)
Bubba Nosferatu and the Curse of the She-Vampires (2008)

Yum!!

Posted by jennj at 04:13 PM | Comments (1)

"taking the gondola down. there's no shame in that."

Question that came up during the trip: Will the New York-New York hotel in Las Vegas ban trans fats? We think that would be high-sterical.

Tired. Sore. More later.

Posted by jennj at 09:59 AM | Comments (1)

edible catan

Ulrika pointed me to this: Cupcakes of Catan (vegan friendly, btw)

Cupcakes seem to be the IT food right now.

Posted by jennj at 08:44 AM | Comments (1)

i'll be off tomorrow

I leave tomorrow late afternoon for my ski trip to Colorado. I'll be offline until Sunday eveningish.

Later.

Posted by jennj at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)

pan's labyrinth

Nbh and I went and saw an early morning showing at the local gigaplex. Highly recommended, go see it. Do not take kids to it. Take the R rating seriously, please. More in the extended entry. Do NOT read unless you don't care so much with the spoilage.

I was completely expecting a different story, mood and visual. But that's okay cause it's a great film. I think it'll win best foreign language at the golden globes and Oscars and I haven't even seen the other foreign language entries.

It's dark. Brutal. But beautiful in the sense of his ability to show that humans can adapt when dealing with adverse situations. I thought the filming wouldn't be so dark and that we'd see more fantastical images. Not so much. And the ending is really sad. But needed to happen the way it did.

His juxtaposition between the cruelty of el Capitan with the girl's need to completely immerse herself in a fantasy world to avoid her real life is very jarring. He really takes the cruelty to a new level. And her fantasy life rises to match the level.

I'm not so good with the movie review thing, so...um...like, go see it.

Posted by jennj at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

hopefully it'll be good

George Clooney has good taste in science fiction. It appears that he is going to produce a six-hour miniseries of Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. Cool.

Posted by jennj at 07:23 PM | Comments (12)

lame

When we first got our wireless network up and running It was "funny" when I e-mailed nbh from the living room while he was sitting at his computer in the next room. And it was "funny" when we did this when iChat came along. Nbh and I have taken it to a new level now that I have a MacBook too: VideoChat.

Lame. Lame. Lame. hehehehe.

Posted by jennj at 09:21 PM | Comments (2)

apple love

This entry is brought to you via my new MacBook!! Yay!! It took all of 15 minutes to retire my old machine and be up and running on my new one. God bless external hard drives and Super Duper software. Man this machine is fast......

Posted by jennj at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)

hehehe...

Nbh and I saw a commercial a few days ago with Bruce Campbell in it and of course it's now on YouTube. Check it out. I love Bruce.

Posted by jennj at 09:48 PM | Comments (3)

for those that love iceland

This looks like an awesome book:

"In each of the cities, Ami asks 50 of it's inhabitants to hand draw a map to a place of their choosing. A place that is significant or important to them personally, for any reason. She then uses the maps to navigate to each location and take a photograph to represent it."

This time it's Reykjavik.

Even if you don't think it's an awesome idea, you should at least click here and see some samples from the book.

Posted by jennj at 08:07 PM | Comments (3)

new mac

So after waiting to see what would be announced yesterday and seeing that there was no new computer stuff announced, we have ordered my white macbook. It should arrive Friday. I can't wait! Yay!

My sister will be getting my 12" powerbook as a late xmas gift.

Re: the iPhone. I like the way it looks. I like the integrated functionality. We don't have Cingular and I'm not sure the iPhone is enough to make me switch (and we have to wait for quite awhile to do so anyway cause we just re-upped our contract) and I would have to try out the "keyboard". By far I think that the blackberry keyboard is the best. I've tried out various Treo keyboards and I find them very hard to use. The iPhone would have to really impress me in this area to make me want to switch. I'm trying hard not to fall into Steve's reality distortion field.

Posted by jennj at 07:42 PM | Comments (2)

fish fish fish

Now this is an aquarium.

Posted by jennj at 08:54 PM | Comments (2)

ugh

My xmas present from nbh was a new winter coat. One that would keep me warm as I waited in the cold for the train. I haven't worn it yet.

I'm beginning to think I should have asked for a new, lightweight coat.

We were wearing t-shirts over the weekend. This is insane. I never thought I'd use the words "heat wave" during winter. But that's what it feels like.

Posted by jennj at 07:59 AM | Comments (0)

i'll be tivo'ing it

Thanks to Elke I have found out that Nathan Fillion will be in a TV series this year on FOX called "Drive". Yay.

Posted by jennj at 02:47 PM | Comments (5)

life in a big company

I love it when you ask someone for the standard format to use and they hand you three different "standards". And without a tiny bit of irony on their face.

"Standards. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Posted by jennj at 04:29 PM | Comments (3)

cute blog

I came across this blog a few weeks ago and forgot to share until now. It's called indexed. It's neat. You should check it out.

Posted by jennj at 09:10 PM | Comments (2)

yay!

Man, this week rocks*.

Spur of the moment ski trip invite last night. Will be skiing in Colorado in less than two weeks for a "long weekend".

Just got a phone call from an old, dear, wonderful friend who will be in town at the end of February and we will pahtee.

*Well, mostly. nbh cannot go skiing. His company is launching their product in February (yay!) so it's crunch time.

Posted by jennj at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)

bleah

You know why Americans are so obese? Because all of the coupons are for crap, high calorie food. We're getting our food for cheap at the expense of our health. I'm sitting here going through the mail that's been piled for a few days and I decided to look through the coupon fliers. Holy shit. Domino's. KFC. Turkey Hill brand ice cream at the stop and shop. Wonder bread.

Good god.

I'm not one for new year's resolutions cause it seems to me that one should try to change for the better any day of the year. However, after the past two weeks of too much food, parties and such, I'm definitely getting my butt back to the gym tomorrow. Course, this also means that it'll be crowded. But I suspect after three weeks it'll be back to it's normal pulse.

Posted by jennj at 03:44 PM | Comments (17)