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raimondas's journal
for anyone who does not want to read long books, Warren Buffett's column has it all. Ah, but can you really get it?
Some nice interactive graphs.
Expendables - the movie was solidly panned, but I enjoyed it. It's a thorough sci-fi flick with no realism whatsoever, but it gets the punches right. Even with ridiculous Ahnold cameo. R7/10
"The Color of Magic" - I think I like most of Terry Pratchett on screen rather than in the book form. I tried reading "The Color of Magic" some time ago, but I did not like it. The movie is much more watchable. I don't particularly like movies with no positive characters, but there is enough general appeal in "The Color of Magic" to compensate. And Rincewind and Twoflower do become positive characters by the end of the movie. :) R7/10
"The Canterville Ghost" - nice warm ghost story movie. Watching this movie made me realize how spoiled we've become with the video game puzzles. The prophecy in the movie just screams "adventure games" and "Nancy Drew". And the puzzle seems very simplistic and not exploited to the end in the movie. Come on, the heroes should have had to make the tree bloom and chapel bell ring instead of this happening automatically. ;) I am sure there were illogical ways to accomplish these feats with a rope, shovel and bucket of water. ;) And yet the movie is pretty nicely done. R7/10
Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams" - I think the segments of the movie were supposed to represent the dreams Kurosawa had in real life. Some of the segments are nice, some are just watchable. Not much coherent narrative except for environmentalist and anti war messages. Somewhat prophetic insight on the nuclear power station risks in Japan. Overall, it can be skipped without much loss. R5/10
"Hot Tub Time Machine" - The movie spends too much attention on setup and the characters, which leaves very little time for the actual 80's "Back to the Future" part. Speaking of which "Back to the Future" R10/10 did this already and did it ten times better. So can we go back in time and erase "Hot Tub Time Machine" from happening? R5/10
"The Tsunami Warrior" is an interesting movie. I find it difficult to evaluate acting by Thai actors. It's tough for me to say if the acting is OK or if Thai people cringe when they see the actors. For western eye things look OK. The story is quite complex with good and bad coming from this. On one hand there are non-traditional twists and turns that make the movie look fresh. On another hand, some subplots and characters do not make much sense. The treatment of the "light" side and "dark" side of the Force, eh "magic", might not be original since "Star Wars" came out, but it is nicely presented with a few novel details. IMHO, it's quite a solid film. R8/10
We started watching "Battlestar Galactica" and it's been a disappointment. It's supposed to be "realistic" science fiction and yet the computer controlled and guided spaceships lose to human reaction times (which are slow like molasses) in the interstellar dogfight. Cylon sleeper cell concept does not make much sense except to add episodes where yet another human is shown to be a sleeper Cylon. Depressing and bleak storyline. Blah. R6/10 but no plans to watch further.
Just finished 3rd season of "Babylon 5". The show is not without drawbacks - including low budget, especially in first seasons, but overall good storyline and some memorable characters. R8/10.
Studying nematodes to get Nobel Prize - the greatest scam of all. All your bases are belong to us.
Went to get my eyes checked and got examined with two or three new machines for checking peripheral vision and taking eye inside photos. It's nice to see technology progress that is more useful than Farmville. :)
(Checkup at Insight Optical was really nice experience. No, I'm not paid to promote them ;))).
Nine years is apparently enough time for a review. So the work I did way ago at Nokia is finally patented: “Power management profile on a mobile device”.
