Sunday, February 29, 2004

Something for the Fourth Rail fans:
It's something we've gotten many requests for, and something I always kind of liked the idea of, so I've spent some of my rare spare time in the past few months putting together an alphabetical archive of my Snap Judgments reviews from when we started the site (in 2001) to the last complete year in the archives (2003). Two and a half years of reviews, all listed alphabetically within each year.

Now, it's still not perfectly searchable, and it's certainly not done for the whole site (this page is sort of a beta test, the final version should have Critiques and Features as well and will take me a while longer), but for those who haven't been able to find stuff in the Snap Judgments archives easily enough, hopefully this will help out.

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

My Thoughts on Gay Marriage:
Since nobody asked, here they are. I've been reading more than a few threads online following Bush's inane notion to ban gay marriage in the Constitution (finally, someone has come up with something more moronic than the flag-burning amendment! Congrats, G.W.! You continue to excel in stupidity!) and every time I see someone responding with their reasons why gay marriage shouldn't be allowed, I keep wanting to respond in detail. But who has that kind of time? So let me just lay it out plainly.

If you oppose gay marriage, I think you are either a bigot, a moron or a politician. You can give me all the religious bullshit you want, you can give me all the "separate but equal" bullshit you want, you can give me all the "marriage is fer makin' babies" you want, you can even give me the "insurance system can't handle gay marriage" bullshit you want. It's all bullshit. The notion that two consenting adults in love can't get married is stupid enough... the notion that such a rule should be written into our national code of laws, the very thing that defines our nation? That is unpatriotic. It's the secular equivalent of blasphemy against everything this nation is supposed to stand for.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

My Baby Girl Can Bend Metal, Apparently:
They say the first casualty of war is the truth. Apparently the first casualty of Katy is my glasses. For a long time now, my little girl has had a fascination with my glasses, grabbing at them and often pulling them off my head. Tonight when she did so, I heard a loud "pling!" as part of the right temple assembly went flying off behind the couch, never to be found, and discovered that she hadn't just knocked a pin loose, but had actually broken the thing.

So for a week or so, until I get a replacement for this part, I'll be doing the geek thing with tape on my glasses. Oh, well, at least she didn't poke my eye out while she was at it.

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Star Well, Who Really Gives a Damn:
There was a time when I would have been thrilled to hear today's news, confirming the rumor that the Star Wars Trilogy is coming to DVD. Hell, given that I just watched the Indiana Jones DVD box set and found it to be pretty good this weekend, now would have been a great time for it.

Unfortunately, the "Special Editions," while improved in some regard, mostly contain what I consider to be stupid and unnecessary changes, and the whole reason I'd be getting Star Wars at this point is for nostalgia's sake... and nostalgia doesn't work if it's aimed at where I was in 1997 as opposed to when I was a kid. I'm sure the DVDs will do just fine in sales without me. More the pity... if the set came out and flopped, I think there's a slight chance Lucas would reconsider his decision and put out the original on DVD.

But hey, more importantly... when the hell are we gonna get Seinfeld on DVD?

Monday, February 02, 2004

Soundtracks:
You know, why is it that whenever you watch a movie (or lately, play a videogame) and think, "Wow that music is great, I should get the soundtrack" almost none of the music you really wanted is on the soundtrack? I mean, practically I know that it's down to licensing concerns, but I was really ticked to find out that neither The Italian Job soundtrack or the SSX3 soundtrack featured "Go" by Andy Hunter, though both featured the song in prominent roles. It's even more irritating that I can't get the song on iTunes.

Don't get me wrong... the Italian Job score is good, and the SSX3 music selection decent as well (although I'm bummed that I bought "Mas" on iTunes only to get it months later on the SSX3 soundtrack as well), it's just that the music in the original video game or movie was so good, and the soundtracks don't have that full effect. And this seems to be a pretty common thing.