Hopefully the layout of this site should be (slightly) updated by New Years. While it’ll look mainly the same, it should be faster, cleaner, and more accessible.

BTW, Merry Christmas everyone!

Last night I took ages (~3hours) to sleep, due to coughing, and the high temperature room. Also, a mosquito was plaguing my room, and kept playing hide and seek with me for around half an hour :(.

I just found a What The…?
The description of an item at Ebay.com.au contains an interesting accessory.

Aki and I saw Die Another Day on friday night. It is a good movie, but the major problem I found with it was the editing. Most of the movie is filmed like other recent Bond films (with superb locations etc), but the action scenes are edited just too quickly. Sure, action scenes always have quicker editing, but seriously, these scenes need to be watched in slow motion. Cuts are too quick, and mixes of double and normal speed are used like that seen in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. As the majority of the film is not filmed like this (as LS&2SB is) it detracts from the quality of the film. I found that in the opening action scene, the music was too hard to hear. The only action I found to be actually watchable (in that the audience knows exactly what is happening) is the sword duel between Bond and that evil diamond daredevil (I forget his name). The car chase on ice took days and a lot of money to film, but it only lasts on screen for a very short time (not enough I think, due to too much cutting). Another thing is that I never (conciously) heard the name of the diamond faced man, Yao. Other than these problems, I find DAD to be an entertaining film, but simple filmmaking techniques can make the film more enjoyable. Goldeneye is still my favourite Bond flick.

The other day I watched Dark City. While it has a mind bending different reality storyline, the screenplay suffers from bad senarios and dialog, and the acting of the main character is quite bad. The Matrix possibly took some ideas from this movie, eg the behaviour of the ’strangers’ are similar to that of the Agents. There are some quite good special effects; my favourite was where a some stairs and surrounding walls morphed, making the staircase much longer (similar to the effects in Mario64 and Max Payne); great bending of reality.

I’m still sick
Oh yeah, and on the way from Hoyts in Rundle Mall to the Pancake Kitchen on friday, some guy in a passing car happened to mistake me for Harry Potter.

I was not feeling too healthy this morning (coughing up stuff), but I had to get out of bed to enrol for next year’s uni courses. My electives for 2003 will be Language, Communication and Technology, Media and Culture, and Australian Contemporary Film.

I’ve been working on a new template for adboehm.8k.com, and so far I have it viewable on most browsers including the dreaded Netscape 4.7. However, ns 4.7 on the Sun computers does not like (multiple) nested table cells with background images, and the font size apparently does not seem to work

I got me a (bodily) virus all the way from Frankfurt, via Aki’s 18ish month old cousin Jacob, who along with her Aunt and other 4yo cousin Tara, are staying in adelaide for around two months or so. Tara has claimed ownership of me, to which Aki gets jealous :P. Got me quite a sore lumpy stingy throat, and a slight temperature. Today was spent resting in a reclinable armchair alllll day, and I passed the time by watching around 5 movies, which were in order: Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (Lone Wolf and Cub #5), Being John Malkovich, Eraser, and Alien Resurrection. LoB was funny, LW&C5 was interesting and bloody (as it is), Eraser has a terrible screenplay/story, and AR is good purely for the aliens. Being John Malkovich was the best of the lot, and it is a really interesting movie; I would recommend people to see it.

And I got a Credit for Media Engagements

Just watched Alien. The thing about it’s ‘outdated’ slow speed at which the story progresses (which has been talked about a lot), is that the story unfolds more like it would in reality. The editing style, which contains often long scenes (except in the sections where action = speed),
has surprisingly little parallel editing (one subject at a time, with little or no simultaneous events - unlike more recent action movies) and provides seamless continuity of the narrative, which add to the suspense. Just my two cents for the day.

And yeah, got a Credit for Media Engagements, which was as I was suspecting (according with the rest), I guess.

yay! I got a distinction for Language and Ethnography of Communication!

Currently playing: Drifters - Under The Boardwalk