Metaplanar Babel

I always wondered what exactly the chinese spoken in Firefly means. This site seems to be a pretty good reference - it includes pronounciation guides, episode references, etc.

I think I’ve finally managed to find a media collection application. It’s a little web app called Listal that’s currently in an open Beta phase. Like so many other social tagging collectives, Listal allows users to compile lists of DVDs, books, music, and computer games that they own or wish they owned. Each item links to a summary, pertinant stats, and links to other people who have included that item in their list. Unlike another app I looked into, Listal also allows sorting, custom lists, and some other neat little features that I haven’t run into yet.

Because it’s still in beta, obviously there are some quirks left to iron out, but thus far, I’ve been pretty impressed. The only thing I can really complain about at this point is the fact that sorting and display settings aren’t saved anywhere and default to a list of items, sorted by date entered, which isn’t very useful to me. This has been mentioned on the forum once already, and I added my voice to it as well, so we’ll see if anything gets changed in the future.

Anyway, one of the neat features that I really like is the “frequency cloud” of directors and actors that is available on the DVD Home page. I really can’t tell you why Keanu Reeves tops our actor list, but .. there you go, an interesting tidbit about our movie collection. Another neat thing is the ability to display your collection with emphasis on the DVD cover image (kind of reminds me of the output from Delicious Monster, which Brendan had suggested before). Also, supposedly there are some bookmarklets out there that take advantage of some Amazon API functionality to easily add items, but I haven’t been able to find them yet. A couple of bookmarklets are available that you can use, while browsing Amazon, to take advantage of Amazon’s search capabilities.

I’ve only been signed up for a day, but this is the slickest social media collection management application (oi what a mouthful) that I’ve seen thus far (I have to rule out delicious monster only because I don’t have a Mac, and I couldn’t find anywhere that it would run on anything but). The interface is clean, relatively intuitive, and pleasing to look at. The navigation generally makes sense, and adding items is pretty easy, even if you have a large-ish collection. I haven’t played much with the rating or tagging stuff yet, but both ideas seem to have potential. Creating custom lists is really simple as well, and you can easily add descriptions for each item within the list as well as specify the ordering (I think). There aren’t currently any hooks to display data in another site (like a blog), but there are rss feeds available, so I think it shouldn’t be too hard to work something up. My only regret currently is that I didn’t find it sooner - Listal’s been up since August 29!

Take a look at my collection if you like, and let me know if you start one of your own!

Orson Scott Card, one of my favorite authors of all time, has written a wonderful, thoughtful review of Serenity. I think he really manages to capture what is great about the show and movie, without giving anything away.

Ethan over at Ctrl+Alt+Del
pretty much nails how I feel about Joss Whedon: “I think he’s awesome for bringing me these characters, and I want to murder him for putting them in danger, all at the same time.”

Damn you, Joss Whedon!

*cough*

Finally saw Serenity. It was awesome. If you haven’t seen it, go see it. If you have, go see it again!

More later, when it’s had time to fully digest.

The following is pretty much all going to be spoilers, so ah.. don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the movie.
(Continued..)

Jon and I watched a fansub version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent’s Children tonight. We’re both pretty huge FF fans, so we’ve been waiting for this movie for several years now. Having now seen it, I’m happy to say that we weren’t disappointed. Tycho over at Penny Arcade summed it up pretty well:

It should have a warning of some kind on it, when it hits retail. Something like:

Fanboy Warning

This film contains scenes that may be totally fucking awesome. Your favorite characters may be rendered in extreme detail as they take part in mind-blowing battles set in familiar locales. Futuristic scabbard/motorcycles might be depicted in a way that makes them appear sweet.

That about covers it. Oh, and three words: dual-wielding buster swords! Oh, yes, it can be done. Fortunately Jon has no problems with me swooning over the bishie boys, cause AC was full of them.

Seriously, this movie was so freakin smooth and awesome that I’m almost beyond words. We sat here for about 5 minutes just saying, “Wow..” over and over again. The animation was just phenomenal, the fanservice was brilliant, and the music was just..wow.. The story was kinda weird, but that’s pretty standard for a FF plot. And Cloud and Vincent and Sephiroth (with the fire and burning and the…*twitch*) and Aeris and everyone.. freakin incredible. Seriously. FF VII: AC is the path that rawks.

I found an interesting website this morning randomly, and it may serve as a starting point for the idea Jon and I’d had earlier about a movie database plugin for Wordpress. Haven’t checked to see how the lists are output, but could still be a useful little tool. Only flaw thusfar is that it doesn’t link to iMDB the way I’d like, but perhaps that’s fixable.

Ah, the joys of randomly surfing through del.icio.us. I found this nifty South Park Character creation thingy and had some fun. Check the full post for the images.

Honestly, I’m having way too much fun with this thing.. how lame is that?

Edit: I found a better version today.
(Continued..)

Good job, cruinh. Your evil plot has succeeded. We’re hooked. (Thanks, by the way )

Is ‘chocolatey’ a word? I don’t think it is, but it ought to be.. anyway, Jon and I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last Friday. As usual when dealing with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, the movie rocked. Of course, now that I’m thinking about it again, I’m getting that accursed o/~ Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! Everybody give a cheer! o/~ song stuck in my head.. Johnny Depp was fahbulahs, dahling, as always, though he was kinda creepy too. The two girl children were so horrendously awful that I just wanted to smack them both, and their parents too. Actually, all the children except Charlie were awful. Oi.

As is often the case with Tim Burton flicks, the movie was hilarious in a fairly demented way. I laughed so hard through some of the scenes, and I about died when the Glass Elevator flew over the newly established “Puppet Hospital and Burn Ward”. Too funny! And the new OompaLoompa songs were awesome. I especially like the hair band version. The guy who was the face of the OompaLoompas was great, but again, creepy.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed the movie. It felt fairly short to me, but that’s a good quality in a movie that’s nearly 2 hours long. The movie didn’t try to remake the old Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory but went for a very different style that worked really well.

In the previews, we were treated to one for Corpse Bride, another animated movie from Tim Burton in the same vein as The Nightmare Before Christmas. Corpse Bride features, you guessed it, Johnny Depp as the voice of the main character. The film also features a number of other names that seem to crop in many of Burton’s films, including Helena Bonham Carter and Danny Elfman, who also did the score and OompaLoompa Vocals for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Supposedly, Corpse Bride will be released in October sometime. I can’t wait.