Just discovered this video (thanks Justin) and have to say it’s amazing. These are video clips done by a group called Bad Lip Reading where they match the words of the person to different words. They’ve done the NLF, Twilight, Obama and more. Here’s the NFL video:
This past weekend i saw three films nominated for best picture – “Lincoln,” “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Django Unchained.”
I liked ZD30 the best, followed closely by Django with Lincoln a way distant third.
Zero Dark Thirty is sort of an incredible film. It’s definitely nothing like the other CIA film “Argo” – that film is much more standard Hollywood entertainment. This film feels like it has a point – it has something to say.
My favorite part of the film is how it depicts sacrifice. In a selfish world where kids growing up want to be a rock stars, want to get more followers on Facebook, and smart college graduates are all headed to investment banks to try to figure out how to make more and more money, it’s almost refreshing to see a film where the central character puts her entire life above herself.
“Do you have a boyfriend? Do have have any friends at all?”
It’s so true that the people who truly end up making a difference in the world do it by dedicating their life to their craft. There a great interview with Billy Joel where he talks about his failed marriages. He says that the problem is that once he starts working on an album, he can’t get it out of his head during the day. It’s there during the day, at night, while he sleeps, all the time. Everything else takes a back seat till that album is done. His marriages just fell apart because of it.
That’s what’s great about ZD30. You have a group of people willing to take on that sacrifice. They are willing to get shot and blown up for their cause. It might not work, but at least they’re willing to do try to do it, all day, every day in a country that hates us being there.
The scene with the head of the CIA,
“I noticed you’ve been working with us since high school. Can you tell me what else you’ve done for us?”
“Nothing. I’ve done nothing else.”
Yep, that’s commitment.
I knew how the story ends when i entered the theater but it’s one thing to see Obama give a press conference and another to be on the ground, going into a house with night-vision goggles. That’s some serious tension.
This just vaulted above “Silver Linings Playbook” as my favorite film of the year.
PS: As for the torture – i don’t know what the big deal is. First off, the scenes are not that brutal (have you see “Django”?). Second, it’s not clear whether the torture did any good to getting Bin Laden. How can you claim the film is promoting torture? Have you even seen it? Come on.
We had a great year in 2012 and here’s a video of it. We wish everyone a great 2013 and hope to spend lots of time with you all.
Lots of love from Mike, Diane and Hunter (4 months old)
PS: If you like the song in the video, it’s a great Phoenix cover and you can get here.
Christian Ponder was pretty awful for a two-month stretch this year, but with 4 games left, the Vikes had to run the table. At that moment, a funny thing happened. While Adrian Peterson continued going absolutely nuts against opposing defenses and Minnesota’s defense continued to step up their game, Christian Ponder got better. How much better? ESPN.com blogger Kevin Seifert puts it into perspective.
But after a disastrous Week 13 performance against the Packers, Ponder quietly turned himself around and had the NFL’s second-best QBR (86.8) over the final four games of the season, trailing only Peyton Manning. Over the second half of the season, Ponder’s QBR on third down — measuring not only passes but also his scrambles — was the league’s second best.
Yep, second best QB after Peyton Manning. I’ll take that.
I just saw “This is 40” last night on a double-date with my sister and TheBoss. I was hesitant going in because many critics have crushed Judd Apatow’s latest film calling it a sloppy, overlong, self-indulgent mess.
I felt differently though. I found it to be brutally honest and to go for uneasy truths over quick payoffs. And this is the way comedy seems to be headed now. The film feels less like “Knocked Up” and more like a 2.5 hour episode of “Louie.”
There’s a quote in Flavorwire from comedian Mike Birbiglia about how this trend is emerging,
“I’d like to think that we’re part of a comedy movement right now that’s moving away from observational comedy and into something that’s more personal and real. But it’s just one person’s opinion — it’s what I prefer because I feel like it has more heart to it. It’s got more teeth. And I feel like in some ways it’s a response to the Seinfeldian era of comedy, which was observational to a point of brilliance. I mean, Seinfeld did it so well, and there were so many mimeographs of that style, and then at a certain point, those mimeographs became so boring … It’s actually more difficult to just tell your story, and tell it honestly, and admit that you’re wrong about things in a way that’s entertaining.”
I can definitely see this happening. It’s in the Louis CK specials and in Lena Dunham‘s “Girls.” It’s a cool trend and I like where we’re headed.
I don’t really listen to entire albums anymore but it’s still fun to look at which albums were my favorite for the past year. I tend to split my time listening to iTunes/iPod and the service Rdio. Luckily, both of them send my play counts to Last.fm so my profile can tell me all about my listening habits this past year.
All of them are great. Divine Fits dominated my running playlist for a while with “For Your Heart” and “Would That Not Be Nice” being my two favorite songs. The two songs from Alabama Shakes (“I Ain’t The Same” and “Hold On“) were probably my two favorite tunes of the year. Mumford was good for just all occasions, and this song, “Trash Tongue Talker” from Jack White is just great.
You can find the mp3’s for these and more of my favorite tunes at iLikeThisSong.com where I post a new great tune every week or so.
What songs were your favorite this year?bal
I wrote a post about 4 months ago about the iPhone5 and what I thought about it. This was before i had purchased it or even used it.
I have now been using my iPhone 5 for over 3 months and really love it. It’s a nice upgrade over the 4. I like the thinner size, the bigger screen, the faster processor, and the super awesome camera. All things considered, it’s pretty damn sweet. I even have been using Siri in the car to play music and send quick text messages.
There’s a lot of buzz around Apple maps being terrible and some android phones being better. For me, Apple maps have been great although i just installed Google Maps and found that to be even better. I’m sure some Android phones are better or at least come close to the iPhone, but at this point, they are all basically the same. We’re so far past regular cell phones that are just phones that we’re all winners. These smartphones are just ridiculous in what they can do. Quibbling over megapixels, LTE coverage, the number of apps, and features such as turn-by-turn is such a great problem to have.
I last did a report about life with Hunter when I was 3 weeks in. Since then, I’ve learned a few more things.
Getting up in the middle of the night repeatedly can make a man (and mom) batshit crazy. For us (and most people), the getting up in the middle of the night to feed the child never stops and is totally exhausting. Diane and I are taking turns who gets up for the main feeding in the middle of the night. We found that if the same person keeps doing it, that person becomes not so fun to hang out with. We’ll see how this new experiment goes.
Continue reading “9 weeks in: a report”
The election is over and we can get on with our lives. For me, living in Colorado meant that our television stations were nothing but ads either telling us that Romney was a bastard or that Obama was incompetent. I know people who believe those messages and I don’t want to really talk about whether they’re right or wrong. It’s just exhausting.
I loved watching my Twitter feed on election night. I have to say that for live, unpredictable events like disasters, elections, and sports, – twitter really shines. That said, i was also really impressed with the coverage on television. The big board on CNN was way more informative with actual stats than any other medium. They knew where things were going down, when they were happening, and why. Twitter was snarky and fun but TV was actually helpful.
The big winner to me for this election was Nate Silver. If you don’t know Nate, and I didn’t until a little it ago, he’s a guy who first gained recognition for developing a system for forecasting the performance of professional baseball players. One day he woke up and wanted to the same for politicians. Last election in 2008, he built FiveThirtyEight.com (538 is the total number of electoral votes out there) and used his crazy smart algorithms to predict, with really cool charts, who would win. When the final votes came in, he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 state and all 35 Senate races that year. Way closer than almost every one else. Continue reading “Election Thoughts: Twitter and Nate Silver”
David Brooks, one of the better columnists out there was interviewed by Alec Baldwin a few months ago on the Here’s the Thing podcast. It’s a really interesting interview. The entire thing is here but below is my favorite 4 minutes of the interview is where he talks about the book he wrote and why it’s so important to choose a good spouse.
The first few seconds of this clip below is about his book is about why kids drop out of high school. He found in his research that you can tell in the first 18 months of kid’s life whether they will or not. Apparently, kids who can form attachments at an early age can form emotional attachments with teachers and peers later in life and they’ll generally be okay. If you can’t, life if very frustrating.
The second part of this short clip he shares some of his thoughts on marriage. I found it interesting to hear that he goes around and tells people, “If you have a great career and a crappy marriage, you’ll be miserable. If you have a crappy career and a great marriage, you’ll be happy.” I like the thought of that. If this is true, then all the courses you should take in college should be about who you should marry.
He then talks more about happiness and makes the point that money only correlates a little to happiness and that studies have shown that, of people who are happy, they have a good marriage and that the happiness gain of a good marriage is equal to that of doubling your income.
The link to listen to the pod is here
This may be why I was so willing to quit my job in 2009 – because I was about to get married.