cyberhobo

Month: February 2004

  • Movie: The Serpent and the Rainbow

    When I was 15 I met Wes Craven, the director of this film, just after he had filmed it in Haiti. I didn’t realize then how truly chaotic the country must have been. The story takes place during the build-up to the flight of president Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986. Almost as we watched, President Jean-Bertrand…

  • Sleeping warm, staying light

    It’s a gorgeous morning, and Ann stayed warm during the cold night. We’ve now tried a number of different ways for her to keep warm at night. Read on if you’re interested in what we’ve learned.

  • Evening on the PCT

    We only have time for a couple of short hikes this weekend, but we also want to test some more gear on a cold night. So we work through the morning, pack up, and are on the Pacific Crest Trail by 3:30 PM. We are treated to vibrant sunset, Mt. Jenkins basking in the last…

  • Movie: The Believer

    The idea of a Jewish kid so consumed with self-loathing that he becomes a neo-Nazi has potential, but runs into problems here. The characters’ motivations and philosophies are too muddled to be believable. Ambiguity in a character is good, but eventually it has to be explained.

  • Movie: The Elephant Man

    I feel like nothing I say will be worthy of this film. The was some kind of amazing confluence of talent and circumstance that made this movie greater than the sum of its parts. It’s stunning. I’ll risk one bit of commentary. The circus freak is a fundamental human archetype. To use it cheaply or…

  • Reverse Order Button

    I coded up this nice little button that allows you to reverse the current sort order of posts, so you can look at earliest or latest posts first. Right now I have the button just below the page header – try it out. It’s a nice, clean, satifying bit of code. I’m running WordPress-1.0.1, but…

  • Wedding photos are up

    At last, the rest of the wedding pictures have been posted in the wedding area. For the families involved there are some gems. I admit I’ve omitted some of the blurry ones, and a few unbelievably dorky shots. (Of course, those would be the most fun to look at, wouldn’t they? Maybe I’d post them…

  • Movie: Rebel Without a Cause

    Several things surprised me about this movie. Ann and I both wanted to see a James Dean movie, because he is still so glamorized by our culture. We had an idea of him being aloof and cool, which doesn’t describe his character in this movie at all. Here he’s sincere, well-meaning, loving, and sensitive in…

  • Punishment for gluttons

    Ann picks me up at 11 today to go to one of the few restaurants we like in town, the Bangkok House. Our experience this time particularly shows something about how our expectations have changed. It hasn’t opened yet when we get there. Ok, we wait a couple minutes, no problem. Once inside we are…

  • Movie: Adaptation

    For the amount of self-reference packed into this movie, it’s surprisingly easy to follow. So it would be a little misleading to say it’s the story of the script writer writing himself into the script, because it all seems pretty natural as you watch it. It does come close to getting too twisted up near…