A new spot aired last night for, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I thought it was much better than the teaser trailer that came out last month. If for no other reason because it wasn’t just quick MTV edits from one action shot to another.
It is hard not to get a little jazzed when the John Williams score begins to play. That translates into me immediately liking the ads until I stop to think about them.This tactic also worked effectively on Superman Returns in 2006. Only this time Williams will actually be doing the new score whereas with Superman it was some other person doing variations on a theme.
All of the ads for Crystal Skull haven’t given me a , "Oh yeah...I’m gonna plunk down my $8 for that," yet. Just from the trailers alone I know that I’m going to see The Dark Knight and Iron Man within their opening weeks and buy them when they come out on DVD., but we’ll see what happens.
Anyway, on to the clip....
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Gotta Get Me Some of That Cat Coffee
I’ve really gotta try this stuff.
from the wikipedia....
Excreted luwak coffee berries, East Java
from the wikipedia....
Kopi Luwak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kopi Luwak (pronounced [ˈkopi ˈluwak]) or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, and in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid). Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee, which are coffee berries which have been defecated by local weasels. In actuality the "weasel" is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet.
Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited: only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year (Pg 23, The Gospel According to Starbucks; Sweet). One small cafe, the Heritage Tea Rooms, in the hills outside Townsville in Queensland, Australia has Kopi Luwak coffee on the menu at A$50.00 (=US$46.00) per cup, and approximately 4 people a week are up for it, which has gained nationwide Australian press.[1]
A 2004 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare led to thousands of these civets in China being exterminated, [1][2] but the demand for the coffee was not affected.
Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. The raw, red coffee berries are part of its normal diet, along with insects, small mammals, small reptiles, eggs and nestlings of birds, and other fruit. The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it has been proposed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee’s flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are excreted still covered in some inner layers of the berry. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process. Some sources claim that the beans may be regurgitated instead of defecated.
In early days, the beans would be collected in the wild from a ’latrine’, or a specific place where the civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory, and these latrines would be a predictable place for local gatherers to find the beans. More commonly today, captured civets are fed raw berries, the feces produced are then processed and the coffee beans offered for sale.[citation needed] A newly-developed synthetic process intended to simulate the civet’s digestive system may decrease the demand for farmed beans. The creator of this process is Trung Nguyen, one of the dominant coffee producers of Vietnam. Synthetic civet coffee is significantly less expensive, and suitable for those who do not wish to ingest true civet coffee.
A hypothesis to justify this coffee’s reputation proposes that the beans are of superior quality before they are even ingested. At any given point during a harvest, some coffee berries are not quite- or over-ripe, while others are just right. The palm civet evolved as an omnivore that naturally eats fruit and passes undigested material as a natural link to disperse seeds in a forest ecosystem. Where coffee plants have been introduced into their habitat, civets only forage on the most ripe berries, digest fleshy outer layer, and later excrete the seeds eventually used for human consumption. Thus, when the fruit is at its peak, the seeds (or beans) within are equally so, with the expectation that this will come through in the taste of a freshly-brewed cup. As this may be true for the beans derived from wild-collected civet feces, farm raised civets are likely fed beans of varying quality and ripeness, so one would expect the taste of farm-raised beans to be less.
Kopi Muncak (also Kopi Muntjak) is a similar type of coffee produced from the feces of several species of barking deer, or Muntjac, that are found throughout Southeast Asia. Unlike civet or "weasel" coffee, this type is usually not produced from captive deer and most commonly collected in the wild, especially in Malaysia and in the Indonesian Archipelago.Arthur C. Clark
Bad news in the world of Sci Fi.
"Legendary British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
More Comic Book Movies of 2008
Also out this summer is the newly revamped, The Incredible Hulk. This time out Marvel wants sequels. This is supposed to be a less cerebral enterprise then Ang Lee’s Hulk movie. With more emphasis on the action rather then how Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk, and how he deals with it. Starring: Edward Norton as Dr. Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler as the long suffering Betty Ross, Tim Roth as former KGB agent (wouldn’t he be a hulla lot older if they stick with this origin?) and present day adversary Emil Blonsky (aka The Abomination) and William Hurt playing Betty’s dad and Hulk hunter Gen. Thaddeus ’Thunderbolt’ Ross.
Here’s the trailer:
The really important bit about this is where it’s leading. Marvel Studios is keen to have Norton reprise the role in an adaptation of The Avengers. Iron Man director Jon Favreau said "[Marvel is] pretty clear on wanting to do it with the actors who’ve established the roles or to not do it at all." Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark ,aka Iron Man, is doing a cameo in the film opposite Gen. Ross.
And, not actually a comic book movie but me showing my age, is Lost Boys: The Tribe. With returning Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. This trailer made me at least want to see this on video, or on HBO in a few years. Here’s the trailer:
Here’s the trailer:
The really important bit about this is where it’s leading. Marvel Studios is keen to have Norton reprise the role in an adaptation of The Avengers. Iron Man director Jon Favreau said "[Marvel is] pretty clear on wanting to do it with the actors who’ve established the roles or to not do it at all." Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark ,aka Iron Man, is doing a cameo in the film opposite Gen. Ross.
And, not actually a comic book movie but me showing my age, is Lost Boys: The Tribe. With returning Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. This trailer made me at least want to see this on video, or on HBO in a few years. Here’s the trailer:
Radiotelepathy Go, Houston....
"This video shows the system being used to place the first public voiceless phone call on stage at a recent conference held by microchip manufacturer Texas Instruments. Michael Callahan, co-founder of Ambient Corporation, which developed the neckband, demonstrates the device, called the Audeo."
nicked from Warrenellis.com
nicked from Warrenellis.com
Hulu.com
One of the coolest things to get going on the net is finally open to the public. Hulu.com is now up and running. The site hosts about 250 TV shows, including recent shows like "The Office, "30 Rock," "House," "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," and "Heroes," Also new are a slew of free movies, including: The Big Lebowski," "Dude, Where’s My Car," "Mulholland Drive," "Sideways," and "The Usual Suspects."
Meanwhile, the standard TV and movie streams look OK, if not great. TV streams look a bit pixilated, but the video itself looks smooth enough, with a minimum of stuttering. Movie quality on Hulu is pretty variable—some of the movies I saw were in their original aspect ratios, some were panned-and-scanned, while others were actually windowboxed (that is, big black bars surrounding the video). That said, all the films—even the rated-R ones—are uncut.
Everything is free, and you can even edit clips from the show and embed them onto your own Web site—that way, you get the video, and Hulu gets credit (and presumably, revenue) for the traffic.
Here’s an example of one of my favourite series, the pilot episode of "Firefly."
Check it out and see what you think for yourself.
Meanwhile, the standard TV and movie streams look OK, if not great. TV streams look a bit pixilated, but the video itself looks smooth enough, with a minimum of stuttering. Movie quality on Hulu is pretty variable—some of the movies I saw were in their original aspect ratios, some were panned-and-scanned, while others were actually windowboxed (that is, big black bars surrounding the video). That said, all the films—even the rated-R ones—are uncut.
Everything is free, and you can even edit clips from the show and embed them onto your own Web site—that way, you get the video, and Hulu gets credit (and presumably, revenue) for the traffic.
Here’s an example of one of my favourite series, the pilot episode of "Firefly."
Check it out and see what you think for yourself.
And Most of the Dogs I know Can Barely Fetch...
My ex's dog was so terrified of the world that she had problems coming to you if you called her...
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