GeezLouies.net

God, life, family, and chaos with the Louies

Entries Comments



Category: entertainment


Can ordinary people recognize genius?

Washington post had an interesting article:

IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?

If a world famous violinist played a strad at the L’enfant metro station would people stop to listen? Apparently most didn’t.  Over a thousand people walked by… either in a rush or just ignored…  it was quite an experiment.

Apparently Joshua Bell is world famous. Well, I take the metro every day. Whenever a musician or band plays at the metro, I usually walk by, so I can’t say I’ll be any better in recognizing talent. But I thought this article pretty insightful. Goes to show how much we really care about quality… I guess not much. :)

27 June, 2008 (20:16) | Random, entertainment | By: GeezLouies

Serenity, Firefly, Hulu.com

At the recommendation of a friend, we added the movie Serenity on our netflix queue.  It looked like a low budget sci-fi movie, but appearances can be deceiving.  It actually had a great story with likable characters and surprises abounded.  We later found out it was the conclusion of a series called Firefly that Fox canceled or more like ruined.  Some highlights include random chinese spoken the characters, a weird romantic story, and some great effects.

I recommend watching the series first, but not a prerequisite for the movie.  That can be done on this site which recently found as well: hulu.com

On a side note, Hulu has a full length movies and tv shows from the past… some old, some new… some include: A-team, Fantasy Island, the Tick, Airwolf, What’s Happening, What’s Happening Now!, Who’s the Boss, etc…

1 April, 2008 (12:42) | entertainment | By: GeezLouies

Family Photo

This is a family portrait from cousin Brian’s wedding.

brian_19a_750.jpg

23 February, 2008 (19:04) | Family, entertainment, pics | By: GeezLouies

Super Bowl XLII, commercials, Manning, Belichick, ego…

This year’s super bowl was probably one of the most exciting ones in history, especially the last quarter.  Here’s a rundown of my commentary:

Commercials were below average.  Sign of recession and lack of interest.  Not sure why there were so many commercials about “sales leads” but I guess someone had to buy the 30 second slots.

As for Eli Manning, he was asked by one of the commentators something to the extent “at what point in the season did he think he could win it all?”  Eli responded that he always had confidence he could do it, even when they were losing, the only difference was that  everything else just worked out together in the end.  That was surprising to me.  He always seemed like a guy who was unsure, young, and green, but I guess he knew internally who he was and what he could do.  Kudos to the Giants!

As for the Patriots, I was surprised with 39 seconds and 3 timeouts they didn’t try to go for a tie and win it in overtime.  My guess is that Belichick had to deal more with his own ego and his pride than defeating the Giants. 

It reminded me of the episode of TNG where Data challenged this alien to some futuristic video game.  The alien was the master, the best, and there were instances where Data could have gone for the obvious win, but instead he changed his strategy and went for a draw.  This exasperated his opponent to the point where the game lasted longer than he cared to play.  In the end, Data won by forfeit because the alien’s ego was frustrated by Data’s “delay tactic.” 

My guess is that Belichick wanted to win big.  He wanted to show the world how great his team was and how great of a coach he was.  So instead of going for the obvious and safe field goal, he went for the bomb and looked for a touchdown.  He went all in.  If he won, he would have won big, if he lost, he would lose on his terms…  So in the end, it wasn’t the Giants that defeated Belichick, it was his own ego.  Here’s a link to CJ Mahaney’s critique of Super Bowl XLII.

4 February, 2008 (14:48) | Life, entertainment, sports | By: GeezLouies

Star Trek: Deep Space 9

Thanks to our friend Ling, we have secured the entire seven seasons of DS9. Due to our limited time we are not watching all the episodes, but instead just some of my all-time favorites…

In no particular order (what we’ve seen so far):

The Emissary (The pilot and introduction of all the major characters and even guest-starring Patrick Stewart as Picard and Locutus)
Past Tense Parts I/II (Defiant sends Sisko, Dax, and Bashir back in time in a transporter accident. Social commentary as well as passionate acting from Sisko/Gabriel Bell)
“Trials and Tribble-ations” - Defiant goes back in time and meets TOS - Kirk, spock and company
The first six-seven episodes of Season 6 detailing the occupation of the dominion on DS9 ending with Sisko and the defiant going into the wormhole sacrificing themselves.
You are cordially invited - marriage of Worf and Dax.

Still wanting to watch:
Episode where Worf is captured by dominion and fights with honor (okay, nearly every episode with worf in it).
Far beyond the stars
Episode where Sisko starts getting visions… he truly is the emissary!
All the mirror universe episodes…
And the Series finale…

This series was put together very well. Characters grew in depth and likability through the seven years of the show. I liked the social aspects of it, the ethics of war, it addressed racism, love, marriage, family, parenting, death, and just about all aspects of life. Even in the series premiere, Sisko had a theophostic moment. Very powerful stuff as he was interacting with the prophets. He was brought back and experienced the most painful moment of his life. It was in fact the place he never left… the day that his wife was taken from him.

Anyways, this truly was a sci-fi soap opera…

24 January, 2008 (04:12) | entertainment | By: GeezLouies

Pirates of the Caribbean

Well, if ever there was a movie of twists and turns, this would be it.  How many backstabbing, double-crossing, plot twisting, aargh-matey pirates can you stuff in one movie?  We didn’t keep count, but there were a lot, even a chinese pirate played by Chow Yun-Fat.

Keith Richards guest stars as Jack’s father.  I didn’t know who he was, but my lovely wife was able to point him out.  I know, this movie’s been out for a while.  Well, it finally came on our netflix.  So we watch the movies whenever netflix sends it to us.   After Eliana was born we haven’t gone to the theaters.  We splurge with netflix, but end up being about six months out of the loop.  I guess it’s a tradeoff but that’s okay with us.  It’s still fun to watch even if it isn’t the latest and the greatest.

5 January, 2008 (04:30) | entertainment | By: GeezLouies