Wonka Flop, Lemony Flip

There was some wonderful imagery in the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The boy playing Charlie is really endearing.

But once we meet Willy Wonka the movie really dives. We lose touch with the human stories - Charlie and his family, the other kids' character flaws, Willy's aspirations.

Johnny Depp's interpretation of Willy is just too weird and distracting, and the children and their parents are made too grotesque to be really human. In the end, we find Willy as this flawed ante-hero who needs to be saved by Charlie. The innocent child becomes the hero for the scarred adult, rescuing him from his disfunctional past.

There was a good moral that comes through in the end, but the telling was disappointing.

On the other had, "Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events" really plays the exaggeration of its characters perfectly and beautifully.

The story is caricatured in a fascinating way, and the characters display total humanness in the middle of it. The surroundings and settings are extreme, but it is a very human character story, told in an entertaining way.

Will Podcasting catch on?

One of the benefits of having an ipod is listening to books on tape and recorded programs on the go. Twenty years ago, I was a big fan of Prairie Home Companion and used to record the radio broadcasts on cassette tape.

I was excited about podcasting when I first learned about it earlier this year, hoping this would be a way to get mp3s of broadcast shows. Now it sounds like podcasts' popularity is set to take off with their inclusion in Apple's new edition of their iTunes software.

The unfortunate fact is that most of them are not that interesting. A lot of them are home-made, and the interesting shows still aren't in podcast format (I don't know why - can't they include ads in podcasts as easily as in broadcasts?) It is a great vehicle for distributing education and entertainment. I hope the quality of programming booms to take advantage of the interest in the format.

Then & Now

This is me 2 1/2 years ago when we bought our first digital camera.










Now here I am 2 weeks ago buying our second digital camera : )





Notice any difference?

Is it the light? The white balance settings? I haven't been getting much sun lately? The first salesman was clearly the superior photographer? I was happier then? I bought a crummier camera this time? Or???

Airplane movies

I was on an airplane this week and caught the last 5 minutes of "About Schmidt," which I had seen awhile ago.

You really don't have to see the rest of this movie. The first few minutes and the last few minutes are priceless. Everything in-between seems to set up the last scene after Schmidt reviews his life and has to honestly ask himself the question, has he made a difference in anybody else's life?

Good question to ask!

Similar to poignant ending of "Saving Private Ryan."

Also on the plane - a fell-good romantic comedy "The Wedding Date," which I hadn't heard of before. Totally unbelievable story, but I still like these kind of happy ending romances. In spite of, or maybe because of, some immorality, there is a good character lesson or two.

We may be off to USA without you, but...

Happy Father's Day from Tyler & Cameron

We're going to miss you JIM! Love, KC

Mr & Mrs Smith

I really DID NOT LIKE this movie.

It was a clever premise, with a plot that moved fast and two stars that are pleasant to look at.

But the violence went over the top!

It went from suspense to comedy with bullets and punches flying. Too many bullets. Too many punches. It was supposed to be fake violence, funny in its exagerration, but how funny is it when a man is kicking his wife on the ground? Hitting a guy in the head with a golf club? Throwing a guy out a minivan door under an oncoming car?

Some of this was just gratuitous, like the profiles of Angelina's body. But somehow it went farther than comic book violence to something disturbing, something that was hard to laugh at and even stomach.

And the only message seemed to be that marriage is war.

This could have been a lot better with more sublety and less brutality.

Best of Both Worlds

I'm a Mac fan from the early days. My buddy got a "Lisa" when we were in grad school, and I got my fist SE in 1987. I relucatantly switched to Windows in '97 when I moved to China, believing it would be hard to support an Apple.

I've had Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, and XP (everything but ME!) And I've had fun with XP the past three years on my Fujitsu laptop. Fujitsu makes great notebooks! I've also had two crummy Compaqs - both desktop and notebook.

As much fun as I've had tweaking everything on Windows and downloading LOTS of extras from the internet, I've wanted to go back to the elegant, efficient days of my Mac experience. Ah, Macintosh . . . it just works! No more of those headaches wondering what's wrong with your machine.

So I switched to a G4 Powerbook a few months ago. It works beautifully.

But what I miss is being a part of the bigger computing world. Reading PC magazine, following the Intel roadmap, looking for Sonoma and Yonah. checking the zillions of add-on utilities and compulsively updating my antivirus definitions and running ad-aware and spybot S&D.

I've felt that Apple produces a superior Operating System, but lags behind Wintel in the hardware department.

I've enjoyed reading all the commentaries this week on Apple's switch, and their predictions of the impact. Here's a good analysis of the technical side: http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars

Oh yeah, one of the nifty add-ons I miss is the "blog this" button in my browser! No right-click button either : (

So the switch this week by Apple to Intel chips is not a big surprise or disappointment to me, as it was to many of the Mac faithful. I would have liked to buy a new Fujitsu S6240 notebook this year to take advantage of the new technology, but Apple came out with a brilliant new OS "Tiger" this year, while we won't see the next Windows OS "Longhorn" for at least 18 months.

I'm happily using my new powerbook and will enjoy following the news on upcoming generations of Intel chips and anticipating how Apple will put the hardware innovations to use!

1976 - They called it first!

1976 - They called it first!
Originally uploaded by K!Mberly.

Digital Audio Aims for Mass Market

My ipod has changed my life this year. It has changed the kind of music I listen to, and how often I listen to it. It is also starting me to listen to audiobooks, which I never have before.

Two years ago, we got a digital camera, and that has changed how we use our photos. This past year has been digital audio.

What next?

Ocean's Disappointment

Went to see Ocean's Twelve this week. What a letdown!

Rambling and predictable, the weak plot and weaker script wasted the considerable starpower.