Real Kato Blog: 2008 December

I finally have a real camera. Now I just need to find a bowl of fruit, a guy jumping something with a skateboard, and a woman on a horse, and my journey to becoming a photographer will be complete.

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Posted by Ken in: life, techwatch

Movies: Waitress; Atonement

Tuesday, 2008 December 30 - 4:27 pm

In our household, I'm the one that ends up putting "chick flicks" in our rental queue, simply because I try to see movies that have received good reviews or award nominations. Amy doesn't particularly care for these sorts of movies; she's more of a fan of horror or action movies.

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Posted by Ken in: movies

Overheard

Tuesday, 2008 December 30 - 2:04 pm

Overheard (by Amy) in the women's restroom after seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still at the IMAX theater: "That was just too far-fetched to be believable."

Oh really? You mean, you didn't believe that the earth was invaded and nearly destroyed by super-powerful aliens, or you didn't believe that Keanu Reeves was really an actor? ("Whoa.")

My criticism of this movie wasn't its lack of believability. My criticism is that it feels like the movie just ended when the producers ran out of money. (I kinda had the same feeling about The War of the Worlds.) The ending was unsatisfying and devoid of tension, and the intended environmentalist message was drowned out by special-effects self-indulgence.

And speaking of invasion-disaster movies, we recently watched Cloverfield on DVD. My feeling is that it could have been a far better movie if not for the handheld-camera gimmick. Half the time I was questioning, "why would someone film this part?" And of course the answer was, "A character in a story wouldn't film this, but a film producer would," and that ruined the suspension of disbelief for me.

Ratings:
The Day the Earth Stood Still: 2.0 / 5.0
Cloverfield: 2.5 / 5.0

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Posted by Ken in: movies

International House of Festivus Latkes

Friday, 2008 December 26 - 11:53 am

Merry Christmas to my Christian friends, happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends, and Yuletide greetings to my pagan friends. I suppose should add Kwanzaa to this list, but it's hard to recognize the legitimacy of a holiday that was invented in the 1960s. If you're gonna adopt a recently-invented holiday, I think Festivus is the better choice (which, by the way, was invented in 1966, ten months before Kwanzaa). Festivus is truly an American holiday: it's all-inclusive, not tied to any particular religion or race, and it's fittingly neurotic and weird.

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Posted by Ken in: food, life

Comment Spam and IE

Tuesday, 2008 December 16 - 2:46 pm

Well, I've finally hit the big time, I guess. I've started to get comment spam. I have anti-spam measures on this site but they're not foolproof. So I've gone back through my old posts and I've closed comments for all but a few of them (a couple that still get useful comments, and the most recent posts.)

My guess is that the spam is intended to get people to visit an infected web site that will exploit the recently-discovered, zero-day, unpatched security hole in all versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Folks, if you're still using MSIE... stop. Just stop. Download Firefox or Safari and use them whenever you can. Microsoft's response to this issue is just pathetic.

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Posted by Ken in: site-business, techwatch

Cancun

Friday, 2008 December 12 - 1:55 pm

Last week we went to Cancun for a wedding, for my friends Scott and Amy (whom we'll call AmyB to avoid confusion with my wife Amy). Pictures and more after the jump.

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Posted by Ken in: life, travel

Placeholder

Wednesday, 2008 December 10 - 10:22 pm

Hi everyone... I'm long overdue for a full post, I know. I've been away (went to Cancun for a wedding) and also, I've been lazy. But I'm tired of seeing controversial articles at the top of my page; so for now, I'll just post this filler article and promise that I'll have Cancun photos up soon.

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Posted by Ken in: site-business

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