i had a day-long layover on my trip to mozambique, and i found a cheap (but surprisingly nice) hotel near the johannesburg airport. it worked out perfectly, as today was a rainy day. So, i slept through the rain storms and erased my jetlag. nice one.
i found out that the hotel is attached to a large casino. nice, cheap restaurants, and of course, gambling. so after a nice Indian meal (South Africa, Durban in particular, has arguably the best curry outside of India. )
and to kill some time, i gambled. I am anything but a gambler. i only wanted to spend $20-40 bucks on slot machines, and i stupidly kept playing through my winnings. i was up about 50% at one point and should have gone to bed, but i kept plaing. i decided to spend 15 Rand on an old school machine. i blew through most of it quickly and bet all three of my last Rand on one spin.
And I won.
4000 Rand. That’s only about $600, but it’s more than enough to pay for about a month’s accommodation on the beach!!
1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying?
3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?
6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?
8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do?
12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
13. Would you break the law to save a loved one?
14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?
15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back?
18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?
19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?
20. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
21. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
22. Why are you, you?
23. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
24. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you?
25. What are you most grateful for?
26. Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?
27. Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
28. Has your greatest fear ever come true?
29. Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset? Does it really matter now?
30. What is your happiest childhood memory? What makes it so special?
31. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?
32. If not now, then when?
33. If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
34. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever?
35. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
36. Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
37. If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job?
38. Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing?
39. Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before?
40. When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
41. If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?
42. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
43. What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
44. When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
45. If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
46. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
47. When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing?
48. What do you love? Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love?
49. In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday? What about the day before that? Or the day before that?
50. Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?
This fat kid, who looks like the annoying kid from Two and a Half Men, wrote about the experience of trading his iPod for a mysterious antique: The Walkman
Some of his best comments:
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.
When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman.
It’s a total coincidence that Michael Jackson’s Thriller is the first tape I remember hearing on my faux-Walkman, likely some knockoff from Caldor. I could never afford a real Walkman. And I thought the one I had was the greatest thing in the world.
A cozy home for a mouse. I like how all the poop is collected in just one area.
As some of you know, i rode about 400 miles last weekend. Apparently I was carry a few extra pounds of weight, not only on my body but also in my air filter.
A mouse had been camping in my bike for at least the past winter. I can’t wait to get out today to see what a difference the K&N air filter and the lack of seed and poop makes.
Powder Blue
Patrick Swayze is creepy in Silence of the Lambs the Jaime Gumm sort of creepy.
But Jessica Biel might have the best bottom in Hollywood. If for no reason other than seeing all of her, watch this movie. Jessica Biel and Marisa Tomei, both naked as strippers in one year.
It’s a great story about how the lives of desperate people intersect and how miracles can bring them back from the brink. Ray Liotta, Forrest Whittaker, Lisa Kudrow and Kris Kristoffersen all lend great performances to a very watchable drama.
Compiling both found-on-the-net and user-submitted photos that capture kin at their most socially weird, AFP’s from a pair of screenwriter buddies, one of whom claims to’ve “always been a fan of awkwardness”, and proved it up by writing an MTV Movie Award sketch for Tom Cruise. Shame comes in all forms, from the whacked-out matching jumpsuits and leather chaps on two — yes, two — sets of identical twins, to a fam dressed entirely in medieval regalia, including broadsword, to a loving couple in a matching star-spangled tux and miniskirt combo seemingly homemade out of duct tape…either to make an astute political observation about the tenuous ties that bind our society, or because they already pushed wallets as far they could go. There’s also a barrage of unintentional sexuality, including a Christmas-photo-style, dressed-in-blue posse watching their folks smash face while a grandson spread-eagles; a family of six playing spontaneous Twister with Dad seemingly mounting Mom; and two teenage boys with their parents, all in jeans and white buttondowns, straddling an enormous tree limb that looks less like wood and more like…wood.
He’s certainly a complex character. His life is a modern tragedy, and in watching the interviews with him, you can almost hear the voices in his head.
I lived for a couple of years not far from Brownsville, Brooklyn. Tyson grew up in one of the shittiest parts of New York, and it’s no surprise that he is who he is as a result.
I’m not sure how much the film shows what Iron Mike was during the 80s/90s, but it certainly helps him tell his story now that he’s down on his luck. Like the Playboy interview in the 90s, it’s a shocking look at a violent, depressing and truly tragic life.
There are few famous people I wouldn’t want to spend dinner or a drink with. However, I hope to never share the same room with Mike Tyson. He’s still out of control. And terribly frightening.
via ThePirateBay.org to handbrake to the PS3. This was a very dark image. I’m not sure if it’s the encoding or the source material.
I used to think she was sexy because she’s a funny woman. And comediennes really do something for me. I still have a thing for Nicole Sullivan (MadTV, now Family Guy.)
But now, not only is she hairy, but… well, who the hell am I to talk about being fat!
Jayma Mays, who reminds me how much I like Anna Farris.
Survivor’s I Can’t Hold Back (actually, the entire soundtrack, some of the cast, and the better jokes are all typical of the Adam Sandler genre, who’s production company is responsible for producing this turd.)
There are no other reasons to watch this. And even the two listed above are not worth two hours of anyone’s life.
Avoid this piece of shit at all costs. This must be the worst thing to come out of Happy Madison productions ever.
Free, thanks to thepiratebay.org, and not worth the money. Thankfully, I was doing other things while this was on…
I hadn’t heard anything about this when it came out. I completely missed it coming to theaters. Equally, even though I grew up in New England I had never heard of this story (armored car robbery and apparently a bunch of press about it.)
I’m a big fan of Mark Ruffalo, so this was a welcome find.
Ethan Hawke and Ruffalo play childhood friends Paulie and Brian, who are forced to survive on the tough streets of South Boston through a life of petty thievery. They join a local gang of criminals, but Brian finds it hard to reconcile his work and friendship with his wife, Amanda Peet (smokin’!).
It’s a great story, and Ruffalo conveys the trouble of blue collar addictions and the pressures that face ex cons.
This one’s well worth the money to rent. But I didn’t. I ripped the Blu-Ray version through handbrake. Great video, but audio wasn’t so good in only 2 channels. I need to focus more on how i setup handbrake.
It takes me a while to view films. As many of you know, I refuse to go to the cinema. I’m pretty happy with my home cinema setup, and believe that it provides a better way to see films than a crowded super-megaplex. (although I am a member at the jacob burns film center, and to go there for independent film.) I’ve been watching a lot of films lately, so I thought I’d start writing them up…
Valkyrie was surprisingly good. I didn’t realize how well constructed the casting was: Tom Wilkinson and Eddie Izzard gave great, albeit small, performances, and I feel the Kenneth Branagh ‘carried’ Tom Cruise through this film. I think Cruise is a horrible actor, and this affirmed that he’s entirely one dimensional and about as deep as a puddle of piss. It’s always great to see Bill Nighy, a friend of a friend, delivering his usual awkward (one can imagine him pulling the wings off flies) but solid performance.
In toto, it was a well done film. Historical thrillers run the risk of being either boring the viewer or departing too far from the truth. This seemed to balance the two with mixed commercial success. It’s difficult to present all sides an two hours and a minute, but I felt let down that we couldn’t better understand the motivation of the assassins. Hitler’s comment that Cruise’s character had “sacrificed so much for Germany” and was the “ideal German officer” remind us that the plotters were loyal to Germany, not Hitler, but a bit more emotional background would have delivered a more complete story.
This was a DVD rip from the pirate bay. I ran it through handbrake at 3500kbps and the quality was good. I dumped it on a USB stick and played it through the PS3. This was my first time isolating the audio into all six channels, and it worked, although the audio was a bit bass heavy (Wagner-esque, no?) Of course, when I finished the encoding, I realized there was also a Blu-Ray version, but I didn’t want to wait to download it.
The ConMan provides regular tales of bowel movements and other related and unsavory events. As the geek who always wore a NASA hat in elementary school, I thought I’d add my twist on Connie’s favorite subject: scat.
I can’t imagine using a bag to dump in while two other astronauts floated around me just a few feet away. I suppose I could have some fun with it if I had to do it. What I never realized (and as I think about it, it makes a great deal of sense) is that astronauts receive a pre-flight enema. I guess there’s no reason to carry any more weight up there than NASA absolutely must. I missed that scene in Armageddon.
So, I encourage all of you to start your next trip with a pre-departure enema, just like the big boys at NASA do.
I don’t generally watch films that aren’t rated R, and I watch kids movies even less frequently. But this one was exceptional.
A surprising cast (Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Mackenzie Crook, Martin Landau) and a story I hadn’t heard mention of before made for a very pleasant flick. Cut from the same cloth as The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Bridge to Terabithia, this was an entertaining and fantastic children’s film. A solid story, great special effects and a just-believable-enough fantasy premise made this worth paying for.
Edward Norton jumped the shark with this one. His acting is strained and lacks any real emotional depth. Colin Farrell is his usual douchebag self (which comes naturally to him, I’m sure.)
It’s a basic cop story. A good cop, a bad cop, some drunks, some killing. It’s disappointing that they couldn’t do something more original with it.
This was a Netflix streamed video through the XBox360. Decent quality.
This film came incredibly well received (Golden Palm nomination at Cannes, Independent Spirit Award, LAFCA, Austin Film Critics Award ) with a phenomenal cast (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, Michelle Williams, Dianne Wiest, Emily Watson) and gave me a headache. I’m sure this was an amazing film. I’m sure that if I had invested the mental energy into understanding the deep, rich story, I would have walked away feeling better about myself and the world around me.
It was too hard to watch. It was too much work. Anyone who pretends to love it after one viewing is either a) lying, b) overly pretentious, or c) crazy.
If you can sit down to watch this on a Saturday night, with a bowl of popcorn and a light spirit, and can last more than thirty minutes, then you’re a better man than I am. Really, it’s hard work.
Netflix streaming to the 360.
Netflix Streaming to the XBox360.
Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /home5/britneyf/public_html/muddyh2o/wp-content/themes/atahualpa3.2/functions/bfa_postinfo.php on line 72
(actually, the entire soundtrack, some of the cast, and the better jokes are all typical of the Adam Sandler genre, who’s production company is responsible for producing this turd.)
and 
, this was an entertaining and fantastic children’s film. A solid story, great special effects and a just-believable-enough fantasy premise made this worth paying for.
