Lunch With George!

December 26, 2002 - Ted's Hot Dogs

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Agenda

The Two Towers
Changing The Climate
Emily's MP3 Player
George's Minority Report

The Two Towers

After watching the extended version (3.5 hours) of The Fellowship of the Ring several times (once with commentary from the cast), I was ready to go see The Two Towers. In fact, I've already seen it twice!

Whereas the first film is just a lot of walking, this one is an action movie. Since watching the film I have read the Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers. The books are MUCH richer in story line and in the development of Middle Earth, and they're much easier to read now that I have some imagery to work with. I've decided I will not read The Return of the King until after I see the film next December. I would rather read the book and say to myself "Oh, that's different than the movie... and I like it better", than to sit in the theatre and yell out "Hey! that's not how it happened!"

I won't give away anything from the film, other than to say that Golem alone is worth the price of admission.

Changing the Climate

I heard an interview on NPR of the man behind the website (and movement) known as Changing The Climate. The mission

of the organization is "...designed to tell the world what we think of those mindless suburban drones that insist on getting 8 mpg while driving their kids to soccer practice. Join us as we direct our social activist energies toward the exciting new sport of Big Game SUV Hunting".

Those looking to participate can purchase the bumper stickers for 33 cents each, and then just roam parking lots in search of unattended full-size SUVs to which the sticker can be applied.

The website has lots of good information, including the "Rules of Engagement."

Here's a photo of one of the site's Taggers of the Week:

Emily's MP3 Player

I got a great deal on a Rio 600 MP3 Player which I gave to my daughter Emily as a Hanukkah gift. At $40, I felt it was a good starting point for her. If she really liked using it, she could always upgrade it with additional memory, or even eventually replace it with an iPod from Apple Computer.

She was very excited-- the Rio 600 is very compact, very cool-looking, and the controls are easy to use. The audio quality if very good, and it synchronized flawlessly over USB with iTunes on her aging iMac. What's the catch? It only held five songs!!!! 32 MB isn't much when you're dealing with MP3 files that are recorded at a high quality setting. Double the RAM with an expansion module, and you're up to ten songs!

Emily was a good sport, and used it for a few weeks. Meanwhile, I tried to find an alternative that would not be too expensive. The most amazing thing is that to get enough memory to contain a reasonable amount of music (even 128MB), one has to spend over $150! I found a factory-refurbished iPod at Apple's web store with a 5GB (that's GigaByte!) microdrive for $199. Emily pulled together a bunch of her clothing money, put it together with gift money, and managed to buy the iPod. Now she carries her entire music collection with her.

George's Minority Report

George was definitely in the minority when he reported on his recent viewing of the new film Minority Report. Basically, the film didn't do anything for him. Other than providing this information, he didn't have much else to say. I had been pestering George to see it, so I feel a little bad that he didn't enjoy it. The good news is that George did get a chance to watch The Castle again! I guess I better rent that...

Last modified 01/23/2003.

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