Again on Gorillas

Seen yesterday Long Way Down's Episode where they are in Rwanda. Ewan Mc Gregor goes through Rwanda by Motorbike and stops by the national Park to see the Gorillas.

I am not sure they would let 'normal people get so close to them, but if they do, I understand why the prices are so high. They will want to keep visits to a minimum (once a day, at dusk) yet have enough money to run the conservation program off it.

All in all, it seemed a pretty well-run operation, and since the experience must be soo fantastic I am reconsidering it. Trouble is, there may be not any ticket left for when we'll arrive there. Well, in case may be I'll come back another time.

Best Car Ad Ever?

Saw it when I was still in the UK.

Captn Slow!!!

Captain Slow has its own show

Honda gets it right.

I did talk some time ago about how piracy can be good for business, with the exception of people whose services aren't necessary anymore: distributors, which in the TV case are the broadcasting stations.

Companies should, and will, advertise directly to customers through the production of high value content released for free on the p2p networks. Something like this is already happening, at the hands of Skype (and Kazaas') creators.

Now, Honda seems to get it, with this plan: to run smaller commercials for a smaller car in smaller versions of television series.

Honda will be the sole sponsor of what Sony Pictures Television is calling the Minisode Network, which is scheduled to begin next week. Visitors to the MySpace Web site (my space.com) will be able to watch episodes of 15 vintage Sony series like “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Facts of Life,” “Fantasy Island” and “Who’s the Boss,” edited from their original lengths of 30 or 60 minutes each to an Internet-friendly 4 to 6 minutes.

Now, you can see how funding for this stuff has been kept to the bare minimum, but this is just the beginning. Once the managers see the machine is working, money will pour in.

Welcome to our free as in beer future!

And more on Ann Coulter

gets beaten up by Bill Clinton at her own game: shit shoveling!

Ann Coulter gets Pwned!!!

I love the BBC!!!

Fly Me to the Moon

Here's a movie to keep an eye out for: Three young houseflies stow away aboard the Apollo 11 flight to the moon.

starring Nicollette Sheridan, aka Edie Britt in Desperate Housewives (I found this movie looking for other things about her, after I saw her committing suicide in the series). Sad, she was one of my favourite characters.

At World's End

Here it comes, the NY Times review of Pirates of Caribbeans' third installment, with a name vaguely reminiscent of Asimov to me (Star's End) - I didn't see the second yet, since I heard that the two were kind of collated together, like Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Reboot or whatever. Hopefully, the will not suck like those two. This one seems allright, with an 8.6 based on 1600 votes to date. even counting that those are fans, it can't be that bad.


Compared with Matrix, which went from 8.6 to 7 to 6.3. This franchise seems to be holding its grounds, starting at href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325980/">8.0, then 7.4, and settling for 8.6 - which will probably change in the next few months, as votes from more people build up.

The Review is quite ambiguous, in fact, pointing out many good things, but also many more not so good ones, if not outright bad. I guess I'll see it anyway, once the two or three are in a watchable format on the pirate bay - Irony?
Or may be I will not, I have developed a kind of allergy toward Jonny Depp, since he was my ex's preferred actor. Silly I know, but that's life: I guess I didn't like him too much to start with. After all, she introduced me to Scrubs and I still watch it every week.

Z!

I am sleepy. I think I'll lie down.

I've just seen Desperate Housewives season 3, ep 21 - too sentimental for my tastes, with Susan getting lost in the woods and Linette falling (almost) for the handsome cook. The worst part is, the ending of the episode was even worst. Yuk!

Where's the number everybody is talking about?

Is it here? Nope. But I found it here yesterday. Today isn't there anymore.

may be here?



Dear AACS, You can't stop the signal!!!

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Allo Allo

Hi, Just a quick post on a new (actually, vintage) TV series I discovered recently.



In the word of the BBC comedy guide,

'Allo 'Allo! was a direct-hit domestic sitcom and huge international success that made a star out of its lead, the funny and talented actor Gorden Kaye. At first sight, frolics in Nazi-occupied France may have seemed a dubious subject for humour, but the show's premise was not to make fun of the war but to spoof war-based film and TV dramas.

In my words, it's an incredibly funny and well built sitcom, with plenty of crazy characters. It manages to give the nazis a human face, I absolutely love it! All characters are involved in a network of (half-assed) intrigues, who binds them one another. Every single one of them is sucked into this maelstrom as soon as it enters the little cafe`/restaurant that Rene`, the main character, runs.

I am currently viewing the second half of the first series, and enjoying every single moment of it! 9/10!!!

here's the first part of the pilot episode, from youtube

Yesterday's TV

Been spending the last couple of evenings watching my new favourite TV show, 3rd rock from the Sun, alongside the old favourites Scrubs and Ally McBeal.

So funny!!! And it looks like he keeps going strong for most of its six seasons.

On the culinary side, I cooked two sausages in a pirex ovenplate, added vegetables and pasta "al dente" and that was it! The day before instead, the same vegetables, stir-fried in a wok, ricotta fresca, and pasta.

But do you care?

The truth is...

I previously rambled and ranted about my insatisfaction with being a scientist. How I took the wrong field, how am not interested to what I am studying now, and so on... Blah blah blah...

Oh, please...

The truth is, I'd like to have a work place as fun as SCRUBS, with people giving me high five when they meet me in the corridors, something interesting and significative happens every day, people are crazy and either smile psychotically (men) or look at me lusciviously (girls).

Instead, I have to make do with - well, in fact a place which is even weirdier. Scientist who are very versed in their discipline, but almost nothing else. Don't take me wrong, some people I work with are absolutely brilliant in their own right, and as an environment where to work in this is OK. Challenges are there, for the willing mind, it just takes guts and will to tackle them. May be I miss those. But even in the best of cases, the work is for 90% frustration, and only 10% satisfaction. But I guess Sturgeon's Law holds for every thing: "Ninety percent of everything is crud. And it would apply to my next escape job too, I guess. Ouch! This sucks. I better get to grip with this. and life in general. Good evening.

3rd rock from the sun

e in tema di telefilms, mi permetto di segnalare: 3rd rock from the sun, spassosissima sit-com di argomento fantascientifico: quattro alieni atterrano sul pianeta in missione esplorativa, travestendosi da 'famiglia suburbana tipica'.



ho visto una manciata di episodi e son davvero incredibili!!! le battute scientifiche son sempre azzeccate, si vede che chi ha scritto gli episodi ha una certa conoscenza - un po' come Futurama.

se siete interessati, ve li posso passare la prox volta che scendo. senno' acccatatevilli in dvd, o se preferite su tvtorrents.com

Good Life

This show is incredibly good (ah! ah!). I've managed to watch the first two episodes only (download is kinda slow). However, I have to admit that I find it hard to follow. Either they used to speak quicker at that time, or the audio isn't that great. I guess it's the second. The alternative would be that I'm getting more used to the US accent, and less to the UK one. God not...

Anyway, I didn't have that much difficulties with the second episode. May be it was just matter of getting used to the actors' voices.


And I confirm my impression: Barbara Good (Felicity Kendall) is gorgeous! I've always liked her since when I first saw the show... The sheer power of her optimism it's just heart warming...

The Sinhas at Nr 43

or the Kumars at Nr 42?

Last weekend I spent it with an indian colleague and family in a chalet in the Ardennes. I realised when I arrived that the flat number was 43. just one number off the famous 42, which main character Sanjeev chose because of the Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

What a coincidence, uh? I wonder if there's any deeper meaning...

Disintoxication...

...from Battlestar Galactica :-)

Two weeks without it. more in fact. and I am not feeling the lack of it :-)

I'm going to celebrate buying or downloading "The Good Life", a BBC series which I adored when I was in the UK, where it's constantly re-aired...

So, what?

Audible Magic is selling a software which allows copyright holders to check whether or not someone has uploaded any of their stuff on youtube. So what? do they think they're going to stop people from downloading?

In fact the program is quite easy to fool. Just crop the image. Uhm don't like it, really, I would miss part of the movie. but I have another solution, in fact: juist split the picture in quarters, and scramble them. it isn't going to affect too much the encoding, rebuilding the picture will be easy for players - and I bet their software can't cope wth it. Of course, you'll need to store info on the file somewhere, so that they could still do their trick. and that may be an hassle for people who are used to downloading quickly. still, companies can't play catch and run for ever...

when will they get round the fact that their business model is broken and they've to look for another one? I mean, is it that difficult to ask advertising buyers to pay directly for the production of series and stuff with embedded ads? how can they not see this???

They shot a Robin into Space!!!

Ehy I'm back, after a long lapse due to the weekend in the Ardennes (which has not gone as planned unfortunately - worst than you may think, since the weather was ideal for a long walk in the forest which we were denied by adverse conditions - gr!

Anyway, bak home yesterday, I've seen the latest episode of TopGear: s09e03, for those interested (click on the link to download the torrent :-) ). And, apart from the usual Clarkson's trashing around in an expensive and hyper powered car, the highlight was the attempt of building a no-nonsense, down-to-earth (in all senses) space shuttle from a Reliant Robin (picture below) on the impeccable rationale that it's cheap, and being pointy it already resemble a spaceship.



as you can see, plenty of people think it's suited to become many different things :-)

Anyway, they asked (once again) the help of the Rocketeers, a rocket-fan-club somewhere in England, borrowed a wind tunnel from some University, testing grounds from the Royal Army, and went down there to assemble the whole shebang.

And it did work!!! well, almost... It did lift-off beautifully, with the solid booster detaching themselves at the right moment, just like in the REAL space shuttle, it did turn belly-up to insert into orbit (ah!), but then the explosive bolts supposed to separate the big rocket didn't work out, so that instead of flying down to the grass it tumbled and exploded, leaving a big hole somewhere in northumberland, just off the A68. Well, it was fun!!!



Anyway, here you can check out the whole assembly and stuff. ;-)

Cant's stop the signal...

That's Serenity's tagline, I know... But I'm writing this post just to inform you that, yet again, can't finish the 13th episode opf BSG. I just can't. I started it. But there's no way... I got to the point where Atena and Helo have a meaningless discussion, then one of them shoot the other. So lame.

I can't even start watching again Ally McBeal, since Billy died. I am too afraid of such a big change... or may be I'm afraid that nothing will change for the people in the firm... mah...

But I still have some episodes left of The future is Wild, thank God (thanking someone who doesn't exist doesn't really help, uh?) Anyway, this series is just great. Although the ecosystems presented are somehow too simplified... No background noise, if I can make myself clear. It looks like every region only hosts 3 to 4 animals. and a bunch of plants to provide a nice backdrop.

And as I said, the plant's evolution is grossly underestimated. Still, as good as any BBC "The world of..." series.