Monthly Archives: June 2006

Movie Review: Firewall

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We rented the movie Firewall last night. It was pretty good – we’re both big fans of Harrison Ford (Hollywood Homicide notwithstanding), and as usual, he gave a pretty good performance. Having said that, it must kind of get old for Ford, since he’s played the same “Don’t screw with my family” kind of guy in lots of movies (The Devil’s Own, Air Force One, Patriot Games, The Fugitive (kinda)). Anyway, there were a couple of “yeah, right” moments, but overall, it was quite believable, and very entertaining. The ending was kind of disappointing though — it was almost as if they realized “Hey, we’re out of time, let’s end this now”. Some other comments:

  • These hackers are good enough to be able to hack the desktop computer of the VP of security of a bank, and yet can’t just get the money out themselves? OK, so maybe getting to the desktop is one thing, but getting access to the real customer data is something else. That’s certainly possible. But didn’t they realize that the terminals in the server room (required for their plan to work) were just removed for security reasons? I would think that this would be the kind of thing that would show up in a recent email to the VP of security during the merger process. Haven’t they been monitoring his email for awhile, watching for possible snags in their plans?
  • I don’t think you can use a scanner from a fax machine to scan a computer screen. Even if you could, the scrolling was way too fast for it to work as reliably as depicted.
  • The phone rings and nobody does anything, so the kid goes to answer it. The bad guys completely freak out, and then afterwards, yell at the mom to do as she’s told. But nobody told her anything! The bad guys should have given her instructions the second the phone started ringing, or simply said “nobody answer it”. Bad guys is so stupid.
  • Being a fan of “24”, the appearance of Chloe was a little weird, especially since she worked for a technical guy but wasn’t technical herself. Going into the church, asking Bobby to borrow his cell phone, and then just walking out with it was a classic Chloe move.
  • SPOILER: Say you’re the wife at the end of this movie. The nightmare is finally over. Your family is safe, the bad guys are all dead, and your husband is badly beaten and can barely stand up straight. So what do you do? Stand there and look at him from 50 feet away for a full 30 seconds, and then stroll slowly over to give him a hug? No, you’d run to him as fast as you can. Same for the kids, for that matter
  • SPOILER: Why the hell did the bad guys bring the dog with them? Other than as a plot device, of course.

Despite these little nits (which I can find in about any movie), I enjoyed this one.

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I’ve seen everything… I’ve seen it all

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OK, after saying that I don’t generally post links, here’s the second one in two days. It’s a short video starring Patrick Stewart from Star Trek: TNG. It’s a scene from a British show called Extras, and it’s absolutely laugh-out-loud hilarious.

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Fun with photoshopping

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I don’t just blog links all that often, but some of these photoshopped pictures are just amazing. Thanks to L for the link.

Actually, there are a few other pages on that site that are neat: Stars: then and now is good, as is the one with Celebrities’ pictures as kids.

Kypreos is still a goon

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While working out this morning, I was watching Sportsnet news. They had a hockey crew on there talking about the Cup finals, when former NHL goon and current Sportsnet hockey analyst Nick Kypreos started ranting about how the Edmonton players should warn the Hurricanes that their goalie is next and maybe after their goalie, someone like Erik Cole. (Cole is already out for the season, so perhaps he said or meant Eric Staal.) This kind of brain-dead comment just shows that while Kypreos may have changed from a player to a TV hockey analyst, he’s still a goon at heart. The injury to Roloson was completely accidental; nobody ran their goalie, so Edmonton shouldn’t be looking for revenge.

I’m not a fan of fighting in hockey (or lacrosse), but I will admit that there are some cases where it’s… well, necessary is too strong; perhaps understandable, to some extent. If someone really runs your goalie, or hits your star player with a cheap shot, then I can see sending Tie Domi or your team’s equivalent out to have a conversation with him. Note that “cheap shot” here is important — if someone hits your star player with a clean hit, no revenge is warranted, even if that hit ends his season. I also think that whatever revenge may be warranted should only apply to the current game – once that game is over, the opportunity has passed. This whole “so-and-so hit our star player last game, so the next time our teams play, we’re going after him” is moronic and childish. For a prime example of how this is a bad idea, just reread the previous sentence as “Steve Moore hit Markus Naslund last game, so we’re going after him”. Todd Bertuzzi kept the promise that his team made, and ended Moore’s career by breaking his neck. (Note for the record that Moore’s hit on Naslund was clean.) For all Bertuzzi’s apologizing and crying during press conferences and stuff, he meant it, and would do it again in a heartbeat, though perhaps not from behind next time. I was disappointed in Gary Bettman for lifting his suspension during the lockout, and embarrassed to have him on the ice for Team Canada at the Olympics. I think his suspension for such a blatant cheap shot should be as long as Moore’s injury keeps him out – if Moore’s career is over, then so should Bertuzzi’s. He’s a great player, but nobody should be allowed to get away with that kind of crap.

I’m thinking Nick Kypreos would disagree with that.

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I’m a real blogger now

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I guess I’m really a part of the blogosphere now – not because I’m writing stuff on a blog, but because someone else’s blog linked to an article in mine. Whimsley saw my response to his article on blogging. I had to smile at the sentence “Except he says it better” — Tom is a professional writer and published author, so this is quite the compliment to little ol’ me.

Tom’s blog is read by a number of other people (friends and family of his, and likely some people who have read his recently-published book), and if his book is a hit, that’ll bump his readership numbers as well. Since there’s a link to my blog on his, that might bump my numbers too. Woohoo!

Oh wait, I don’t care about that. I forgot.

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