Dante Basco

This is just weirding me out! I've always enjoyed the movie Hook, which came out in 1991. One of the characters in Hook was Rufio, the leader of the lost boys (Ru-Fi-Ooooo!). He was played by Dante Basco, who was 15 years old at the time. So he was a teenager, old enough to be in high school. This weekend I watched a preview for the new Antonio Banderas movie Take the Lead (a movie about teaching ballroom dancing to delinquents). There I saw Dante Basco, playing a high school student! Fifteen years later! It's been 15 years, Dante's going on 31, and he's still able to play a high school student! And the scary thing is, he actually looks like he could still be a high school student. Strange, huh? Here's his IMDB profile: Dante Basco.

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More Podcasts

Here are some other podcast I enjoy:

- Cinecast. Very well done "amateur" movie reviews. I say "amateur" because they're not technically professionals, but their podcast is extremely well done. Not only do they discuss new movies, but they also discuss older movies.

- Hollywood Saloon, another movie review podcast. They review specific movies, but also have discussions on the movie industry in general. They're a little more "loose" than Cinecast.

- Many of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's podcasts. I most enjoy Life Matters, The Science Show, All in the Mind, and Ockham's Razor.

- Fly with Me and Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase. Fly with Me is a podcast from a pilot, with interviews from airplane staff. Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase is a podcast from a flight attendant, also with flight staff interviews. Both have some very interesting, and often funny, stories about the flight industry.

Podcasts

I've really gotten into podcasts lately, so I'd like to list a few of my favorites. I usually get them through iTunes or Podcast Alley. These are in no particular order.

- Pottercast, the podcast of www.the-leaky-cauldron.org. News and discussion on the Harry Potter books. The cast is mostly female, except for John Noe (who is hilarious, and likes Queen!).

- Mugglecast, the podcast of www.mugglenet.com. Also Harry Potter news and discussion. The cast is mostly male.

- Diggnation, the podcast of www.digg.com. Digg.com lets viewers post and vote for ("digg") interesting technology news stories on the web. The top ten stories of the week are covered in the podcast.

- Geeks On. Discussion from a group of California geeks about geek-centric topics.

- This Week In Tech. More technology news. Very professional - probably the most popular "independent" (i.e. not NPR) podcast out there.

I'll post more as I think of or discover them.

New Lemony Snicket book is released!

A Series of Unfortunate Events book the twelfth, The Penultimate Peril, was released yesterday. I went nuts trying to wait for work to get out so I could go buy it. I even went to the university bookstore hoping they had it (yeah right). The publishers and Mr. Snicket had a lot of fun with this release - they didn't even reveal the book's title until yesterday. I spent the last few months on www.thenamelessnovel.com trying to solve the mystery of its name. Of course there was no chance of figuring out the title before it was released, but I got to view some illustrations and a page from the book. I finished reading the book this morning. What can I say? Apparently there's still one more book to go, so there are still a lot of questions to be answered. Hopefully the 13th book will be released next fall, and there will be some sort of resolution to the Baudelaire's tale.

Lemony Snicket's New Book

The next "A Series of Unfortunate Events" book (Book the Twelfth) is due out October 18th. Right now the title of the book is unknown...help solve the mystery by going to www.thenamelessnovel.com! Each day you'll get a new clue that will help identify the new book. Don't forget to go through the previous months' clues too!

Rock Star: INXS Update

JD Fortune won, Marty came in second. I never liked JD (I think it was because he humped the stage during his first preformance) but he really sounded better with INXS than Marty. Still, I liked Marty better...I might've bought their new CD if he had won.

Rock Star: INXS

A few questions: What do you do if you love watching television, but can't afford cable or a satellite? What if you can only pick up one television station with your antenna? What do you do if that one station is CBS, and their programming mostly consists of crime dramas and reality shows? What if you never liked crime dramas or reality shows?

My answer: You watch CBS and learn to enjoy crime dramas and reality shows. Okay, well I still don't like crime dramas that much (too many cheesy lines) but I have started to enjoy reality shows. My favorite at the moment is Rock Star: INXS, in which a group of young rock star hopefuls compete to be the next lead singer of the band INXS. Right now the show is about halfway through its run, and there are only 7 contestants left.

At the beginning of the show, my favorites were Jordis (female, the youngest contestant, with very distinctive dreadlocked hair) and Ty (male, a theater performer with a mohawk). After a few weeks I lost interest in Ty, and started to root for Marty (male, a blonde who sang great but didn't stand out at the beginning) and MiG (male, the only Australian, and who is apparently friends with Brian May from Queen!). Jordis is the only female performer who stands out to me; the others just don't get me excited.

Of my top 3 at the moment (Jordis, Marty, and MiG) I think I want Marty to win the most. I like his his voice and he seems to fit the best with INXS's style of music. Good luck, Marty!

The Brothers Grimm

"The Brothers Grimm" movie is to be released August 26. I haven't heard much about it so far, but the premise sounds good. Two medieval brothers, who make a living by harassing villages with fake demons and then charging to "exorcise" them, find themselves confronted with a real supernatural mystery. It's direct by Terry Gilliam, who has made some strange movies over the years. The only one I can remember watching is "Time Bandits"; as far as I can remember I enjoyed it. I've only found one review of "The Brothers Grimm" and they sounded pretty positive about it (the review is here, on another blog - warning, the rest of the blog may be too liberal for some tastes). I wonder how the blogger was able to see the movie so early. Most big-name reviews aren't released until the day of the movie release.

I'm not sure exactly what I find appealing about "The Brothers Grimm." Maybe I'm just a sucker for fantasy (especially fantasy that doesn't take itself too seriously). Hopefully this movie will be good - I really need it to be, after suffering through such a disappointing summer for movies.

Prudence and "No problem"

In the August 4, 2005 column of "Dear Prudence" (available at http://slate.msn.com/), Prudence rails about the use of "No problem" instead of "You're welcome" as a response to "Thank you." She seems to be most annoyed when "No problem" comes from someone who is being paid to serve you, such as a waiter or a sales clerk. Since they are being paid, it shouldn't matter whether anything they were being asked to do was a problem. I disagree with Prudence. I think that "No problem" is just as valid an answer to "Thank you" as "You're welcome."

First of all, I consciously began to use "No problem" instead of "You're welcome." I started doing this while I worked as a student assistant in an office at a university. As part of my job, I was constantly helping people with their computer problems over the telephone. When the problem had been solved, the person would usually say "Thank you." I started out saying "You're welcome" in response. However, this felt awkward to me. It seemed as though I was taking the credit personally for doing something that was part of my job. So I began to respond with "No problem" - as in "It's not a problem; it's part of my job." I don't think that, in the context of doing something that is part of your job, it is rude or inappropriate to respond with "No problem."

I would also like to point out that "No problem" is much like the Spanish statement "de nada." While "de nada" is usually translated as "You're welcome," it's literal translation is "It is nothing." How is saying "It's not a problem" different from saying "It's nothing"? If it's good enough for Spanish, it's good enough for me.

I take comfort in the thought that Prudence probably won't be able to stop people from using "No problem" just by complaining about it. If people who dislike the phrase "No problem" are seriously concerned about rudeness, then they shouldn't respond by saying "I don't care if it was a problem for you!"

(By the way, I really enjoy reading "Dear Prudence." That doesn't mean I can't disagree with her every now and then!)