For those who have seen or will see War of the Worlds this weekend pay particular attention to the last scene.
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My latest project is a website designed to help beginner to intermediate Internet users better understand the world of computers. While I really like my anonymity on the site itself, I’m willing to expose myself to those with whom I’m comfortable. Although I have a great domain name, at this point I’m trying to gain exposure and seek quality feedback and, if appropriate, get other sites to link to computers.net. If you get a chance, check it out and give me your take on the ads, content, and design.

With all this talk of movie quotes, I’ve been thinking about another kind of movie quote…those lines and moments that make you cry.  Now we could talk about respectable movies to cry in.  I still can’t make it through Steel Magnolias, but I’m not ashamed.  That is one sad movie.  But I’m not choosing to talk about respectable movies.  What movies make you cry and you’re so embarrassed that you hide your head in shame?  Here’s my confession.  I cry everytime I watch Independence Day.  When stupid Bill Pullman gets up on that stupid plane and gives his "Freedom from annihilation, this is our day of independence" speech….I cry.  I can’t help it.  I try to pinch myself.  I try to think of happy puppies and funny jokes, but no, the tears just start rolling. 

Okay folks…now’s your chance to fess up.  Do me proud.

Sorry for the delay, folks, but work intervened with reality. 

To recap: our last poll ended in confusion and re-voting, but ultimately Hendrix’ "Purple Haze" crushed Rush’s "Tom Sawyer", 27 votes to 8.  After taking time off to heal our broken nation, I have returned to divide it.

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If I had to choose the most important class I took in college I’d say it was Basic Drawing. Anything that I’ve learned since then (both undergrad and graduate work) are just appendages of what I learned in that class.

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Here’s the link.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Inspired partially by this meme, and partially by this thread, I am curious: What albums did you listen to before high school (say, age 15 or younger) that you still listen to today?

I started buying my own music at about age 10. My first few records (tapes, really) were Thompson Twins, Into the Gap; Tears For Fears, Songs From the Big Chair; and Bryan Adams, Reckless.

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My wife and I decided to hit the dollar theater with my parents this past Saturday night. My mom was mildly interested in the movie "A Lot Like Love." I thought Ashton Kutcher did a decent job opposite Bernie Mac in "Guess Who," so why not give him another chance? Big mistake.

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Melissa and I just got back from watching Batman Begins. Oh man–what a fine and rousing adventure movie!

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I took the liberty of sort-of compiling the top songs from Dallin’s thread and posting them to the radio.blog. If a band had more than one nomination I included one song by them–only a couple songs had more than one nomination, I’m pretty sure. Hopefully everyone who posted something will have a song from their list included, but I don’t have time to go through and check on that. If you’d like to post a song just email it to me at whenigodeaf@gmail.com.

Of course, I’m limited to songs I already have. I think the only band I didn’t have that got two nominations was the New Pornographers. Oh, and I’m not posting any White Stripes because we’ve already got some up there, and I don’t have the song that was most nominated. ("Seven Nation Army.") I also don’t have the Badly Drawn Boy songs mentioned (I only have an earlier album I guess).

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Logan’s post on the best albums since the turn of the decade got me thinking about the best songs.  Since I tend to be an album kind of guy, this is a pretty difficult task for me, but with all y’alls help, I’m sure we can get some good tunes together.

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Here’s the list of the best albums since 2000, according to the aggregate taste of Kulturblog. I didn’t even end up weighing some people more than others except in the case of tie breaks, in which case it was only one of several criteria, including where on someone’s list (assuming they ranked and not just listed them) an album was placed, whether or not another album by the same artist was mentioned (making me think the albums split votes to some degree), and — let’s face it — my own judgment. But I really didn’t do too much of that. And at least we had a clear number 1.

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The Greek Theater on the campus of UC Berkeley is an amazing setting.  It’s a traditional outdoor amphitheater built into a hillside, with a row of Doric columns standing behind the stage. From the higher seats, and the eucalyptus-ringed hillside above the seats, you can look out west over the San Francisco Bay and watch the sun set over the city.  As Jeff Tweedy said sarcastically last Saturday night, "it’s the perfect setting for a bunch of dismal rock songs."

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Last night I watched the movie “I Heart Huckabees” It was a somewhat funny, often confusing, highly irregular movie about existentialism. If this were a review I’d give it a B-.
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Okay, let’s do this then. In an effort to salvage my White Stripes review from all this banter, let’s have the conversation here. I’d like to see everyone’s top ten albums since 2000. I’ll tabulate the results and post ‘em after it seems we’ve gotten most of them. One disclaimer, though: Playlist Thunderdome has, shall we say, lessened my faith in KB’s taste. So while everyone’s list will be accounted for, I may exercise some editorial control and weight some people’s lists slightly more than others.

Anyway, on to my list:

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Well, it’s here. More than two years – a period of time in which Jack White appeared in and wrote music for the movie Cold Mountain and produced and collaborated on Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose, not to mention having a bar fight with Jason Stollsteimer of the Von Bondies and an automobile accident in which his playing hand was injured (!) – after the critically-acclaimed Elephant, the White Stripes’ fifth full length album, Get Behind Me Satan, is here.                   

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Back on their breakthrough 1996 album, Call the Doctor, Sleater-Kinney screamed, "I wanna be your Joey Ramone!"  But last Saturday night at the Warfield, it became clear that the ladies now wanna be our Robert Plant, our Jimmy Page, and our Jon Bonham.

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NOW WITH A NEW POLL!  VOTE AGAIN!!

In a controversial battle, G’N'R’s "Paradise City" beat out "Hell’s Bells" for a shot at eternal glory, with 26 of 47 votes.  Susan cries in her root beer, but the battle wages on!!

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Usually I don’t have any problem verbalizing my opinions, I like stuff, I don’t like other stuff, I can explain why and defend it.  So, I’m sitting here trying to figure out exactly how to review Cinderella Man, and I just can’t come up with the words.  I just liked it.  I really really liked it. 

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When I was a kid my siblings and I would sit around the table at mealtime and play what we called “the movie game”.
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Discuss.

I woke up this morning, turned on the radio, and discovered that I had missed the Tony Awards last night. Not that I would have watched them if I had known they were on, but I was surprised to find that they had come and gone without registering on my cultural radar at all. Nada. Not a blip.
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I saw one of those kitschy quotes once that said something to the effect of "do you remember what the world looked like before movies taught us how to see."  *Note to uptight, cite-checking lawyer types…I shouldn’t have put quotes around that because I don’t really remember what the quote was, but you get the idea…now stop blogging and get back to work.

I thought it was nonsense.  I love movies.  I don’t hide my love for movies.  But then, in the depths of the amazon jungle last week I had an epiphany: the movies have ruined me.  To protest, I’m blogging about it, then going to see a movie tonight.

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Have you ever bought a CD or record entirely because of the cool cover art?

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This article is a fun piece on continuity problems in science fiction and movies.  It’s entertaining, and highly nerdy, but it posits an interesting experiment: what happens if someone watches the Star Wars films for the first time, watching them in numerical order?  What do they notice?  Can they figure out the big secrets?

Anyone tried this?  Anyone got kids that wants to do it?  KB offers to be your official sponsor.