Favorite Sci-Fi Movies

I'm watching "Alien" right now. Fucking awesome Sci-Fi movie. It got me thinking about some of my other favorites of the Sci-Fi genre. There's always Star Wars (ultimate favorite, all 6 movies), Star Trek (only really liked 2, 4, and 6 of the original cast), and Lord Of The Rings (all 3 movies kick ass). I don't count them in my top 10 because they stand above and beyond. Following is a list of 11 or 12, I'm too lazy to count. No particular order here, just listed in the order I thought of them.

The Black Hole (1979)
A dark and disturbing look into a mad genius and one of the scariest robots ever. Maximillian scared the crap out of me when he killed Norman Bates.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
I'll never look at mashed potatoes the same way again. Brilliantly told story of visitors who were just as curious about us as we are about them.

Flash Gordon (1980)
Campy 80s Sci-Fi at it's best. Melody Anderson and Ornella Muti, nuff said.

Alien (1979) / Aliens (1986)
The first one was just utterly fantastic sci-fi horror. 2nd one had more of an action-movie flair to it, but still great sci-fi.

The Arrival (1996)
An astronomer picks up a signal that turns out to be coming from Mexico. Turns out, they're already among us. R.I.P. Ron Silver

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Doesn't get more classic than this. The first evidence of intelligence outside our planet leads to a mission that ultimately fails due to a sociopathic artificial intelligence computer.

Serenity (2005)
The movie that wrapped up the story from the tv show Firefly. Great, great, great show, and the movie was a fantastic compliment to it. The outer worlds of our known universe have become a wild west frontier of settlers, corrupt government and brutal savages. Follow a small band of thieves trying to make their way, but a higher purpose intercedes.

The Matrix (1999)
I liked the trilogy, but this is the only one worthy of my top sci-fi list. Great story, great special fx.

The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)
Bad special fx, bad acting but great story about time travel. Michael Pare was a GOD in the 80s.

The Abyss (1989)
James Cameron's finest movie EVER. Fuck Titanic. This was his crowning achievement as far as I'm concerned. While the world is going to hell in a hand basket due to tensions between the world's 2 superpowers, a small group of oil workers goes on a rescue mission and finds even more in the depths of the ocean.

Planet of the Apes (1968)
Astronauts crash land on a world where Apes evolved to dominate humans. The twist at the end is the stuff of movie legend. Fuck Mark Wahlberg, Heston was the man.

Still Alive

To my 2 readers out there, I'm still here, just been too busy. Fuck that, I've really just been too lazy. I've got work to do at work, work to do at home. Craziness. I'm working on some really cool stuff for a colleague. very involved, taking me too long to finish because I'm new to PostgreSql. I've only ever used MySQL before. A friend also has a plan for a site, coincidentally his idea is almost 90% like a site I've already created a few years ago, but never finished. Been all over the Facebook thing, finding friends I haven't heard from in years. Keeping in touch with relatives both near and far. Been trying out this Twitter thing too. Like this blog, I've nothing really significant to say, just spouting off about myself, things that amuse me or piss me off.

Fuck the Oscars!

Rich people spending too much money on shit that really isn't that important while working class people are losing jobs and homes.

I know, I know. There are businesses that make a lot of money off the Oscars and rightfully so. But it just pisses me off to see all that glitz and glamour while the economy is so shitty.

I'm not watching anyway, I have no interest in seeing who won anything this year because other than Dark Knight, I didn't see any of the nominated films.

WTF is Fred Thompson talking about?

While talking about John McCain's history as a POW, Fred just proved why torture doesn't work. He stated that McCain had been beaten and instead of giving the names of other pilots, he gave them the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers. Wait, Fred, so what you're saying is that while being tortured, a person might give you BAD information???

Fred also said the EXACT same words spoken by Wesley Clark not a month ago. "Being a POW does not qualify one to be President." - Where is the righteous condemnation of Thompson over this statement? WHERE?

Why am I watching this shit?

Projects, code and other things...

I've been learning a lot lately. For the last few months at work I've been on a team working on a new virtual world for kids done entirely with Flex 3. It took some getting used to, but now I'm totally into it. Flex Builder is an excellent IDE for working in Flex. It's built on Eclipse and integrates well with the Flex framework and compiler. Definitely worth the money.

I'm also learning to use jQuery and starting to get the hang of it. I've worked with object-oriented-like javascript before, building the framework myself, and then worked with the prototype framework and scriptaculous. jQuery blows them away with its ease of use and capabilities. It's a very powerful tool.

On another project I had to work on parsing rss feeds from youtube using some custom javascript. It worked out pretty well, got it to parse a user's video feed as well as custom playlists.

I've been working on my own facebook app, but due to sheer laziness, I never actually finished and launched it. I missed the boat on the app craze and it looks like the pool has been diluted. I may still finish it and release it, but I'm not too concerned over it now. If anything, by working on some apps at work and on my own app at home, I've learned a lot about REST and about the facebook platform. Anyone needs a facebook app, just let me know.

I've been doing a lot of reading on PHP 5. I've been away from PHP in my professional life, but have kept up with it on my own. I switched over to PHP 5 a year ago and started writing my own framework with database abstraction layers, classes and subclasses, etc... It's fun stuff.

What's it all mean? I have some personal projects I need to work on over the next 2-3 months and they'll be utilizing these skills. I hope to get at least one done before hockey season starts. Once the puck drops, I spend more time watching reading and posting about hockey than I should be on my projects.

Kubuntu FTW!

I installed Kubuntu on my desktop 2 weekends ago and It's awesome. I already got LAMP setup, Grabbed Eclipse w/Aptana and Subclipse, setup subversion and I'm on my way to a Windows-free desktop. I'm still logging into xp now and then because I haven't migrated all of my email and browser settings. I also need to still use xp to play a few games. But my primary web surfing, RSS reading and a few other little things are all happening on the Kubuntu setup. I'm doing some development work right now. Trying to get some side projects ready to go live over the next few months.

Atheists get out - a followup

Back in September 2007 I posted about a letter-to-the-editor printed in an Alaskan newspaper. I posted it, and forgot about it. I don't get traffic, so I didn't really care to follow up on it. Turns out the letter was a joke. The woman who submitted it meant it as a joke and contacted the paper to tell them so. Problem is, the letter struck a chord with people on both sides of the issue. There were enough people who felt that way that decided to followup and trumpet the same attitude. So even though the letter was a hoax, I still feel my analysis counts for something.

Now, why do I bring this up again, almost a year later? Because today I got this lovely tidbit from an anonymous poster.

Well, talk about proving my point for me. My original post was about the intolerance of those who should be tolerant. Also that this country is supposed to be a haven for folks of any and all faiths, even if that faith does not happen to be in any one religion or god. Read the comments to see my reply.