Year: 2004

Shattered Glass

Watched “Shattered Glass” on DVD.

This is an excellent movie about this journalist in a major magazine, who was fabricating parts of full texts of articles. It is based on a real story, and even names the names to point out the guilty ones. Stephen Glass did, indeed, work for The New Republican and he did, indeed, all the fabrication that was talked about in the movie. Here is a link to CBS News article for you.

This film pushes one to think about all the trust people put in mass media, and wheather they should do so or not. It shows, how the “never-lying” mass media consists of the same people as all the rest and how unprotected it is from human errors, both accidental and intentional. What missing, is a coverage of online journalism which grew up a lot lately.

Anyway, back to the movie. The movie has interesting and somewhat original story. Story telling was nice too. Good acting was delivered by all the major characters (all The New Republican stuff, etc). Camera work and photography were average, but it didn’t matter all that much.

8 out of 10 is a fair grade, imho.

Getting ready for parenting

Olga and I went all over kids’ shops today. So far we are not in a hurry and just checking out prices and what those shops have to offer. We need lots of things – bed, perambulator (aka pram aka carriage), bath, and what not.

We managed to visit four shops before Olga got tired. “Jumbo” is the biggest and the cheapest kids market. It offers best of choice too. Except for beds. Good prices for carriages, clothes and toys.

Than we moved to Agios Filaxios street, where three other big shops are located. “CTX Toys”, “HyppoKids”, and another one which I don’t remember the name. All of these have more children furniture to offer. All of these are kind of expensive.

I was surprised at home few bed designs there are. I mean they are all in the same shape. The difference comes only in color (dark wood vs. light painted wood), rocking vs. wheels, and prices (from 200 CYP to 400+ CYP). At first I thought maybe I am just seeing similar stuff. But I was wrong. I checked the catalog, and all the beds there were of the same design. Really, only minor variations. Boring.

Before making our minds on which furniture we want to buy, we had to decide if we were to make kids’ room. If you don’t know, we live in a two bedroom apartment. One bedroom is used for …hmm… bedroom where we sleep and another bedroom is used for the office. We have all the books, computers, and all sorts of crap there. If we were to make kids room, we would have to get rid of all that office stuff. That means that we have to find a place for two tables with chairs and computers and blah blah blah.

After some consideration, thinking, arguing, reasoning, talking, and some more reasoning we decided that we will make a room for the kid. One of the tables (Olga’s, the big one) will be moved to living room, close to the TV. Both of the computers will be desposed/sold/given away/thrown out. Our home server will be the only computer available for some time. It will be stay connected to TV for DVD/DivX playback, connected to the Internet, and it will be the workstation aswell. With the baby and everything we will not have too much time to use it anyway, and even if we will, one computer will be enough. That is I don’t think both of us will be using computer simultaneously any time soon (after the baby will be born).

Why did we decided to have a separate room for an infant? Well, lots of reasons. Firstly, he will need the room earlier or later. It is easier for us to give it to him earlier than later. We need to get used to the idea too, you know. Secondly, having a single space for all the kid’s stuff is good. I mean, of course, it will not always stay there in a single room, but at least, we will know where it should be. Thirdly, we think that it will be easier for the first few month, when baby needs attention every several hours. One parent can take care of the baby in one room, while another sleeps tries to sleep in another. Otherwise, both will have to wake up, use lights and make noise in the bedroom, which is not good. There are more reasons, but they I am sure everyone can appreciate having their own corner…

Now that we have made our minds, we will have to prepare the room, move things out, buy some furniture, get used to it and so on. I’ll keep you posted. Maybe I will even make a picture.

Oakley – Thump

I am kind of interested in wearable computing. Computing needs grow from year to year, devices get smaller and smaller, but I am yet to see something comfortable and useful. Todays devices have either look and feel bulky or have too many wires. Neat appliances are rare to find.

Today I cam across something that looks neat – Oakley – Thump. It is an mp3 player integrated into sunglasses. It comes with a USB interface and either 128 MB or 256 MB storage option. This is one excellent idea.

I just wish it had longer battery life. Currently it can playback for 6 hours after full charge, according to specs. Bigger storage option would be nice too, but I am sure those will come soon.

Far from Heaven

Watched “Far from Heaven” on DVD.

This is a somewhat drama about everything. Seriously. How many other movies do you know that have homosexualism, racism, family problems, and 1950s in it? Not that much, eh. If you still no more than one, than throw away those that have a happy ending, because this one doesn’t. Dramatic, isn’t it?

Anyway, the movie is good and surely worth the time. It is a bit too slow for my taste, but it compensates the pace with excellent photography and acting, especially by Julianne Moore. Make-up, costumes design and decorations were also outstanding. All suggested that this movie is from 1950s, although it was released in 2002.

My vote goes to 8 out of 10.