I did some research on the Web today, looking for the ultimate quote to show the wild optimism of the dot-com boom of the late nineties. I started reading up on Henry Blodget and some of the famous things he said in 1999.
Strange coincidence: Blodget just published an article in the New York Times today called Irreplaceable Exuberance. It’s worth a read if you are curious about the dot-com era and its impact today:
TEN years ago this month, the initial public offering of the Internet pioneer Netscape set off a dot-com boom that today is usually viewed as a sort of financial kindergarten recess, a regrettable free-for-all of idiocy and greed. Although this view does capture an aspect of the period – the arrogance and punch-drunk frivolity that come with easy money – it misses the big picture. It also implies that had we only been smarter and more disciplined in the late 1990’s, we could have spared ourselves the pain and embarrassment that followed. History suggests otherwise.
I found the perfect Christmas gift for Lightspeedchick:
Designed to make exercise more appealing, Nexfit has developed an exercise bike that hooks up to your XBox, Playstation, or the Internet, incorporating game controls into the handlebar. It has a force feed back system, which delivers 16 different shock levels according to collisions and explosions. And, since this is an exercise machine after all, it comes equipped with an Online Health Manager, which accumulates user’s exercise records after each game for accurate health management.
via Inhabitat
Comme � chaque ann�e, je suis soit trop occup�e pour aller au Festival des Films du Monde, soit trop paresseuse pour me taper l’�norme r�pertoire du festival, choisir des films � voir, me faire un horaire, aller acheter les billets, faire la file, etc. Je vis donc par procuration en suivant la liste des films vus par Karl, un v�ritable boulimique de festival. Ne me reste plus qu’� esp�rer que les films int�ressants reviendront plus tard en salle, dans le cadre de la programmation r�guli�re.
�a prenait bien un blogueur pour changer �a… Je viens de recevoir une invitation � la premi�re du film Kamataki, invitation lanc�e par son producteur… un blogueur montr�alais pr�nomm� Samuel (et apparement lecteur de ni.vu.ni.connu). Le r�alisateur de Kamataki est un qu�b�cois qui oeuvre au Japon depuis plusieurs ann�es et son film est le seul long m�trage canadien en Comp�tition Officielle au Festival des Films Du Monde. La bande annonce est tr�s intriguante, le film met en vedette Tatsuya Fuji (L’Empire des sens) et la musique est de Jorane. Il ne m’en fallait pas plus pour briser ma di�te festivali�re!
“Danny wondered where he was: where he was. Really – which was the place in the body where he felt himself to be.
It was something that you did know – you just never thought of it. Ask the question and the answer always came: “I’m up here, mainly up here,” with yourself inside this little kind of capsule, busy at the back of your eyes and aiming wherever they aimed: quieter with them shut, but definitely in there all the time, huddled in some indefinable space at the back of your sinuses and arched up, somehow, over the roof of your mouth, an invisible lodger.
You could feel through the whole of your body, you were aware it belonged to you and was personal, but you – where you were – that didn’t quite extend into your limbs, it faded. There was a sense of attention lying in your head, that was where you lived.
He knew the experiment, thought he remembered it from a lecture – where you’d ask someone to write their own name on their forehead and almost every time they wrote it backwards, for the benefit of this interior self they had, crouched behind their face, seeing out through their skull.
That proved it – everyone lived inside their heads.”
From Indelible Acts, by A.L. Kennedy. (You should really read her stuff.) I love the way she comments on the many reviews of her book here.
I remember a meditation teacher trying to get us to move our thoughts, our sense of self out of our heads and into our hands, feet, etc. Needless to say it didn’t work for me. I very much live in my head, to the point where I sometimes surprise myself: “Oh, look! My foot hurts!”
Stewart: The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom. That’s all it is. All those media companies say, “We’re going to make a killing here.” You won’t because it’s still only as good as the content.
John Stewart and The Daily Show’s Executive Producer Ben Karlin meet with Wired.
Wired: Your contract goes through 2008. How do you think people will be watching the show then?
Stewart: Through their nipples. I believe the show will come in through one nipple and will be broadcast out the other through some sort of projection device.
Karlin: And if you have three nipples, you’re basically walking high definition.
In the New York Times today:
Movie studios typically advertise on television and in newspapers in search of the biggest possible opening-weekend audience. For a new film, “The Constant Gardener,” Focus Features is intent on building its audience in a different way: by taking aim at readers of niche Web sites and blogs.
Focus, an art-house unit of Universal Pictures, has purchased ads for “The Constant Gardener” on the political blog Wonkette, as well as the Web sites of politically oriented publications like Harper’s, The Nation and National Review.
Ever since the release of “The Blair Witch Project” in 1999, movie studios have strived, and failed, to replicate the groundbreaking Internet campaign that made that film a marketing phenomenon. These new ad campaigns on the Web suggest that studios are becoming more determined to identify and reach niche audiences online.
Once the Mafiaboy movie gets the green light (if it ever does), the producers want me to publish a blog during the production process. It’s already integrated in the marketing plan. Makes a lot of sense, considering the subject matter of the movie. The people who spend time on the Web (and the people who love them…) will most likely be the first to develop an interest in this film. (As long as it doesn’t take 10 years to get made, in which case it will end up on the History Channel.)
On trouve vraiment de tout en banlieue.
via Montreal City Weblog.
How do you know your boyfriend thinks you’re hopeless in the kitchen? When he looks at the Brita pot in the fridge and asks you – before he leaves for a week of work in London – if you think you’ll be able to handle keeping a constant supply of filtered water while he’s gone.
He is a very generous person. Probably the most generous person I know. But man, does he have trouble sharing his kitchen!
Dear kitchen: I’m looking forward to a week of reacquaintance. What should we start with? My poulet chasseur? My linguine with leeks and Pernod? My chicken pot pies? My… eh… How does take-out sound?
Never mind. My sister just invited me for a sushi dinner tonight. Kitchen, I’ll see you tomorrow.
Then again… This might just be the ideal week to start a diet.
It’s late and I’m drinking mint tea because my stomach hurts. No, it’s not hurting because of the ribs I ate, it’s hurting because a movie made me laugh too hard.
I was not expecting The 40 Year-Old Virgin to have some of the best dialogue I’ve heard in a while in an American movie, but it did. It’s vulgar, geeky, juvenile (sometimes in a satirical way, sometimes not) and it’s brilliant, except for the part about not having sex until you meet the right person, but that’s just one cheesy, romantic line that you’ll quickly forget and forgive. Oh, and you’ll never look at a FutureShop employee the same way again. (Try to avoid seeing the preview so you won’t ruin some of the best lines.)
I always like to read reviews after I have seen a film and I particularly appreciated this one.
This movie could have been a lot of things, some of them awful. The gimmick certainly did not ensure quality. But man, it’s a wonderful film, directed with endless energy and written with a sharp wit.
The only thing that annoyed me about this review is that it says about the main actress (the awesome Catherine Keener) that she’s “luminous”. That’s what people say about female actresses when they run out of adjectives. If I hear one more reviewer say that an actress is “luminous”, I’m going to print many copies of the review, roll them up really tight and, you know… Yeah, that.
Anyway, I have to go. My tea is getting cold and my stomach still hurts.
