Redeeming Shawshank

http://www.imdb.com/chart/top
Let's start with my commentary on this [hyper]link: "Of all the hundreds and thousands to hundreds OF thousands of movies, everyone with Internet access who watches movies, and has therefore heard of IMDB, voted The Shawshank Redemption (directed by Frank Darabont as his first feature film, starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, and Bob Gunton) as the absolute greatest film of all time. Right now, I agree."
The film, based on a novella entitled "Rita Hayworth & [The] Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King, the author famous for his mastery of and dominance in the genre of horror, is one of his few non-scary tales and probably his most realistic. The setting of the movie, which is sort of a character in it's own right, turns most people off of being remotely interested immediately as they hear of it: a fictional place called "Shawshank State Prison", or to be less specific and more "in general", prison. People see the trailer, theatrical or otherwise, and assume it's just a "stupid little prison movie" to quote what my Dad thought when it was in theaters, the year I was born, in 1994. When he caught it just before it was halfway over on TV, then finished it, a few years later, he regretted not seeing it at the theater when it was there. Then he soon found out it was based on a story written by his favorite author, the aforementioned Stephen King, and was blown away. It's rated "R" for a bit of cussing and a few suggestive themes, which I'd rather not talk about here; if your so curious what those themes might be... watch the movie! lol. Besides, the reason I bring that up is that, traditionally, my parents don't allow me to play [rated] "M" games or watch [rated] "R" movies, the exceptions for the former being Halo and Call of Duty, while the exceptions for the latter are movies that have little or no sex and/or I just need to watch them as a precaution to anyone spoiling/ruining the climax, and therefore the whole movie, for me. That's why Dad let me watch Shawshank, that's why I'm so heavily encouraging and advising that you watch it ASAP; if you're an adult who hasn't seen it, drive to BlockBuster and rent it or Best Buy to purchase it, as it's definitely one worth owning (I recommend the 2-Disc Special Edition if you're a movie buff like me); if you're a child or teenager whom hasn't seen it, (I'm looking at you, all of my friends, especially WiiGamin!) ask your parents about it, or, in the case of my friends, invite me over and I'll bring the DVD so we can watch it. I actually kinda made a bargain with WiiGamin, which is not yet final, nor has it taken place yet; I already got him to watch the first forty minutes of Shawshank a week or two ago, and he liked what he saw, at least "somewhat" he says, so the deal is: if I bring Shawshank over and we watch it, perhaps skipping that forty minutes he's already seen (time is money) to just finish the 2 hours and 20 or so minutes long movie, I'll finally get to watch Harry Potter 5, not that I want to, WiiGamin. lol.
Shawshank is my new favorite film (an updated "Favorite Films" post of mine will bob to the surface, or "most recent article" spot, of our blog soon, with more than just switcheroos, so look out for it), because I realized how little sense a particular aspect of Fight Club's ending makes. I won't spoil anything, but if you've seen it you probably understand, unless you're unsure what exactly I'm referring to. I'll quote the movie as a clue: "With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels". Yeah, when Edward Norton does THAT at the end. While Fight Club is still my second favorite movie, Shawshank is also just that much better.
But anyway, back to the part about few people seeing it it 1994 for it's theatrical release: at the following Oscar Awards Show/Ceremony, Shawshank, as it's commonly abbreviated nowadays, was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to films like Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump, winning nothing. Yet those several nominations, opportunities for victory and praise that Hollywood gave to the film, instilled in many ordinary American citizens the will to check out the little prison movie that could. Movie fans were rushing to their local Blockbuster/(insert movie rental place name here) and soon enough, The Shawshank Redemption became most rented VHS Tape of 1995, and one of the most commonly rented films of all time.
Since then, it's become one of the greatest films of all time, made more and more popular by word of mouth: "Hey, dude. You've gotta check out this prison movie! It's awesome!" might not sound very convincing, but trust me: you'll be more than glad you did.

Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'!

nintendude794
P.S.: My sign-off, which I try to variate in order to keep things fresh, variety being the spice of life and all, is this time "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'.", a quote from Shawshank. This line is almost the moral theme of Yes Man, which I watched yesterday. I'd rephrase/combine this quote and Yes Man's theme into something like this: "Quit being such a boring average Joe and live your life or die trying!" That's not at all what the line means in Shawshank... [for those of us who've seen it] lol.
Oh, and also (while I'm here to center and resize the below horizontal line): Shawshank possesses my second favorite movie soundtrack. Although I can't remember if I already have an article on that... If not, you might see one by the end of August. That's definitely a pretty good guarantee. lol.

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(space reserved for WiiGamin to commentate on Shawshank once he's watched it)

Learning Java Pt. 1

Okay, so nintendude and I are going to learn Java so that we may start on a certain project. I won't get into details as to what we're going to do, but it's awesome. We have been planning this since 2008 as individuals, but during a phone conversation early this year, learned we both had the common goal. So, we are going to team up to... well, its a bit of a surprise. We will reveal it by the end of the year if everything goes well, so hang tight.

So, learning Java. Yay! I will (Hopefully) post updates as to what we are up to in our learning process and, when the time is right, reveal what our secret project is. We are both starting to learn, but we will start to get real progress in September, so we may reveal it soon after.

I should have a Learning Java Pt. 2 up soon(ish) enough, so look out for that*. I'll try to shoot for bi-weekly updates, but I can't make promises.

Until next time, play nice.

WiiGamin

*The updates will have a bit of a geeky tendency. Just warning you non-geeks out there. =)

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Learning any complex computer programming language, Java being a somewhat basic one to start with, has been a long time goal for both WiiGamin and I. Our application of said language shall remain secretive for a while longer; I even doubt we'll reveal our work around September, but it simply depends because I don't have the motive, will, or knowledge to even be sure of how to begin. All I have is my ideas, and lots of them; that's where post-it/sticky notes come in. If all works out, with Java-learning resources available online, as well as the class WiiGamin and I are taking at school this year, our master plan for world dominance shall soon be revealed. Oops...

And the "geek-the-of-year" award goes to:

nintendude794

I got Windows 7... Wow.

Alright, so. Three summers ago I discovered Macs with a YouTube video demonstrating Mac OS X.4 Tiger on some guy’s new Mac Mini; and the rest, as is too often said, is history. Then my aspiration became owning my own Mac. ASAP. As I recall, I got one for that Christmas, or maybe the year after that…

I’m typing this on that White, 120GB MacBook with 1GB of RAM; only the user interface strangely looks like Windows, not OS X. That’s because it is. Using Apple’s Boot Camp virtualization utility, I, with the help of WiiGamin and another techie friend of mine, successfully installed the Release Candidate of Windows 7 as a secondary operating system.

And: I. Am. In love. With it. Seriously. It’s breathtaking. I partitioned it to a 21GB volume; now I think I’m wishing I’d given it more space than that. But anyway, I love Windows 7 so far. I love the new taskbar design, with pinning large application icons to the Quick Launch area and using those little pins as the taskbar representations of open application windows by lighting up the buttons of any open applications. If there are multiple instances or windows of a particular application currently in use, say FireFox for me right now, there will be tiny slivers next to the pin, 1 sliver per every extra (meaning that the highlighted pin represents the first window, then slivers are added as more instances of the application are added) application window.

And this group of features called Windows Aero, which is notorious for being somewhat graphics and RAM intensive, works beautifully on this MacBook. Examples of some cool interface enhancements, although some may have been in Vista (personally, I wouldn’t know; lol), are things like hovering the cursor over an open application’s taskbar pin to show a miniature preview of all open windows of that application, as they currently look. Then there’s a “Show Desktop” button in the bottom right next to the analog clock: clicking it minimizes all windows to show the desktop, clicking again restores all of those windows; hovering over it activates “Peek At Desktop” (unless you’ve disabled it; you certainly shouldn’t), which makes every open window a transparent mass, showing just the outline(s), as to give you an easy, quick “peek” at the desktop. And, a feature which I know was in Vista, Flip 3D is a part of Aero that allows you to scroll through all open Windows in a cool 3D animation; warning, this is obviously one of the more graphics intensive aspects of Windows Vista, and 7. Basically, as an Apple fan, I see Windows Aero as a counter to the sleek interface Mac OS X has had for more than five years now. And I think it’s just as cool, if not even better. Sorry Apple.

Maybe I can write a similar post for Apple when Mac OS X.6 comes out, as it will have dozens to hundreds of minor tweaks to OS X.5, many of which make it worth a low price of only $30. Don’t you just love the word “only”? Especially comin’ from the unemployed… lol.

Well, I say to Microsoft: “Excellent work, number two.”

nintendude794