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Showing posts from October, 2009

Bad Spelling

I saw a sign today at a hostel that said " NO VACANCY'S ". What really puzzled me was that it was a LED sign that appeared to have been mass produced. The end of civilization, as we know it, is nigh.

Dexter Season 1, Google's China Policy, and Blasphemy (way to segue!)

I am working my through Season 1 of Dexter. It is slow going. Not because it is poorly written, but because I find it so disturbing. When something is on TV you have to watch it or miss it (so 90s), but on when watching on DVD you can come up for air if needed. Dexter is a psychopathic serial killer, who only kills other serial killers. The violence in Dexter is not cartoony, and although much of it happens off screen it is still a bit disturbing at times. But what worries me most is that Dexter might get caught. Having already paid good money for Season 2, it is safe to assume that he doesn't get caught, but I find the suspense and the tension too engaging at times. Feeling for Dexter is strange. It does not sit comfortably with me and I wonder if the show is experienced differently by US and non-US audiences. Dexter goes to great lengths to ensure that he only kills bad people who have beat the system. This makes it OK, sort of. And this is a recurring theme. In one episode

Interlacing of the Body Snatchers

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Classic Sci-Fi Collection EAN: 5050582513738 I recently bought a Sci-Fi Box set that had six old movies in it: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Thing From Another World, Incredible Shrinking Man, This Island Earth, Creature From The Black Lagoon, and It Came From Outer Space. I like old movies and I thought some of them would be fun. I was most interested in Invasion of the Body Snatchers [1956] since this is a very famous movie. Mercifully the movie came in both the original Black & White and the colorized version. Someone who is going to be interested enough to pay for a movie like this is not going to be interested in seeing a version with colour added sometime in the 1980s. I was very disappointed by the quality of the picture. The box claimed that the movies were digitally re-mastered. Not only was the picture quality shabby in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it was interlaced. This means that the DVD was made using a transfer from video tape rather than actual film. That