Month: May 2008

General

Appleseed: Ex Machina

By on Sunday, May 11, 2008

I was browsing through my sis’ DVD collection when I saw Appleseed: Ex Machina. At first, I thought it was just the original Appleseed. I got a bit nostalgic and watched parts of it. It didn’t seem familiar and I realized I was looking at a sequel :P As expected, hot warrior chick Deunan Knute is back along with his metal hunk of a boyfriend and the rest of the boys of ESWAT. This time around they’re fighting a mysterious affliction that ravages cyborgs, bioroids, and humans alike turning them into violent sociopaths. If you’re familiar with the original Appleseed (and you should be) then you can expect the same high-intensity anime action sequences, this time it’s powered-up with the presence of John Woo in the production team. I said it with Appleseed and, though the story is less riveting, I’ll say it for Ex Machina: Awesome!!!

Rating: 4/5

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General

Juno

By on Saturday, May 10, 2008

Finally, after a long time and quite a few recommendations from people whose taste in movies I agree with :P, I watched Juno. And I wasn’t disappointed, high expectations notwithstanding. The movie is about a teenage girl, Juno, coping with an unplanned pregnancy. Ellen Page is wonderful as Juno, a cool chicklet spouting wit and dry humor every line. The supporting characters also did very well in their roles including Jeniffer Garner, who seemed cold at first but turned out to be quite warm. Warm, yes. It’s one of those movies that give you that warm fuzzy feeling. Ironically, althought the movie is about a juvenile, the story as well as the humor are serious, mature, and intelligent. This is so unlike some movies, like say the similarly themed Knocked Up, whose story is about adults but the humor is juvenile (that’s about as much as I will write about it).

Rating: 5/5

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General

dhcpd

By on Friday, May 9, 2008

Not a good day. And it didn’t even start good. I got a message from Erik that the Internet connection was down. I hurried over to check the pertinent server and found out that the disk was full. I noticed that the messages log was HUGE so I truncated it and restarted services. Presto! Problem solved. Or so I thought.

A few moments later, Erik told me that in addition to the Internet connection, DHCP clients were unable to acquire addresses. I checked the messages logs and a found repetitive stream of DHCPDISCOVERs, DHCPOFFERs, DHCPREQUESTs, and DHCPACKs: It was the reason why the messages log grew so big! DHCP clients were trying over and over to get an IP but couldn’t. I tried everything I (and Google) can think of and more.

All the while and even through working lunch, people were calling asking why there’s a problem and worse, telling me that it shouldn’t happen (duh!), and generally whining. I hate it when people do that. Can’t they see I was doing something?!? Can’t they just let the crisis pass then whine later?

Worse, by the end of the day, I wasn’t able to fix the problem. Instead we worked around it and just manually configured all the DHCP clients with IPs. What a pain!

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General

Iron Man

By on Sunday, May 4, 2008

I didn’t learn about Iron Man till about a month before it would be released. I didn’t see the trailer until about a week before it would be released. I wasn’t interested when I learned about it (not exactly a comic book superhero fan except for Batman). But when I saw the trailer (that part when he fires a missile at the tank then cooly walks away as the tank explodes) I decided it could be entertaining. So I went and watched and indeed it turned out to be quite entertaining.

The movie made sure to be as close to the current world as possible. Here, Iron Man begins in present day Afghanistan (Iron Man, of course, existed way before The War on Terror). Tony Stark, owner of an arms manufacturing company, was in the country to demonstrate his latest weapon. On his way home, he was ambushed by terrorists using weapons made by his company. The terrorists wiped out his guards and he was captured and forced to create a high-technology weapon. But instead, he created a jump-capable powered armor (yeah mecha!) that he used to escape his captors.

When he got back home, he resolved to completely stop manufacturing weapons (instead of trying to stop sales to terrorists which would have been more logical). But all is not what it seems and things are easier said (or resolved :P) than done. Lots of action ensues spiced up with a little bit of humor (this is Robert Downey after all, I actually wasn’t convinced he can pull the movie off but he did) and romance (with Gwyneth Paltrow). Like I said, quite entertaining.

Rating: 4/5

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