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Archive for December 2007

Tokyo Drift

In V for Video on December 28, 2007 at 10:32 pm

Current favorite music video:

And a good short movie about tattoo artists, all the way from Scotland via the BBC Film Network. Embedding impossible, so click here to watch The Artist and the Canvas.

Elizabeth: The Golden, Manless Age

In Bits & pieces on December 27, 2007 at 10:14 pm

I watched Elizabeth:The Golden Age tonight at the movies. While it was an excellent movie, I had some reservations on it as to the dialogue and the general cohesion of the story. In comparison,1998’s Elizabeth was an all-around fantastic, tightly woven picture which both impressed and educated. I thought it was better than Elizabeth:The Golden Age, but that’s perhaps typical in movies that have sequels.

At any rate, my reservations are as follows: I thought the dialogue fell short from conveying that “grandeur” I expected conversations of the period to hold. I noticed there were far too many “slangish” catch phrases that made me cringe at their corniness. Another issue I had with the movie was that some scenes seemed utterly disconnected. I was a pain in the ass due to this, I kept asking my sister questions like “why did he do that?,” “who is that?,” “why did that happen?,” and “what is going on?.” Needless to say, she is never going to a movie with me ever again. Thank you, your majesty.

The story itself was enjoyable. The movie related the story of Elizabeth’s reign over England in the late 1500s to the early 1600s, and in particular the war waged by King Philip of Spain in the name of the Catholic God against the bastard Queen of England. It had this dark, religious, imposing mood to it which I loved and which I always enjoy in movies.

The part of the story I did not enjoy very much was how much emphasis was put on the Queen’s romantic life (or the lack thereof). I felt it was a little too much for my taste and I felt overall bad for poor Elizabeth who was unlucky in this movie with Sir Walter Raleigh as she was in the previous movie with the Earl of Leicester. It was a golden, manless age for the Queen I guess.

I wanted more war fighting, more blood and gore, more torture, and more devilish scheming in the movie. I really like that stuff and although I did not see much of that tonight, I still think Elizabeth:The Golden Age is a great movie you should not miss if you like history and romance and beautiful costumes.

The Three Wise Monkeys

In Bits & pieces on December 26, 2007 at 2:35 pm

Evil

I bought this statue in the summer from a Chinese man who was also selling metallic Mao Zedong alarm clocks and little red communist books. He was very anti-bargaining.

I googled the maxim to learn more about it, and here’s what Wikipedia says about it:

The three wise monkeys are a pictorial maxim. Together they embody the proverbial principle to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. The three monkeys are Mizaru, covering his eyes, who sees no evil; Kikazaru, covering his ears, who hears no evil; and Iwazaru, covering his mouth, who speaks no evil.

- Wikipedia English

Just for fun I checked the Arabic article on the monkeys. Ironically, the Arabic Wikipedia says almost the exact opposite about the maxim:

رمز القردة الثلاث هو رمز هندي قديم على شكل ثلاثة تماثيل تعكس صورة السلبية والإنهزامية بأشكالها:

لا أرى.لا أسمع.لا أتكلم

- Wikipedia Arabic

There are several explanations listed in Wikipedia English for the maxim “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” Only one explanation is in any way relevant to the Arabic article; “it is commonly used to describe someone who doesn’t want to be involved in a situation.” However, in the Arabic article the only explanation present is that “the statue reflects negativity and defeatism” and none of the original interpretations is listed.

I thought this would demonstrate how much more work we need to do to bring Wikipedia Arabic up to par with other Wikis. A lot of people depend on Wikipedia for general information and many of them do not realize that not everything published there is necessarily true. And most Arab internet users depend on Arabic as they surf, and search for Arabic materials. As it is, the possibilities for being misinformed from something as simple as Wikipedia English are enormous, let alone its Arabic version and the inaccuracies found there.

The Box Gets a Facelift

In Metablog on December 25, 2007 at 8:56 pm

I am thrilled to unveil the new look of Tololy’s Box. It’s simple, usable, and very “me” right now. I chose a black and white theme and edited it heavily to finally achieve this style. I am very happy with the final outcome and SO very proud of myself for being able to pull this off on my own (although Sk8erboi helped me frequently when I got stuck for days trying to figure something out, thanks Sk8erboi).

This new look is a huge departure from the previous flamboyant RED design which I have outgrown. I did not design the previous look and this is particularly why I am very pleased with myself for launching this one. I spent days upon days editing styles and adding things and fixing errors and checking compatibility with different browsers and consulting WordPress support forums and mixing colors and photoshopping headers and installing WordPress locally and decoding the previously coded footer and whatnot. It was really exhausting for a Modern Languages student to play amateur web developer and do all that on her own.

Now I realize it will take you some time to get used to the new colors and the less-frilly sidebar, but to comfort you I have kept some design elements from the previous look. Things like the wording and some sidebar elements are still here so you don’t feel like complete strangers. Also, the Tololy’s Box “logo” is still here and some red is thrown in so you know you are in the right place. I still have some more tweaking to do but this is the new feel of The Box.

I was supposed to launch the new look on New Year’s Eve but I am too excited to hold back until then so, you have it now. I do hope you will like it after the initial shock, I hope you’ll enjoy the few new things I added and keep on reading Tololy’s Box. Let me know if you have any suggestions, comments, or errors you want to report. Thank you!

Blog Voyeur

In Metablog on December 23, 2007 at 12:11 pm

The posts I publish under “Personal” always get me the most traffic. Do you like observing me? Does it answer some questions you have?

I like reading other people’s personal blogs as well, by the way.

I’ve also found out that some of my older posts are so very extremely lame. What was I thinking publishing that stuff, and why did you read it?!

I am sure I will think this post is lame in 2009.

Update at 1:31 PM: I really like the word “voyeur” disregarding its meaning. I think it rolls off the tongue smoothly. Very sensual vocab.