I’m a little late posting this one, but a couple of months ago Joy and I watched “The Gold Rush” (1925). We’re currently watching a combination of the AFI Top 100 and Ebert’s Great Movies in chronological order, and we started with TGR. Since it’s the only movie in our epic quest that we watched before I started this blog, I wanted to go back and make an entry for it just for the sake of completion. And actually, I recently bought a few more DVDs that are even earlier than TGR (like “Broken Blossoms”), so we’ll jump around for a little while before we get back on the chronological track.
Anyway, we liked TGR (this was the first silent film Joy had ever seen). Chaplin is, as always, a class act. The creativity and originality on display in his films is really pretty amazing. While I appreciate the comedy throughout this film, my favorite scene is when the tramp is waiting for the girls to come by on New Year’s Eve. He is so sweet and has everything ready for them and then just waits. And waits. And waits. As I mentioned in my “City Lights” comments, I also really like the scene where Georgia Hale turns around slowly to survey the entire dance hall and then turns her head quickly to just skip over the Tramp.
I’ve got another link from the Stereophile e-newsletter today. This one is an online drum kit. You can click the drums with your mouse or use keyboard shortcuts. If you actually want to do something with a little bit of rhythm, you definitely want to use the keyboard shortcuts.
I didn’t think it would happen any time soon, but I’ve switched away from Google for my primary search engine. I’m now using the A9 beta. Of course, A9 gives you results provided by Google for it’s web searches, so I’m still using Google indirectly. I really like the multi-column search results when you search more than one area (for example, the web plus images plus wikipedia). Now I just need a widescreen computer monitor so I can fit more columns on the screen.
I also switched from the Google toolbar in my webbrowsers to the A9 toolbar. The A9 toolbar has one nitpicky feature that I really appreciate. With the Google toolbar, if you click on the Google logo you get a drop down menu, and then you actually have to click again on the menu if you want to go to the Google web page. With the A9 toolbar, if you click on the A9 logo, you go immediately to the A9 web page. I really like that. Quick, simple, and no extra clicks. Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference.
I’ve been using A9 for about a week now, and I’m pretty pleased. Since I still get excellent web search results provided by Google, along with all of the other A9 features, I think of it as kind of a Google+.
This is an unusual post for me because it is in reference to a curse word. People who know me realize that I don’t use profanity, but this phrase I came across just struck me as really funny when I read it. If you want to read the rest of this entry, click below.
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OK, so I’ve been a pretty poor blogger lately. I can admit it. Between the baby and being back at work full time, it’s been a little hectic lately. But I think things are finally starting to get back to a more predictable schedule. I have a decent size backlog of info to post, so I hope to generate quite a few new enties in the next couple of days.
