apple juice

I cancelled our DirecTV today.

At $50 a month, we decided that it just wasn’t worth it anymore. Yes, we will lose one of the sweetest inventions of all time, Tivo. Yes, I won’t be able to watch all the Twins games on FSN anymore. But $50/month? For what? For shows I end up buying on DVD or getting from Netflix anyways?

Now, I’m not saying we won’t subscribe to something in the future…

But where is the a la carte option? Where is my iWhatever from Apple that lets me pay $.50 for the last episode of Scrubs? Why can’t I call the cable company and say, I would like FSN, ESPN, Comedy Central and the Locals, nothing more? I firmly believe the television landscape is about to undergo a massive restructuring. The technology is there. And let me tell you, it’s not Free-Market Capitalism that’s holding us back, the market is there. (That’s a whole other rant for another time.)

For the time being we’re going to sit it out and re-assess when things are back in line.

Just decided to give Netflix a two week trial. Are you on Netflix?

After that post about movielens, it occured to me that Netflix must do the same thing… and it does. Multiple profiles on your account, seperate ratings, recommendations for your friends. I can tell I’m going to be hooked. I know people (jgd3) have been telling me forever to get on this, and in fact we bought a gift subscription for the parents a couple years ago, but we’re finally giving it a shot.

Send me an email or an invite if you use Netflix so I can get some people on my friends list.

Oh, and Eric, I’m finally going to see Donnie Darko. It’s in queue.

Back in the heyday of the internets (the late 90’s) there were all sorts of free services that offered you interesting information for free… with little or no advertising! Moviecritic was one such site. It capitalized on the power of collaborative filltering to recommend movies to you.

Basically you would browse through the movie database, and if a movie was listed that you had seen, you would rate it, 1-5 stars.

After rating a certain number of movies, it would begin to predict movies for you based on your ratings and the ratings of all the other users.

Then the really sweet thing was when you fed another username (the Juice-ette, say) to the site, and it would return movies that both of you will like, based on all these ratings.

Well, somewhere around late 2001 – early 2002 (not sure exactly) the site was shut down. Very sad. A few dark years of movie watching ensued. Somewhere in there we saw ‘Connie and Carla‘. A bad time indeed.

Something sparked my interest in movies this afternoon, so I thought I would see if any sites had cropped up in the wake of Moviecritic.

With that, I give you: movielens

The site is very similar to Moviecritic, and lo and behold, it’s appears to be a research project at the University of Minnesota. So with any luck, after I’ve rated 1000 movies, the site won’t disappear.

So, I strongly urge you, the 3 or 4 readers of my site, to sign up and do some rating. Send me an email to let me know you’ve signed up and we’ll see some movies!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about my musical favorites, so here’s a little update.

First off, after much prodding from my sister, I’ve been listening to “Transatlanticism” from Death Cab for Cutie. It’s been sitting on my Audioscrobbler recommended list ever since I got an account over there, but for some reason I’ve resisted listening. Maybe some of Matt‘s indie-tude had been rubbing off on me. (Just kidding Matt!) But anywas, I really have been enjoying this album. Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service share Ben Gibbard as lead singer and songwriter. Whaddyaknow? As soon as I started in to “Transatlanticism”, visions of The Postal Service immediately danced in my head, and that is not at all a bad thing. The Postal Service album, Give Up, is one of my favorite albums, ever. It’s just funny that I got to Death Cab for Cutie by way of The Postal Service, and not the other way around, (since DCC has been around for quite a while)

Secondly,as long as I was listening to indie-darlings, I thought I’d give Bright Eyes a try, another band that has been on the Audioscrobbler list forever, and not only that, Matt loves this band. I’ve now heard “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning”, “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn”, and “Lifted, or, Keep Your Ears to the Ground, The Story is in the Soil”. I guess he enjoys long album titles. I’m not one to give eloquent reviews, but they’ve been in heavy rotation for the past couple weeks. (BTW, did you see him on The Tonight Show the other night? That gave me the goosebumps. I can bet Jay won’t invite him back there any time soon. Although on further inspection, Jay does say, “performing his protest song” so maybe they knew what he was going to sing?)

Third, new album by Spoon, “Gimme Fiction”. This is playing on the iPod as I type, track 7 of 11. So far it’s awesome. Their earlier albums, “Girls Can Tell”, and “Kill The Moonlight” are some of my favorites, and I can already hear that this will be a favorite as well.

I also bought two other albums today, “Cold Roses” by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, and “Blinking Lights and other Revelations” by eels. Looking forward to both of these albums. I’ve passed over the previously most recent albums by these two artists, but both of the new discs come highly recommended.

This is not the sort of thing I would normally admit out-loud. Yes, I am a geek, all who know me can attest to that. But I usually have a very tempered level of geekitude. The geek is not on display at all times, more like it’s in the holster ready to come out at any moment…

This is one of those moments.

I’m listening to the soundtrack to a video game right now. There, I said it.

It’s the soundtrack for Splinter Cell (a game I have never played), and the music was composed by Amon Tobin… an electronicalist… err something.

I guess this is what happens when the Apple Juicette is out of town for a week:

• Come home from work
• Feed Dog
• Eat left overs for dinner
• Watch “the daily show” from last night
• play Zelda for an hour or so. (okay 2 hours)
• listen to music… including random video game music
• type some random incoherence into the old website
• time to go to bed!

Anyway, thanks jgd3 for the recommendation!

Okay, I need to post a link to this (swf) video. Thanks to Joey for sending it to me…

Some dude lip-syncing to Dragostea Din Tei by O-Zone

Joey: Want to see something funny?
Me: Yes.
Joey: (sends link)
Me: That is hilarious, and the song is awesome!
Joey: I think it is popular in Europe or something.

Not only is that kid hilarious (he should be the next American Idol). The song is absolute pop genius. The mp3 is not hard to find, and I suggest you get a copy.

Does anyone get the feeling that John Mayer is a better musician than his albums would make it seem?

Record labels, let the man be free!