End of year 2007 comments
Not being in the
Business as its said around here in Los Angeles, The writers strike didn't seem to effect me all that much. That was until I just heard that the late night Giants like Steve Colbert and Jon Stewart are going to do their shows starting min Jan, without their writers. Which means that they cant write their own material either ! They are part of the guild which is striking
I can hardly wait to see how this plays out.
Jon Stewart sitting across from some person of note thinks of something funny to say, but has to hold back and not say it because he thought of it and he is on strike. Its OK to be filmed, conducting interviews as long as nothing you say came from the mind of a striker.
Make sure you tivo or torrents are capturing the fun. I bet it will be like television you have never seen before.
Top Movies of the year, Thinking I should just rename it top enterainment of the year, The difference between good televison and good movies are now just in the lenght of the attention span of the intended audience. A movie needs to be about 100 minutes, where a tv show is 45 with multiple episodes (usually best watched all together in one marathon sitting)
Getting that out of the way.. my Top Picks for entertainment for the year are. In no specific order
The Black BookShoot Um UPJekyll (BBC) Eastern PromisesThe IT Crowd - Season 2 Intelligence - Season 2 AtonementGone Baby GoneDeath SentenceZeitgeist Life On Mars. - Season 2 I am still waiting to see a few which I hear are good.
Breach
Lions for Lambs
The Life's of others
Youth without Youth
The Man From Earth.
Sweeney Todd
Over hyped and not worth seeing
I am legend
National Treasure 2
Did you notice that my list didnt include the Cohen Bros film N
o Country for Old men ?I dont know why I dont get what the hoopla is about. I first read the book, then saw the movie twice. The book as usual had much more character development, but more than that, it told the story of the sheriff coming to understand pure evil.
To me the movie has some funny parts. and I can start to quote lines from it.. and loved the sound effects!! Somehow to me the story telling missed the bigger picture of the book.
I cant list it as total waste of time, nor can I recommend it, unless of course you have already read the book and thus have an understanding of what is going on with the film. Much like 2001, without reading the book the viewer is sort of left to the own devices to figure out what the images are saying. In No Country for Old Men, without the book the view left feeling like there are too many loose ends. Ok thats my take on it. good watching,but a bit confusing.
Please feel free to comment about your favorites from 2007
Bob Lee
Banking - Not that exciting.. Sorry New Year Post
There is a feature at some banks, which I have come to love. I Saw it first about a year ago, and wasn't sure if it would take off or just be one of those features like buying stamps and bus passes from your atm, which never really got off the ground.
Something called
external transfers. Its sort of like sending a wire, but it much much easier and designed to transfer money from your account at another bank to your account at this bank.
IE.. I get an expense check from my company. Say its 500.00 My NY bank Chase is connected to my united miles credit card, so I use my United Miles Credit Card for business purchases.
But now that I live in LA how do I get my expense check deposited into Chase.. (which is not here) so I can pay my CC bill directly on the day I want from Chase to United..
In comes
account transfer.
I deposit my expense check into Wells Fargo.. my local branch.. Then set up an a transfer of funds from my Chase account to take the 500 from Wells, and deposit it directly into my Chase / United Credit Card bill.
No on line bill pay, no writing a mail in depoist slip, no writing a check. Nothing...
Its done in the blink of an eye.
I got to think about this and found that with my real estate ventures and software business I sometimes need to transfer thousands of dollars from one high interest Money market account to a local checking to buy some property, or pay a landscape bill.
Using external transfers work. Move a few grand from a saving to one of my checking accounts, at a different bank, instantly, Pay my Credit Card Bill from a Money Market No problem.
Setting up external transfers - or external accounts turns out to be just as easy as setting up billpay .. Right from your website.. There is usually no cost to move money around this way
So far I have it working with Chase WAMU and Everbank. WellFargo, falls behind in this area.. I can send money and take money from wells using one of my other accounts, I cant however start the transaction up with wells.
Wells Fargo does not have this feature yet. But using my other accounts to send and take money from wells, Its not all that bad. If WAMU needs 50 bucks, I use Wamu to take 50 from wells Wells didnt need to send it to Wamu.. it can work either way.
Ok So you think I am dense I just thought this was a cool thing..
Take care, have a happy and fun filled new year.
Oh remember , if you have to drink and drive, please be careful. That drink is way to valuable to spill!! :)
Bob Lee
Earth -The power of the planet
While there is not Wikipedia refrence to the broadcasts yet..I can highly suggest that you download this very interesting
BBC Documentary. Its not the same thing as Planet Earth. Far. This 5 part discussion talks about the various parts of the earth which create and use energy. From the earth core, geothermal, waves, winds, atmosphere.
You have to get past the announcer who has quite a distinct Scottish accent (ocean currents ) sounds like he is saying ocean kunts .
All in all, its a good as anything Nova has done with photography which is done in the quality of Planet Earth.
Have fun.
Bob
