Monthy Archive: September 2008
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September 02, 2008

Movies : Don Lafontaine RIP

A Hollywood legend died yesterday. Most people wouldn't recognize the name, and even fewer would know the face; but everyone who has gone out to the movies for the last 40 years would certainly recognize the voice of Don Lafontaine – the "king" of movie trailer voice-overs (he did the narration of over 5000 movie trailers). His signature phrase "In a world where…" has been parodied many times.

A couple of links for those who still might not know who I am talking about:

- A short (5 minutes) biography

- A bit of humor with all five of the top voice-over artists.

Posted by Steven at 09:39 AM | Permalink

Movies : Voice, Over

Sigh. A bit too late I realized this would have been the perfect title for my previous post on Don Lafontaine

Posted by Steven at 12:49 PM | Permalink

September 03, 2008

Life : Busy Packing

As may be obvious from my missed posting dates, I am busy (and expect to continue to be busy) for the rest of the month getting ready for the move - on top of the fact that I am still deeply engaged with my project at work. I will try and post at least once a week; but beyond that, no promises.

My weekly book posts will certainly be one of the casualties this month – given everything else I have to do, I will be happy if I finish reading two books this month: the one I am currently reading, and Neal Stephenson's new (900 page) book which comes out in the middle of this crunch. The move has however forced a decision on culling my to-be-read books – no reason to transport to San Francisco books I may not ever get around to reading.

Another inconvenience of the timing of this move is that Spore, Will Wright's new game also comes out in a week, and I won't have the desired time to play it. Ah well.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

September 05, 2008

Books : A Year in Books

The following picture shows all of the books I read in the past 12 months - starting 3 months before I began logging all of my reading to this blog, so you may not recognize some of the titles from my posts. Actually I read 8 more than can be seen here; but 6 are already on loan to other people and 2 were returned to their owners who had lent them to me.

The three stacks represent the three dispositions of the books. The books in the left stack are those that will be staying on my shelf at home, ready to lend (as some already have been) or for me to refer to. Those in the middle stack will be headed to storage to read again later (or to be punted when I have a bit more distance from them - only about half the books I send to storage stay there past the next culling). Those in the right stack will be donated to the library.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 15, 2008

Books : Books 2008/09/15

Current count of books pending to be read: 82
Read one, purchased one, punted nine

Well, my books (read and to be read) are all packed up for the move in a week. In the process, I did however cull out those books I didn’t expect to get around to reading (those for which I expect I’ll always have other books I’d rather read more).

Books finished this week:

So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State

by Forrest Church

An excellent history book covering the relationship between church and state during the terms of the first five Presidents of the United States (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe). A great example of the adage “the more things change, the more they remain the same”. I want to write a whole essay on this after the move, so I’ll hold off saying more.


Computer Games Played: Spore!!!!
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Anathem by Neal Stephenson!!!!

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

September 28, 2008

Life : Mostly Moved, Partially Up

Anne and I are not quite where we expected to be at this point; but we are certainly much more in San Francisco than in Mountain View.

The move itself went well. The movers took the bulk of our stuff up on Tuesday with only a couple of minor casualties. My room and the kitchen are largely unpacked, the living room and Anne’s room less so. There’s a bit left in the old place for us to sort through and clean up; but we have a couple of weeks to do that.

The problem has been with AT&T – we ordered our phone, internet, and television service from AT&T (the only option in this building) on September 9 to be installed on September 20 (before the actual move). We have only today (September 27) have cable and internet access and we still don’t have a home phone number. What’s more, I just discovered that I am unable to send Emails via this internet connection.

By the way, for those of you who know us outside of this blog, we do plan to send out new contact information as soon as we have the phone issues resolved.

I have other things to blog on; but at this point getting caught up with my web surfing is the priority.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)