Sports

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Amazon.co.jpで、以前に東京事変のミュージックをチェックされた方に、このご案内をお送りしています。『スポーツ』、2010年2月24日発売予定です。

The American Cocktail Ingredient

This evening, I managed to make it to Seattle’s stellar Zig Zag Cafe [zigzagseattle.com] where their resident mixologist Murry made me an astonishing cocktail (one of several, in fact) that contained Root [artintheage.com], “the First truly authentic American liqueur since the Pre-Prohibition Era”. This spirit wowed me and my bar compatriots. Follow the link and educate yourself!

2009 in Film

A tie this year. Go and consume these. If you don’t at least enjoy them… well then, I pity you. Also: please endeavor not to reproduce.

The Brothers Bloom [brothersbloom.com] – A love letter to the great con-artist movies of cinema, Rian Johnson’s incredibly enjoyable and entirely overlooked jaunt is finally out on Blu-Ray and DVD, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Although this film falls just shy of being “One of My Favorite Movies” (i.e. where my love of it is so absolute that I consider my fandom a part of who I am), it’s sooooo damn close. Also, Rachel Weisz.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox [fantasticmrfoxmovie.com] – The latest “One of My Favorite Movies”! I think Wes Anderson has finally stumbled upon how to pace is comedic timing perfectly for my brain. Words can’t describe how much I love this film. I therefore won’t try. Also, George Clooney.

Music to come!

Blessing Your Ears, for Charity

If you’re still looking for a way to contribute to my favorite charity [childsplaycharity.org], head on over to 8 Bit Christmas [8bitchristmas.com]. If you were ever an NES/Famicom gamer, chances are good that you will love it, and the proceeds go to giving sick kids something to make their day a bit brighter.

Some Arguments are Worth Having

Charles J. Pratt finally takes the Modern Warfare 2 ‘No Russian’ argument and uses it to make a point I find interesting [gamedesignadvance.com].

San Diego Wild Animal Park

Burrowing Owl

Cheetah

I went to the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park [sandiegozoo.org] this past weekend with my good friend Aileen. Here are a few photos from the daytrip. I learned something new: the Wild Animal Park was originally created by the San Diego Zoo to give them a place to practice their very successful endangered animal breeding programs. It was never intended to be opened to the public. That explains a lot about how it’s designed.

Toys, Toys, Toys

Yesterday I made the questionable choice of ordering one of the new 27-inch iMacs. There are many reasons I’d avoided an iMac in the past: it doesn’t allow end users to upgrade the hard drive, it uses mobile processors that cost more than buying an equivalent (and faster) desktop CPU, and it comes with a integrated (albeit beautiful) display – meaning that once the iMac has outlived it’s usefulness, the top-of-the-line Apple monitor goes with it.

While the hard drive on these new models remains outside the reach of all but the most dedicated hardware jockeys, they’ve fixed my other two complaints. The 27-inch iMac now has options aiming at the professional who doesn’t want a Mac Pro – including high-end quad-core desktop processors from Intel (the Mac Pro line uses server-class processors, which while having up to 20% higher performance than similar desktop processors carry a massive price premium… of sometimes over 200%). And that’s not all – check out this awesome piece of info from the official features page [apple.com]:

Mini DisplayPort.
The Mini DisplayPort lets you connect an external display, including the Apple LED Cinema Display, to your iMac. On the 27-inch iMac, the same port offers input, too. So you can connect any external source that has DisplayPort output … and use your iMac as a display.

Cheers Apple. This iMac is going to have a long life on my desk, even if only as an high-end monitor.