July | 2011 | The Fluffshack

Movies watched so far on my new Samsung 40D8000 TV:

The Dark Knight
Sanctum (3D)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind 30th aniversary Blue Ray
Inception
The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition from the new 15-disk Blue Ray set)
Tron: Legacy (3D)

Also watched some episodes of Game of Thrones

First time I saw Inception btw, and it was a bit of a letdown to be honest.
I felt they could have done a lot more with the concept. the coolest stuff they did with only in that little introductory session with the girl, but they actually didn’t use any of that in the actual mission. They could have done far more with warped physics, esher-type perspective mindfucks and more psychological traps. Instead we got a Call-of-Duty-esque snow-commando scene that could have come out of any random James Bond movie. Could have been so much better.

Sanctum was pretty damn good for a low-budget movie (ok so James Cameron produced). Excellent use of 3D effects in a very confined space. A bit melodramatic and predictable, but entertaining.

Tron 3D was cool as usual, but the use of 3D, or should I say lack thereof, was as striking and as disappointing as when I saw it in the cinema. I still cant believe what kind of missed opportunities there where there. The most obvious is when we get the birds-eye views of the structures on the grid, like the light-bike arena. Just no 3D effect at all. The best we got was a kind of foreground-background divide but not much else.

Its proving to be a challenge to set contrast and brightness correctly on the TV. Some of the more advanced calibration guides out there are so complex I hardly know where to start.

Finally a decent Bible!

As part of my book collecting initiative, I decided some time ago that I needed a proper version of the Bible on my shelf.
There is so much choice out there, I spent a long time looking for one that fit my specifications: It had to be the KJV original text including The Aprocrypha, needed to be hardback with real leather and black if possible, and a readable typeface. there where lots of 1611 reproductions using the original typeface, but its almost unreadable.

I finally found the one I wanted from Hendrickson publishers, MA
http://www.hendrickson.com/html/product/562118.trade.html#curr

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The new 1611 KJV Deluxe Edition boasts high-end binding and genuine black calfskin leather. Also available in cloth binding, the Deluxe Edition is here just in time to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Version.
For 400 years, the Authorized Version of the Bible—popularly known as the King James Version—has been beloved for its majestic phrasing and stately cadences. No other book has so profoundly influenced our language and our theology. Over time, however, the text has suffered subtle and occasionally troublesome alterations. This edition preserves the original 1611 printing. Word for word and page for page, the text with its original marginal notes, preface, and other introductory material appears as it first did. The sole concession to modernity is a far more readable roman typeface set by nineteenth-century master printers.
Special Features
• Original preface and translator’s notes
• Essays on the enduring importance of the KJV and pre-1611 translations
• Handsome page design with “illuminated” initials and clearer type

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I am really thrilled with it.
See more pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jemimus/tags/bible/show/

For those of you who may be wondering why on earth an outspoken Atheist would want a Bible on his shelf, and go out of his way to find just the right one, I could not put it into words better than Christopher Hitchens did in his May 2011 piece on the KJV Bible for Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/05/hitchens-201105 ):

“Though I am sometimes reluctant to admit it, there really is something “timeless” in the Tyndale/King James synthesis. For generations, it provided a common stock of references and allusions, rivaled only by Shakespeare in this respect. It resounded in the minds and memories of literate people, as well as of those who acquired it only by listening.
….
A culture that does not possess this common store of image and allegory will be a perilously thin one. To seek restlessly to update it or make it “relevant” is to miss the point, like yearning for a hip-hop Shakespeare. “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,” says the Book of Job. Want to try to improve that for Twitter?