exitwound - FEBRUARY 2001 | frank kolodziej

FEBRUARY 26, 2001

Oh No! | Yes, another post about toys. Get over it. Anyway, images from the Simpsons Wave 4, Wave 5, Wave 6, and the Main Street playset.

FEBRUARY 24, 2001

Highbinders. | “In Highbinders, [Jackie] Chan plays a cop who gets killed in the line of duty but realizes he’s still alive, and now has supernatural powers. The film shows him trying to come to grips with his new abilities while still fighting the bad guys.” (Reuters) Okay...

FEBRUARY 23, 2001

Misc. | Some random things:
+ Opera is finally out for the Mac. Sort of. “Technology Preview 1” seems pretty good. The biggest problem is the default font size is too small. This site, for example, looks exactly the same in IE 5 Mac and Netscape 6 Mac, but in Opera TP1, the text is unreadable. Otherwise, I’m impressed.
+ Tortoise’s new album, Standards, is growing on me. It’s weirder than their previous releases, but I still like it.
+ Plans for the weekend: watch Bring It On, What Lies Beneath, and Rated X (Netflix rocks); see Traffic again; and maybe add a commenting system to the photos section; and ... I think that’s it.

FEBRUARY 21, 2001

Macworld Tokyo. | New poop from Apple.
New iMacs, with CD-RW drives, speed increases, and two new “colors”: “flower power” and “blue dalmatian”. Apparently the colors are molded into the plastic, not painted on or whatever. Sounds technically interesting, although I’d never get either of the two colors.
Updated iTunes. It’s now up to version 1.1. (Does anyone care? I don’t.)
nVidia has a new graphics card available on BTO PowerMacs, the GeForce 3. As far as specs go, it’s amazing. And apparently the demo during the keynote blew folks’ socks off. (Bye, bye, ATI.)
Otherwise, what happened in Tokyo was a rehash of what happened here in San Francisco last month.

- - - - -

The Bouncer. | Like the Final Fantasy IX demo day last year, Square will be holding another for their upcoming game The Bouncer, which is due out for Playstation 2 sometime soon. Saturday, March 3, 12pm-4pm at the Metreon (which, if you don’t know, is in San Francisco). Since I don’t have -- and don’t plan to get -- a PS2, I doubt I’ll go.

FEBRUARY 18, 2001

Not Ready Yet. | ...but that new design isn’t quite ready yet, so here’s one I started and finished this evening. If you’ve set an exitwound cookie, head to the Prefs page to see the new skin, called “bolt”. (If you haven’t set a cookie, then you’re looking at “bolt” now.)

- - - - -

Revised XW. | Did some behind-the-scenes changes to the site today (although nothing too obvious). The backend scripts were rewritten to be more efficient. I don’t know if you’ll see a speed increase, but at the very least each page request will be less strain on the server. Also, posts are now ordered like so: “dates” go from most recent to oldest, but, within those “dates”, “posts” are ordered from oldest to newest. It sounds weird, but it makes sense, believe me.
If anything breaks, please let me know.
Oh, and for those of you that saw it, the temporary (and now-deleted) “under maintenance” page was a little preview of a new design I’m working on for the site.

FEBRUARY 16, 2001

It’s Only A Movie. | The scariest thing about watching Final Destination tonight was, after the movie ended, I went to the bathroom. No, that’s not the scary part. No, I flushed the toilet and moved to the sink to wash my hands when all of the sudden I heard a bang. A can of air freshener, which, last I saw, was standing upright on the back of the toilet, away from any edges, had fallen to the ground, its plastic top breaking slightly. I was freaked out a little bit, but then I figured that it probably wasn’t death knocking at my door, but rather my bathroom dropping a hint.

- - - - -

Flash 5.0a. | An update for Flash (the app, not the plug-in) is now available here (Mac only).
And just out of curiosity, does anyone know why the update is called “5.0a” and not “5.01”?

FEBRUARY 15, 2001

New At FQ. | News and Top 10, two new features at FORCEQUIT.

FEBRUARY 14, 2001

Kubrick Collection. | Here we go. I knew it was coming eventually, and now there’s an official date. June 12 is the release date for the “new” Stanley Kubrick Collection, $199 suggested retail price (so you could probably find it for around $140 online). I already have the first collection. It sucks that I have to buy it again because Warner Bros. didn’t do the set justice the first time. Thanks.

FEBRUARY 13, 2001

Oscars. | Today “they” announced Oscar nominations. I think it’s great that Crouching Tiger was nominated for both Best Picture on top of Best Foreign Language Film, but I’m disappointed that Almost Famous wasn’t nominated for either Best Picture or Best Director. Oh well.

- - - - -

Even More ToyFair. | About.com has pictures of the Reservoir Dogs 12" figures. Pretty fucking disappointing. I think it’s cool that there’s a “Marvin Nash” figure, but it, as well as “Mr. Blonde” and “Mr. Orange”, look terrible. I won’t be buying them.

FEBRUARY 12, 2001

More ToyFair. | Continuing with Toyfair crap:
Simpsons 2001 Toy Lineup (0 pictures);
Simpsons 2001 Playset Preview (2 pictures);
Street Fighter Series 3 (9 pictures);
Speed Racer Series 3 (8 pictures)

- - - - -

Sweet. | Toyfair 2001 is in full swing, and McFarlane Toys’ 2001 catalog is up. Highlights include Samurai Wars, 3D Animation From Japan Series 2 (especially “Akira” and “Joker” from Akira and “Major Kusanagi” from Ghost In The Shell), and Movie Maniacs 4 (although I’m a little disappointed by “Jaws”).
Now, criticisms. First, I think it’s bullshit that there’s another “Kaneda and bike” coming out. Why didn’t they make the first version of Kaneda able to sit on his bike?
Second, a big problem that McFarlane in general has is symmetry. A good (bad) example is “Lotus: The Angel Warrior”. Her lower half, specifically. Each leg is dressed differently. Turn her around and there’s a flap covering her right butt cheek, but not the left. Why? “Spawn” is another good example. If you were Spawn, how long would you walk around with a heavier right leg than left before you wised up?
Regardless, McFarlane Toys still scores big points for making everything cheap.

- - - - -

Jeez. | Movie goers faint during ‘Hannibal’. My theory is they couldn’t believe they paid to see such a big piece of SHIT.

- - - - -

“I Am...” | The specs for Criterion’s Spartacus DVD are out. The coolest bit, besides the standard enhanced video and audio, is that Saul Bass, whom I ripped-off on the movies site, participated on the audio commentary. Of course, since Bass died a few years ago, I’m going to assume the commentary is from the old laserdisc.

FEBRUARY 10, 2001

Uh... | I can’t believe someone approved this Exit Wounds wallpaper. A) he’s wearing that uniform, B) he’s holding a whistle, and C) it looks like he’s touching himself.

FEBRUARY 09, 2001

From Adbusters: | The Cyborg Manifesto.

FEBRUARY 08, 2001

The Break Up. | I’m all for you getting into your job and believing in what you do for a living, but man, when it feels like I’m breaking up with my hosting provider, you need to calm down.
(And just to clarify, the hosting company I broke up with wasn’t the one that hosts this site, but rather the one that hosted FORCEQUIT.)

- - - - -

Ed. | From Chris’ “worth watching” list:
“1. ED - Screw that DA...he needs to hook up with Carol..Carol!!!”
NO! Carol had her chance and she blew it.

FEBRUARY 07, 2001

Amazing. | Found at Design Is Kinky: Quicktimers. Who knew you could do that with Quick Time?

FEBRUARY 06, 2001

Rufus. | In the new issue of Entertainment Weekly (the 2001 preview), the first page of the music section has some info on the new Rufus Wainwright album, called Poses, out April 17. His first, self-titled album was one of my favorites for whatever year it came out. 1999?

FEBRUARY 01, 2001

Boom. | Our friends at threatmedia* also launched their site today. Check it out.

- - - - -

New FQ. | The brand-spankin’ new FORCEQUIT site is up. Have a look, tell me what you think.