WALL-E is both Pixar’s best movie to date AND the new bar for animation standards AND an epic homage to not only 2001 but the dystopian genre as a whole. Incredible.  It gets an A+. I am going to watch it again and again, definitely going to buy it, definitely worth paying for multiple times, and buying the DVD.

Here is what everyone is saying:

“Surprisingly, a very enjoyable movie. Best Pixar movie since A Bugs Life.”

“Wall-E was one of the cutest movies evar. I probably would have shed a tear if I wasn’t so darn tough.”

“If you have any reluctance in seeing Wall-E, abandon it. It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year & simply amazing. Prepare to laugh and cry.”

“Saw Wall-E; Saw why Digits can make ya cry”

“Robots make me happy. 5/5 stars”

“Wall-E is an instant classic.”

“adorable robots and spectacular animation”

“Wall-E gave me goosebumps many times over.”

“Wall-e is really cute and funny and touching.”

“Everyone must go see wall-e”

“Yep, wall-e lived up to the hype — wonderful, wonderful movie.”

“what a beautiful movie”

“Wall-E: Hands down Pixar’s best film. I have felt that kind of wonder since I saw 2001.”

“Saw Wall-E. Made me cry like a disintegrating slug beast. Hope is restored in the land of film.”

“More humanity on display than in many human actors”

1. The Fratellis - Mistress Mable
2. Foxboro Hot Tubs - Mother Mary
3. The Corteeners - No You Didn’t, No You Don’t
4. The Kooks - Naive
5. The Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control
6. Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
7. Weezer - Greatest Man That Ever Lived
8. Coldplay - Death and All His Friends
9. The Seahorses - Blinded by the Sun
10. Razorlight - Can’t Stop This Feeling That I’ve Got

1. updated macbooks
2. cool new iphone + cheaper raw iphone prices so I can get either a brand new one or a used “old” one for less than $200.
3. something new and cool that no one was guessing
4. another very cool promo deal that gets me free stuff when i throw down money with Apple (say a free shuffle with my iphone, or a free photo printer with my imac, or a $50 itunes gift card with my iphone)
5. very cool iphone apps, from apple or 3rd party
6. my new neighbors to close escrow, move in and setup an open wireless network that works from my room
7. pro-apps (like aperture) to receive a huge sdk update, and/or announcement showing off new plugins and such that take advantage of the current sdk openness
8. itunes update so it runs better with large libraries

Today I was at Turn-Around shooting surfers and fliers and watchers, but the perfect shot got away.

Three young, beautiful women, wearing bright yellow dresses and matching hats and smiles, rode past me on their bikes, casually riding into what could have been the perfect shot. A yellow sports car drove by on the Palomar beach bridge while a light blue truck filled the rest of the background.

No time to switch lens’s, no extra camera to grab the shot, just enough time to frame the shot in my mind and realize I was currently shooting with the wrong lens and therefore had missed what could have been possibly a “perfect shot”.

Previously she would have laid down on the tile and chew and chew and chew until there was no more rawhide. Now, of course, the new thing is to bury it.

Even my dog is preparing for hard times.

Of course, that’s the wrong conclusion to make. This yellow lab cannot stop eating even if she tried. We tried to do an automated system that let her feed herself - she just kept eating and eating. The instinct overtakes any training.

Think of your favorite Death Cab For Cutie album. Got it?

Better than that.

10/10.

Worth listening to… non stop … for days (now) without pause.

Rolling Stone summarizes it for me:

“a deep understanding of lovelessness and the way people live in its quiet wreckage”.

Now, I’ve done my fair share of damage, with more than a fair share of cavities and not wearing the retainers I was told to (all the time), but seriously, when you are picking a suitable mate, make sure you look at their dental history to make sure your kids (and your wallet) won’t be as screwed.

Sorry, Mashable is wrong.

Mashable writer Mark Hopkins takes the first line from wikipedia as justification for them calling everyone out.

A recession is a decline in a country’s real gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year

However, if Mark had just read further into the wikipedia article instead of jumping up and down and getting frustrated, he would have seen that he’s wrong.

A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough.

Since a recession is peak to trough, and numbers are reported monthly and quarterly, it’s nearly impossible to officially call it until it’s already well on it’s way.

Who is right: Feldstein, the head of NBER, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the group that make the official call, or Mashable writer Mark Hopkins?

Since Feldstein is the one in charge of the group who makes the call, he’s the person I’m going to trust as more credible.

“I think that December/January was the peak and that we have been sliding into recession ever since then,” Feldstein, the president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said on CNBC television.

Feldstein said he believes that the recession will linger. “I think it could go on longer” than the “last two recessions (which) lasted eight months peak to trough,” he said, adding the current recession could last about twice as long.

He also said the first quarter U.S. gross domestic product number will be a “misleading” number in that it may not reflect the economy was in a recession in the first three months of the year.

So while calling our current situation a “Deep Hole of Economic Dung” is accurate, it is also accurate to say that we are in a recession.

It’s not a matter of IF we are in a recession, not a matter of long or short, but a matter of how long and how severe.

I stopped to admire and then an over-dressed but skinner than bones guy covered in jewelry sauntered over to it snubbed his nose at me and got into his car and drove off.

I woke up at 9 and had a bowl of cereal for breakfast.

I drove down the coast listening to Rage Against The Machine’s self titled album, trying to find parking so I could write at the beach but each lot was too crowded.

Lunch at Panera was delicious, a bowl of tomato soup and some very hot fresh bread.

[at this point my handwritten journal goes off into some illegible ramblings about the HWADC project but then returns to the topic on hand]

It’s amazing how the little details make up the most enjoyable part of the meal. The textures of each mouthful of soup, the shape of the spoon allowing for the maximum amount of soup without overfilling and spilling when the enjoying hot soup, and the flavor of baguette delivered from the oven to my table with extra napkins.

Later in the evening I had pineapple pizza.