... but there is in a lot of other words. Sometimes people ask me why I don't like going "home" much (I do go to visit my family, but that's it) and while I've got a whole lot of vague reasons why, last week I saw evidence that I feel explains an awful lot.

Last night we went to our local Landmark Theater and saw "Pieces of April" and I came away from this tiny little film realizing I had just seen a great and honest piece of cinema. It was sincere, funny, true and wonderful. Peter Hedges wrote and first-time directed this film (he also wrote "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" and the screenplay for "About A Boy"), and performances were great all around. Katie Holmes, Oliver Platt, Patricia Clarkson -- all very well done. The truly amazing thing about POA, though, is that it is a no-budget movie shot on digital video. It looked really good! Ok, a couple of very short rough spots, but still... No-budget? Yeah, no budget -- like, made for $160,000 and the actors and crew supposedly brought their own brown-bag lunches type of no-budget! Shot in 16 days. Zowie. I'm scraping up pennies for a new camera... Oh, and some of the music was by Stephen Merritt (ala The Magnetic Fields). Go see it!

Yesterday Panasonic announced the release of the new DVX100A, an improvement upon the DVX100. I so want one of these cameras! If you don't know anything about digital video cams, you won't understand why, but basically it is darn near a "pro" camera for a "hobby" price. Very good quality, awesome features. The guy from Vagabonding uses one.

I don't know what everybody was complaining about -- the third Matrix movie, in my opinion, redeemed the 2nd and was quite entertaining. Sure, it was a lot more action-y than the other two, but really, isn't that what the third act is supposed to do? Rise to a conflict/climax and a resolution? At least they actually showed the machines making their approach, unlike in the 2nd when they talked about how close they were getting but never gave you any visual tension/indication. I liked it and I would recommend it. The visual FX were really really good, if you like that sort of thing. Ok, I will say that somehow the final scene was, well, not quite right (I can't give anything away). Just wait for 10 or 20 years when, as Meghan said, "Matrix Retirees" comes out and answers all the niggling little questions.
Pay attention to the music from Juno Reactor and Twyker, Klimek and Heil (the Run Lola Run guys).

Apple today released G5/Panther optimized versions of Shake, DVD Studio Pro and Final Cut Pro -- making them some 50% faster, according to their site. The improvements mean that... "Power Mac G5 systems can play up to seven simultaneous standard definition (SD) video streams. With DV content, the Power Mac G5 can play up to nine simultaneous streams." They've also added a new dual 1.8 Ghz G5 machine at $2499 (nice) and something of a surprise: a 20" flat panel iMac. Jinkies! So if they can sell a whole iMac with a 20" screen for $2xxx, shouldn't the 20" Cinema Display drop in price by a few hundred bucks?

This is so totally cool: in OS X Panther you can hook up your digital camera and turn it into a web-shared device where you can view pictures on the camera, control the camera (certain models let you take pictures), and download or delete files -- through a swanky web interface via web sharing and/or Rendezvous. Very kiff! I wonder if you could do it with scanners, too, as Image Capture controls those as well... although the usefulness of a web-shared scanner would be miniscule compared to a digital camera. It works with my Sony P71. I'll test a few more if I can persuade a few friends to loan their cams. Realistic usefulness: 3. Wow-factor usefulness: 10.

Take a vacation, work on the house, make some videos and the blog goes to rot. Suffice it to say that things have been occupying all the time around here. The bathroom still isn't finished and yesterday I discovered that there is no insulation behind the tub. Brrrr! Icy cold cast-iron. Just great, eh? Now I have to blow some insulation in through the access panel (might not work past the studs) or cut a hole in the wall. Thanks. Still waiting on one last piece of the shower surround. I did get the medicine cabinet (vintage from 1941) all cleaned up and installed and it looks great with the paint Meghan picked out. We got all the leaves raked up and I re-shingled the garage and got the sewer pipes cleaned out. Work has been busy, too. And I've been trying to make video projects and work on writing. Yeah.

This week's flicker is called "Sepiatone" and is a short experiment with Ken Burns-style documentary photo editing. I collect antique photographs and search for them during my travels. This piece contains photos found in Prague (Czech Republic) and Bellingham, Washington (USA). Music was created using Soundtrack and while I could have played off the theme of "Tone" even more with the sound in this piece, I chose to just create an atmospheric background.