Penguin January 7th, 2008
I loved Lost in Translation. If you’ve seen it, there’s a scene at the end where Bob (Bill Murray) whispers into Charlotte’s (Scarlett Johansson) ear.
As with most secret things, it’s always better to leave it to the imagination. But with some smart audio filtering, the words are revealed: “I have to be leaving, but I won’t let that come between us, ok?”
And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.
-Penguin
Related postsPenguin December 24th, 2007
This whole Christmas thing has really got me thinking about gifts and the whole act of giving. We’ve become a generation of the gift card. Little plastic cards that hide the “shame” of giving cash. But when you think about it, why would you give someone something that isn’t useful to them? As a poor grad student, the last thing I need is a gift card to Best Buy or Banana Republic. I rather get cash so I could pay off my tuition or buy books for next semester.
Why has the gift card become so popular? Because we really don’t know each other anymore. Think about it. You get a gift card for someone because you don’t know what they like. You don’t know what they already have. You don’t know what they need. But you feel “ashamed” (there’s that word again) for giving cash. So you hide it in a gift card. You feel good, the receiver feels kinda good for being remembered, but doesn’t really put the card to use.
Ninja and I have been doing something over the last few years. Instead of trying to figure out what each other needed or wanted, we just asked. We also combined Christmas and our birthdays together to form one gift because so much about giving has to do with the monetary value of the gift. So we did the logical thing and combined them so we can get each other more expensive gifts, stuff that we would really need / use.
But there was still something missing. The thoughtfulness that comes with the surprise. That’s what gifting is really about. Putting the thought into someone you care about and saying, “so and so would really like this, I’m going to get it for them”.
So, when people spout, “it’s the thought that counts”. It’s true. They’re just using it in the improper context. It’s not so much the thought of, “hey, I remembered
What did you get for your
-Penguin
Related postsPenguin December 16th, 2007
You may have noticed a few days ago that at the end of each post is now this “popularity” thing. It’s a gauge of how popular a particular post is based on how many views, comments, trackbacks, pings, etc it gets. It’s a nifty little thing to help us see what people like.
If you guys find it annoying, just drop us some email or leave a comment and we’ll remove it.
If there’s anything else you guys would like to see different with the site, let us know that too.
Thanks!
-Penguin
Penguin October 27th, 2007
I just went through and redacted all the star ratings for my reviews from out of 5 to out of 4. Here’s why:
Star ratings explained:
The star rating isn’t so much about how good the movie is, but more my level of recommendation. To see if a movie is good or not, you should just read the review.
0 Stars - Stay away! There is absolutely no reason why you should be watching this.
1 Star - Not recommended. If you really have nothing better to do.
2 Stars - Average. I would wait for DVD.
3 Stars - Recommended. You should probably go see this. If not in theatres, at least on DVD.
4 Stars - Highly recommended. You have to go see this right now. And then buy the DVD.
Remember, these are my tastes and recommendations. It’s not indicative of whether you will get the same level of enjoyment as I have.
-Penguin
Related postsLimited edition lithograph prints. Signed + numbered.
