A bit of editing results in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy becoming number one on AFI’s 100 Years/100 Movies list.

Interesting article on the Pixar way of life, and how other companies (namely Google) could learn something from it.

Despite an unbroken string of 11 blockbuster films, Catmull regularly says, “Success hides problems.” It’s an insight Google should acknowledge and act on.

from Harvard Business Review

A series of faux vintage ads for modern services.

Forgot to post this over the holiday weekend! It has been announced that I am adapting Eric Nylund’s novel HALO: FALL OF REACH for Marvel Comics. This is great fun for me since I’m a big fan of the games and the HALO universe as a whole. But what’s even more fun is that I get to expand on the universe here, and add my own touches to a story that I already enjoy. Also, it’s my first crack at an adaptation rather than a straight up superhero comic, so I’m learning quite a bit as I tackle that new challenge.

I did an interview with Newsarama that gets into more detail.

Matt Smith comes on stage with Orbital at Glastonbury to play the DOCTOR WHO theme song.

E3 in a nutshell.

I’m like the majority of you — two weeks ago, say “soccer” to me, and watch my eyes glaze over. “Too big a field,” I’d say. “Too many people going too many directions. And Tie games?! Who the hell can sit through two hours just to find out there was a tie?!” And then I’d probably say everything else Americans ever say when someone suggests soccer might be the greatest game on Earth.

So, yeah, apparently I’m all into this soccer thing all of the sudden.

Never watched the stuff for more than a few minutes before this week. Now I’m thinking maybe I ought to be a morning person for the next couple of weeks while World Cup games are on the TV at 7 and 10 am locally. I’m thinking I need to hit Best Buy and pick up FIFA 10. I’m trying to figure out, once this World Cup thing is over, how do I find MLS and Premier League games on TV here in the States?

As with anything new, you look for footholds. Okay, cheering for USA is easy enough. But when I’m watching Uruguay/France, I’m initially lost since I have no particular ties to either country. So I settled on being pro-Uruguay because a) going into it, everyone seemed to expect them to lose and I’m a sucker for the underdog, and b) I liked Anthony Bourdain’s NO RESERVATIONS episode in Uruguay. Those people know their meat, by god, and anyplace with that many carnivores is fine by me.

Anyways, back to football…

About the whole tie game thing–I have the same hangups on this as every other American when it comes to a tie game. A tie means Overtime is aout to begin. It means More Game is to be played. Baseball, basketball, American football–all of these games have Winners! The NHL even figured it out and got rid of tie games because, while the Canadians might be fine with a tie, their southern neighbors do not stand for that nonsense. Yes, we Americans don’t know how to deal with a situation unless there is a Winner and a Loser. It is our Way. Encoded in our cultural DNA since the end of the Revolutionary War.

But the World Cup has taught me to be okay with tie games? Why? For those of you new to the game (like me) — the matches are all worth points. A tie game, both side gets one point. If there’s a winner, it’s 3 points for them, nothing for the loser. Those points sort out who moves on to the next round, and the next, and then the finals. So, yeah, a tie still is not as good as a win, but it is Not Losing, and I’m okay with that.

Speaking of ties, the USA tied their first game, but it was in the moment that they tied that I realized I was hitting the levels of excitement with soccer that I usually only get from baseball and basketball :

So, Robert Green, while the men and women of England may be spitting as they say your name tonight, I guess I ought to thank you for making a soccer fan out of this Yank.

Here’s the deal — if you’re like I was and you wrote off something the rest of the planet likes, maybe open your mind and give it a shot. Pick a match at random (there’s three a day for the next couple of weeks!). Pick a team for any reason (maybe you like the color of their jersey). Then sit and watch and root for them. Listen to the commentators, you’ll learn what’s what with the rules/players/etc pretty quickly, and you might just be surprised how much fun it can be to discover something new.

I find a setting on my Airport Express. I don’t know what it means.

I look up the instructions and I find this (which assumes the consumer-grade product has a network administrator):

To recap, I should choose Node (which is not an option) or Tunnel, depending on which one the person who doesn’t exist told me to use.

99.99% of the time, Apple causes me no brain pain. This is that other 0.01%

Out there somewhere are other people named Brian Reed. They have a GMail address, just like me. They have an email address similar enough to mine, that they sometimes mistype said address.

I get sent their party invitations.

I get news of their car loans being approved (or declined… some of us Brian Reeds have better better credit ratings than others).

I get asked to be part of their home owners associations.

I get asked what I will be bringing to their church socials.

Today I got word of one Brian Reed’s “recrafting” order for his Allen-Edmond Shoes. I had never heard of Allen-Edmond Shoes before (some of us Brian Reeds have nicer shoes than others).

The coolest Brian Reed of us all is actually the guy who caught Saddam Hussein.

But I never get any of his email, which is a bummer, because I bet it’s more interesting than these other goons who get me on all their mailing lists.