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Author Archive for Philip Berne

Renovating and Storage

, Sep 16th 2010 Discuss [3]

While I was in college, my parents moved out of my childhood home and bought a new house in the same area. It has plenty of storage space in the basement. When they moved, they took most of the junk I had accumulated. Since college, I’ve lived in a handful of cities up and down the mid-Atlantic and northeast coast, and every time I move, the pile in my parent’s basement seems to build inexplicably. This past labor day weekend, I was home visiting and I heard the words I have been dreading for 17 years:

“We’re renovating the basement. We need you to throw out everything you don’t need.”

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Movie Review – Going the Distance

, Sep 10th 2010 Discuss [0]

This past weekend, I saw two movies. One was a completely unrealistic piece of cinema trash with stale characters and a script that seemed to have been made up on the spot. The other was “Machete.” That’s right. Of the two, I could more easily believe in Danny Trejo as an ex-Federale-turned-asssassin-landscaper than believe in the relationship that Drew Barrymore carried on with the “I’m a Mac” guy. It wasn’t just a bad movie, it was a betrayal of its content and of the, ahem, heritage that these two actors bring to the screen.

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Life on Facebook

, Sep 2nd 2010 Discuss [2]

I almost added a comment to the long, growing list of comments on Stephen’s wall. I sat for a few minutes, trying to think of what to say. I’m sorry? I’m thinking of you? I read through the thirty-five or so comments that were already posted, and most of them repeated the same thoughts over and over again. Condolences piling up under Stephen’s status update, saying that he had just lost his brother, Mike, and he would be flying home to New York City for the first time in years to be with his family.

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I Hate You, Dell

, Aug 31st 2010 Discuss [30]

This morning I got to know Dell very well. I’m not sure how many people work for the company, especially in sales and customer service, but I talked to 15 of their, ahem, lovely employees. I made 10 phone calls. I started the return process at 9:30 AM, and finally finished my journey two hours later. All I wanted to do was return a crappy cell phone.

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Movie Review: Avatar Special Edition

, Aug 30th 2010 Discuss [4]

It’s obvious why “Avatar” was released again, and perhaps a little selfish on the part of the money makers. Near the end of its run, “Avatar” was pushed off a majority of its 3D screens by up-and-comers that couldn’t do long term damage, but perhaps shortened the length of the blockbuster’s victory lap. The movie could have made more money, so now it has been released again, this time with less than 15 minutes of additional, bonus footage. It’s already out on DVD, and you can even get a free copy by buying a new Samsung phone, so is it really worth seeing again on the big screen? Does the movie hold up, now that the hype has worn down? In a word? Hell yeah.

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Music in the Cloud? Hallelujah.

, Aug 27th 2010 Discuss [12]

I have always had a theory about music. I believe that our musical taste, more than our taste in any art form, is shaped by people we know and aspire to be like. I think that musical taste is much more learned than we realize, much more formed than innate. The music that we like and the music that we hate are strongly associated with people in our lives.

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The Art of the Game of War

, Aug 26th 2010 Discuss [2]

There’s a sequence in the game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ that you don’t have to play if you don’t want to. I haven’t finished the entire game yet. My Xbox broke while I was working through it, and I haven’t had time to get it repaired. But I did get to this sequence, or level, and I was anticipating it. The game doesn’t offer a specific warning about its content, but you do get a warning before you start playing the game from the beginning that something is coming you might want to skip, especially if you’re a sensitive viewer.

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Irony on the Bar Room Floor

, Aug 25th 2010 Discuss [3]

My dear readers, please excuse me, I need to argue with a puppet. While I usually save this space for high-minded thinking, like my review of the film “Piranha 3D,” or my rant against the evils of Paul Carr, I’ve been in a back-and-forth argument with a puppet on Twitter, and I’m afraid I just can’t win in 140 character bursts. But I will win. I will beat this puppet into submission.

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An Unalienable Right to Privacy

, Aug 24th 2010 Discuss [1]

With all the furor over privacy after Facebook introduced its new Places application, I started to think about what privacy really means as a concept. The reaction to Facebook Places ran a startling gamut. On one side people are screaming about George Orwell, whose book 1984 is like the privacy junkie’s version of Hitler. It’s an argument stopper. It’s also science fiction, but a sci-fi parable, at that. On the other side are those who are completely indifferent to Facebook’s privacy issues. These people don’t care and they don’t see the problem.

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Movie Review – Piranha 3D

, Aug 23rd 2010 Discuss [2]

Let me start out with a spoiler: “Piranha 3D” is awful. If you bought a ticket thinking you were going to see a good horror movie, either you didn’t see the ads, or you missed the movie’s “For Your Consideration” video on Funny or Die, in which the stars ask for some Oscar consideration for this piece of chum. If I wasn’t intending to review this movie for SlashGear, I probably would have seen it anyway, though. I’m a horror fan, and we horror fans accept some of the worst movies in existence as part of our canon, because a truly bad horror movie is one of the best types of truly bad movies around. A bad horror movie can still be fun, exciting, original, even titillating. A bad romantic comedy or a bad drama is simply dull. Bad horror is like bad nachos. Crunchy, cheesy, maybe tasteless, but still nachos.

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Shooting Lady Gaga

, Aug 19th 2010 Discuss [3]

I once saw Shirley Manson’s lady bits. Shirley Manson is the lead singer for the 90′s rock band Garbage. In college, I went to a music festival in Washington, D.C. and they played during the day. Near the beginning of their set, Shirley’s skirt blew up enough to reveal her crotch, completely exposed with no panties. Then it happened again. And again. I was fairly close to the stage for their set, so I got a good look. I hope this doesn’t come across sounding sexist. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Jon Fishman from the band Phish naked as well. He’s a drummer, though, so that might have just been one of his sticks.

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Your Band Sucks

, Aug 18th 2010 Discuss [8]

Dear Facebook Friend,

Your band sucks. Really, it’s horrible. It’s very obvious that you heard the first Counting Crows album back in 1994 and you decided it was the second coming of the Beatles. You never got it out of your head. I’m guessing your college days consisted of quite a bit of fondling while that album was playing in the background, so there are probably plenty of good memories that you associate with long, whining diatribes like “Raining in Baltimore.” Me, I liked that album plenty, but I always find it pretentious when a band uses their own name as a lyric in one of their songs. Especially if its not their big song. So, unless your band is Big Country, don’t use a lyric for your band name.

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