Neither of the two funniest comedy acts I’ve seen this year are American. The first is Eddie Izzard, a stomach-spasm-inducingly funny British comedian, and the second is one I was introduced to just last week: Flight of the Conchords. This duo, hailing from New Zealand, is unusual in that their act is mostly comprised of songs—both of them are talented singers and musicians. I won’t rave about them too much, as you really have to see—and laugh—to believe.

I won’t link to some of the videos you can find of them on YouTube, as I’m pretty sure that they’re illegally obtained from their HBO comedy special (likewise the Eddie Izzard ones you may, ahem, find there), but I especially like Business Time and Albi (the racist dragon). Also, if only for the name, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros.

And speaking of HBO, it turns out that Flight of the Conchords have a comedy series premiering on HBO on June 17th! You can see the first episode for free. I’m tempted to order HBO just for this.

I’ll be going to my first industry conference since I became a web developer: @media 2007. Well, it’ll actually be the first conference I’ve attended in my professional career, so I’m pretty excited about it. Woo!

Look out for my impressions of it in the near future.

So one of my roommates and I have been going through a bit of a peanut butter phase recently—we both like it on our morning toast. And, tragically, we recently ran out of it. No big deal, you say. Just go out and buy more. Not that simple, bub.

Where I happen to live in San Francisco, I’m about equidistant from two fancy-schmancy gourmet markets, Bi-Rite (Bi-Me Rite Out of House and Home) and Whole Foods (Whole Salary Foods). And normally, I love this; I have, at my fingertips, gourmet (and expensive!) chocolates, more fresh (and expensive!) cheeses than you can shake a stick at, imported (and expensive!) French lemonade, exotic handmade (and expensive!) fruit preserves, and some beautiful organic (read: expensive) vegetables, among other (expensive!) things.

So a few days ago I went to B-MROoHaH on a grocery run, where one of the items on my list was a replacement jar of peanut butter. Between the various jars of soy butter and other nut butters, there was one type of 100% organic, freshly ground, non-hydrogenated, lightly salted creamy peanut butter. Ok, sure, I thought, and brought it home.

I learned my lesson the next morning when I put it on my toast. It was…not good. I mean, it was certainly peanutty. Too peanutty. It was like distilled essence of peanut, mixed with ground peanuts, with some peanut oil added in for flavor. I mean, if I had wanted to eat peanuts, I would have dumped a handful of Planters on my toast. No, I wanted to eat peanut butter. And the texture was all wrong! I’m used to peanut butter with the consistency of spackle. This stuff kind of sloshed around when you tilted the jar…<shudder>.

After I choked down that single piece of toast, I decided that the only way the rest of that jar would be palatable would be in a PB&J sandwich with some really sweet jelly. It would not do solo, on a piece of toast. So today, I went down to WSF to see if I’d have better luck.

But I should have known better. I went in, walked up and down the aisles a bit, finally found the peanut butter. And stood there dumbfounded. Between the cashew butter and the soy butter, what should I find but more of that 100% organic, non-hydrogenated bullshit? I want my hydrogenation, dammit! Say what you will about the stuff that choosy moms choose, but it tastes good.

Why is it so hard to find a simple jar of peanut butter? Now I’m going to have to get in my car (which I rarely have to use these days), and drive all the way to my nearest mega-mart in order to get some good old Jif. Yeesh.

I know Jieun’s going to have something to say about this:

[Zelda creator Shigeru] Miyamoto suggested many reasons why Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess isn’t doing as well as expected in Japan. But could it be that the 20-year-old series, that now spans 14 games (Phantom Hourglass will be the 15th quest on Nintendo platforms) is dying a slow death?

[...]

People generally don’t like to accept change.

But change doesn’t always spell disaster. Final Fantasy introduces a totally new cast, setting and theme with each sequel and continues to please fans. Resident Evil 4 completely revolutionised Capcom’s horror series and is now viewed as one of the best games ever made.

The issue remains. Nintendo can’t continue making repetitive Zelda games. We still totally adore Zelda but eventually the appeal will tire and the series risks bombing. Nintendo needs to take the bold step and inject something totally new into Zelda. We’re not talking about a couple of new items, or a new location – that’s been done. We mean a significant change that affects the whole structure and gameplay.

As for me, I think the guy has a valid point. What do you think? (Via Slashdot)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – 3 stars

I’m always leery of watching movies that have been talked up quite a bit, because I’m afraid that they won’t live up to their reputations. This movie, based on Truman Capote’s 1958 novella of the same name, both exceeded and failed to live up to my expectations. It was darker and more complex than I had expected, but seemed somewhat underdeveloped and unsatisfying at the same time—which may, to be fair, be an artifact of the original story and not the film’s interpretation of it.

That said, I was blown away by Audrey Hepburn’s performance; her portrayal the fragile, quixotic Holly Golightly was pitch-perfect, especially in light of the recently-learned tidbit that Truman Capote originally thought she was too chic for the role.

Another thing I liked about the movie, that I like about most all old movies, and foreign movies, and basically anything not churned out by Hollywood in recent years, is that it didn’t insult your intelligence, didn’t feel compelled to explain away what anyone with a modicum of intelligence can read between the lines. It’s such a nice change from being spoon-fed everything.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, chances are you’ve heard me raving about TextMate, INJMHO the best programmer’s text editor ever. Problem was that TM was not, nor planned to be, available to Windows users. Quel dommage, eh?

But now I find that some enterprising developer has started development on a Windows-based text editor that supports TextMate’s killer feature, the bundle editor, and also its syntax-coloring themes. (!) Introducing e, which is still in beta, but still quite fully-featured and usable. Try it out—it just may change your life.

Yay! My 50mm prime lens finally arrived today. Look out for new photos soon.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, I’ve been inburrito for the last couple of weeks. The reason was the 50th annual San Francisco International Film Festival, the last day of which is Thursday. I saw a bunch of movies, and here are my reviews:

• Reprise – 4 stars
  A most impressive debut from filmmaker Joachim Trier, this movie had that indefinable something that I love about most Scandinavian movies—probably something to do with bleak humor. Gently humorous and beautifully filmed, intense yet understated, this movie sets the bar high for Trier’s future films, which I will definitely be looking out for.
• Crisis & Opportunity – 3 stars
  I found something to like in almost every film in this shorts program, though none were spectacular.
• Hana yori mo naho – 3 stars
  Entertaining but unspectacular, disappointingly childish in its humor, this samurai/revenge/pacifist movie was worth seeing but not worth writing home about.
• Jindabyne – 4 stars
  This Australian movie was a pleasant surprise before it even started. I found out when the movie was introduced that it’s directed by Ray Lawrence, the director of another great movie called Lantana, and my expectations took a jump up as a result. Happily, I was not disappointed. Lawrence has a gift for bringing complex, three-dimensional characters to life in a scrupulously non-judgmental fashion, for portraying all sides of a difficult situation with a meticulous care that makes for an intense, satisfying movie-watching experience. Beautifully directed, cast and acted, it was a great follow-up to 2001′s Lantana, though not, in my opinion, quite as good.
• The Unforeseen – 2 stars
  Though in general well put together, I felt like this documentary lost focus in its last half hour, and raised interesting questions that it didn’t try to address. While I have been known to like documentaries that take a strong stand on their subjects (notably The Corporation), this one left me cold—I already know that overdevelopment is bad for the environment, but I don’t know much about practical approaches to solving the urban growth vs. ecological preservation issue. I felt this movie took the easy way out on a number of interesting issues without exploring them in detail. Lastly, a pet peeve: I really didn’t like the score the director chose; it was cheesy and overtly sentimental, so much so that I felt manipulated and preached to about how I should feel by the end of the movie. Big minus there. All that said, I think that this movie’s director, Laura Dunn, has great potential, and I will be looking for her work in the future.
• The Heavenly Kings – 3 stars
  This eminently entertaining mockumentary was, yes, absurd and hilarious, but was marred by the periodic insertion of nonsensical and unfunny animated sequences. It was no Christopher Guest masterpiece, but it was worth seeing.
• Frame by Frame – 4 stars
  A very well selected animated shorts program. I liked almost all of them, with the exception of Acousticity, Collision and Harrachov. Shorts I especially liked: Loom, Adjustment (probably the most innovative animated short I’ve seen), and The Danish Poet.
• Congorama – 3 stars
  I have nothing to complain about with regard to this movie. Really; I can’t find a thing wrong with it. It was well made, but I just didn’t get engaged enough in it to give it anything higher than a 3.
• Paprika – 3 stars
  This movie was as stunningly beautiful as all of director Satoshi Kon’s previous work, but not nearly as compelling. It feels like he’s just going through the motions here; there’s just enough plot to keep the movie moving between gorgeous, over-the-top action scenes, but not much else. A stellar cast (the entire core cast of Cowboy Bebop) and a high production value doesn’t save the movie from rehashing Kon’s old saws: the blurred lines between dream and reality, and the ease with which humans mistake one for the other. Great music, though.
• The Monastery – 3 stars
  This well made and interesting Danish documentary ensured that my streak remains unbroken—I have yet to see a Danish movie I haven’t liked. By turns funny and sad, it painted a lovingly detailed portrait of protagonist and curmudgeon Mr. Vig. I liked it!
• How is your fish today? – 3 stars
  Astonishingly well made for a film with such a low budget (much, much better than my other experience with almost-nonexistent-budget-mainland-Chinese film, Bringing Father Home), and mixing documentary and fictional footage, this movie explored both the inner and outer life of a writer. While I liked the premise and some of the execution quite a bit (some of the movie was just beautifully filmed), it had long boring stretches, and relied rather too heavily on narration. Well done, but could have been better.
• A Parting Shot – 3 stars
  Low 3. This movie had an interesting premise, but a poor execution. I don’t know if it was the script, acting or direction that was bad, or a combination of all three (yeah, probably all three), but this movie was faintly absurd. The main character’s motivations were never clear, and as her actions and their consequences drove the plot of the movie, it was hard to get past the confusing beginning to suspend disbelief for the rest. Quite a disappointment.
• Once – 4 stars
  When the president of the SF film society himself came up to introduce this movie, and moreover said that not only was this movie his favorite of the festival, but his favorite of 2007 so far, I was duly impressed, and glad I had decided to rush for it on a whim earlier that day. While I don’t think I liked it so much as Mr. Leggat did, I really enjoyed this movie. It was indeed unpretentious, and made with understated grace by director John Carney. The strength of this movie, which can fairly be described as a 90 minute-long music video, was its simply lovely soundtrack, written and performed by its nonprofessional actor, professional musician stars (Glen Hansard, the frontman for popular Irish band The Frames, and Marketa Irglova, an up-and-coming Czech pianist/singer/songwriter). I liked the music so much that I ordered the latest Frames album and the Hansard/Irglova collaboration (which grew out of the movie, btw) called The Swell Season the next day.

A good festival experience, all-told. Nothing I loved, but nothing I hated, either.