5 out of 5 stars
Heather and I went with a group of friends to see Batman Begins last night and I have to say it was wonderful. My friend Larry thinks that it was better than either of the two Spider-Mans. I wasn’t sure, but I believe I am leaning towards agreement. The movie really was exceptional, not your typical super-hero fare. Above all was the story, which was dramatic and interesting. Katie Holmes was really nothing special and could have been replaced by just about any actress. She also seemed a bit young for the role. Christian Bale was amazing in the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. He captured the dark tone that is Batman. The rest of the cast was great as well. Placing Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman in supporting roles around Christian Bale is what truly rounds out this picture. None of these people treat this like a comic book movie. Cillian Murphy plays Dr. Crane, and while an unknown to me, he was really interesting in the role. All in all, I do believe this is a great movie and I really look forward to the DVD and possibly sequels.
With the weather being so perfect late last night, we sat around talking about movies and such for a few hours. It really was a perfect night…
Apple announced today that it will be begin shipping systems using Intel processors next year. It doesn’t directly affect me as they are supporting both PPC and X86 through the use of Universal Binaries (think 68k/PPC Fat Binaries), but I’m still not sure this is a great idea…
Only time will tell…However, this is definitely not the end of the world as some have professed.
Heather and I went to see Tift Merritt at the NC Museum of Art last night. This marks my third time seeing her and Heather’s first. Neither of us have actually been to the Museum before, so I am glad we got to check it out.
The outdoor theater was nice, but it wasn’t quite as well laid out as the Regency Park Amphitheater where we saw Alison Krauss last weekend. We attended the AKUS show with our friends Larry, Mike, and Laura. Larry has a nice review written up on Hickory Wind. If you haven’t checked out his site recently it is definitely worth a look. Hickory Wind is now covering the breadth of Americana music with additional authors. He now has perspectives from Japan and Washington, DC in addition to his Raleigh, NC stories.
So, back to Tift. Two musicians from the Music Maker Relief Foundation, Cool John Ferguson and John Dee Holeman, kicked off the night. While I am not well versed in Blues music, I enjoyed these two guys quite a bit. Tift then went on and did about a 2 hour set. She had a nice mix of music from Tambourine with some older tracks from Bramble Rose mixed in. She was very much at ease up on the stage and was enjoying getting the crowd involved. I thought at a few points that her voice was a tad off. She just didn’t seem to be singing with quite as much ease as the last time I saw her, but I could be wrong.
Large amounts of the grassy areas around the amphitheater didn’t offer that great a view of the show. It seems sort of hit or miss and it didn’t help that we showed up <30 minutes before the first act. I decided to get up and wander and hung out at the left corner of the stage for a few songs where I got a nice view of some of the band. As always, Tift was looking amazing. She is terribly talented, but also simply gorgeous.
We decided to leave as the encore was kicking up as Heather was getting tired, but she says she enjoyed the show, so maybe we can catch Tift again next year. All in all, it was a nice night and an excellent show.
Once again, rumors have surfaced about the Mac moving to an Intel-based, x86 architecture. Usually I immediately dismiss these as pure fodder, but in this case the story is being corroborated by the Wall Street Journal, so I have been paying some attention. They are also not positioning it as a rumor, but as an official decision made by Apple. Hmmm… seems unlikely, but…
I have a few issues with this. First off they likely wouldn’t do the consumer side first as, historically, the Pro line gets the newest hardware first. Intel/AMD haven’t been racing forward with much faster chips. They have slowed, just as the G5 has and the whole industry is looking at dual-core as an answer. This would also kill sales as people would simply not buy something that guaranteed them a dead end. My last issue is personal, as I just bought a PowerBook G4, I don’t want it to be true 
I like buying computers that I believe have a good lifespan. If the entire Mac line moves to x86, how long before software simply doesn’t get released for the PowerPC? It isn’t the end of the world, but I may be pissed come Monday afternoon
As usual, John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, has a nice synopsis and well thought out article on the subject. I like reading John’s blog as he doesn’t come off as a reactionary, but in cases like this, he is always open-minded and thoughtful. It is worth a read if you’re curious or just wait til 1PM Eastern time tomorrow for Steve Jobs’ keynote of WWDC.
UPDATE:
Here’s another interesting take from John Gruber of Daring Fireball…