James’ World

In my family, adults just give each other Christmas cards for the holidays. It helps to focus on seasonal sentiment instead of consumer materialism.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t do some personal shopping …

I picked up a Nikon D300 DSLR, Nikkor 14-24mm/f2.8 lens and iPod Touch 16 GB today.

Merry Christmas to me!

I’ve been following the subprime mortgage crisis fairly closely and think I know the cause … Americans just can’t do math.

Half of the ARM borrowers were qualified for regular (and less expensive) mortgage terms - but didn’t ask for the better terms.

Many new mortgage-holders used their house as a private ATM machine: as soon as the price inflated, they signed for Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs) and went on $50,000 shopping sprees.

Readily-available mortgage insurance ensured that lenders didn’t care who was on the other end of the pen. Now that jumbo loan insurance is limited to $417,000, lending standards have tightened dramatically.

MBA Data Confirms Popularity of ARMs and Interest-Only Products Despite Overall Mortgage Origination Decline
money.cnn.com: Help! Our kids are driving us broke
cnn.com: Wealthy may be next in line in home crisis

I saw “Blade Runner: Final Cut” at the Camera 7 Pruneyard tonite. The adventure started with a $10 ticket price - pretty steep for any film, especially a 25 year-old re-release.

Overall the appearance feels dated now, though still an intriguing story. Having spent some time in Japan, I don’t understand why the location is a mixture of Japanese and American cultures - since they really don’t mix in real life.

This cut is definitely an adult version - Zhora is nude most of her time on screen, and the Batty and Tyrell scene is more gruesome than I remember.

Rachael (Sean Young) is annoyingly vapid, but I can’t tell if that’s deliberate acting, or just Sean Young being herself.

A convincing argument that Harrison is not an android is that for a Nexus 7 model working as a policeman, he was remarkably weak compared to the escapees.

Next time I see this film, likely it’ll be to look for continuity errors and listen to the great lines.

Tyrell: “More human than human” is our motto.

Camera Cinema Blade Runner Overview
sffmedia.com: What’s new in Blade Runner: The Final Cut?
cnn.com: ‘Blade Runner’ star in rehab after awards outburst