IMDb 15th Year Anniversary - October 17, 2005

One of my most favorite websites just hit their 15 year Anniversary, The Internet Movie Database. IMDb was one of the first websites, along with Netscape and Yahoo, that I memorized when I first got on the world wide web in 1995. (Even though I didn't know it at the time, I had first joined the internet by way of IRC and e-mail during college in the late 80s via Unix command line, text terminals.) Today, it's almost a threeway tie between IMDb, All Music Guide and Amazon as to my favorite websites, but IMDb wins hands down. I love how the website has grown and stretched with the internet.

In honor of the anniversary and with the help of another favorite movie site, The Numbers, I've compiled my own Top 15 list of the movies that have come out since 1990. Wow, was it hard. I started with 50 and with a bit of hair pulling, I managed to get down to 15. It helped when I decided to leave off the ones that show up on everyones' lists (the Fight Clubs, the Shawshanks, the Usual Suspects, the Office Spaces). I suprised myself with the number of foreign films that remained after pruning. Another suprise is how many movies that came out in 1995 I like. I didn't think that was a special year.

1990-2005 Top 15

Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
Io non ho paura [I'm Not Scared] (2003)
Karakter (1997)
Men in Black (1997)
Minority Report (2002)
Se7en (1995)
The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
The Remains of the Day (1993)
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl (1999)

Happy Belated B-Day!! My Love Letter, to you.

I think my favorite innovation, besides getting rid of the many icons that used to be at the tops of pages and took FOREVER to load, especially on a dial-up modem, is the breakdown of people pages. I remember when everything used to be jumbled together and some popular people would have to be scrolled so much to see everything. I just wish more people would upload a picture. I'm also glad we don't have to know what kind of crew member someone was to find them.

Thanks for the hours and hours and hours of entertainment over the years.

Debra

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Some other Movies I really liked since 1990 but didn't make the Top 15 list

Apostle (1997)
Bone Collector (1999)
Cidade de Deus (2002)
Cool Runnings (1993)
Crash (2004)
Dancehall Queen (1997)
Dead Again (1991)
Devil's Advocate (1997)
Ed Wood (1994)
Enchanted April (1992)
Fargo (1996)
Fight Club (1999)
Gosford Park (2001)
Hair Show (2004)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
High Fidelity (2000)
House Party (1990)
Howards End (1992)
Independence Day (1996)
Like Water for Chocolate (1993)
Matrix (1999)
Office Space (1999)
Ônibus 174 (2002)
Rush Hour (1998)
Shall we dansu? (1996)
Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Shrek (2001)
Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Sling Blade (1996)
Swimming with Sharks (1994)
Swingers (1996)
Usual Suspects (1995)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Wayne's World (1992)
You Got Served (2004)

Moonbats vs. Wingnuts

Today while reading the ravings of lunatics on the Yahoo Message Boards, I ran into the concept of Moonbats and Wingnuts. The Yahoo Message Boards are officially a place to comment about the different articles that appear on the Yahoo News area. In reality, it's a hostile, antisocial pit that gives hateful people who feel too constrained in normal social situations a chance to randomly spew their nonsensical, feeble, often racist and sexist "thoughts". Usually mixed in between these troll postings are intelligent people actually trying to have a conversation or share insightful thoughts, so that makes it worthwhile to read the boards. After a while you figure out how to avoid some of the troll postings by the signs such as all caps subject line, a racist or sexist subject line or profile name. Unfortunately, they change their names too often to try to memorize names.

So, in one of the postings, someone mentioned the terms moonbats and wingnuts. Looks like moonbat is what Conservatives call Liberals they don't agree with. Wingnuts is what Liberals call Conservatives they don't agree with. Of course, we all know that name calling is the best, most productive way to work to resolve differences and find a common ground to work together.

Moonbat aka A Loony Leftist

Moonbats think this website on the Ultimate Wingnut Challenge is funny and they look at the term as a badge of honor.

Wingnut aka Right Wing Nut

Wingnuts have the habit of picking apart an argument by bringing in utterly irrelevant details. They like to call themselves the Moral Majority even though they are in fact a niche market or a special interest group, just like everyone else.

The funny thing to me is the both sides use the same terms to describe each other like demagogue, agitator, fanatic, schismatic, inciter, inflamer, instigator, radical, dogmatist, revisionist, zealot and the worst, politician. It's like the ends of an ideological spectrum that touch in the black area.

Curving Spectrum with the ends that meet in the back.

Ideological Spectrum Sample