If you ask me, it's about time O'Reilly gave this subject some attention! : ) I didn't really make it though. This is the work of Jay Link. I just customized it. Make one yourself if you feel like it.

It's been a long time coming, but how sweet it is.

You know, I never used to like Al Pacino as an actor. I thought his voice was horrible. It sounded like he was one of those guys who smoked way too much when they were young and now was paying for it. He seemed to play a lot of characters that were mad and/or loud as well. A while ago, I watched The Godfather with my Godbrothers Mark and Mike (a little ironic, but it was just a coincidence). It was one of those classic movies that I always wanted to watch because of how great everyone says it is but somehow never got the chance. I vaguely remember thinking, “hmm… Al Pacino is in this movie. He must have been really young.” Actually, I didn’t even recognize him. It took me quite a while (mostly by process of elimination), to figure out that Al Pacino was playing Michael Corrleone, and even then, I couldn’t believe it. This character was so smooth, calculating and understated. Not the Al Pacino that I recognized. It was only near the end of the movie when he gave a kind of scowl that I saw the old Al in the young one. The Godfather is probably my all time favourite movie, and Al Pacino is now one of my favourite actors. He was just so damn good in that role and in a few others I’ve seen since then (check out Glengarry Glen Ross). So anyway, when the Godfather Trilogy came out on DVD, I just had to have it. My sister bought it for me one weekend and I spent almost the whole weekend sitting in front of the TV. I watched all 3 movies. I watched the bonus material. I watched most of the movies again with the director’s commentary. It was sick. Still, I just love those movies. Last week I had the sudden urge to watch the Godfather again. Sadly, I was out of luck because I had lent my DVDs to my friend Monica (who happens to be living it up in California at the moment). What’s a techie like me to do in such a time of crisis? Well, it turns out I was saved by some Taiwanese ingenuity! Well…. actually, it’s really more like Taiwanese loose intellectual property protections, but ingenuity sounds so much better so let’s stick with that. In any event, I found this site: Movie88.com (only an Asian website would put 8s in their URL for no apparent reason). This is a website that will stream full movies to you over the Internet. They usually charge a $1 fee to “rent” movies for 3 days, but right now they have a promotion that lets you watch movies for free. Now wouldn’t you think that streaming Hollywood (and Chinese) movies over the Internet would be illegal? Not in Taiwan. Apparently, if you want copyright protection to apply to your movie, you must formally apply to the Taiwanese government within one month of your movie’s release, otherwise, it’s fair game. I think it’s pretty safe to say that almost no one did. Good ol’ Taiwanese, um… ingenuity : )