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Who's ready for some trivia, facts, and such? And how's the party doing? Also, any news from dustin yet?
You're welcome. Hope it helps at least one person. Good luck on your search. You don't have to stop at open ports - try running Metasploit on your network and seeing if there are any other actual vulnerabilities that need to be patched.
Oh and to answer your question, it's not an ISP in India (nor am I Indian
).
Christmas is already gone. But, here are a few Christmas movies that spread the holiday cheer very well.
XMAS MOVIES
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Tinged with magical passages, buckets of good will and an alternate plotline with the disturbing kick of a Black Mirror episode, this tribute to the efforts of a small-town do-gooder (James Stewart, in his most beloved role) cements the idea of Christmas as a time for giving.
XMAS MOVIES
Die Hard (1988)
It’s up there with ‘Is a hot dog a sandwich?’ and ‘Is cereal a soup?’ as one of those goofy online debates that’s so played out your eyes cross whenever it heats up again, so let’s just put it to bed right now: yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. C’mon: it takes place on Christmas Eve. Run-DMC’s immortal ‘Christmas in Hollis’ is on the soundtrack. Some have even argued that it’s secretly a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life. Look, you can and should watch John McTiernan’s action classic year-round – but for our money, ringing in the season with the sound of machine-gun fire, C4 explosions and Alan Rickman’s accent sure beats the heck out of sleigh bells.
XMAS MOVIES
Gremlins (1984)
Plenty of Christmas presents come with instructions, yet none are as ominous as the following: Never expose to bright light, never add water and, crucially, never feed after midnight. Joe Dante’s horror-comedy turns a well-intentioned gift into a nightmare. Meanwhile, a traumatised Phoebe Cates tells the saddest Christmas story ever.
XMAS MOVIES
Elf (2003)
Will Ferrell’s overgrown-child persona hilariously complements this comedy about a guileless giant elf searching for his dad in NYC, but the film’s focus isn’t just on the funny bone. There’s an abundance of heart and soul in the way the story cherishes holiday cheer; in a genre that’s become generically saccharine, this is one modern Christmas movie that’s genuinely sweet.
XMAS MOVIES
Bad Santa (2003)
Admittedly, this yuletide raunch-fest subsists on a single joke, and it’s basically ‘guy in a Santa suit swears a lot’. But Billy Bob Thornton, in the title role, manages to stretch that premise much further than it should go, and also generates some genuine Christmas warmth through his unlikely friendship with a bullied kid unfortunately named Thurman Merman.
XMAS MOVIES
Home Alone (1990)
John Hughes penned this rollicking holiday classic that essentially plays like Straw Dogs for children. No matter that everybody’s on the naughty list here, from Catherine O’Hara’s woefully neglectful mom to Macaulay Culkin’s sadistic moppet and Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci’s vindictive crooks. Once the John Williams score kicks in, even the coldest hearts will warm and the most life-altering concussions will heal.
XMAS MOVIES
A Christmas Story (1983)
Back in the ’80s, who would have thought that this odd slice of life from the director of Black Christmas and friggin’ Porky’s would eventually gain on It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street as America’s favourite holiday movie? Bob Clark’s nostalgic comedy existed as a borderline cult film for decades, and no wonder: it’s pretty weird. But it’s weird in the way most families are, and that few films actually acknowledge. Constructed as a series of vignettes, it plays like the home videos you dust off once a year after a couple of eggnogs, making it infinitely rewatchable – and given how often it now appears on TV every December, you’ve probably seen it enough that it’s getting harder to discern the yuletide memories of little gun-loving Ralphie Parker from your own.
XMAS MOVIES
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
One of the first Johnny Depp performances to suggest he was more than just a set of cheekbones, the actor’s gothed-out title character is a study in pain and pathos. Tim Burton’s suburban fantasy wouldn’t be nearly as touching without Depp’s sad-eyed hero at its center – or its context of Christmas, a time of acceptance, charity and Winona Ryder dancing around ice sculptures.
XMAS MOVIES
The Snowman (1982)
Raymond Briggs’s book came to life once a year throughout many childhoods, as the animated film was shown on British TV with religious precision. Nominated for an Oscar, the short film tells of a boy whose snowman magically becomes real – but not forever. Add the haunting song ‘Walking In The Air’ and you have a true Christmas classic.
XMAS MOVIES
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005)
Small-time crook Robert Downey Jr hits Hollywood in this witty crime comedy featuring a memorable turn from Val Kilmer as a private investigator hired to give the wannabe actor background for a role. There are as many complications as belly laughs, while Michelle Monaghan puts in a break-out turn in a sexy Santa costume.
XMAS MOVIES
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
By now as iconic as the story of Kris Kringle himself, this Peanuts-based perennial sends viewers into happy spasms of neck-tipped dancing year after year. Its most lasting achievement is Vince Guaraldi’s breezy jazz score – whimsical and lovely like a falling snowflake.
XMAS MOVIES
Batman Returns (1992)
Tim Burton’s second stab at the Caped Crusader is actually a slight improvement on his original 1989 blockbuster, mainly due to Michelle Pfeiffer’s uncommonly fierce performance as Catwoman (the finest work she’s ever done). If you forget, Gotham is dusted with a layer of snow and in the process of crowing its Ice Princess. It doesn’t go well for the beauty queen, or anyone, really, in this especially downbeat Christmas.
XMAS MOVIES
Scrooged (1998)
Bill Murray excels at portraying smug, sarcastic cranks, so if nothing else, casting him as the Scrooge figure in this modern-day satire of A Christmas Carol was a stroke of genius. Predating his turn as grouchy weatherman Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, here Murray is a callous TV exec named Frank Cross whom the universe decides to teach a lesson in merriment and goodwill toward men. And he’s not the only inspired casting choice – see also Carol Kane as the unexpectedly violent Ghost of Christmas Present and New York Dolls’ David Johansen as the cab-driving Ghost of Christmas Past.
XMAS MOVIES
8 Women (2001)
Singing, dancing, over-emoting on Christmas, whatever: When those eight women happen to be Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Virginie Ledoyen, Firmine Richard, Fanny Ardant and Ludivine Sagnier, they’re welcome to do whatever they damn well please.
XMAS MOVIES
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
It might be better known these days for SNL’s classic ‘Lazy Sunday’ skit (‘Pass the chronic – what? – cles of Narnia’), but this snowy Christmas treat based on C.S. Lewis’s novel is, indeed, a dreamworld of magic. There’s both a Father Christmas and a White Witch, the latter played by Tilda Swinton.
XMAS MOVIES
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
The ultimate in cuddly Christmas afternoon movies, this original stars Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, who must prove he is in fact Santa Claus – not least to a young girl (Natalie Wood) who has lost the true meaning of Christmas.
XMAS MOVIES
In Bruges (2008)
Martin McDonagh’s breakthrough as a writer and director, about two mismatched hitmen (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) are forced to spend the holidays hiding out in a Belgian tourist town after a hit gone wrong, is sad and hilarious in equal measure. If you like your Christmas movies foul-mouthed and melancholy, this dark crime comedy is for you.
XMAS MOVIES
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
This festive masterpiece by German-expat genius Ernst Lubitsch about the struggles of a coterie of neurotic, underpaid, underloved department store clerks is an immaculate conflation of his sprightly shooting style, expertly layered wisecracking and bracing realism, all topped off with a romantic subplot that offers a nakedly joyous celebration of young, serendipitous love.
XMAS MOVIES
Carol (2015)
It’s already become a Christmas classic for especially forward-thinking families. Working for the first time with material developed by another screenwriter, director Todd Haynes transforms an underappreciated 1952 Patricia Highsmith novel about secret lesbian love into a universal romance. Once you’ve seen Rooney Mara in a Santa hat, there’s no turning back.
XMAS MOVIES
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Michael Caine as Scrooge, Gonzo the Great as Charles Dickens, Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit – just three of many reasons to love this witty, warm-hearted take on the immortal story. Despite the presence of Muppets, it is (believe it or not) one of the more faithful versions of the book.
Hi Dustin,
Please double my bandwidth.
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Thanks, Mark
XMAS MOVIES
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
There’s something incredibly lovely about first-rate stop-motion work, and this gorgeous musical about a botched Halloween-Christmas merger ranks up there with the old Rankin/Bass Xmas toons. Who else but Tim Burton, the project’s patron producer, could have come up with such appealingly macabre mayhem?
XMAS MOVIES
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
Hideous Christmas jumpers weren’t always considered cool like they are today. So we can’t blame our protagonist Bridget Jones’s (Renée Zellweger) less than pleasant reaction when she sees her potential love interest, Mark Darcy (a wonderfully stuffy Colin Firth), wearing a sweater with a giant reindeer face on it. It does, however, kick off this sharp romantic comedy-drama about navigating twenty-first-century dating and the pitfalls of having an affair with a caddish, dashing Hugh Grant.
XMAS MOVIES
You’ve Got Mail (1998)
Nora Ephron’s remake of The Shop Around the Corner is a fairytale about warring booksellers is both a dreamy ode to New York’s Upper West Side as it is to the power of love. The melancholic Christmas scenes set to Harry Nilsson's ‘Remember’ will make you want to go out ice skating or gift a bunch of children’s books, while the chemistry between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks transforms a cheesy into a classic. > @Arjun42 said:
Sorry for assuming just based on your handle. My bad. But, anyways, if the SSH service isn't running on the server at all, does having 22 open pose a threat?
XMAS MOVIES
Trading Places (1983)
If you’re keen to learn the harsh realities of the global economy but can’t be bothered to trawl through a textbook, this comic satire should do the trick. Eddie Murphy is the streetwise hustler who switches lives with Dan Aykroyd’s preening Wall Street moneybags, only to find himself the victim of a cruel joke played by a pair of vicious aristocrats.