Robbed!

I very rarely, if ever, claim the role of victim. I'm sure I have at some prior point, but I don't recall. Today's different, though. Gina went out to do some errands, and came back a few minutes later reporting that her car was broken into the night before. Her Sirius stereo, cds, etc, were missing.

My first question was "broke in, or opened the door?". The answer was "opened the door". For years, I've been saying that was going to happen, and its unfortunate that it finally did. Then I checked my car, and my GPS was missing. Apparently I too failed to lock my doors. Or, they forced it open, though I see no signs of that. For me, it was a fluke, unless I'm more careless than I realize. My intent is to always lock the car doors, and I usually do so several times as I walk away from it.

So, my TomTom 910 is gone along with some of my negligible CDs.

I sent the HOA an email to let them know that I'm disheartedned that this is the kind of community we live in. He responded that a lot of people were hit last night, and he too is disheartened.

People are disgraceful. Now I want to leave the state, though you can't run from the depravity.

Patriots 2008: Good job, but just a hair short

Oh well. The patriots are out despite an 11-5 record. What's one to do? Who do I root for now?

I've put some thought into the "who to root for" thing, and have come up with a plan. At the top of the list are THE GIANTS and THE COLTS. Should they both go to the superbowl, then the patriots loss will be overpowered by the manning bowl: perhaps the most legendary game ever. So, Go Colts, Go Giants.

But, if either blow it, then I'll change temporary loyalties to Miami. I really have no interest in Miami even though I live in West Palm Beach. I'll only root for them by geographical default.

Other than that, I have no preference.

Matt Cassell probably won't be around for the patriots next year, so lets hope Brady is fully recovered and ready to win.

Annapolis - Super Cringe

I recently read that Tyrese Gibson was joining the cast of Fast and Furious (the fourth movie of the series). Having a few minutes to spare, I jumped on to IMDB and did some browsing. Primarily, I was curious if Lucas Black (from part 3) would make an appearance. Then I noticed that the director is the same for parts 3 and 4. Interesting. So I clicked the link. (Before I go off, let me answer the mental question you probably didn't ask: Lucas Black is not in F&F4)

It turns out that Justin Lin directed Annapolis. As soon as I saw that, my complete spontaneous reflect reaction was to groan and cringe. I'm not being theatrical. I really felt as if I was punched in the stomach, a very common reaction to all things related to annapolis.

Annapolis is a massive achievement in crappy movie making. There are a lot of bad movies out there. Take, for example, The Guardian; its arguably in the same family of movies, and its pretty bad, but I don't cringe when I hear its name. Annapolis makes me ill. What's the difference?

The difference is that Annapolis is offensively bad. It has the "have the guy hit on the girl, then find out that the girl is the teacher" gag. God. If I didn't have so much respect for my own personal property, a brick definitely would've gone through the tv. Thankfully, we didn't watch it at a friend's house.

Tyrese Gibson was about 28 years old at the time of the movie, yet he plays a seasoned war vet. Certainly you can have plenty of experience by 28 years, but not as much as he attempted to portray. You can't act like you have 30 years of experience when you've only been in the service for a maximum of 10 years.

Then there's Jordana Brewster... Always a pleasure. I most recently enjoyed her work on "Chuck". But, the same thing here. She was 26 years old with the same type of role as Tyrese.

Its bad, bad, bad. Its not the negligible bad. Its the kind of bad that demands that you stand up and inform everyone else that its bad. Its bad cliche after bad cliche. There's so much to hate that I can't even remember; I've mentally blocked most of it.

While I'm exicited to see Fast and Furious, I'm now less excited. Damn the day that I decided to poke around on Imdb. Damn the day. I can't think of any other movie that induces bile and anger as this one does; and I've seen a lot of bad movies. Movies shouldn't make you angry, and most don't... but there's just something about this thing that really pushes my buttons.

I quite enjoyed F&F3, so hopefully he approaches F&F4 more like 3 than annapolis. As-is, I'm going to have a hard time justifying a viewing of another film by this so-called "director".

Original non-review: DvdFriend non-Review of Annapolis

John McCain, Closing Thoughts

McCain's concession speech was excellent. He seemed really sincere, and I choose to believe that he was sincere and not just a good actor. I have nothing but respect for that guy. I have always said that if a republican is to win, I'm glad its John McCain. Its just that when you elect John McCain, you're electing the entire party and all of the baggage that comes with it. Clearly, we don't need any of that baggage.

My only real objection to McCain's policies was his desire for offshore drilling. That's not solving the problem, that's just delaying the solution. We need to stop using oil. Creating another source of it doesn't push us towards reducing our dependence on it. If there was any chance of me voting for him to begin with, I don't know if that was big enough to dissuade me. Fortunately, I don't have to figure it out.

Obama's speech was historical, as is the entire event. I'm so happy that I got out and voted, and that my county (and ultimately the state) voted blue. In elections past, I wasn't very interested. This time is different though, and it feels good to be part of the process. At least in the heat of this moment, I intend to take a more active interest in certain things. I don't know if this motivation will last more than a few hours, but we'll see.

Let the change begin.

Election Good News and Bad News

CNN projects that Obama will be president, so people apparently have voted against ending the world. That's good news. Exciting stuff.

Unfortunately, I am embarassed to be a resident of the state of Florida where, as of this writing, 62% of the people have voted to ban gay marriage. Its ridiculous and, as I already said, embarassing.

Just voted... woo hoo!

We left the house a few minutes after 3pm. We got to the polls, voted, and got home by 3:50. Excellent!

The ballot could've been more clear:

Do you want the world to end?
YES - REP
NO - DEM

Let the CNN coverage begin!

To Music: "Let's go to outback tonight...

...and physically threaten Jay, but end up just humiliating your self and your family, get verbally slapped repeatedly, then leave the restaraunt with your tail between your legs... at the outback tonight!"

I'm not sure if the Outback theme music is perfectly suited for my new lyrics, but that's the best I can do. The song is sung, of course, from the perspective of the older fat gentleman at table 17.

So here's the story. I'm sure I will embellish some stuff for entertaining affect, but I won't at all embellish the core of the story. An embellishment has already occurred, actually. You see, I don't know that he was sitting at table 17. I don't know what table number it was, so I just made one up. That in no way compromises the integrity of the story, though, for he was sitting at a table and "Table 17" sounds better than "Some table".

The following is a true story.

Gina and I were at the Outback. Our conversation alternated between Jack, work, and maybe some other occasional foolishness. We just sat there, minding our own business. And, when I say "minding our own business", I don't mean it the sarcastic way in which I say one thing but imply something else altogether. We were, actually, sitting there minding our own business. Then this big (as in fat) older dude (60?) comes walking up to the table out of nowhere. I was a little puzzled about that... I didn't even see him walk over, I just saw him arrive. Did I know him? Did he think us to be a swell couple and wanted to buy our dinner? I really had no idea. I said "Hello", or "How are you", or something to that affect. He then started with "You've been sitting there staring at me, and I want to know why." Gina thought he was kidding, but I knew otherwise. He was facing me, not her, and I could see he was pissed about something.

"I wasn't staring." I responded, quite surprised.
He repeated himself, more or less, so I repeated myself more or less. I was perfectly reasonable to that point, then he said it again, getting more aggressive. It was really going nowhere. Being rational wasn't working. After his next iteration of "Why are you staring at me?"
I collected myself, looked him straight in the eye and responded "I find you very attractive."

There were a few moments of silence there. Gina laughed, but at that point she came to realize the guy wasn't goofing around. He took a step closer to me trying to achieve a dominant stance and stared down at me. (Inside tip #1: That doesn't work on me.) I mentally calculated what could actually happen at this juncture. The worse case scenario, really, is that he would start swinging at me in a room full of witnesses. Plus, he had to be at least 60 and was very clearly out of shape. He'd probably break a hip before he landed the first punch. Also, the odds of him actually wanting to do that were slim to done. He thought he was going to walk over, put me in my place, then go back to Table 17 victorious. Not today.

Anyway, that was my inner monologue. When we last left the narration, we were within a few moments of silence after I told him that I find him very attractive. Finally, he got his wits about him, and he started a new series of repeating himself.

"You're a wise guy, hey?" Something like that. That sounds like a movie quote, but that's actually what he said (or similar).
I responded simply, "Yes", and he asked a couple more times, and I said "Yes" a couple more times. And when I said it, I said it seriously as if answering a ligitimate question. At that point, his mental gears (both of them) were spinning trying to figure out what to do. So that's when he made mistake #2. "If you stare at me one more time, we'll see what happens. Don't even look over at me."

Inside Tip #2: Don't threaten me.

Again, this is an older guy, and I'd like to think we live in a civil society. The absolute last thing I would ever do would be to get up and respond in any physically threatening fashion, or yell, or do anything equally as stupid as what he was doing. It was really pretty silly... what did he really think he was going to accomplish? He should've licked his wounds and went home at that point.

While in some respects I agree with the boy scouts, Inside Tip #2 prevails. He went back to his table, sat down and looked over at me, and there I was staring at him.

Now, the poor guy is just lost.

It was really pretty bizarre. Gina asked what that was all about, and I really didn't know. I was on one side of the table, gina was on the other. 45 degrees to the right was the booth wall. 45 degrees to the left was that guy's table. If ever I wasn't looking at Gina, then really that's the only other place my gaze could've naturally gone, though it certainly wouldn't have gone to that guy of all people. There was no eye contact, and if he walked by in another circumstance, I probably wouldn't even have recognized him from that table. Now, though, I took notes.

Older cranky dude was there with his wife, a younger couple, and the younger couple's two kids. So, I'm thinking Grand Parents, Parents, Grand Children. They looked like a nice family. I still think 5/6ths of them probably were, but #6 didn't take his meds or something. I made a point of looking over to the guy several times, and staring whenever appropriate. When a waiter walked by, I asked him to get the manager. The guy yelled something over at that point, but I don't remember what it was. I responded "Don't worry, I'm getting the manager."

Now, the guy tried to get witty and it didn't work. He flagged down a waitress and asked her to send the manager to my table. She knew something was amiss and stopped by first. "You need a manager?", "Yes, we already let someone know." So, I called over to the guy to thank him for his help.

Somewhere along the way, he started giving me that italian flick under the chin. I mock laughed at it enthusiastically and made like he finally landed a shot. Its hard to describe what I did, but some combination of the words "sarcastic" and "mocking" applies. Then he shook his fist, which was pretty pathetic. I think I heard a bone crack.

The manager made his way over, and I told him quite simply. "That guy just came over and threatened me. I just want you to be aware of it incase it escalates." The manager didn't know what to do. He asked if wanted to change seats. Of course not. Even Gina said no to that, and she's the more level headed of the two of us in these types of situations. The manager didn't really know what to do then. He started to apologize. He was more anxious than us... word must've been going around. I told him "don't apologize, you don't have to do anything, I just want you to be aware of what's happening."

Somewhere during that conversation, Cranky (that my new nickname for him) came over to tell the manager I was staring at him. He said something like "He was leaning foward staring at me like a... well, I won't even say like what".

That's the most confusing part. I've been trying to fill in the blank for 6 hours, and I have nothing. I have no idea what he could've possibly ended that sentence with. The fact that he didn't say it suggests it would've been something offensive to someone. I considered giving him a point for that (more on scores, later), but he probably didn't know what he was going to say either, so he doesn't deserve a point. (Its my scoring system. I can do it any way I like!)

Now for a family update. He started raising his voice to his wife. His wife was probably telling him to stop being an idiot or something. The son (or son-in-law) didn't turn around once. He wanted nothing to do with it. The daughter (or daughter-in-law) took her daughter and left the restaraunt. By the time it was all done, he left alone.

I'm not really keeping track of the score, but if I had to guess, I'd say:

Jay: 18
Cranky: 0

Then he just couldn't shut up. He tried threatening another ultimatum, so of course I kept occasionaly staring at him at that point. I wasn't real obnoxious about it, but whenever I looked over and he was looking at me, I didn't turn away (See Insider Tip #2). When he got up to leave, I waved to him and told him to have a good night. He did that chin flicking thing again, so I laughed again and told gina about it. He didn't like that at all. His threats and flicks and fist shaking were nothing more than the amusing antics of a cranky older guy who just didn't have a chance.

I'm still puzzled by the whole thing. It was the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me in a restaraunt. Honestly, we were just sitting there talking.

Gina was a little paranoid at that point. She thought the guy was going to be outside with a gun, or run us over. Once again, I mentally played the odds and determined that to be highly unlikely. (Sooner or later, the odds will catch up with me.) Even if he had that type of intent, he was with his family. Surely they would talk him out of it. (Other scenarios played out in my head, which I didn't share.) As we left the restaraunt, I took precautionary measures to be safe, but it was unnecessary.

As I said, Gina is the more level headed. After the guy left the first time, she would've been content to just leave it at that. She's a better boy scout than me. If I let him walk over, threaten me, then walk away, he would've won. You could argue "that would make you the better person", but I don't buy that because he wouldn't be able to appreciate it. He'd just think he won, not "I'm an idiot and he let me win".

One of my other inner monologues somewhere along the way was "I have to learn how to back down". I wondered how it would play out differently if Jack was there. I would like to think that it wouldn't have happened at all because maybe Cranky would be human enough to say "Hey, there's an infant, maybe I'll just sit here and eat my oatmeal in peace.", but who knows. I'm way too stubborn in confrontations, which is why I avoid them as often as possible. I really think that Cranky thought he would come over, put me in my place (for no reason whatsoever), and be done with it. As soon as he made that first threat, there was absolutely no way that was going to happen. Gina and I don't see eye to eye on these types of things. She's the more riteous.

After he left, the waitress stopped by and said "The people at my other tables want you to stop staring at them." That was pretty funny. The manager stopped by, still a little revved up but making light of it. I tried to assure him that we really were just sitting there, but he already knew that. He suggested that I go into the Witness Protecton Program, referring to the tv show "In Plain Sight". I laughed outwardly to be polite, but internally the very suggestion made me ill.

After reading this a couple times, I have come up with some additional analysis. I bet that Generation #2 was the daughter and son-in-law. Even though they were embarrassed, and Cranky was clearly wrong, the 2nd generation guy probably would've stepped up to defend Cranky if Cranky was his father. As it was, Cranky was probably just his embarrassing father-in-law, whom he will never go to a restaraunt with again.


The situation reminds me of the Great Lucille's incident of 2005 (year is approximated). That was a good one, though I wasn't as riteous in that tale. I wasn't the procrastinator, but I let it go to far. But that, my friends, is another story for another day.

In the interest of defending myself before you start thinking I'm a bad person to eat with:
My total count of negative restaraunt experiences is 2; they just happen to be within a few years of each other. I suspect that's just an anamoly and don't expect to have anymore. The first one was due to a bunch of unfortunate things coming to a head at the same time. The second time (outback tonight) was completely out of left field; It had nothing to do with me, I just happened to be there and I don't play well with others when they threaten me. Statistically, that shouldn't happen again.

Lunch, anyone?

More Burnout Paradise

I was waiting for the CAGNEY update to burnout paradise for a long time. Then, when it was finally supposed to be released, it got delayed about 3 weeks. That's ok; I always think its better to delay and do it right rather than release something that's not ready to go. (The same goes for movies).

Its been out for at least a week, but after a long hiatus, I didn't immediately jump back into it. I've been doing a lot of other activities and didn't want to stop just because a new game update came out.

That hiatus came to an end last night. I played for at least 2 hours, and once again, I had an absolute blast. The online game is so much fun. They added 70 new events. I went through a few of them, and they're all fun. Its an excellent online experience.

I'm working on making Carlos an addict. We played at lunch time today, then for a little while after work. We'll see if he keeps coming back to more. I've been trying to emphasise, for months, how important the online play is, but I wasn't able to get through to him. Maybe that has now changed.

Now that I'm back into it, I expect to spend many more hours playing it. There's another update coming out later this month (supposedly. Lets see if it makes it), then another one in the fall. I don't know if the fall one is free or not... they make a big deal about saying FREE for all of the other updates, but I haven't seen the word FREE in association with the fall release. It doesn't matter. If its not free, I'll buy it. Its more an issue of curiousity than anything.

Online good times have resumed.

More of Jay's internet foolishness

Greetings

I added a new feature to DvdFriend yesterday. Basically, it a NEWS section at the top of the main page. I'm going to use that as an outlet for my musing of upcoming movies and DVDs. If you want more Jay foolishness, then I urge you to got to http://www.dvdfriend.us and subscribe to the news feed and/or the movie review feed.

Dark City, Director's Cut

I was browsing around that internet thing this morning, and came across word of DARK CITY: DIRECTOR'S cut.... and its coming out this week!

http://www.dvdfriend.us/p.aspx?pid=39e21fdf-875a-4c74-b63d-40e3dcd3a220

I don't want to say too much about it incase you haven't seen it. As you watch it, you may compare it to other movies possibly with disdain until you realize that Dark City came out before most of those other movies.

Its good solid sci-fi, but according to the director he had to make concessions to the studio at the time of the release. The director's cut is about 11 minutes longer, though I don't know if the rest of the movie has been juggled around at all.

If you haven't seen it, then I strongly recommend at least renting it if you're a sci fi fan.

The big 36

Wednesday was my 36th birthday. At least, I think I'm 36. I checked with my sister Amy, and she agrees. We had an incidident about 10 years ago where I thought I was 27 turning 28, and Amy corrected me. She told me I was actually about to turn 27. I argued at first; after all, its me. I know how old I am, right? Wrong. If I ever forget my age, I immediately consult Amy.

Gina's over 5 months pregnant. Usually she likes to make a big deal out of my birthday. I don't object much. I figured this year we could take it easy. So, rather than have a cookout over the weekend as she would usually do, she prepared a turkey dinner four about 20 people. Very relaxing for her.

The dinner was on Wednesday night. I really didn't expect friends from work to attend due to it being the middle of the week, but they did.

The first course was lasangna, courtesy of Gina's mother. The second course was the turkey; thanksgiving in July. Good stuff. That was followed up by chocolate cake, and Carvel ice cream cake. Heavenly.

Carlos brought his Wii, and Mike brought his controllers. We played 4-way Mario Cart for a while. The competition was fierce.

This year's theme was Kung Fu Panda. Gina is in serious denial about my age. I warned people in advance about the themes. Jack will be here next year. I can then attribute the themes to his presence; this year, though, all I can do is shrug and hope everyone enjoyed it.

Getting old.

Why should every retail establishment sell Arizona Iced Tea?

Because I like it.

Everglades? What's that?

I spilled some orange juice this morning. The nearest things available to wipe it up included a roll of paper towels, a pile of napkins, a dry-vac, 3 dogs, a portable particle accelerator, and a map of Florida. Of course, I chose the map of Florida to wipe it up, and as I did so I accidentally took notice of the southern part of the state. I consulted Gina, and we were both surprised to learn that the state does extended further south than the fair city of Ft. Lauderdale. Oh sure. There's a lot more down there including a little thing called "the everglades".

We made a point of going to the everglades to explore this strange new land, and perhaps stake a flag to claim the land as our own. Unfortunately, some ohter civilization had found it before us, so territorial conquests are not forthcoming.

We went to a place called "The Shark Valley Loop". We didn't see any sharks, and "valley" is only accurate in the strictest definition of the term: lowland between two high lands. In this case, the highlands are still very low, but they are above sea level and they're above the lowland, so the term is technically appropriate... but barely.

Shark Valley consists of a 15 mile one lane road that you can travel on by foot, bike or tram. Gina's pregnant, and I'm lazy, so we went with the tram.

Unlike the "Diva Duck Non-Tour" that we participated in yesterday, this was actually educational. There weren't any duck puns, which was refreshing. The tour guide was named Jose. He spoke very good english, but with a strong accent. He kept pluralizing some words that are already pluralized. "Watch your childrens", etc. He had a bunch of jokes, most of which were mildly entertaining.

About 1/2 way through the loop, there's an observation tower. They say its 50 feet high, which didn't sound very impressive, but it actually is when you get there. Everything is so flat that 50 feet goes along way.

We saw a lot of alligators, all at a safe distance. On the ramp up to the observation tower, you can look down and see at least a dozen of them. Of all the alligators we saw, though, not a single one was moving. It was mid-day. They were all just chilling out. I wanted to poke them with a stick, but apparently that's ill-advised. Besides, I wouldn't have been able to pick up a stick without getting arrest for disrupting a national preserve or something. It wasn't worth the risk.

The weather was perfect for the outing. It was hot, but there was a great cool breeze.

Right outside the park, there's a restaraunt. God, it was awful. The next time we're in the neighborhood, I'm going to make a point of not going there again. In fact, I may plan a day trip back to the everglades that's built around not going to that restaraunt again. Just awful. I was afraid to get an iced-tree refill. The wetlands should definitely be allowed to reclaim that property.

Diva Duck

Today, in an effort to get out of the house, Gina and I did the "Diva Duck" tour of West Palm Beach. The Diva Duck is a truck and a boat all in one. Boston has them too. So does Alaska.

The tour is based at City Place in West Palm Beach. We've seen it a bunch of times, but never did the tour before. It turns out that "tour" is a pretty inaccurate term. Its fun, but its really just a ride. They point out the houses of rich people and make up some numbers as they go. "5 or 10 years ago, they rebuilt that boat." Which was it? 5 years ago or 10 years ago?

The fact that they had no idea didn't really detract from the fun. There were a bunch of kids on board, most of which got a kick out of it. The non-tour guide was friendly enough. There were a lot of duck puns. The funniest part was the blaring war music as we went from land to sea.

As usual, I got a little motion sick on the boat. It wasn't too bad... just enough to remind me that I'm a big wuss when it comes to unstable motion.

I went on a whale watch with my company probably 10 years ago. I spent most of the time keeled over until my boss found some dramamine for me. I went sky diving twice. I didn't get phsyically sick either time, but boy... it was close (especially the first time). I can do roller coasters fine, but I keep away from most other rides.

Then, of course, there's the world famouse "Great Helicopter Hurl of 2002". That's actually a funny story, in my humble opinion. I shall elborate if demand requests it.

Anyway, we finsihed the Diva Duck Non-Tour, then went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Then we went home. Good times.

There were a bunch of "red had ladies" on the tour. I don't know if that's their actual name or not, but they are all female and they were all wearing distinct red hats. I've never seen that before, other than on the Simpsons. The simpsons had pink had ladies, I think. They turned out to be a bunch of thieves incognito. Now I see that they were probably basing that on the Red Hat Ladies, though I had no idea that such a thing existed when I saw the episode.

How terribly exciting.

It's a boy! - New blog

For those of you that know me personally, you probably already know that our baby is a boy. For baby related news, please jump over to: http://babyallard.blogspot.com

Lots of 5s lately

RE: http://www.dvdfriend.us

I saw two movies this weekend: Speed Racer and RedBelt. I gave them both 5's.
I finished reading ENDER'S SHADOW this week, and I also gave that a 5.
That means that there's been a lot of consecutive excellence.

My original thought was to give Speed Racer a 4, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. With one exception, I can't really find anything wrong with it. Its a sensory blast. I don't see what people don't like.

And RedBelt is good solid story telling and character development.

The point is to express that I'm not tossing around the 5s as if I love everything I see. Its just been an unusally good week.

Slingbox Videos

The website videos on http://www.slingbox.com are all pretty funny. We have a slingbox pro, and I was taking a look to see what's new. The videos have changed since the last time I went there.

When you first go to the site, it shows you a video. If you browse around a bit, then go back to the home page, it shows a different video.

Funny stuff. Cool site.

An ode to Burnout Paradise

After many many hours of pure gaming joy, I have at last achieved 100% completion in the XBOX 360 version of burnout paradise.

Not since Burnout Revenge have I spent this ludicrous amount of time playing any one game. Its absurd, really, but I loved every second of it.

For my totally disorganized review and commentary, click below.

DvdFriend Review

The trouble with feet

When I was a kid, maybe between 20 and 22, I wrote a documentary about my foot. I don't recall if it was my left foot or right foot, but it was definitely a foot. Clearly, a sequel is overdue. (I'll find the original and post it). But, since I don't have time to fully document today's experience, I'll keep it to blog length.

Today I decided to go out to get some lunch. While driving about, I realized I needed an oil change. I have to drive to work tomorrow, so I really should get it done today. I dropped the car off. I had to be back to the home office for a 1:15 meeting. The car wouldn't be done by 1:15, so I had to decide between walking back or participating in the call via phone only; no computer or live meeting, etc. Unfortunately, I was wearing sandals (otherwise known as flip-flops), which was a factor in the decision.

Being a responsible employee, I decided to walk home despite my inadequate footwear. By my calculations, it should have taken 30 minutes which would give me 15 minutes to not prep for the meeting. If I was wearing sneakers, then I probably could've knocked 10 or 15 minutes off by jogging parts of it. But, for now, the walk would have to do. But, before beginning the Trek, I stopped at 7-11 for a hotdog and Arizona.

The 7-11 is a nice clean store. The guy at the register was on a personal call, and I felt bad interrupting him in order to by products. I felt worse when I had to interrupt him again to ask for a plastic bag. Sometimes I'm too rude and inconsiderate. In retrospect, I should've waited until a more convenient time for him.

Then I began the journey. I was at least 75% along when I realized I didn't have my keys. Bogus. I knew they weren't at the car place because they removed the car key and gave me the rest of them. Damn you 7-11! I called them, fearing that I would interrupt again. It took a few tries to properly translate their 1/2 of the conversation, but once we leapt the communication divide, I learned that they did have them. (However, I do question their security policies. "Do your keys have a blue flashlight and a Mobile speedpass?")

Now what do I do? Do I continue the walk home and use the emergency key to get in the house, go to the meeting, and return later? (I locked myself out once before and had to kick in a window. Since then, there's an emergency key on stand by). If it wasn't the 7-11, then that would've been a reasonable option. But, my visit and subsequent call didn't instill an aire of confidence or reliability. The sooner I got the keys back, the better.

Once again, the flip-flops were a factor. The tops of my feet were starting to mildly blister due to the straps. So, off came the flip-flops. I walked most of the way back barefoot until my heels started to blister, then returned to the flip flops. I retrieved my keys, then called into the meeting remotely.

What can we learn from all this?
1 - Stop being lazy and put some shoes on
2 - Don't leave your keys at 7-11
3 - Never go get an oil change expecting that you're just getting an oil change. There's always something else to be done. (Alignment. New air filter. Fuel Injection Flush. Expensive oil change...)

Oh, one more thing. My cell phone ran out of juice about 15 minutes before the meeting ended. Perfect! (Cue the lightning.)

A moment of silence for "Jericho"

Jericho is cancelled... again. Since writing the review linked to below, I've read some other articles that all thought Season 2 wasn't any good. For whatever reason, I have the opposite impression. It feels different from Season 1; it feels as if they knew they only had 8 episodes to do lots of stuff. By no coincidence, that was exactly the case, so it was paced different.

Maybe I'm the minority, but 2 sold me. 1 did not.

http://www.dvdfriend.us/Read.aspx?bid=d2bc2e33-05cf-42a9-b4cc-7a1d839c4aeb

Ick - I bought the PS3

I feel so dirty. After 16 years, I bought a Sony product. I'm disgusted with myself. I called it "Gina's birthday gift" hoping that would help, but alas, I can't fool myself.

I bought the PS3 on Monday 3/17/2008. It's now Monday 3/24/2008. Its still in the box. I keep looking at it, then run to the toilet to vomit. Its a vicious cycle that has left me exhausted and continuously hungry, and has caused a measurable amount of tooth decay.

A few minutes ago, I came close to opening it, then changed my mind. It deserves to just sit there a while longer. We have the spiderman trilogy and SuperBad (borrowed) ready to watch, but clearly I'm not emotionally ready to watch these films.

When will I actually open it? When I stop circling around the drain, and finally fall through, it will be time. Maybe then I can start rebuilding my life.

Stargate Driven Update

STARGATE : THE ARK OF TRUTH came out last week. I added the product, but no rating because I haven't seen it yet. By design, it didn't show up on the COMING SOON list on the right side of the new page.

When I added the coming soon section, I made it so that not every product in the system would show up. That's how it used to work, but there's a lot of crap released on a week by week basis. I'd rather that section focus on things that are likely to provoke interest. So, I made it so that it only shows products that have a rating or a WEIGHT < 99. By default, WEIGHT = 99, and there wasn't a way to change that on the page. I knew it would come up sooner or later. ARK OF TRUTH made it sooner.

I added a COMING SOON checkbox on the product admin page. Whenever a product is added, the ADDEE has the option to force it to appear on the page. It does so by changing the weight to 1.

There are a lot of theatrical releases that I don't get to see. If the site has any hope of ever making a dime, then it can't just show the movies that I or other contributors have seen. It has to include what other people would like to see. We now have the stupid-little-tool to do that.

It was a minor update. I added a CHECKBOX with AUTOPOSTBACK = TRUE. The CheckChangeEvent calls a static method in the RELEASE object. The Release object performs the update. Ta-da!

The Oscars 2008

PROLOGUE
I wasn't planning on doing a running dialog. I was working on something else and using my slingbox to watch the awards. Then I felt obligated to make some comments about the Catherine Heigl appeareance, and didn't stop. I backfilled comments on what happened before that.

The keen observer may detect that I'm not a big fan of the oscars. I love movies. I like to watch them, comment on them, discuss them (at a shallow level) and add them to my DVD collection. I even have a site for that purpose. But, at the same time, I'm not real big on people celebrating themselves. A lot of it is really pretentious and meaningless. As you'll see later, I lost a lot of respect for Cate Blanchette in a span of about 2 minutes. Additionally, we have to listen to the opinions of people (often political), when I'm not interested in their opinions. You're an actor. Act. If you want be political, be a politician. Or, at least respect that the oscar show is an entertainment soap box, not a political one, and choose the proper venue to exercise your american right to speak your mind. (Incidentally, there wasn't too much of that this year).

I make fun of a lot of things. I found the soldiers in Iraq bit particularly annoying. Its a matter of perspective. Maybe that was the highlight of their tour, in which case, good for them. If they got enjoyment out of it, they deserved it. No foul. But, the way I see it is: "Hey, we're over here getting shot at and bombed every day. Do you think maybe you can melt down that statue into a flat plate so I can wear it under my shirt? That'd be awesome. If not, have fun clapping each other on the back and celebrating how awesome you all are." Of course, the converse of that is that they're fighting so that we can carry on with our daily lives in a normal fashion. The normal fashion includes the Oscars, but if something now seems so much less important, shouldn't it be treated as such?

I understand that this is huge for the people winning the awards, and I'm happy for them. But, you don't need to wear an 8 thousand dollar gown to a show that's trying to convince us to go green. How green is a convention center filled with thousands of people that have spent the last year creating massive movies? What's the electric bill for tonight alone nevermind all of the work and energy that lead up to it over the course of the hundreds of movies that made the event possible?

When I'm done with this blog, I'll probably go watch some TV or play some XBOX 360. Or maybe I'll surf the web and read the latest on AintItCoolNews. I'll mentally record some material for banter with the guys at work tomorrow. But, I'll always remember that its trivial, and I won't pretend its anything more than that. I certainly won't get on stage and high-five myself for winning a race in Burnout Paradise, nor will I thank God or my family for my computer skills.


Lastly: This is a rant. I typed it as it happened via our DVR. I'm going to give it one cleanup pass to fix whatever typos I happen to notice, but I'm not going to fundamentally change a single thing. It'll be a mess. Roll with it. I made one huge mistake that I'm really tempted to correct, but I won't.


Now, on to the 80th Annual academy awards.

Opening special effects... that was neat.
Opening monologue.. i'm a huge Jon Stewaret fan, but not funny.

Jennifer Garner - I'm not going to enjoy this show at all. I like Jennifer Garner, too, but everything about this is so pretentious. This will probably drive me mad.

Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway... .mildly amusing.

Catherine Hiegel - So you're nervous... so what? There's no need to share that with us. ACT like you're not nervous. The music starts up during the acceptance speech again.. what was the award again?

John Stewart introduces the first musical. He's singing enchanted himself... not funny. Now Amy Adams is in character. I'm really annoyed already, and she's only sung about 8 words. I'm impressed that the actress can sing her own part, though. It doesn't make it any less tolerable, just a little more respectful. Gina just fast forwarded through the rest of it. Thank god.

Flashback to Cateherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas... who cares.

Back from the commercial. A few more jokes. Not funny still. Here comes The Rock to introduce the special effects award. He's reflecting on his Raiders of the Lost Ark experience... tolerable.
Nominees: Golden Compass, Pirates of the Carribean at Worlds End, Transformers.
My vote: Transformers (didn't see golden compass though)
Crap. Golden Compass won.
Gina fast forwarded through the acceptance speech.

Cate Blanchett, double nominee is there to present Art Direction.
Shot of Harrison Ford and Ally McBeal. Its good to see those kids gettig along.
American Gangster, Atonement, Golden Compass, Sweeney Todd, There will be Blood
I haven't seen any of these movies. I would like to see American Gangster and There Will Be Blood.
I have no opinion on this award.
Uhhhh... was too busy typing. Who won? Fastforward through the acceptance speech. Flash of Johnny Depp... probably Sweeney Todd, then.

Jon Steward kissing up to Cate Blanchette... waiting for the bad joke. There it is... Cate was a pitbull. Double-whammy.... now she's playing Jon Stewart.

Flashbacks to previous presenters. Interesting. Yay. Cuba Gooding Jr won in 1997... way to keep your compsure. Everyone claps politely (in flashback), then standing O, trying to get him to shut up.

Enter jennifer Hudson. Not what I was expecting because Jennifer Hudson is not Kate Hudson, and I was expecting Kate Hudson. Not that there's anything wrong with Jennifer.... its just that Kate came to mind.
Nominees: Casey Affleck in Jesse James, some complicated name in No Country for Old Men, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War. (I never got to that either). Hal Holbrook in into the Wild. I only saw NO COUNTRY, so no preference here. Hey, the kid in INTO THE WILD is the kid from Speed Racer, right? Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton. He's always good. I'll change my vote to him just because he usually deserves it. The guy with the complicated name won for NO COUNTRY. Javier? Gina's not fast forwarding through this. Can we infer anything from that? Either she's out cold or is interested in this guy. He's speaking fast in spanish. Previously he made a hair cut joke which, while I didn't laugh, I at least considered laughing.

Fast forward through commercials.

Better luck this time Jon. Lets see what happens. He just proclaimed that Javier had a moment, and now he's translating the spanish. "I believe he told his mother where the library is". Impomptu? yes. Funny? Sorry. Now for a salute to binoculars and periscopes. This is.... educational? Useful? I don't know. Seems pointless. There's a writers joke in there somewhere, but I find it pointless. BAD DREAMS : AN OSCAR SALUTE. Everyone's waking up. Fantastic. Are the writers REALLY back to work? If so, what are they doing?

The star of August Rush, Kerri Russel. Oh oh, another nominated song. Is she going to sing too, or is Amy Adams the exception? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah... talk more talk more talk more talk, now a performance of RAISE IT UP. Now would be a good time to fast forward. If I have to sit through the entire song, I can't be held responsible for my actions. Ok, there we go. Fast forwarded... stopped a little early, more fast forwarding.

Jon applauds. Wait for it... complimenting an 11 year old singer.

Now for academy awared nominee... Owen Wilson??? What was he nominated for? Playing the same character in the most consecutive movies? He's presenting live action short film.... he playing it straight. Maybe he's nervous about not having Vince Vaughn or Will Ferrell around. They introduced all of the short movies, but I wasn't paying attention. LE MOZARD DES PICK POCKETS won. Fast forward through the speech.

Oh boy. The bee from THE BEE MOVIE is presenting. It sounds a lot like Jerry Seinfeld. Unfunny clips of movies that have bees. Waiting for tommy boy..... There's rushmore. The Swarm. No Tommy Boy. I guess there weren't actually bees in there, just an emulation of them. Presenting short film (not live action). A few foreign movies that I can't keep up with, but the aimation is interesting in all of them. Peter and the Wolf looks like its form the 1950s.... hey, it won? Must've been a good movie despite barbaric animation. (I only saw a quick clip, but it looked like old school stop motion). Fastforward through the speech.

More flashbacks of previous presenters. We might've just skipped an award, but I'm not sure.

More clips for best supporting actress. Hey, there's jennifer hudson again. Looks like she won something somewhere along the way. Alan Arkin presents. Wasn't he in Jerky Boys? What happened there... "Golden age is still alive...". Here's one of Cate Blanchett's first nomination. She's playing Bob Dylan. Isn't Bob a guy? I'll check IMDB. Ruby Dee in American Gangster. Never heard of her and I didn't see the movie. Good luck. She's staring gape mouthed at her own performance. A girl from atonement.... didn't see it either, but she looks like she's good at repeating the same line over an over. Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone. I did see that. She played boston white trailer trash very well. "Its really Haa(r)d being a motha". Woman from Michael Clayton... missed the name. Do people still wear pearl necklaces, or is she eccentric? She looks familiar... was she the queen in NARNIA. She was excellent in that (if it was her). Her name is Tilda Swinshon and she just won. Assuming she was in Narnia, I concur. Awkard and stuttering at the microphone... comparing the statue to her agent. Sure, say "buttocks". Its ok. We won't judge you. Music should start any second now... i have the feeling she'll keep going anyway. Thanking 45 people at a leisurely pace. Batman and Robin joke. I like her.... saying George Clooney still dresses up as batman every day. She beat the music. That was a pleasant win.

More clips from previous awards. Jessica Alba is coming up after the commercials. Fast forward. Oh yes. Fast forward. Keep going. I don't want an acura. I'm not painting my house. Ok, here's Jessica Alba. God what died on her chest? Some purple monstrosity... it may be eating her alive. Jessica had the honor of presenting the SCIENTIFICAL TECHNICAL awards. She's blasting through the winners. Lets make sure they feel good about themselves even though the academy couldn't skip some bad jokes and make room for them in the prime time show. Oh, Jessica's pregnant. I forgot about that. Jon was kind enough to remind me. Cate is pregnant too. Coincidence? Probably.

Josh Brolin and James McAvoy(?) are presenting now. Apparently they've been practicing. They're doing famous lines. Now he's apoogizing to Jack Nicholson for a bad impression. That was good... not forced, not pretentious. The nominees for something are ATONEMENT, AWAY FROM HER, DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Looks like its a music award. No preference here. NO COUNTRY won. While they do their thing: Sarah Polley directed one of the nominated movies. Good for her. Isn't she in her mid to late 20s, thereabouts? Excellent work. Acceptance speech... not fast forwarding. Gina must be snoring. These guys are awkward, but handled it well.

Now for the president of the academy of.... something something and something. What's this all about? Tip: Never start a story with "A lot of people ask me...". This guy seems down to earth, which I always like to see. He's calm and collected, comfortable at his task. Now we're getting a tutorial of how the academy works. This is cool. I've always been curious. I'm not sure if a 2 minute clip will satiate my thrist for knowledge, but we'll see. Now they're making jokes about how they choose their winners. Now clips to previous jokes about academy voting. PWC does the ballot counting. The president just got a door slammed on his face.

Back to Mr. Stewart. "That was amazing". Well said, sir. Well said. Political joke about super delegates. Welcome Mylie Syrus? Who's she? Oh boy, another song from enchanted. Maybe this is a disney girl. She's well composed though a little rehearsed... never stopped to take a breath. Ok there's singing now. Why aren't we fast forwarding? I should call my mother-in-law to see if she can stop by and see if Gina's ok. I couldn't possibly stop blogging long enough to go check for myself. If a commercial comes on and she doesn't fast forward, I'll probably have to call 911. I think this song is an Al Quaeda torture technique. Ok, good, we're fast forwarding. Not far enough, but I appreciate the effort. Will this ever end?

Commercials. Fast forward. The superman chic is in a Loreal commercial. I just read she's going to be in the wolverine movie, i think? was that it?

Jon Stewart. Jessica Alba is pregnant. Cate Blanchett is pregnant, and so is Nicole Kidman. "The baby goes to.... Angelina Jolie". Ok, that was funny. "Its tough to get 17 babysitters on oscar night".

Judy Dench and Halle Berry. I REALLY hope the make some James Bond jokes. Hey, that's not them. Its the SUPER BAD guys running their lines. This might be funny.... Ok, its funnyish. They're arguing about who should play Halle Berry. Best sound editting: Bourne Ultimatum... i saw that! No Country... I saw that too! Ratatoille... there goes my win streak. Didn't see it. There will be blood. Didn't see it. Transofmers.... Once again, I vote for Transfomers. Once again, it didn't win. Bourne Ultimatum is a good alternative though.

Tranformers should win technical type awards. Its nearly flawless. I really like Bourne Ultimatum too, but the sound isn't a real memorable part of it. Acceptance speech. "Golly, I drew a blank". "Gee wiz, me too. Boy, we're awkward. Hey, we were lying about drawing a blank, but blew it." Here comes the music. Get off the stage. Go. Get off the stage. Here's non-halle and non-judy dench again. More variations of the same joke. Now for sound mixing: Bourne Ultimatum again, No Country, Ratatouille, 3:10 to Yuma, Transfomers. I'll vote for transformers, but will expect BOURNE to win again. The winner is.... Bourne. 3 people making their way to the stage. I can't wait. The bourne trilogy is excellent.... I give all 3 of them highest ratings. One guy wants to kiss non-halle berry. The guy on the right can't stand still. Fast forwarding....

Best actress flashbacks, some emotional memories. The real halle berry... shut up! Its a statue. Your an actress. Save the world, then cry. Until then, pretend you're a professional.

Forest Wittaker presents. Good Morning Vietnam was a good movie. I haven't seen VANTAGE POINT yet. He's talking about Marlon Brando. Finally, the best actress nominees. Cate Blanchette in Elizabeth. She should win everything she gets nominated for. Now she's grimacing at her performance. Judy Christi in Away from Her.... never heard of it. She doesn't grimace at herself. The next one is a foreign name in a foreign film. I'd love to type it in, but I only know american words. She smiles at her own performance. Well done. Laura Linney in the Savaages. I didn't hear of this either. She mentioned B26. I don't know what B26 is, but District B13 is a blast. Ellen Paige in Juno. I really want to see Juno.... looks and sounds like a cool movie. The actress seems very good from what I've seen. The foreign lady got it. Cate Blanchette just burst into an excited onslaugh of applause. I've lost a lot of respect for her in the last 2 minutes... really fraudulent. Polite appluse would've been sufficient. If you don't want to win, stop showing up. Acceptance speech... "you rocked my life..." fast forward.

Oh, they're playing the WII. Jon and... Jemiah? Who's she? Ooops, the cameras are on... feign shock. That was funny... WII on a 40 foot screen is good stuff.

Colin Farrell is presenting something. Loved his work in scrubs. He's making floor cleaning recommendations to the maintenance staff. Now he's introducing.... oh no, here we go again... another song. "Falling Slowly" from the movie Once. I'm watching this via a slingbox, so I can choose to go fastforward myself, but that might break my rhythm. Should I risk it, or is Gina going to get on the ball and fast forward? I guess she likes this song, so I'll use this time to talk about my cold. Its fresh on my mind because I just finished coughing. I've had it since wednesday of last week (i think). At first it was a sore throat, which sucked. I thought it would pass after that. Since then, I've been slightly congested and blowing my nose a lot. But, honestly, I don't mind too much. I'd prefer to not have it, but its better than a sore throat. I can deal with blowing my nose. Ok... a little fast forwarding. Not much. Back to the program.

Jack Nicholson is presenting. I think that's an automatic standing ovation. Jack loves the movies. They entertain, they offer hope, they give us dramas, they take us to places we've never been. He seems bored. They inspire us, challenge us, and despite our differences they are the common something with humanity.... yadda yadda... I kept up pretty good for a while there. The best picture nominees... Flashbacks to previous awards. The first several are black and white. My monitor is broken in the lower right corner (see previous post) so I can't see the years, but I think they're showing every year. I could reduce the size of the window, but then how would I type? Hey, we're into the color movies now. Oh wait, more black and white. How'd that happen? Color again. THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI... that was good. BEN HUR... we once watched the 2nd 1/2 not realizing we missed the first 1/2. Awkard. Oliver... I think I remember that. Patton. French Connection. Godfather. Sting. Godfather Part 2. Cuckoos Nest... that was great. Rocky. Annie Hall. Deer Hunter. Kramer Vs. Kramer. Ordinary People. Chariots of Fire. Ghandi. Terms of Endearment. Amadeus. Out of Africa. Platoon. The Last Emperor. Rain Man. Driving Miss Daisy. Dances with Wolves. Silence of the Lambs. Unforgiven. Schindlers List. Forrest Gump. Brave Heart. English Patient. Titanic. Shakespeare in Love. Americal Beauty. Gladiator. Beautiful Mind. Chicago. LOTR:ROTK. million dollar baby, crash, departed..... now..... ummmm..... Rene Zellwegger. The nominees: Bourne... really? I liked it, but doesn't seem like best picture caliber. DIVING BELL. Heard of it. Into the Wild. No Country. There will be blood. Hopefully Bourne. Wow!!!!! It won?!!?!?! That's amazing. I never would've thought that as a best picture. It doesn't seem academyish. I gave it a 5 and loved it. Fast forward.

Is this the end of the show? I thought that was usually the last award. Jon's bonding with the orchestra.

I guess its not over. Nicole Kidman, start of a new untilted film, is presenting. Is she really pregnant? I watched TO DIE FOR a couple weeks ago. Good movie. Ok, enough with the chit chat. Lets get on with it. Its an award for Robert Boyle, an art guy for 7 decades over 100 films. He's 98 now. My office just got hot.... or maybe its been hot all along, but I was so engrossed with blogging that I didn't notice it. I definitely have to turn the fan on. Pardon me. Ok, I'm back. They're still showing the clips from Robert's body of work. This award seems unfair. He's the only nominee... how's can he possibly lose? This is a gimme if I ever saw one. Oh, I see. Its an honorary oscar. I'd like one of those. Obligatory standing ovation... he's 98. Sure, flaunt how easy it is for you stand. Make it uncomfortable for him. Now he feels like he has to stand too. He's hardly hanging on... lets wrap up the clapping so he can do his thing. He's still sharp as a tack (assuming he has always been.) Well spoken, thanking people, reflection, etc. Oops... a little stammering. Hang in there Robert. He's talking about people I never heard of, which is understandable. Talking about a guy named Hitch, and his wife (was there something going on between those 2?). They're showing a balcony of people who are presumably his family. He has this whole speech memorized... unless there's a teleprompter that I don't see, but he's looking around, so I don't think so. There's Harrison and Ally again. How does that happen? Is that Viggo? Seriously, the next time you have a big fight scene, wear some clothes. Then we can watch it. Eastern Promises was more disturbing than Borat. Speech is over... I feel another standing O coming on. Well, we can't see it. They're going to a commercial. Fast forward.

Jon Stewart. Bring it. Laughing at himself. Technical glitch; restart the show. Not funny. Here's Penelope Cruz with some linguistic jokes. She speaks four languages. Maybe she should perfect one. Well, maybe not. The accent is part of her presence I suppose. She's introducing foreign movies... is this a foreign movie award? I think they're all war based, so obviously nothing from France. Oh, a dancing movie from russia. The COUNTERFEITERS won. I think I heard an article about that on NPR. A bunch of people were "recruited" by the Nazis to make foreign currency. It was an interesting story. I'll have to rent it.

Patrick Dempsey from enchanted to introduce another song, also from Enchanted. That's 3 from Enchanted and one from something else. I don't need to hear this. Cut to commerical, please. I'd prefer one of the PC/MAC commercials over this, which is desperate. Ok, fast forward. Nice. Polite applause.

John Travolta is going to present... what... best song finally, or are they going to drag it out more? He's dancing. Swell. Really flex your acting muscle there. Its one of his favorite categories. Good to know. That will really help me make important future decisions. Recap of the painful nominees. Oh, there was another non-enchanted. AUGUST RUSH. My bad. Hopefully one of the non-enchanted wins. I don't care which. ONCE won. That's good. Now I don't have to do one of these things: #&$(*@ to mask my true feelings. I did it anyway, but the difference is that I chose to do it. I didn't have to do it. Its all about choice, people. Get out there and vote. Go Obama. If a repulican has to win, I'm voting for McCain. He seems honorable.

Jon Stewart just called the previous guy arrogant. That's my type of humor. Someone illegally parked a boeing. Jon Travolta came back on stage to collect his keys so he can move it. Eh. It was ok.

Fast forward through Mr. Spieldberg and commercials. Bringing out someone to say thanks... she didn't get an opportunity to do it earlier. That's nice. Its her first win, and she didn't get to speak, so rectify the situation. I approve. Of course, if this is what she said the first time through, we'd probably fast forward, but the preamble made it interesting.

Cameron Diaz.... I remember her. She managed three words before bumbling. Her air head is unusually anchored, or am I just stereotyping her from charlies angels? She's presenting cinematography. Is this show ever going to end? Jesse James, Atonement, Diving Bell, No Country, There Will Be Blood. I'll vote for no country. The cinematography is what made it good. It was an intersting movie, but really not about anything. All the good guys die and the bad guy lives. Whoopty Doo. There Will Be Blood won. Previously nominated for Good Night and Good Luck. I haven't seen that yet either.

Here's Hilary Swank to present something. Million Dollar Baby is worthy. The Next Karate Kid is not. Oh, the dead-person list. Lets see if Heath gets a standing O even though he essentially killed himself. So far, I don't know anyone... polite applause. You'd think I'd recognize someone by now, but I don't. The kid from HOOK is dead???? That's sad. How'd that happen? Its been a bad year for young actors. Karate Kid cinematographer. God Father editor. GLORY cinematographer (I think that was glory, anyway). Heath Ledger. The last one. What about Brad Renfro? Did I miss it?

Update: The kid from Hook, RUFIO, is not dead according to IMDB. It must've been covering someone else involved with Hook, but I only saw the image of Rufio. My bad. Sorry if I scared you.

Amy Adams presenting. At least she's not singing. She's presenting musical scores. Atonement, Kite Runner, missed one, Ratataouille, 3:10 to Yuma. The non-loser: Atonement. Fast forward. Fast Forward.

Jon Stewart. Tom Hanks is presenting. Jon Stewart is giving him a hard time. Kudos. Goody... politics. Satellite feed from Baghdad. Swell. I was too busy typing and deleting stuff to notice what the award is for. At first I thought the Iraq thing was a useless stunt, but at least they're introducing nominees. The academy awards and people in Iraq are the exact opposite. If you're in Iraq, how meaningless is the academy awards? Sure, that's what they're defending, but if you get shot at for a living do you want to participate in the presentation of a statue for acting? The award is for documentaries. Gina's going a little nuts with the fast forward. I think we missed some stuff.

Commerical.

We're back. The next presenter is Harrison Ford, so make a car joke. Clever. Indiana Jones Music. I'm giddy. "Movies are made of ideas, and picture, and words." I'm pretty sure he's in a coma. Ally should go get him. This is the best screenplay. Juno, Lars and the Real Girl (that looks disturbing), Michael Clayton, Ratatouille, Savages (that was nominated for something else too). The oscar goes to : Diablo Cody for Juno. Excellent. Oh, this is going to be ugly. She's already in tears. Poor choice of tattoos. I say that primarily because we can see it. "This is for the writers". Please. She's keeping it together ok. Dropping some names. Quick cut to the actress applauding. Now to the director looking like he's really concentrating on the speech. Thanking the family, losing it, running off stage.

Best actor, director, and picture is coming up. Clearly I messed something up earlier because I thought they already did best picture and bourne won. What award was that then? Thankfully this is just a rant and not a historical document, because I'm messing up everything.

Oh oh. We lost the end of it. The DVR stopped promptly at 11:30. Oh, gina found the rest of it in real time. We're ok. Don't panic.

Daniel Day Lewis won best actor. I didn't see it, but he's always good. Gangs of New York was excellent.

I'm still bothered about the best movie mishap. What was that other award for? God! Maybe I have a minute to jump over to IMDB... hold please. It won sound editting. Maybe that was it. How in the name of all that is holy did I get that mixed up? Apparently I shouldn't multi-task. That supports my theory that Bourne, while a great movie, doesn't seem nominee'ish. Stay tuned. If it wins again, I'll delete this paragraph with extreme prejudice.

Oh, hey, maybe they showed all of the best pictures, then jumped back to the other award and I missed the transition. That could be it. (I don't care enough to watch it again.)

Flashback to previous winners of best director. Martin Scorcese, last year's winner, is presenting. No Country For Old Men won. The coen brothers are back. I missed most of their first appearance, but seems funny.

Denzel is presenting now. Where's Billy Crystal through all this?
Best picture nomieens: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood. Bourne isn't in there. NO COUNTRY won. I disagree. I saw it, and thought it was a good looking movie, but nothing spectacular. The plot left me unfulfilled.

I think we're just about done. Jon Stewart is thaking us. Good night.

Monitor problem

Yesterday I brought home 2 wide screen monitors from work. Imagine my excitement.

I plugged them in and fired them up, and quickly saw that the right one was damaged as shown in the picture below. During our morning meeting, Chris asked how the monitor was. I responded to the affect of "it looks like it got hit by a baseball". Naturally, Chris assumed that I was playing baseball in the house, so I had to explain that "looks like it got hit" and "got hit" are two entirely different things. I don't think I convinced him.

In order to clarify the extent of the damage, I photographed the damage and sent the email that follows the image.

Email: 2/21/2008, 10:07am

For the purposes of demonstration, I have attached a photo of the monitor problem discussed during our morning congregation. Though it is not clear in from the mere photo, a spider web of cracks starts at the center of the black hole and extends outwards, its fingers entwining themselves with the fabric of the screen. One may observe a parallel between that and the effect of professional baseball on our every day lives. The closer you are to baseball ,the more it affects your life as symbolized by the greater density of cracks. For those that are less involved, the cracks are fewer, but ever present. It is for that reason that I have elected to title this piece "The Baseball Effect".

The point has been raised that while I refer to the black hole as a "baseball", the screen was not actually hit by a baseball. I concede the point with the caveat that in art you must be able to think in the abstract. When Vincent Van Gogh drew the Mona Lisa, did he actually know a person name Lisa, or is she an imaginary figure that represents the best of what he saw in people as a whole? When Michael Jackson created the thriller video, was he trying to express to us that we really need to be careful about dancing zombies, or was he using that as visual conduit to some deeper meaning? These questions may not be answered, but still must be asked. Was my monitor hit by a baseball? The scientist in me says no, but the artist and philosopher think "perhaps".

HD-DVD Really Dead - The Regret

It comes as no surprise that HDDVD is officially dead. Toshiba sent out the announcement this morning.

I'm actually ok with it. I would've preferred that HDDVD won, but I only chose HDDVD because I hate Sony.

I've been looking at Blu-Ray players, sporadically, for the last couple weeks. Yesterday, we went to Circuit City to see if there were any specials. (Their selection was abysmal, and we walked out a few seconds later). Then we went to Best Buy for the same reason, then BJs. That, combined with my online research and conversations with some unbiased folks, has led me to an unfortunate conclusion.

It looks like I have to buy a PS3. I haven't bought a SONY product since 1992. Whenever I've needed anything, it was easy to find a non-Sony choice. There have always been plenty of choices for VCRs, DVDs, TVs, Gaming Consoles, etc. There was never a good reason to violate the ban and buy Sony, nor did I ever want to.

But this is different. It seems that PS3 is the only logical choice for a BLU-RAY player. Not only is it BLU-RAY, but it is also a gaming console. I'm not willing to to spend 1 or 2 hundred dollars more for a lesser competing product.

I'm dissapointed about it because it violates a 16 year embargo, but that's the only reason I'm dissapointed. I don't feel like I'm selling out or giving up. Its just that in this unique case, its the smart thing to do. Unless Sony issues me an apology or a refund for the VCR that started this whole mess, then I will continue to avoid Sony products.

My wife bought a PSP a few months ago. Its obvious that she has absolutely no respect for the sanctity of marriage. The DS is a perfectly suitable alternative, yet she chose the PSP. She's an american and can make her own choices, but you can imagine not only the dissapointment, but the hurt, that this inflicted on our relationship. The PS3 is different because there is not a reasonable alternative.

So, its nearly certain that I will purchase a PS3 in the not so distant future. Its just a matter of determining the appropriate version, and finding one. Then the ugly deed will be done.

Leia's inappopriate noises

We have a dog name Leia. Gina tries to deny that she was named after a character in a famous science fiction saga, but how many other Leia's have you heard of?

There's no delicate way to say this, so I'll get right to it. Leia has recently become a farter. I don't know if that's normal in the canine world or not, and normally I wouldn't be interested. Its well known that all animals fart; from the majestic armadillo all the way down to the carnivorous palm tree. Its just what animals do. God not only grants them the freedom to fart, but he expects them to. He encourages it. Its his way of saying "be free my child, be free.".

Actually, I just made most of that up as I often do. I am not privy to the opinions of the big g. I can only make logical assumptions based on personal observations and, to be honest, experience.

But that's really all out of scope of what I'm trying to express. The point of this is not how Leia farts, but how she reacts to it. She'll lie on the tile, comfortable while pondering complex issues of her day. "Should I drink water, then clean myself in public, or smell that dog's butt then bark at the wind? When are those stupid humans going to bed? I'd really like to pee in the hallway." Then, the silence is broken by a sound reminiscent of someone twisting a balloon in their hands. That's where normalcy ends. As soon as the fart induced squeak reaches the peak of its cresendo, she jumps up and panics. She tries to run, but her legs move too fast and she can't get traction. By the time she can get traction, she's not longer startled so she stops, then lies back down, perhaps to ponder the experience.

She does this everytime. Its as if she can't relate the loud noise bouncing off the walls with the odd vibrating sensation emerging from beneath her tail. She reflexively panics every time.

One one hand, I laugh, for I am human and humans are fundamentally flawed. On the other hand, I'm sympathetic. I want to protect her from the big-bad-fart. But how can I protect her from that of which I can't protect myself?

They lost?!?

It's been almost a week. Its time to come clean.

Contrary to my previous post, the Patriots actually did lose the superbowl. I tried to justify it by stating that they won by -3. However, that actually makes it worse, because the giants won by +3, which means they won by 6 points more than the patriots won by. I guess its better to admit that they lost by 3.

I can say with all sincerity that Giants won it, and I'm sort-of happy for them. If 6 guys can't take down your quarterback, and your receiver can catch with his helmet, then gosh darn it, you deserve to win. That really was the play of the game... If they managed to either sack him or prevent the reception, I think the outcome would be different. But, that's what its about. They managed to do it, and the Patriots couldn't stop it.

A few weeks ago I stated that the Giants are my second favorite team. Sure, I'm presently aggravated with them, but my position holds. They came out in week 17 and went for the KO. Last week, they pulled it off.

Before the game, I read a quote somewhere from one of the patriots in the offensive line. It was something like: "If we do poor, they call us old. If we do well, they call us experienced." Well, this week you're old. Last year they got the big guns for the receivers. This year, I bet they get some younger guys up front. They held it off all season, but in the superbowl, they might as well have stepped aside.

You win some, you lose some. Its a crappy way to end the season, but there you go. The wife and I were just out with a couple friends, and another guy commented on a Red Sox logo. Then he proclaimed "18 and O!". I like that approach. We don't have to say 18-1, we can say 18-0 because, its accurate. They were 18-0. It reminds me of Jimmy Fallon's t-shirt in Fever Pitch: "Boston Red Sox - 1918 World Champions!"

I love it when the patriots win, but don't care too much when they lose. Does that make me a bad fan? When they lost AFC Championship last year, I thought "That's what you get for throwing 5 interceptions". This loss isn't as easily identifiable. "That's what you get for getting out played". It was harder to take because of what was on the line, but its time to move on.

The thing that bothers me the most is that this loss defies math. I thought for sure they were using the fibonnacci sequence to guide their destiny: Win a superbowl, miss the superbowl. Win two superbowls, miss two superbowls. Win three superbowls.... that's as far as I got. Unfortunately, this should have been the first win of three, so math has proven to be unreliable.

The patriots win the superbowl to go 19 - 0!

Wow, what a game. That was a real nail biter... that was worse than the ravens game.

I thought it was over when the giants led by 3 with 1 second left, but somehow the patriots pulled it off. They always do. They just don't know how to lose.

The game was a lot closer than I expected. I thought they'd win by 10, not -1, but the important thing is that they won. A win is a win is a win. The points don't matter. They have once again re-cemented their position as this centuries new dynasty.

I wanted to provide you a link to Patriot Superbowl #42 Championship T-Shirts, etc, but they haven't come online just yet. I'll keep watch and let you know as soon as the vendors get on the ball. I'm sure they'll be available at the victory parade.

Congratulations to all.

New Blog Alert

Greetings

I created a new blog at http://hamletcode.blogspot.com.

I'll post all technical content there instead of continuing to pollute this one with both tech and non-tech.

Part 3 of the flood trilogy

Greetings

The flood wasn't important enough to warrant all of these posts, but I don't have anything better to talk about.

In conclusion, here is the last flood post. This is the email sent to friends and family.


Greetings I worked from home yesterday. I had a conference in West Palm Beach at 6:30. I left my house at 5:30 to make sure I could find the place, etc. I was gone for about 3 to 3.5 hours.

During that 3 hours, Boynton Beach (where we live) got between 10 and 12 inches of rain. I didn't know this. I was in a conference listening to a bunch of geeks talk about microsoft products. (Bless them all, every last one of them, including the microsoft products. All hail microsoft. But I digress.). When I got back to the community, I thought it was suspcious that the gate was open. I thought it was more suspicious that the streets and lawns of the main road had been replaced by a lake. And when I say "lake" I'm not being overdramatic in describing a puddle. We're really talking about a lake for as far as the eye could see (assuming you don't have bionics). I just sat there sort of dumbfounded for a few minutes. I called gina and asked her to look out front. Naturally, she was afraid of the rain and was hiding under the coffee table, but I persuaded her to grab her teddy bear and go to the door. She quickly confirmed my suspicion: the house was now on the paved shore of a newly introduced body of water. Huh.

(Side bar: I proposed that we call it lake of jay, but that was lame, so it was rightly rejected. Alternatives are still under consideration.)

I parked my car a few miles away at my brother-in-law's house and got a ride back to the gate. Then I trekked through the water back to the house. Fortunately, it was just water. I feared there maybe some distateful...shall we say, "material", which would've prompted me to stay at a hotel for the night. I walked on the high parts whereever possible. At its lowest, it was well over my ankle. At its worse (remember, of the high ground) it was up to my knee.

Anyway, it was unusual, so thought I'd share. I love rainstorms and, of course, I happened to be gone for the biggest rainstorm that has probably occurred since we've lived her. Bogus. And it was dark, so I couldn't get any good pictures. More bogus. Thankfully, the water only made it about 1/2 way up the driveway. Most of you have never seen our community so I can't really describe it 500 words or less. You're just going to have to trust me. It was odd.

By this evening, the waters had mostly receeded. Then it rained again, and things started to backup into big puddles, but nothing like what happened yesterday. Good times. The cleanup should be fun.

More info here: http://jayallard.blogspot.comThere are some links and a couple of posts about it. I don't really have much else to talk about, so I'm going to milk this for all its worth. Please mark your calendar for the first annual "flood rememberance" ceremony, tentatively scheduled for 1/22/2009.

Waterfront Update

Late this afternoon, the waters had finally receeded enough so that I could see the street in all directions. Then it started raining again, and everything got backed up again, though not nearly as bad. Rather than a torrential flood, it was merely a big puddle.

The streets and lawns are a mess. All of the debris floated up then landed in what I assume to be random locations. Someone's going to need a broom.

We're not in a flood zone, so I don't have flood insurance. I should probably look into it. Maybe it will be cheap because its not a flood zone. The water was a good 10 feet from the garage door, but it was still alarming. What if I was napping in the driveway?

Last night, I was walking through it (before I dropped the car off) to see if it was low enough anywhere to reasonably drive through. Bill was hanging out in the driveway, so I called him over. He came prancing through the water like he didn't know it was there. This is a dog that hates the pool, but for some reason walking into a flood is ok. Silly dog. Anyway, it was fun watching him run around in it. He gave up quickly and headed back to the house via our neighbor's lawn.

Sun Sentinel Flood Watch report
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-boyntonfloods0122,0,561434.story

10 - 12 inches in 3 hours??!!
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpflooding0123pnjan23,0,840793.story

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/01/23/s1c_flooding_0123.html

http://www.wpbf.com/news/15118241/detail.html

There's probably 100 more, but you get the idea.

DvdFriend - Create Account

I took a break from the "other" project so that I could add the "Create Account" functionality to DvdFriend. I've put it off for a long time because I really just had not desire to do it. Its a page with some fields and some validations. Its painfully boring at this point.

The validations are minimal. When you create an account, it should send you a verification email, but it doesn't. Additionaly, it should validate your email address. It doesn't. Why not? Because I'm still not in the mood.

Even though its a meager, at least its in there.

Chris requested a link for "MY REVIEWS" so that he can see what he's done. That would be a good feature.

I started a BROWSE page recently, but didn't have time to finish it before deploying this version.

Unexpected Waterfront Property

I was supposed to go to the office on Wendesday, but that's not happening, so I had to inform the team. Email follows.


Greetings

So I went to a MVC overview in West Palm last night. I left my house at 5:30. The MVC stuff was interesting. I learned a lot, met some people, ate some pizza, and was feeling pretty good about the universe in general.

I was whistling pleasant Disney tunes as I approached my community. The birds were singing. Animated animals greeted me and smiled. It was darn-near utopia. What could go wrong, right? Nothing! It would take something truly awful to ruin this little slice of heaven. Then I passed the threshold of the community and learned that all of the pleasantness was merely a coverup to mask a tragedy that had befallen my abode and all those around it: Complete flooding (well, not really). I have reason to believe this scenario was orchestrated by god himself in response to an unfortunate code bug I wrote in 1986. I was new to programming. It was pascal. I thought he would forgive, but he didn't. Instead, he waited all these years and finally cast his fury upon me. At last, I have been smote.

Fortunately, the flooding only made it 1/2 way up the driveway, so neither my paper-mache howitzer collection, or my gremlins, are at risk. But, the roads are unpassable. I had to park at my brother-in-laws house, get a ride back, then swim home. I'm seriously considering giving myself a tetnus shot, but that would require more courage than I have readily available.
I have 3 regrets about this whole thing:

- I love a good rainstorm. Why did I have to be in West Palm for the doozy of all rain storms? Yet another facet of god's cruel joke. Had I not been in West Palm for MVC, my car would be safe in the driveway. (So maybe microsoft is to blame for inventing mvc?)
- Why does it have to be dark at 9pm? I'd love to get some pictures. Maybe it will still be there by the morning.
- they should have just called it Struts.net instead of MVC.net

So, I'm writing to report that due to transportation difficulties, I won't be in Wednesday as planned. Lets make it Thursday instead. Unless there's an earthquake in my driveway or a worse-than-usual firestorm in my bathroom, it should work out just fine.

Question? Comments?

Dog Food

I made 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I was hungry.
75% of the first sandwich is all I could eat before completely losing interest.

So, I shared 1.25 sanwiches amongst three dogs resulting in approximately 0.416 sandwiches per dog.

I say "approximately" to allow for an error of margin, but that's just a formality. In actuality, I was very careful about distribution of the 1.25 sandwiches. Thanks to modern technologies, I'm confident that the distribution wasn't only fair, but was also accurate. I used the latest industry tools for weighing, measuring, and cutting the remaining sandwich parts.

I intentionally neglected to consider the weight of the dogs. (There was not a dog-weight-to-sandwich-mass ratio in my calculations.) I figure they all deserve just as much regardless of their size. The important part is the joy of eating them rather than the nutritional value.

Leia ate hers in two swallows. She doesn't chew things when she doesn't have to. I don't think she fully appreciates what she's eating; she just wants to eat.
Fred actually chewed his, but did so in one sitting.
Bill took his allotment back to his pillow and laid it out. He then nosed it around and ate it in chunks. He's always been a connoisseur of fine dining, so his behavior didn't surprise me. (To be honest, I lied about nosing it around. He just dropped it.)

The "crumbs" remain an issue. I think I'll just throw them away. I've already done enough math for one day.

Blog readers? / New Side Project

It has come to my attention that there are actually people out there who read this blog. They are an elite few. Vadim said he found it by searching for something else altogether. Interesting.

Anyhoo, some people left comments and I have not, to this point, acknowledged them. That's primarily because I didn't see them, and I didn't receive email notifications. Notifications were sent, but I didn't get them because of my spam blocker. That's been resolved.

So, comment away.

Speaking of comments, Chris has requested a DvdFriend feature that would allow him to respond to people's reviews. Neutral and negative comments about certain comic based movies inspire him to educate non-believers in the errors of their ways. In the old site, you could leave comments. On the new one, you cannot, but I'll get there. Its a good suggestion. He also mentioned how he has his blockbuster and facebook linked together, and he'd like to do something similar with DvdFriend. I didn't completely follow because I was thinking about a cheeseburger, but I'll follow up. It sounded like an interesting idea. However, a cheeseburger was more important at that particular moment.

On Monday, I had a meeting that secured a side project. As usual, the hobby site will take a back seat to actual work. The upcoming project is pretty big, though I hope I can still pick away at DvdFriend. It really needs a CREATE PROFILE page, but I'm bored to death with doing those. When I need a break from the other thing, maybe I can commit to doing that. (Maybe commit? That sounds like a non-commitment)

The side project is an update to a system I originally built 6 years ago. Since then, I've been occasionaly recruited to add new features. (Those who know me know the project I speak of)
Over the last couple days, I've been working on setting up a development vm including:
- vb 6.0 (for the vb stuff)
- vs 2005 (for the .net 1.1 stuff)
- vs 2008 (for the .net 2.0 and, possibly 3.0 stuff if the project requires new code)
- Sql 2005. This was supposed to be sql 2000, but the install keeps hanging and I can't connect. The application is a SQL 2000 application, so I'll just lower the db compatability, assuming that the 2005 install works)
It started off as an asp/vb COM+ app, but has evolved over the years. Each time somethine new comes out, I use it for new development. The new project involves changes to the foundation of the app, so I will most likely be coding in asp and vb.

That's about it.





So the DVDFriend community is now active with three people. World dominations starts with three people, so we're on the right track.

DvdFriend Updates - Library

I've been working on other projects for a couple months now. I put both on hold last night so that I could work on DvdFriend for a bit.

Chris T has offered a lot of feedback on what the site should be able to do. Fortunately, most of the stuff he has come up with is stuff that the old site could do. Once it gets rebuilt in the new site, it should be better than the orignal.

LIBRARY / RATINGS
When you click a product, you go to the product page where it shows you all of the ratings, reviews, prices, and summary information. There's a new section that allows you to:
- Change your rating (if you already have one)
- Add a rating (if you don't have one)
- Edit or Write a review (depending if you have one)

The ADD A RATING isn't perfect. It brings you to the EDIT REVIEW page rather than offering the drop down list. This is because that in order to create a rating, you have to specify the rating type such as MOVIE, BOOK or XBOX 360. Products in DvdFriend don't have product types. They're ambiguous. That's good because it allows me to bind anything to anything. Its bad for situations like this where I would like to do something specific.

There's an EDIT PRODUCT page in the admin side of the site. I'm going to work on that (eventually) and add some default information.

You'll also see there's a LIBRARY section. Here, you can select what formats of the product you own. DVD, HD-DVD, BLU-RAY, BOOK, XBOX 360, etc. This list is too long, but will work for now. Once the concept of PRODUCT TYPE exists, the list will adjust contextually.

When you click a checkbox in the library section, it uses ASP.NET AJAX to save the call automatically. This isn't anything fancy; its just an update panel.

XBOX 360
By request, I added an XBOX 360 entry and an image, so now we can review and sell games. I added some prices. They went in as DVD. I'll change those to XBOX when I feel less lazy.

REVIEW SOMETHING
There used to be a REVIEW SOMETHING link and a SEARCH link in the menu bar. The search sucked because when you found a product, you wouldn't have a way to write a review or rating. So, then you'd have to go to the REVIEW SOMETHING page and search again. Lame. Really, that was just due to the fact that the product page was incomplete. It was lacking a lot of functionality. That functionality is now in there, so it should be a better experience.

I got rid of the REVIEW SOMETHING link altogether. I used to need that so that I could add non-product related entries, such as news items, rants, etc, but I haven't used it much, so I don't need it. If/when I do need it, I'll add it to the admin site.

NEXT STEPS
Now that the library stuff is in there, I need to make it more available. I'm picturing a BROWSE page that will allow you to look at products different ways. Immediately, it would be nice to list all of the HD-DVDs so you can just go down the list and click those that are in your library.

Once people have items in their library, the next logical step is to share the list with friends and co-workers. In the old site, this was called DVD COMMUNITIES. I'll have to start rebuilding that.

Also, I think its about time to open up the site. I currently enable users on an individual basis because I haven't finished all of the signup stuff. I should probably make that a priority.

In the meantime, if you would like to be able to login to the site to set ratings or write reviews, let me know.

The Death of HD-DVD?

Oh crap.

I spent $500 on the HDA1 HD-DVD player when it first came out. My goal was to be the coolest kid on the block, though I didn't go door to door to confirm. Not too long later, Microsoft created the HD-DVD drive for the XBOX 360. Once again, I rushed out to get it. $179.

Since then we have ammassed a pretty good collection of HD-DVDs. In fact, 8 of them came in today due to a BUY 1 GET 1 FREE sale at Amazon. I ended up with Dante's Peak to round out the bunch, which I'm not proud of.

Ah, heck... why not. Here's the list of 8
- Fearless
- Breach
- Meet the Fockers
- Dante's Peak
- Knocked Up
- Assualt on Precinct 13
- Traffic

Dante's Peak is easily the weakest of the bunch, but the special effects should be pretty good in HD. Meet the Fockers was a hesitant choice, but its funny.

Anyhoo, I'm going to guess that we now have approximately 20 HD DVDs. That's a few bucks.

So, I'm invested. I knew there was a format going on, and due to my rabid hatred of Sony, I backed HD-DVD. I doubt my investment in the technology caused any perceivable ripples, but I did my part.

I never agreed with the "lets see who wins" approach to the format war. HD-DVD players got pretty cheap, especially if you own an XBOX. Rather than wait for a winner, people should jump in the ring and fight. A lot of people can't due to the cost, so we'll leave them alone, but if you're a technology nut with the means of picking one, then pick one.

Ah, the War. At the beginning of the summer, it felt like that BLU-RAY was winning. By the end, it felt like HD was winning. Paramount and Dreamworks signed exclusively with HD-DVD. Michael Bay made a ruckus about this, then retracted his comments the previous day. (That was actually kinda cool. He didn't try to pass it off as misunderstood, or something lame. He put it down as a rash remark, and moved on.)

Somewhere along the way, there were some stories stating that Blu-Ray wasn't going to allow adult movies. If that turned out to be the case, then I'm confident that HD would've won. The adult industry is a billion dollar industry. (Or more. Maybe less. I don't know. I'm obviously just making up numbers as I go.). Say what you will and object all you like, but porn drives industry.

I have been a little bit envious about Blu-Ray. I would like to get Spiderman 3 on Blu-Ray, for one. The Incredibles would be something special too. The standard "Resident Evil: Extinction" dvd came in today... The Blu-Ray version would be better. But, that's the way it goes. You pick a side and you get the good and the bad, and you miss out on some of the good. I'm ok with it.

Warner Bros supported both formats, until now. Today they announced that they will drop HD-DVD in May. Most of the "analysts" say that that's the end of the format war. It will be over in a matter of weeks at the most. I don't know if that true or not. I'm not familiar with the qualifications of the said "analysts", but I'm the trusting sort so I'll assume they know what they're talking about.

Christmas just passed. I know of one co-worker who got an A3 for Christmas. Another one is going to buy one this weekend, though maybe he'll change his mind now. I don't know. Either way, it feels like then beginning of the end of an era, and I don't know that his purchase (or lack thereof) will have an impact either way. C'est la vie. (I don't know what that means for sure, but it seems to be contextually accurate).

If this is the end of the format war, then lets make it a quick end. They're saying days or weeks. Let it be so.

Supposing that Blu-Ray does win, how does that affect moi? As already covered, I'll have to buy a Blu-Ray player. I won't buy a PS3 because I still rabidly hate sony. Nor will I buy a sony Blu-Ray player for the same reason. There are enough others to choose from.

I just jumped onto CircuitCity.com to look at the prices on Blu-Ray players. Then I realized it doesn't matter, so I stopped looking. If Blu-Ray wins, we'll have to buy a player, so it doesn't matter what they cost. If the time comes, it comes. Lets give it some time and see if the analysts are worth their salt. (Again, I don't know what that means. Is salt a currency?)

The focus of my website will have to change somewhat, too. When I add movies to the database, I have to choose an image. My current priority is HD-DVD, BLU-RAY, STANDARD. I'll have to reprioritize. (In a related story, I also have to change the site to store images per product format rather than per product.)

And that's it. Damn Warner Bros. If this were an actual war, they'd be the French. (I know I'm not being fair to Warner Bros or the French, but that's ok. This is a rant. I'm not required to be fair, accurate, or even cohesive. Be grateful that I'm using complete sentences.)

The end.