Disjointed Digression

We have not made the switch over to Blu-ray yet.  I know that the Blu-ray/HD-DVD battle is very old news (especially in the technology race timeline), but for what it is worth I was rooting for Blu-ray back then.  Now that Blu-ray has come out on top, I just can’t seem to get motivated to go out and get a new Blu-ray player, or start replacing all the DVDs that I have amassed.  I began to wonder today, am I becoming one of those guys that stops caring about the tech advances?  In twenty years, will I still need to have an old barely running DVD player, while my friend’s children are setting up their latest home entertainment technology?  Or am I just a late adopter of some things?  I know that I didn’t get a DVD player until the price was down around $100, and DVD movies were on average $15.  I guess once Blu-ray players get into an affordable price range I’ll get one and start picking up Blu-ray movies.  Since I’ll still be able to watch my DVDs on a Blu-ray player, I don’t see any reason to replace all my DVDs with Blu-ray discs.   So I think that the answer to my question is no, I’m not yet one of those guys who stops caring about technology.  (And no, this is not me trying to tell Candy that I want a PS3 because it has a Blu-ray player built in.)

Here are some movie trailers that look interesting to me.  Most are slated to come out later this year but one is supposedly already out…

The Objective Release date: 2/6/2009 (Supposedly you can see it On Demand)
I’m kinda curious about this one.  Honestly, it looks like it could be good, but probably not great.

Anvil! the Story of Anvil Release date: 4/10/2009 (limited)
I had never heard of this band, and from little I have listened to their music (thanks to Amazon’s samples) they don’t sound like a band I would listen to, but the documentary looks interesting.

Sleep Dealer Release date: 4/17/2009 (limited)
Near-future sci-fi, kinda reminds me of William Gibson novels

X-Men Origins Wolverine Release date: 5/1/2009
Wolverine, my favorite X-man.  This movie could be good, but the potential to suck is quite high, especially since they have Gambit in the movie.

Star Trek Release date: 5/8/2009
I’m going to see this one expecting to see a sci-fi action movie.  I’m not a big trek fan, nor am I a huge fan of JJ Abrams (Cloverfield was not good, Lost either imo)

Terminator Salvation Release date: 5/21/2009
A new Terminator movie, I’ll give it a shot.  The last Terminator movie was ok.

Drag Me to Hell Release date: 5/29/2009
Sam Raimi returns to the horror genre!  No Bruce Campbell, but I guess you can’t get everything you want.

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Release date: 6/24/2009
The first one was not bad.  More of a nostalgia thing for me.

The Hurt Locker Release date: 6/26/2009 (limited)
Could be good, I’ll give it a shot.

Public Enemies Release date: 7/1/2009
Story of John Dillinger, looks pretty good.  Candy wants to see it for Johnny Depp, of course.

G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra Release date: 8/7/2009
Nostalgia again, like Wolverine ( and transformers 2) has a high potential to suck.

Inglorious Basterds Release date: 8/21/2009
Quentin Tarantino goes to war.  Interesting cast with Eli Roth as an actor. Looks good though.

Extract Release date: 9/4/2009
Jason Bateman’s comeback continues in this new Mike Judge movie.  Hopefully this will be as good as Office Space!

We went to see Watchmen on Saturday.  It has been a few years since I have read the graphic novel (I never did get the twelve separate issues) but from what I remember the movie follows the graphic novel very closely.  The ending is different from the graphic novel.

I do think that it was slightly dated, since it was set in an alternate 1985 (Nixon was never impeached and is still president, America won the Vietnam war and made Vietnam the fifty first state).  When the comics were originally written (1986-1987) this would have had more of an impact, I feel, than it does today, especially with a lot of the movie goers being born the same year the comic was written.  (Whereas I was thirteen when the comics came out.)  The movie has an R rating for a reason, there is quite a bit of Dr. Manhattan walking around nude (glowing blue wang on display) a sex scene that would be at home late Saturday night on Cinemax, and plenty of violence.  I’m sure there was foul language, but I don’t think it was overly used.  As for the Dr. Manhattan nudity, I think that it somewhat fits well in the story since Dr. Manhattan is losing his humanity (part of which is modesty.)

If you read the graphic novel, or the comics, do no expect to see the Black Freighter mentioned in the movie.  As well as it was woven into the fabric of the comics, I think that putting it into the movie would have added way too much to the running time of the film, which is at 2 hours and 43 minutes.  On another note, the soundtrack fits in quite well, and is outstanding!

All in all, I think the movie is quite good, I’d recommend seeing it at full price. 

So I’ve been using Pandora for a while now, and have a few stations (mostly metal).  90% of the time, I have it minimized and don’t look at the album art, but for some reason I pulled up the Pandora window and saw this:

The song playing was Hellbound by Pantera off the album “Reinventing the Steel” but that is not the album art. 

This is:

I’m really not sure what is going on at Pandora, but a few minutes later when the song Yesterday Don’t mean Shit came up from the same album, it had the incorrect album art again.  I just thought it was goofy enough to comment on.

I apparently have a slight fascination with spam.  Every so often (read as once every 6 months) I’ll go through my spam email folder and make sure that something wasn’t sent there by mistake.  Occasionally I’ll find mis-filtered emails.  99% of it is pure trash: cheap viagra/cialis, herbal versions of viagra/cialis, cheap fake Rolex watches, cheap software, the ones you have come to know and loathe.  A few weeks ago I did get one that was an offer for something to increase the size of my breasts.  Somehow I don’t think that Candy (or anyone else for that matter) would like my moobs to be bigger.  I believe it was Beavis that said “If I had boobs, I’d stay home all day and look at them in the mirror, heh heh heh.” But I digress…

I decided to look into my gmail spam folder and clean it out (I know that it auto cleans itself, but I don’t want to miss something) and I ran across this gem of a subject line:
“Elongate your short sword to fit her scabbard better!”

Spam that is targeted at the D&D and SCA demographic…  You know, I’ve never thought of that part of my anatomy as a sword (short or long, although I guess it would be more of a one hand sword than a two hand claymore… but I digress)  nor have I ever thought of that part of a woman’s anatomy as a scabbard.  Nothing about that part of a woman is leathery and rigid, or at least it shouldn’t be!  If it is she needs to either see a doctor, or stop working in the adult film industry.  I’m digressing again, but what do you expect, the title of the blog mentions digression…

So, I never got past the subject line, I’m sure that they were trying to sell something that I don’t need.  But the double entendre of the subject line did catch my eye, make me giggle, and feel that I need to share it with you.  

Last week Candy and I went to the Evil Wal-Mart™. We try to go later in the evening when less people are there, because I hate crowds, and I hate people. As we are looking for a parking space, we note that there are a lot of people in the parking lot, going in and coming out of the store. Not an “OMG riot at Evil Wal-Mart™!” amount of people, but more than usual. Candy wonders “Why are there so many people at (Evil)Wal-Mart(™)?”

“Because it’s hot.” I reply

“You don’t go to (Evil)Wal-Mart(™), when its hot.” she retorts.

And I mumble “When I was a kid and it was hot” and I mumble something.

“What did you say?” she asks.

I’ve since come up with a way of trying to tell if she is mad at me because she heard me utter things that I should not be saying to her. It’s actually easier than I thought it would be, I just ask “What did you hear?”

She looks me straight in the face and says “When I was a kid and it was hot, we’d go to Mortamus Martigan’s.”

Trying not to laugh I repeat what I had originally said, but much clearer “When I was a kid and it was hot, we’d go to (Evil)Wal-Mart(™) and buy water guns”.

“What the Hell is a Mortamus Martigan’s?” I ask

A little frustrated Candy replies “Hell, I don’t know, I thought it might be one of those places…”

Those places. Ah, yes I know those places all too well…

“What kinda place?” I ask.

“You know! A place you play stuff, games, they have names like that.”

And I know exactly what she meant, really I did. But for the life of me, I could not think of the word “arcade”. I could only think of an arcade I used to frequent in my younger days “Odyssey”. We reached a silent agreement, neither of us could bring out the right word, but we knew what was meant.

This weekend, Candy and I went to see Transformers. Of course we went to the Alamo Drafthouse to see it. The Alamo Drafthouse is such a good theater that it got mentioned on Heroes! When you go to the Drafthouse, you really need to get to the theater early, not just to get good seats either. Instead of showing some boring ads for Coke, or dumbass trivia type of “game” the Drafthouse shows things that are somewhat relevant to the movie you are going to see. Also you need to look over the menu and put in your order. But I digress…

When we got to the theater, they were showing clips from the Transformers cartoon. Also they showed clips form the animated Transformers movie. Some of the other things they showed were Japanese transformers clips, and for some reason parts from Turkish Star Wars. What was cool was that the clip they showed from the animated movie was the fight between Optimus Prime and Megatron.

About the movie itself:
Transformers was one of those movies that I was not sure Hollywood would be able to pull off. The nostalgia surrounding the cartoon and toys would draw a lot of people in, but if the treatment of said nostalgia was too hokey it could have been a disaster. I have to say that I liked the toys and cartoon as a kid, but I’m not a hardcore Transformer enthusiast (i.e. I can’t name but a handful of the characters.) I had heard that the movie was good, but I had my reservations as it was being marketed as a Summer Blockbuster. Summer Blockbuster usually means that before you leave the house you need to take your disbelief, tie it up, and shove it in a closet, suspending it just won’t cut it. Keeping that in mind as well as realizing that this film was directed by the same person who directed Armageddon, I went to see the movie. I was nicely surprised. It was a good, fun movie. For me the special effects were the star. Candy said that what made the movie was Shia LaBeouf’s performance. I think it was a combination of his performance, the special effects and the humor. There was a lot more humor than I was expecting. The storyline that was put forth was not too bad, although it did kinda have an Independence Day feel to it on some parts. For the most part the acting was good. Some of the action sequences made me want to have a rewind/pause button so I could tell exactly what was going on they were so fast. I really liked the movie. And contrary to my belief Candy did too. It’s not that often that we leave a movie and she admits she wants to live it. After we left the movie she said “I want a transformer! A real one!” Honestly I think that’s the best review I could give… her reaction.

So, the iphone comes out today.  To quote Adam Sandler from The Wedding Singer “Whoopee-dee-doo!”  

A few reasons I will not be getting an iphone anytime soon:

1. I already have a cell phone that I didn’t pay $500 or $600 dollars for. 
2. I already have an ipod that I didn’t pay $500 or $600 dollars for. 
3. Both my cell phone and ipod work just fine. 
4. I only use my cell phone to call people and the occasional text message, I don’t need the Internet on a phone…yet.
5. I don’t use AT&T as my cell provider, nor am I willing to change.

I’m not an Apple fanboy, nor am I an Apple hater.  It’s just that there is no way I could justify getting an iphone.  It has less memory than the ipod I already have.  Speaking of the ipod I already have; even though I’ve started using it more recently, I don’t use it but maybe an hour a day, so I don’t see a reason to have it with me at all times. Now, if they made a 80GB touch display ipod that wasn’t a phone I think I’d be interested.  Maybe that is on the way.  I’d like to see a music only version, but I doubt they will do that since they have the video already built in.  I just can’t see watching a movie or TV show on a screen that small. The one thing I hope comes from this is that we’ll see less of those annoying iphone commercials. 

On a side note, there is a guy waiting in line in New York City that is first in line and has been for most of this week.  But he’s doing it just to be first in line, not for an iphone.  He has been dubbed “the iloser”.  Honestly I think that everyone in any line waiting for an iphone should be considered an iloser. 

So here I am again.  Trying to blog.  I’ve had a lot of things happen in my life recently and I haven’t had time to blog. 

First and foremost, Candy and I got engaged.  The actual wedding date has yet to be decided, but we’ve taken that first step of spending eternity together. 

Earlier this month, my mom had a minor heart attack, and had to have heart bypass surgery.  Candy and I drove down to Beaumont to see her before and after the surgery.  She was doing good.  But then when she went back in for a follow up, her stitches opened up again and they had to pack the wound with gauze and are now using a “wound vac” on it to help her heal.  She is in good spirits and getting better. 

Not like this matters much, I’ve been playing a lot of games, mostly World of Warcraft (still). 

I just wanted post something while I was thinking about it, and to test out Live Writer from Microsoft.

{Now Listening to Guns N’ Roses -  Sweet Child O’ Mine}

Yesterday, at work one of our copiers would not copy or scan pages from the tray on top. You know those trays that suck in the paper and spit it out below, and in seconds a copy comes out of the copier. Being more of a computer guy than a copier guy, I went and looked at it. And couldn’t figure it out, because if you made a copy the old fashioned way “on the glass” it worked. I looked at it opening doors, cleaning the little glass strip that scans the pages from the tray. But I couldn’t figure it out. I also made a rookie mistake, which I’ll come back to later.

So I called the copier repair guy. I figured he’d show up today, but yesterday at 4:30 he arrived. Well, he gets to looking at it, commenting on how weird it is that it will copy the other way, etc. I tell him the few things I tried, and he nods and checks some things then turns to me and says “Did you threaten it?”
Now, I took this as a joke. Seeing how I like to joke I went along. “Yeah, I did.” I respond. Then there is a pause. I can see I have inadvertently taken the wind out of this guy’s sails. I’m guessing he didn’t have anywhere to go from there. I guess no one had told him yes to that. I figured that he was going to have a follow up, or good punch line after the threaten remark. But I guess not. Now there is a slight awkward silence.
I’m feeling kind of bad. Then I get to feel stupid. He turns off the copier, and turns it back on. He runs a paper through the tray and it copies fine. It turns out that one of the scanning components had not returned to “home” position and restarting it will make it return there. With that, he’s done.