My Inanity

Ten Cent Repair

2012-01-21T15:57:00.003-05:00

Ah, house repair. Nothing conjures the image of a cursing dad better than those words.

...dumb, frattin', housesnickle viper!

While I didn’t have to struggle with a rassafrassin’ furnace, I did have to fix our disposal. Somehow, someone* dropped a dime in the garbage disposal.

Not a pay phone

Naturally, this deposit into the First National Bank of Kitchen Appliances went unnoticed until the disposal was switched on. After some entertainingly distressing noises, the garbage disposal ground to a halt. Upon close inspection, the dime was revealed to have snuggled down into a cozy spot between the spinning bottom plate and the inner wall of the disposal. The spin of the plate managed to wedge it under a small bump of metal, encasing it both on top and bottom.

Secure in its Fortress of Solitude, the dime feared no interference from nefarious ne’er do wells

Stacy and I struggled with the dime for a while, but it was well and truly jammed. I determined that no less than removing the disposal to get into its innards would free the dime from its cozy new home. Not having the energy or time, I did one of the things I do best, put it off for later.

Or never, whatever

We lived the next few weeks with no disposal. It seemed that any time I was ready to work on the sink, either it was full of dishes or the dishwasher was running. Oh, also I was lazy. The stars finally aligned today and I was determined to vanquish the rogue coin. I armed myself with a bucket full of wrenches, screwdrivers, and clamps. One of us was going to walk away from this a victor, with the disposal possibly becoming collateral damage.

A few scraped knuckles and some under-the-breath curses later and I had freed the disposal from its hoses, clamps, and power lines. All that remained was the offending money. Stacy managed to pry the dime away from the inner wall with a screwdriver while I turned the baseplate manually. A few more minutes and curses and I was able to grab the dime with a needle-nose vice and haul it out.

The offending dime

The dime was somewhat worse for the wear, but I had high hopes for the disposal. It spun freely using the manual key at the bottom. The riskiest part was still ahead, installing it so there were no leaks and no crossed wires. Amazingly enough, the reinstallation went pretty smoothly with Stacy’s help. We flipped the switch and heard the sweet music of the disposal spinning, ready to macerate anything we dumped into it, barring dimes, of course.

In and done!

*Living in a house with four kids, “someone” could be anyone, and yet is never one of the people I ask.

Zzzzzzz…snort! Huh? Wuzzat?

2012-01-18T15:34:00.009-05:00

Oh, sorry. I nodded off there for a second. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Easter Eggs.

Wait a second, that was two years ago! Hm, maybe I should get a little more current.

I’m afraid I am resurrecting this blog on a very sad occasion, the passing of a member of the family. She had been with me before I even met Stacy. We’ve been across the country together. I’ve spent good times and bad times with her. I’ve spent more money than I care to recall to keep her happy over the years. She was fairly young when we first met, but we grew up together. I will always remember her as my first.

Mourners gathered in the hundreds to pay their respects

I am, of course, talking about my ’95 Ford Probe, affectionately named Nikki. She has gone on to the Automobile Elysium Fields, to race rice burners off the line. I had hoped to keep her until we broke the 200k mile mark. We were only 38k away when she was taken from me.

An artist's rendering of the victim

It was dark on that fateful January evening. The skies were clear and the temperature unseasonably warm for a winter day. The roads were empty as we zipped down the Dulles Greenway at a healthy 65 MPH in the center lane. I had just hung up my handsfree with a friend who urged me to drive safely. “Hah!” I replied, “I love driving at night, no traffic.” How could I know that those words would come back to haunt me so soon. I was nearing the exit for Old Ox Rd., just one exit away from the toll plaza that would let me out onto Route 28, a road from which I would sooner expect tragedy than the Greenway. I spied a full-sized snowplow on the left shoulder up ahead. It seemed he was preparing to merge into the left lane. Thinking nothing of it, I continued on my merry way while trying to impart some scholarly wisdom to my oldest daughter over the handsfree as she struggled with her homework at home.

Just a mere moment later, time seemed to slow down. The snowplow hadn’t stopped at the left lane, it began turning sharply as if heading for the right shoulder or Old Ox exit. By then it was too late to swerve to miss it on the left, so I gunned Nikki’s engine, laid into the horn, and started drifting to the right. My hope was as he heard the horn, the driver would get back into the left lane and a crisis would be averted. It was a vain hope. He didn’t hear me and continued on his path of destruction. I continued drifting over, past the right lane and into the shoulder. It seemed like I was going to make it, just barely.

The snowplow’s front edge gouged into my door, flinging off the outside panel and leaving it as a twisted heap on the side of the road. Nikki sailed into a spin. Reacting as quickly as I could manage, I steered into the spin and brought the car to a stop halfway in the right lane and shoulder, facing traffic.

It’s funny the things that go through your head during events like these. I calmly thought that it was about time I was in a serious accident. I have had a blessed driving history up until this point with nothing but a couple of fender benders at very low speeds. Meanwhile, Vicki had continued sharing her homework conundrum, oblivious to my LeBouf-inspired, “Nonononono!” shouted from my end. I got her attention and had her put Stacy on the line. I told her what happened and then hung up to deal with the aftermath.

Alternatively, Gogogogogogo! or Movemovemovemove!

The snowplow driver came up to my door to make sure I was okay. I was shaken a bit, but other than that seemed fine. He helped push me into the shoulder. As I tried to get out to survey the damage, I noticed the door wouldn’t budge. Still not thinking clearly, I gave it a heave with my considerable bulk and forced it open wide enough for me to exit. Had I thought about it, I would have climbed over to the other side, since forcing the door open meant that it would not close again, rendering the car completely undriveable (that is too a word, Word.)

In photo: Nikki, not pictured: Nikki's door

The other driver was pretty badly shaken. I tried to reassure him that I was okay and that things could have been much worse. As we waited for a state trooper, I got a better look at the carnage. My door was practically a taco shell now. It had ended up about 100 yards away, in the shoulder. As Casey said later, Nikki’s insides were now her outsides. The plow hit the fender lightly before gouging into the door and ripping the panel off, but other than the bent hinge and missing panel, the car was fine.

Yup, something like that

We exchanged information through the state trooper that showed up later. Stacy arrived on the scene shortly after. The tow truck wasn’t too far behind. All told, we were out on the road for about an hour. As the driver hauled Nikki up in the tow truck, I was hit by a wave of sadness. I had a feeling that I had just enjoyed my last drive with her.

Forlorn

My fears were confirmed three days later as the snowplow’s insurer informed me that it would be a total loss, the cost to repair being much greater than her value. I was told to retrieve my personal effects and prepare for Nikki to be totaled.

As Stacy and I drove away from the tow lot with my things in the back of the van, we reminisced about all the good times with Nikki. I proposed to Stacy in that car. We brought home our firstborn in the backseat. We’d driven through many states with her. She was my first car. While I got away with some aches and pains, Nikki was not nearly as fortunate. I hate the fact that I’ll never get to drive her again. Rest in peace, Nikki. I’ll never forget.

The face of destruction

Easter Hunt & Dye 2010

2010-04-04T12:04:00.003-04:00

The McCoards joined us for Easter egg dyeing and hunting on Saturday. Stacy went light on the eggs this year, only buying 6 dozen.(!) We decided not to hide the freshly-colored eggs this year and went with plastic eggs outside. Oddly enough, the postage-stamp-sized yard we have didn't leave the Easter Bunny with many choices for hiding places.

House of Wax

2010-03-13T15:48:00.004-05:00

We went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Washington, DC this morning with Vicki's Girl Scout troop. The kids had a great time posing with the figures. They even got to get their hands cast in wax. I did mine in the only pose I could, Web-shooting Spider-man style, in red wax, naturally. The figures were actually so realistic that it was a bit creepy. If you looked right at their eyes in their line of sight, it seemed like they were about to come alive and start talking. I don't have pics of the wax hands yet, but here's a nice big slideshow of the rest.

Accident Prone?

2009-11-06T09:36:00.003-05:00

My traffic accident this morning all started with the funky colors appearing on my cell phone screen.

Yup, another accident caused by a cell phone, though this one is a little more convoluted than the usual. About a month ago the gorgeous display on my cell phone went wonky. Images looked solarized and there would often be flickering bands of color across the screen. As fun as it is to own a psychedelic freak-out phone, I'd rather have normal colors and images, thenkyewveddymuch. HTC (the manufacturer) recommends on their site to perform a hard reset to fix this problem.

Blech, that means losing everything I've installed, including the custom pain-in-the-ass theme I've had since I first messed with the phone. Well, if I had to reset it back to factory specs, I figured I might as well upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 at the same time. Since there was no official ROM of WM 6.5, I had to use a "cooked" ROM from the HTC Fuze community. I opted for one that also had the newer, slicker TouchFlo 3D 2, the pretty UI that sold me on the Fuze in the first place. I grabbed a beta version that a nice ROM chef had cooked up and went through the lengthy process of installing it on my phone.

It was sweet, too. The interface looked great, WM 6.5 had some nice new features and updates. I was enjoying it for a while. Then, I noticed that I wasn't getting notifications from calendar items or text messages. Well, that could be a problem since I rely on my phone both as my schedule-keeper and a communication device. I ran into a few other bugs with the cooked ROM that eventually made me realize that it just wasn't ready for prime time. Also, the hard reset hadn't fixed the color problems.

I knew that I'd have to restore to factory settings if I wanted to fix the color problem via the ridiculously expensive warranty I opted for the phone. Shoulders slumped in defeat, I went about reinstalling the old ROM. Well, not quite. HTC had released an updated ROM for WM 6.1 one with a couple of features I wanted, such as FM Radio and means to program the useless PTT button. Since it was official, I could still get the phone repaired under warranty. If possible, restoring the phone was even more of a pain in the neck than putting on the cooked ROM.

BUT! I had the FM Radio. Little did I know that it wouldn't work without a wired handsfree set. Apparently, that acted as the radio's antanna. I just so happened to have one, though, so I decided to head out this morning with the handsfree and try out the radio. I got it going in the car before I started driving, all safe-like. However, the darn thing could only pick up one station. Meanwhile, my car stereo picks up more stations than I have presets. WTH? I figured it was because of my location, so as I drove, I'd click the channel surf button every once in a while.

I continued doing this until I reached the Manassas intersection on 28 near the CVS. As I looked down to see what station, if any, the surfing had landed me, the car ahead slammed on his brakes. We had just barely started to move with the traffic, so I couldn't have ramped up to more than 5 MPH. I was going too fast to avoid bumping him, though.

Dammit.

Luckily, he and I had the presence of mind to pull into the CVS parking lot rather than ruin thousands of other people's days by sitting in the middle of the road. Neither of us were hurt, thank goodness. His (already damaged) bumper had two bolt-shaped dents in it where my license plate pressed into it. I mentally crossed my fingers that he would be willing to overlook it and we could keep the insurance out of the situation. No luck. He insisted on exchanging information and told me he'd call them after he got situated in the morning.

Dammit.

He seemed like a level-headed fella. He said his concern was that the bumper had been pressed in beneath the outer facade and might require work. My concern is that my premiums will go up, I'll lose any safe driving discount I may have had, and an accident will be on my insurance record.

Dammit.

Meanwhile, the graceful curve of my front end is now marred by the license plate bolts being driven deeper into the bumper.

What a great way to start the day.

At Odds with Life

2009-10-21T13:12:00.003-04:00

During the course of any given day, it seems like I come at odds with a variety of inanimate objects. It's not just general clumsiness, though I'm sure I have plenty of that as well. It seems that inanimate objects go out of their way to frustrate, annoy, damage, or dismember me.

Today's example:
While driving back to work from picking up lunch at Chick-Fil-A, I had just disconnected my headset after talking with Stacy. In the process of grabbing my phone from its case, I managed to jar my drink with my elbow. This wasn't your everyday jar, though. No! I jarred with such ninja-like precision that only the maximum amount of mess could be the result. Through whatever confluence of events these inanimate objects seem to thrive under, the straw managed to place itself right under my elbow. No big deal with a paper cup. It would be just a little bit of pain in the elbow and a mild expletive and I'd be on my way. No, this was a Chick-Fil-A cup, made of styrofoam with a convenient break-away bottom and break away it did! My center console was covered in cookies and cream shake. I'm sure the gods of misfortune were cursing the fact that it wasn't a sticky soda.

"Ha ha! That's unfortunate, Scott!" I hear you say.

"Shut up, jerk!" I reply.

I set some napkins under it and mopped up the mess, all while driving mind you (don't worry, it's all in the reflexes, let it never be said that I'm not a safe and concientious driver. What? I'm not? What I was doing was the exact opposite of safe and concientious? Well, darn.) I quickly ate my fries so I could get something more solid under the mangled, jagged whole in the styrofoam and the gooey, dripping mess of shake. I then attempted to put the whole combination back in the bag so I could carry it easier. Naturally, the angle and dagger-sharp point of the bottom of the fries containter sheared right through the paper bag. I thought it was odd to see them grinding the edges of the fries containers on a whetstone in the drive-thru. This left me clutching the bag and cup awkwardly to keep the rest of the contents from spilling out on the way to my desk.

I'm a winner!

undeadWe Tshirt Numbered for Gaming

2009-10-15T14:53:00.001-04:00

undeadWe Tshirt Numbered for Gaming, originally uploaded by chopshopstore.

Any undead fans want to take a crack at naming the characters on Chop Shop's latest awesome "We" shirt? I need to get me the whole collection.

Sure, He Can Talk the Smacketh, but Can He Sing?

2009-10-01T09:13:00.003-04:00

Yup, another sporadic post on what used to be a less-sporadically updated blog. I've been having problems finding the time and inclination to post lately, not sure why.

But you didn't come here to listen to me whine about updating a blog that no one reads! You came here to see Thor's version of the Rubber Ducky Song*!

Rubber Duckie thou’rt the one,
Thou makest bathtime lots of fun,
Rubber Duckie I am awfully fond of thee,
Vo-vo-dee-o!

Rubber Duckie, joy of joys,
When I squeezeth thee, thou makest noise,
Rubber Duckie thou’rt my very best friend it’s true!

Oh, every day when I maketh my way to the tubby
I findeth a little fellow who’s cute and yellow and chubby!
Rub-a-dub-dubby!

Rubber Duckie thou’rt so fine,
And I am lucky that thou’rt mine.
Rubber Duckie, I would loveth a whole pond of,
Rubber Duckie, I am awfully fond of thee!

Oh, every day when I maketh my way to the tubby
I findeth a little fellow who’s cute and yellow and chubby!
Rub-a-dub-dubby!

Rubber Duckie thou’rt so fine,
And I art lucky that thou’rt mine,
Rubber Duckie I am awfully fond of thee!

* Somehow, during our sorting of his comics last night, Jon and I got on the subject of Thor's bathtime ducky. Don't ask me how, it just happened. This is the product of that conversation.

Movies for People that Hate Themselves

2009-09-03T07:35:00.005-04:00

What's that? A blog, you say? No. I don't have a blog. I think that if I had a blog, I'd know.

Oh. Well look at that, a blog. It's mine, you say? I used to update it sporadically? Huh, how about that. I guess I'll get to it, then.

Having never had a real theme for this blog, I sometimes lapse into long periods of inactivity punctuated by brief posts with viral videos and such. It happens. Most likely because even when I have time to update the blog, I'm easily distracted.

Oh! Look! A shiny Internet! No, wait, I was doing something, what was that? Ah yes, the blog.

Well, still lacking a coherent theme, I might as well add another entry into my semi-regular-but-mostly-sporadic movie reviews. This one is a rare gem as I review not a recent blockbuster, but an older flop.

Jon and I have been reading a column on The Onion's AV Club site called, "My Year of Flops" in which the author, Nathan Rabin, reviews, well, flops. Some he marks as secret successes, those that were critically and publicly panned but shouldn't have been written off. Others he labels as fiascos. Those are failures that not just failed, but failed spectacularly, giving the viewer some schadenfreude at the very least, I suppose. The last category is just plain dismal failures.

Rabin's reviews are pretty entertaining. I highly recommend checking out the archives. His review of the fiasco "Lady in the Water" prompted Jon and I to check the movie out last night, albeit with an excellent iRiff from Rifftrax.com to accompany us, shielding us from the worst of M. Night Shamblingplot's excesses.

For those of you interested in avoiding spoilers and wasting another precious portion of your time today, here's my summary from my Facebook status last night after watching the movie.

"Watching 'Lady in the Water' is like having M. Night Shamalamadingdong slam you repeatedly in the face with a crayon-written tome of plot."

I suppose there is a fine line between subtly leading your audience along the strands of your plot until you've got them hopelessly ensnared in an intricate web of allusions, symbolism, and tantalizing hints and just laying your plot bare, tweests and all, for the audience to see from the beginning. M. Night Chamois does not walk this line. He doesn't just cross it, either. He pole-vaults past the point of beating the audience with blatant symbolism, sticks the landing in the realm of bludgeoning the audience with every obvious plot point, and leaps up, chest welling in pride as he waits for the applause that will never come from an audience too bored to care about his self-aggrandizing back-patting.

Right! The review! So Paul "Sadsack" Giamatti's character, the stuttering and depressing Cleveland Heep (not the most ridiculous name in the movie, honest!) is the super in a dismal apartment building. He finds a narf (almost the most ridiculous) named Story (alias, Bryce Howard Dallas, yes, Opie's daughter) living in the pool. Naturally, he takes her in and clothes her in one of his shirts. Never any pants, shorts, sweats, or any sort of covering on her lower body, just the shirt. Not important, just a head-scratcher after an entire movie. Story is trying to "awaken" a specific human, which involves making him feel tingly inside and filling his head with ideas. Maybe that's why she never wears pants?

Story is fettered in her quest by arbitrary rules that M. Night Sheboygan parcels out whenever he feels the movie is progressing too smoothly. The biggest fetter also holds the dubious distinction of having the most ridiculous name, a nightmarish wolf-like creature made of grass and roots called (snicker) a scrunt.

Yeah, let's take the least assuming, most harmless noun we can think of, runt, add a couple of letters and BAM! You've got a fearsome beast of the night! Sorry M. Night Shaboopie, it's just that everything you do makes my eyes roll up to the back of my head.

Heep is tasked with finding Story's human and, as the retarded plot points are triumphantly slapped down on the table like cards in a $70 million game of gin, Story's special helpers. These include a healer, an interpreter, and a guild. In an epic tweest that we couldn't possibly have seen coming as soon as the characters were introduced one at a time, Heep fails miserably and gathers the exact wrong group of helpers. He does first succeed, however, to find Story's special friend. In a fit of egomaniacal self-insertion, M. Night Sham-WOW! cast himself as the genius writer whose book is destined to change the world. Everything, and I mean everything in this movie is as transparent as that mind-numbing bit of self-congratulatory dickery.

So Heep gets it all wrong and in a complete lack of symbolism and leading the audience (at least, last night's audience) to a complete "about time!" moment, he figures out the real cast of helpers. Our narf, excuse me, madam narf (so much more special than an ordinary narf!) Story gets picked up by the magical antlion (ugh, I wish is was an antlion) I mean Eatlon, or ginormous eagle. The J.G. scrunt (in an uncharacteristic bit of obfuscation, M. Night Shirley never tells us why it's a "J.G." scrunt, it just is, dammit! Hey, maybe that's the real tweest!) is destroyed(? Eaten? Dragged off? Treated to a make-over? I don't know) by the evil law keepers (yeah, solve that cognitive dissonance) the Tartutic (tree-dwelling monkeys made of vines. Don't ask me.)

In the one scene that M. Night Chazzpalminteri could have let symbolism speak for him but instead ruined earlier with more face-slamming foreshadowing, Heep says farewell to the strange pantsless lady from the water, the credits roll, and we will never ever get our 110 minutes back.

This movie hurt me. It was painful to watch. The only joy found here was in the uncommonly good riffing provided by the lovely Tristan, Tracy and Kevin from quiptracks. Thanks for the laughs, guys! I experienced literal pain from laughing so hard at Bill Irwin (Mr. Noodles to the preschool crowd) gobbling like a turkey. I don't think I'll ever see him without thinking of turkeys. I'm actually laughing now thinking about it.

So yeah, I was going to suggest that you never watch this movie. However, if you can snag the iRiff and just watch the turkey scene with Irwin near the end, do it. I give this movie three out of two thousand nine hundred sixty seven balls of gem-crusted healing poo on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Cute Overload!

2009-07-21T15:46:00.004-04:00

For those of you that don't know about him, Parry Gripp (YouTube channel, ParryGripp, oddly enough,) is the masterful musician that created The Girl from the Video Game Store for Attack of the Show on G4. For those of you that don't understand any of that, sorry, can't help you.

Those of you that know about AotS, Kevin, and Olivia would probably enjoy the AotS video. However, if you want to see something so cute that your brain asplode, watch on. Parry Gripp is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

If you don't find yourself singing "Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom," to yourself later today, then I have failed here.

The Earth Opening Up to Swallow Me

2009-07-20T19:30:00.001-04:00

Or just my backyard after a couple of weeks without rain? You decide!

Quasi-evil?

2009-07-17T15:30:00.001-04:00

Just 60 miles to pure eeeee-ville mileage.

PS3 At Last!

2009-07-17T09:36:00.004-04:00

I'm a bit excited to get home tonight. No, Publisher's Clearinghouse won't be waiting at my doorstep with a comicly-oversized check guaranteeing early retirment.

For those of you that don't know, Stacy and I had a deal. I wouldn't plunk the substantial amount of change down to get the PS3 until the next Final Fantasy game came out. When we made the deal way back when the PS3 was released, it was scheduled to come out the fall of 2009. Things changed, as they often do with video game releases (Duke Nukem Never, for instance,) and it's been delayed until Christmas.

However, my company bonus just came and happened to be a little more than Stacy was hoping for to pay bills. My wife, displaying her ever-gracious nature, gave me the green light for the purchase. I ordered the PS3 Tuesday and got it Thursday, how's that for standard shipping?

I got it all hooked up and messed around in the UI for a bit. The PS3 I bought came in a bundle with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, but I didn't have time to get into something like that before bed, so I spent an extra $5 to download PixelJunk Eden. If you have a PS3 and haven't played this game, I highly recommend it. It's a puzzle game of sorts, but doesn't really fall into that classification easily. Regardless, it was a lot of fun messing around with it before bedtime.

Now if only I had an HDTV to enjoy the higher resolutions the PS3 can display. No luck though, The PS3 came with the stipulation from Stacy that the next big purchase would be a refridgerator. Can't say I blame her, either, since ours doesn't exactly freeze things in the summer so much as give them a slight chill. Ice cream is more cream than ice in there, if you get my meaning.

Is It Safe?

2009-07-14T21:50:00.001-04:00

This mutant chip emerged from my bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. Luckily, I was paying attention to what I was shoveling into my maw. The dark area appears to be a 1/2" x 1" cheese powder tumor. I'm fairly cerain that consuming concentrated artificial nacho cheese powder in this quantity is fatal.

Hm. Maybe I should sell it on Ebay.

Thoughts on the Cinematic Merits of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

2009-06-26T07:28:00.006-04:00

I liked it.

Seriously.

I know the movie has been panned critically and by the Transformers nerds online, but I still liked it. You see, the critics and the haters of Michael Bay's Transformers have completely different expectations of the movies than I do.

I went to see giant transforming robots beat the crap out of each other and to see Megan Fox.

I saw those things.

They were good.

That was enough for me. I didn't need masterful plot development, deep characterization, or thought-provoking dialog. As a matter of fact, sometimes I don't want those things and this was one of those times. There were problems with the movie to be sure. Plot holes abound, juvenile fart jokes throughout, etc.

But none of those things could ruin the enjoyment of seeing Optimus Prime take on three decepticons and still kick tailpipe like Chuck Norris with frakking swords for hands.

So, critics, say what you will. I'll probably agree with many of your points, but that won't ruin my enjoyment of the movie. Michael Bay haters, rant all you want, your hatred only gives me power. Oh wait, not power, amusement. The rest of you, set your expectations on eye candy and enjoy the ride!

I give Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen forty-two out of forty-nine wrecking ball testicles on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Their Mere Existence Makes Me Shudder

2009-06-09T11:22:00.002-04:00

As learned from the June 12, 2009 Entertainment Weekly

Clash of the Titans remake
Piranha 3-D
Alien Prequel
New Moon

I tossed that last one on there as an afterthought. The first one was so horrible that words can scarcely describe it. Want to see a few more soul-numbing (or exciting! depending on your level of masochism) projects in the works? Check out this site I found on an ill-advised google about movie remakes.

http://www.themovieinsider.com/classic-remakeville/

Vicki to Me Earlier Today

2009-05-30T20:40:00.000-04:00

Daddy, what's worse, pink eye or black eye?

That was after Stacy came home from the doctor's diagnosed with pink eye. I think Stacy would rather have a black eye at this point.

2009-05-30T18:55:00.001-04:00

Vicki to me today:

"Daddy, which is worse, pink eye or black eye?"

This after Stacy came home from the doctor diagno

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The Biggest Film This Summer (So Far)

2009-05-15T08:57:00.005-04:00

I know you've all been wondering when I'd write it up. I mean, it's the biggest cinematic event of the summer so far. Of course, I've seen it. Heck, I've even watched it twice, it was that good.

You guessed it, I'm talking about Monsters Vs. Aliens. Zoe and I went on a daddy/daughter date to see it in 3D last night. It was pretty good on the second viewing. Sure, plenty of the jokes try too hard, but it's a cute movie and has a lot of great nods to the old sci-fi movies it's light-heartedly lampooning.

Not fooled, eh? Yeah, Star Trek.

It was fantastic.

Stacy, Susannah, Casey, Jon, Jim, Jim's older kids, and I caught it opening weekend. We went to see the IMAX experience during a late show on Saturday. Our mistake was getting there 10 minutes before the show. We sat in the front row.

The Front Row.

Do you know how big a closeup of someone's face is on an IMAX screen?

The pores, man, the pores!

Still, that could not dampen my enthusiasm for this film. On a whim, Stacy, Susannah, and I decided to see it again Tuesday night. This time we got there plenty early to avoid the front row. Just as awesome the second time, maybe more so.

I'm not going to bother to dissect it here. If you haven't seen it already, you should plan to see it. If you aren't planning on seeing it, then you're doing yourself a disservice.

As so many people have already said, this is not any old Star Trek movie. You don't need to be a fan of the old series. Heck, you don't even need to know who the characters are. This is a reboot and a beginnings story and it's done well. The performances were excellent (Karl Urban as Bones is my absolute favorite. Checkhov? Not so much.) The plot is good and the character motivations realistic. The music, while not even hinting at the old soundtracks until the closing credits, evokes grand adventure, tragedy, danger, excitement, and poignancy. The special effects are top-notch. Really, it's a fantastic sci-fi movie.

The only complaint I have about the nuts and bolts of the movie was the shaky cam fighting style. As I've mentioned in previous movie reviews, I'm not a fan. I think it's a lazy way of shooting action. Ostensibly, the reason behind shaky cam is to make the viewer feel as though they're in the fight, experiencing what it would be like as action flows to action. What it really does is allow the film maker to get really lazy about fight choreography. Who hit who? I don't know, but something actiony is happening!

Why does everyone look so short all the sudden? How'd I get up on this box? Hang on! What's that painted on the side? SOAP? Hold on one sec while I get down.

That's certainly not a deal breaker, though. My distaste for shaky cam rarely prevents me from enjoying a movie. Heck, I enjoyed all three Jason Bourne movies and they practically pioneered the shaky cam fight scene.

Go see this movie. Go for the action. Go for the space battles. Go for the character-driven story. Go for the excellent acting. Go for the summer blockbuster effects. Go for the sake of nostalgia. Go to see something new.

Then, go see it again.

I give Star Trek nineteen out of twenty-one Zachary Quinto's hands taped up to form the Vulcan salute on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Your Daily Dose of Awesomeness

2009-05-12T09:31:00.002-04:00

I post this video with no more commentary than this. It stands on its own.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Thanks for the drop, Clay.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-03T14:25:00.008-04:00

A bunch of us caught a Saturday matinee of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I was actually looking forward to this movie more than I thought I would. The trailers looked good and even though I grew out of my Wolverine fanboy stage a long time ago, I still have much love for the scrappy little Canadian.

Like all comic book adaptations of late (minus maybe Watchmen,) the movie does not follow the comic very closely. However, the movie did maintain many of the broad strokes as well as tying in with the other X-Men movies. Leading up the cast, as he should be, was Hugh Jackman. Jackman surprised me in the first X-Men movie as Wolverine, but ever since then I'd be hard pressed to imagine anyone else playing the runt in a live-action movie. However, because I think it'd be funny to see the difference between the live-action characters and their four-color counterparts, I'm going to give you a before/after of each one.

Liev Schreiber plays Wolvie's brother, Victor (the future Sabretooth.) This is one of those partings from the comics that the broad strokes don't cover. It's fine, though. I suppose if I were more of an anal-retentive nerd, I could be offended by the departure from the comics. However, what is true in the comics one day will most likely be ret-conned the next. So, who cares?

As different as these two are, I kinda enjoyed Schreiber's Sabretooth

William Stryker was recast, just as Sabretooth. This time, he's played by Danny Huston. Huston does a fine job. Stryker's not a hard character to understand. Sure, he's tormented a little bit, but other than that, he's your standard devious genocidal maniac.

Stryker the priest, meet Stryker the military man

The Blob has always been a favorite villain of mine. He's never really struck me as all that threatening. Sure, nothing can move the Blob, but he always seems to be taken out quickly by the good guys. It doesn't take Wolverine much time to take out the Blob in the movie either, but Kevin Durand is pretty durn entertaining to watch through the whole thing.

I think they gave the movie version bigger man-tits. Classy.

To the contrary, I have never been fond of Gambit. One of Wolverine's most famous lines is, "I'm the best at what I do, and what I do ain't pretty." Wolvie even gets to feed that line to his girl in the movie. What they don't explain is exactly what that is. Jon often jokes, and I agree with him, that what Wolverine does best is get his butt handed to him by Gambit. And it ain't pretty. Throughout the comics, Wolverine gets thoroughly trounced by the limber-wristed cajun, often while Gambit is vomiting forth "creole wisdom" about why Wolverine keeps losing. Gambit is one of those characters that we're supposed to think is a bad ass simply because we're told he's a bad ass. Gambit is the perfect example of The Wesley for me. Thankfully, he only kicks Wolvie's butt for a little while in the movie and has a relatively small part. Even so, I will probably never like Taylor Kitsch in light of his involvement with the character.

D-bag 1, meet D-bag 2

Ryan Reynolds plays Wade Wilson, a.k.a. Deadpool in the comics. In the movie? Well, I'll just let you watch it yourself and tell me. Reynolds is the perfect choice for W.W. The comic book Deadpool spouts off more quips and one-liners than Spider-man and Reynolds excels at such work. Unfortunately, he has relatively few lines in the movie. There is some confusion as to whether the climactic battle involves Reynold's character or not. You may find the answer to it by watching the short scene in the middle of the credits when you see the movie. You may not, though, since there are two such scenes and only one will play at any showing. Anyone here going to see it more than once to catch the other scene, if you're lucky? Marvel sure hopes so. I'm willing to bet you'll just do like I did and google it.

Ah Wade, we barely knew ye.

Baby Cyclops and Baby Emma Frost had short, but vital roles in the movie. They never meet in such a way in the comics, but like I said, who cares? I dug Tim Pocock Scott Summers. He did a good job and the character was used well. Tahyna Tozzi playing Emma Frost, not so much. She had weird lips and a weirder power. While in the comics, her main mutation is telepathy, her secondary mutation (discovered much later in continuity, again, who cares?) is diamond skin. We get to see that here, but it was an odd choice of implementation. Her skin transforms into a layer of faceted diamonds. Why faceted diamonds? It doesn't make much sense. Uncut diamonds, maybe. I believe in the comic, her entire body transforms into a diamond crystal, which is pretty badass. The faceted diamond look is pretty lame.

Yeah, I would rather have seen the one on the left, too, but that just wasn't in the cards this time.

That did it for the characters I recognized. The rest of the cast was rounded out with lesser known (to me) characters from the books. Some fell in line relatively close with their comic book counterparts, others not so much. John Wraith, played by Will i Am (of Moto Moto fame, natch,) was one such character. Apparently they got the power right, even his history. Ethnicity? Nah. Still, there'd be very little ethnic diversity in this movie if they had stuck with the originals.

Then we have Dominic Monaghan as Bolt. Bolt? Bolt. I never knew the character. After reading up on him online, I don't really care. I'm just glad they didn't go with Beak like I had originally heard. Beak sucks. Bolt was a'ight.

Agent Zero, played by David North, I am a little more familiar with. I never really got into the character, though. I certainly didn't have a problem with North's portrayal. I guess he had the power of shooting really good? I don't know.

Lastly, there was Silver Fox. Oops! I mean, Kayla Silverfox, played by Lynn Collins. I hadn't realized as I watched the movie that Silver Fox in the comics was romantically linked to Wolverine, as Kayla Silverfox is in the movie. She's even involved with him in the same misleading way we see in the movie. It was a nice touch, even if they got her powers and family relationships completely mixed up. I'll say it one last time, though, who cares?

Apparently, Silver Fox joined Hydra. Kayla Silverfox? Not so much.

Now that I've spent the last hour or so whipping up those side-by-sides, I'm going to dutifully gloss over the rest of the movie. The storyline was good. Better than I thought it would be. It had some great doses of clever misdirection and revelations. There was some poignancy, humor, pathos, and excellent action (Wolvie vs. Helicopter, FTW). The why's of Stryker's missions lead into the climactic battle on 3 Mile Island in NY. It was a good touch tying together the historical catastrophe and the events of the movie. Some of the dialog was a bit overly dramatic and forced, such as when Wolverine wedges in his "Best at what I do" speech with his girl.

Worst yet was the special effects gaffs. Sabretooth's wall-crawling and Emma's transformation being among the worst. The other being every character's unexplained acrobatic prowess. Some of the leaps and jumps characters performed, which are wholly unexplained by their powers, were just super-human in an unbelievable way. This is especially bad considering the real-world controversy surrounding this movie. For those of you that don't know (which should be very few, if any, reading this site, so I'll make this quick,) the movie was leaked online a month before release, sans most of the special effects. Many people saw it in its unfinished form. The movie studio freaked out, engaging the FBI to track down the culprit and crying about how much their profits would be hurt. I'm of the opinion that the profits were not affected much, but I won't get into that here. However, in order to entice those early viewers into the theater, the powers-that-be tacked on two different scenes at the end of the movie. The tricky thing was that only one ending would be shown per viewing. I'm not sure how well that worked. I would have rather them spent the budget on better special effects than bringing talent back out, setting up locations, and shooting new scenes. Ah well, the effects weren't all bad. Summer's eye blasts, Wolverine's fights, ::sigh:: even Gambit's telekinetic tricks were pretty.

While I dwelt a little bit on my complaints of the movie, they were minor compared to my enjoyment of the movie. I liked X-Men Origins: Wolverine and I think that if you enjoy superhero action movies, you'll like it, too.

I give X-Men Origins: Wolverine twenty-seven out of thirty-two snikts on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

P.S. Why you gotta take out the Hudsons like chumps, tho?

You Durn Kids! Get Off My Lawn!

2009-05-01T07:17:00.003-04:00

We I got home from picking up the car from the shop last night, I finally got up the motivation to work on the bald spot in the front lawn. Because we live next to the community's playground, kids use our yard as a shortcut to get there. You know, rather than walking the extra five feet to the path designed for it. Durn lazy kids! Anyway, it's been growing bigger every year. This year, I resolved to fix it. A couple of weeks ago when Jon and I were shopping for his new mower, I picked up a few items to fix the problem, and keep those durn kids off my lawn.

1 bag of grass seed/fertilizer combo
1 roll of biodegradable grass cover
2 bags of biodegradable grass cover stakes (Mmmm, steaks. No! stakes.)
6 yard stakes
1 spool of green yard twine

I had to rough up the bald spot with my lawn rake. What? It deserved roughing up! It was looking at me funny. Besides, that breaks up the scads of clay we have in our soil to help the grass seed find purchase.

I then emptied the whole bag on the bald spot, as well as a big patch of dead grass a few feet away that was new this year. I had hoped the bag would be enough to fix the shady spot under our tree on the other side of the stairs, but I'm not even sure I got down enough in the bald spot as it is. I'll be heading back to get more before long. After all, it's "guaranteed to grow anywhere!" They even had a picture of it growing on cement. I'll believe that when I see my lawn come back to life.

After watering the mixture to the advised level of saturation, Stacy and I fashioned snuggly blankets for to tuck in the baby grass. Ok, so it's not snuggly. The grass cover is made from some fibrous plant material woven into a biodegradable plastic mesh and further held together by some light twine. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make a comfortable bed spread. I have to say that the biodegradable stakes were pretty cool. I'm not sure how they work, because they seemed to be just like a non-biodegradable plastic stake.

Lastly, I plunged the yard stakes as far as they would go around the perimeter and surrounded the whole thing with two levels of twine. Now, I just sit back and wait. Oh, and water. Oh yeah, and yell at those durn kids to stay off my lawn!

The large patch is the main bald spot, the smaller one is the new patch of dead grass.

If you look closely, you can probably see the twine stretching between the stakes.

Also notice the ginormous, tree-like bush in the background. It's gotta be 8'+ at this point. That's what Jon will be bringing his chainsaw down to Manassas to trim.

The twine describes the most skewed hexagon you'll find on my lawn.

If Life Were a Musical, It Would Take a Lot of Work

2009-04-30T14:31:00.004-04:00

This is entertaining to say the least.

And for those musical haters out there, here's a classic SNL skit to bring on the laughs.

So Much Time, So Little Motivation

2009-04-29T14:22:00.002-04:00

Warning: One long, dry data dump on this last month's goings-on follows. You may want to skip this one if you're not obsessed with my life.

That's it? Everyone's gone? I'm all alone now? Good, on to the post.

It's been a long time. So long. It's just been one of those months. Either I haven't had the chance to post, or when I have, I've lacked the motivation. No longer. Here I am to bring things current.

Let's see, what happened this month?

We went camping for Spring Break. Stacy and I took the kids along with some good friends of ours and their kids, down to Virginia Beach. The First Landing campground is a short walk to the beach. Camping in early spring, you say? Who would do such a thing, you ask? Wasn't it cold, you wonder? Yes, not my idea, and frak yes.

I don't regret going, especially since some of those that went had good reasons to get away from Manassas for a few days. That said, it was testicle-shrinking cold during the first night. The temperature would have been tolerable with some bundling. It was the wind that sent the chills straight to the bone. A park ranger let us know that we'd be getting 40 MPH gusts over night, so we better stake down the tent real good. We stowed the entire camp (food, table, chairs, etc.) back in the vans overnight so we'd still have some of it the next day. Sure enough, we lost a few stakes overnight, but no one blew away.

The next day wasn't too bad. The wind had died down and the temperature was up a few degrees. We took a nice long walk on the beach with the kids. They found all sorts of cool shells and rocks. I didn't know their was such a high concentration of pumice and lava rock on the east coast. I don't even know what volcano is near enough to deposit the amount that the kids found. It was cool, though. That night was much more tolerable.

The next day was the best of the three. The sun was shining, we had a light breeze, it was perfect camping weather, and we had to go home. Ah well, it was a good time. The kids had a blast. Once I gather pictures from various sources, I'll get them onto picasa and plop in a slideshow.

We saw Monsters Vs. Aliens at Vicki's school-sponsored event. It wasn't in 3D, but it was better than I thought it would be. Either that, or I am becoming even easier to amuse than before. I tend to think not since I unfortunately caught the last 30 minutes of Twilight with Stacy and our friend Susannah this month. Guh. That is just a painful experience. The acting is either over-the-top or completely wooden. No chemistry. The story has as little bite as the so-called vampires that populate it. The special effects were worthy of Dr. Who circa 1970. I just feel bad for the huge number of fans that have been caught up in the books and movie. There's so much more material out there along the same lines but orders of magnitude better in terms of delivery. Thankfully, the helpful fellows at Rifftrax.com have released commentary for the movie, which should make it almost-watchable. I believe Jon and I are going to do that this week.

My car's emission inspection is due this month. I only have one more day to do it. I'm worried poor Nikki won't pass inspection this time. She doesn't spew as much oily smoke out as she did before, but I don't know how the inspector will take the engine idling problem.

I took Vicki to work for National Take Your Child to Work Day last week. We both had a blast. I think my favorite part was teaching her how to write a simple perl script. She told me that she wants to grow up and work at AOL now. How cute is that? I didn't bring her last year because I figured sitting in my cube watching me work all day would be boring. It turns out they have all sorts of activities for the kids. Vicki got to stand up front with the HR VP that hosted the event and help him lead the kids in some rousing "AOL! AOL! AOL!" chants. She even got $20 at Toys 'R Us for her trouble. We went around to various stations after that. One of them was the AOL studio in the basement of HQ where Regina Lewis does her appearances for news shows and promos. Regina gave her a dusting of make up and invited the kids to be interviewed. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for everyone to sit in front of the cameras, but Vicki got to see how everything was done there.

She also got to design her own video game for KOL. They had eight or nine computers set up in a row with MS Paint running for kids to draw their concepts. Poor Vicki didn't get to sit at one, even though she tried to camp out the chair. She was crushed. They had paper and crayons for the kids that didn't get a computer. I managed to convince her that drawing her idea would be much better than using the computer. After a little cajoling and cheering up, she dove in. Her picture turned out fantastic. She thought so too, after I pointed out how horrible the MS Paint pictures turned out. Getting a bunch of 6-12 year-olds to draw in Paint? It was pretty bad. Her game was "Snowflake Catcher", apparently an adaptation of a similar one online where you control a blue puppy that catches snowflakes with its tongue. It was a big hit with the guy running the booth. I wonder if KOL will have a snowflake catcher this winter?

At the end of the day, the hosts put on a movie for the kids and offered to let the parents head back to their desks for the duration to get some work done (yeah, right.) Vicki wanted me to stay with her, so we watched Racing Stripes. Well, we tried to watch it. The movie crashed about halfway through. It was very amusing watching the organizers trying to keep down the crowd of kids hopped up on sugary snacks with nothing to do. They kept asking them to "sit down," which was pretty funny considering the huge assembly room they had them hanging out in. I'm surprised as many of the kids were as well-behaved as they were. Vicki and I cut out after about 20 minutes of waiting for them to fix the movie. I smiled as we left the chaotic scene behind us.

It was a good day for both of us. I'm looking forward to bringing Vicki and Zoe next year.

We got the great news that Susannah is engaged after a year and a half of serious dating with her fiance. She's got her work cut out for her now. Congrats, Susannah!

Vicki and I also went to the Daddy/Daughter Masquerade Ball sponsored by the Girl Scouts. She made the masks for us one week at girl scouts. She took great pains to make sure my mask wasn't girly and had plenty of my favorite color on it. She was so cute and excited. The two daughters of our good friends, Paul and Paula, were there with their Pop-pop (grandpa). Vicki and I did a bunch of dancing. I stood by and watched her and the other girls dance for a couple of numbers while Pop-pop and I talked. We stopped by a 7/11 on the way home and got Slurpees to finish off the night.

We quietly celebrated Jon's, Casey's, and Casey's son's birthdays this month. Last weekend, Casey, Clay, Clay's son Jeremy, Stacy, and I attended a gun show in Dulles. It was a lot of fun. Casey got his birthday present from Jamie, a Springfield Xd. He was pumped. He and Jamie got to try it out at the range this weekend, sounded like fun. Stacy and I were going to pick up a shotgun while we were there, but the prices weren't right. We got a gun safe for our .22 pistol at home instead.

Now I have to decide between getting an affordable shotgun at Wal-Mart or a new sofa for the basement. Let's see, one is fun and ostensibly for protection, but won't get used that often. The other I'll sit on just about every day and allow us to get the Wii Fit out more often. I think I know what I'll be choosing. We've decided to go with THIS. It should be fun. Now I just have to save up for the shotgun.

I'm sure there's plenty more for me to talk about, but this has turned out pretty dry as it is. I'm just trying to get it all down without going into too much detail or humor. I'll make an effort to improve on the humor bit next post.

Important Post! Read This NOW!

2009-04-01T11:29:00.001-04:00

On this day in 1960, The first weather satellite, TIROS-1, was launched from Cape Canaveral.

That is all.

The Car, She Kills Me

2009-03-18T12:59:00.009-04:00

Man, I've sucked lately at posting any meaningful content. You have my apology, dear reader.

I've been meaning to write a post about my horrific experience working on my car two Saturdays ago, but I haven't thought of a way to make the story all that entertaining.

Also, it wasn't horrific as much as it was annoying. Mind-bogglingly, curse-promptingly, insanity-drivingly annoying. What's that Blogger? "Curse-promptingly" and "insanity-drivingly" aren't real words? Well, that just frakking proves my point, doesn't it?

Also, it wasn't so much as working on my car as it was banging on it with wrenches and screwdrivers in much the way I imagine an untrained gorilla would. Not a trained gorilla, of course. Now those are something to behold, nimbly reaching in with a socket wrench and plucking a part right out of the engine while displaying the requisite amount of crack to any who watch. Yessireebob, I do love me watching some trained gorillillas. (Oh, now that's funny, Blogger, you say that "gorillillas" is a word? You're a riot.)

Anyway, for those of you curious about the particulars, here you go. (EDIT: this is going to take a while, make yourself comfortable or go watch something entertaining on YouTube.) My car has been idling around 250-500 rpm lately. Those of you that pretend to understand about cars can stop thinking, "That's normal for most cars," because it's not for mine. My car isn't comfortable unless it's idling between 750 and 1000, so that's enough from you. Who's telling this story anyway? Good. Now then, it idled like a Katharine Hepburn in her later years. Not good. After cleaning out the mass airflow sensor (two tiny little strips of metal that sit on the engine in the path of the incoming air,) I tried it again. I've had problems with the air flow sensor throughout the life of the car, but it wasn't the problem this time.

A few googles later found me pricing a new idle control valve. This piece also sits on the engine, but it has coolant running through it. My father-in-law, Neil, got wind of my problem and found me a great bargain for the valve on eBay (thanks again, Neil!) Replacing the valve should have been as simple as draining the coolant from the radiator, taking out the four screws that held the old valve on, mounting the new one (yes, Jon, I said "mounting",) and refilling the coolant.

Hah.
Since these things rarely translate well through the written word, that is a sarcastic "hah" laden with tones of disgust, annoyance, and a seething anger - your friendly neighborhood blog editor

First off, I sabotaged myself. Since it's been a few years between air flow sensor problems and I'm an idiot that didn't RTFM, I had tried to get the torx security bolt out of the idle control valve mistakenly thinking I was working on the sensor. Here's what a torx security bolt looks like:

See that little peg in the middle of the head? If you have the right tool:

taking it out is a snap. However, me being the idiot that I am (see above) and not having one, I didn't look hard enough for one. Instead, I figured I could just drill the peg out and use a normal torx wrench.

Hah.
See above - your friendly neighborhood blog editor

As you might imagine, the drill plan didn't work out that well. I stripped the crap out of that screw. It was so bad that nothing I owned would fit the gouged hole good enough to grip it. I even resorted to pounding a chisel into the head to create a makeshift channel for a flathead screwdriver. The screw was so bound up that I still couldn't budge it.

That was months ago. Soon afterward I figured out that I was working on the wrong part and remembered that we had gotten rid of the annoying (and probably necessary) torx security bolt on the air flow sensor. Heh. Oops.

As I said, though, the sensor wasn't the problem. Fast forward to two weeks ago as I'm trying once again to get the bolt out. Our local True Value Hardware is actually pretty cool. They have much more hard to find items than Home Depot (including the torx security bits I needed, natch.) I picked up a handy little bit for my drill that is supposed to burnish a whole in the bolt, then pull the bolt out. It was only $15.00 (did I say only!? wth?) I burnished the hole up to the prescribed point, but I was at an awkward angle because of the placement of the bolt holes in the valve.

The angles were so awkward...(this is where you shout, "How awkward were they?") The angles were so awkward that a passing lanky fifteen-year-old boy with acne, knobby knees, and a cracking voice peered in and said, "You're boned!" Hah hah. Thank you. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

The awkwardness proved too much for the fancy $15 bit and it snapped in half quicker than your last matchstick on a cold winter night when your only hope for survival is getting that camp fire lit, or church burning, or whatever floats your boat, I don't know.

I hung my head in defeat and returned to the hardware store in supplication. The helpful folks there sold me a $35 set of bolt extractors, some needle-nose vice grips, an Easy-Out tool, and some penetrating spray. The guy there felt bad enough for me that he gave me a discount on everything but the extractors with the understanding that if anything else worked before those, I'd return them for a full refund.

Alot of penetrating spray, jimmying with the vice grips, and some "percussive maintenance" later, and the bolt finally gave way. It complained every step, but I finally managed to extract it with the vice grips. The extractors had too wide of an edge to fit in next to the valve [damn awkward angles! (typo: awkward angels would make a great name for a band.)] All that remained were three philips-head bolts and the valve would be free!

You can sense it, right? You know the other shoe is about to drop now, don't you? Well pin a rose on your nose, because you're right.

The even more awkwardly-angled rear-bottom (no, they're not the same thing, and get your mind out of the gutter, Jon.) bolt was bound in the bolt hole as well. The head stripped immediately.

Rizzle pizzle flotsam jetsam razzle frazzle!

I try to curse creatively, at least I can accomplish something that way.

More penetrating spray, percussive maintenance, and wrenching with the vice grips ensued. I actually stripped the tips of the vice grips of their ridges. In desparation, I took a couple of healthy whacks at the valve itself to see if it would loosen the bolt. After a full hour of struggling, the bolt finally moved. It took another few minutes to wrestle it off while trying to fit my hand and the vice grips in the small cavity around it.

At last I had freed the offending valve. One look inside indicated the problem. One of the rubber washers (and there were a few) had been pushed up into the valve itself. It had been that way long enough for the rubber to harden and retain its shape even after I pushed it back down into place. I don't know what caused it, but it must have just recently gotten to the point of affecting the engine.

I installed the new valve with hex bolts. Take that, crappy philips-head bolts! Refilling the radiator took a bit longer and all of the jug and a half of the 50/50 antifreeze mixture I had on hand, since I flubbed the steps. Oh well, I was just happy to be done with it.

Six hours after I started, I shut everything down and closed it all up (forgetting my hex wrench in the sill below the windshield wipers in the process, of course.)

I started the car with some apprehension the next day. The idle problem doesn't happen until the car is fully warmed up. It was Sunday morning, but I needed the car to pick up the missionaries for our early morning meetings. On the way to their apartment, I noticed something new.

Yup, all was not well. Now, whenever I'm in neutral, the car idles rhythmically between 2500 and 3000, then revs up to 3000 for a few seconds before settling down to a rather high 1500 rpm idle. I wasn't sure if this is an improvement. What's more, it now seems to be getting gas even when I'm coasting in gear.

So now I'm faced with the possibility that fixing one problem has revealed and/or caused a new one. Has the car just become accustomed to the idle problem over the years and the fix suddenly thrown the whole system out of balance? Did I do something wrong in the installation of the new valve? Can I fix it?

Who knows? Could be? Absolutely not!

This sucker is going to the professionals next. I'm done.

The Hawks Family Tree

2009-03-15T13:51:00.002-04:00

Vicki and I drew up the family tree after she asked me what the word, "generations" meant. She's quite the artist. The tree and words are mine, everything else Vicki did.

Tristram's Blessing Day

2009-03-07T11:57:00.001-05:00

Stacy posted some of these on her blog, but I'm posting them here, and there's nothing you can do about it! Nyah nyah nyah.

Look Around You. Will. You. Just. Look?

2009-03-06T08:24:00.004-05:00

I was told by an amusing cartoonist to seek out the rest of these and that I wouldn't regret it. I'm going to do so, because this is one of the funniest things I've seen all week and I watched Bender's Game with Jon Wednesday.
Thanks, Adam Koford, proprietor of Hobotopia.com! (Also a funny site, if you like lolcats, which I do, so this works out nicely for me.)

Sporadic Post #259

2009-02-23T08:21:00.004-05:00

Not much has been going on this last week. Those of you that follow Stacy's blog know that Tristram had his checkup and weighed in at 11 lbs, 12 oz. That's a gain of 2 lbs, 10 oz. in four weeks. The kid's a healthy chunk. We'll be blessing him at church next Sunday. For those of you interested in coming, the blessing will be around 9:00 AM here.

Now, just to pad out the post, LINKDUMP! Here's a little list of my personal time wasters in no particular order:

Topless Robot - geek blog (sometimes terrifying, mostly funny)
OlviaMunn.com - geek goddess Olivia Munn's blog (almost never terrifying, mostly funny, always hott, yes, hott, two Ts, live with it.)
Slacktivist: Left Behind - A deeply insightful and not at all flattering maxi-review of the Left Behind books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins (often funny, especially in the comments, popularity of the books actually rather terrifying)
Penny Arcade - The original geek/nerd web comic, still the best (always funny)
Sinfest - social commentary web comic (always funny)
I Can Has Cheezburger? - lolcats, if you don't know what they are, check it out (often funny, sometimes just cute)
I Has a Hotdog - loldogs, see above (plus this just made me lol)
rofflrazi - lolcelebs (more hit and miss than the first two, but still mostly funny)
Totally Looks Like - comparison pictures of celebs and unlikely look-a-likes (example: Christina Ricci totally looks like Melon Cat, just about as hit and miss as rofflrazi)
Graph Jam - lolcharts (lolcats for the office set, often funny)
Fail Blog - Everything from Epic Fails to So Much Fail, It's Full of Win (almost always funny and often a little horrifying)
Engrish Funny - Wacky attempts at English, mostly from our Pacific neighbors, the perrenial whacked-out Japanese (almost always funny, very mystifying)
xkcd - Geeky stick figure comic strip (always funny)
Head Trip - Pretty eclectic comic strip with very nerdly leanings (mostly funny with some attempts at a comic-within-a-comic that's hit and miss)

The very astute/bored among you will probably notice that many of those are related sites. Some enterprising and insightful people put their noodles together, figured out a pretty good formula for getting laughs, and ran with it. There are a couple of other related sites in their commune, but I don't frequent them.

The Mouth of Sauron: the Early Years

2009-02-16T17:34:00.001-05:00

That is all.

Very Taken with Coraline

2009-02-13T07:53:00.003-05:00

I know, I know, the title is very similar to Jon's post on the same subject, but there's only so much you can do with the two titles, so that's what you get. Don't judge me.

As the title implies, Jon and I caught a double-feature of Taken and Coraline this week. I'm going to start off saying that I enjoyed both of them immensely. I thought I would enjoy Taken and I was fairly certain I would enjoy Coraline. I'm gratified that both lived up to expectations.

We watched Taken first. For those that don't know, it features Liam Neeson as an ex-black-ops guy with a daughter just reaching adulthood. She gets kidnapped while on a visit to Paris, while on the phone with her ex-black-ops dad, natch. The trailer features Neeson's response to the kidnapper, which pretty much sets up the whole movie. Here, watch it yourself and you'll see what I mean.

Damn, Neeson can do chilling. This movie is what you would get if you married Schwarzenneger's classic Commando with the Jason Bourne trilogy and cast Neeson in the lead.

I give Taken thirty-four out of thirty-seven dead kidnappers on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything. If it doesn't sound awesome to you, there's a good chance that you're dead inside.

If that's the case, then Coraline may be the very thing you need. If the magical world that Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick create using the stop motion style Selick is so well known for from The Nightmare Before Christmas can't melt your cold dark heart, nothing can.

Coraline is a children's book by Gaiman. Well, as close to a children's book as Gaiman gets. Some children would love it, I'd daresay. I'm afraid it would scare the bejeezus out of my kids. Coraline is a little girl recently moved into an old house. An old russian acrobat, Mr. Bobinski, rents an apartment upstairs where he trains a grand mouse circus. Two faded stage actresses, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, rent an apartment in the basement where they care for their little angels (scottie dogs, some a little closer to angels than others.)

Neglected by her parents and bored to tears, Coraline is thrilled when she finds a secret door to another world. This world is remarkable like her own, but perfect in every way. On the other side of the door is the same house with the same people, but different. Her "other mother" and "other father" are attentive and caring, satisfying her every whim. The garden outside, instead of an overgrown heap of vegetation is a colorful, musical homage to Coraline herself. Upstairs, Bobinski's marvelous mouse circus is a sight to behold. Downstairs, Spink and Forcible put on a fantastic stage show culminating in a trapeze act with Coraline in the middle.

It's too bad that there is a sinister motive to all the perfection. Not everything in the other world is as perfect as Coraline's other mother would have her believe.

Coraline is voiced by Dakota Fanning. I've never been a big fan of hers, but she gives the character a good backbone and allows the viewer to sink into the experience rather than making the voice more important than the character. Jon has some issues with her accent, having come from that region. I understand where he's coming from. It seemed to me like she was aping Fargo more than a dialect, but it certainly wasn't a deal breaker.

Teri Hatcher voices Coraline's mother and other mother. The other mother has the most and some of the best lines, naturally. She did a good enough job losing herself in the character. For a while I thought it was Drew Barrymore doing the voicework. John Hodgman of "I'm a PC" and The Daily Show fame plays Coraline's father. Although, for a special music number, John Linnell of They Might Be Giants takes over. It's as delightful as the rest of the movie.

We also have Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French as Spink and Forcible. Having long since proved their chemistry as a comedy duo in the UK with shows like Absolutely Fabulous, they work their considerable charm here as well. Keith David plays a wise black cat that helps Coraline throughout the adventure. He's one of those, "Oh! That guy!" actors. He's been in tons of stuff. Ian McShane voices Bobinski. He's another like Keith David. Bobinski is pretty entertaining as he delivers his lines while bouncing around the screen with his lanky frame and beet-shaped body. A new character created for the movie, Wybie, is played by Robert Bailey Jr. It appears the movie execs wanted a counterpart for Coraline. It certainly didn't detract from the movie, so no big deal there.

Selick does an amazing job at bringing Gaiman's world to life in Coraline. From the dismal rain of the real world to the vibrant colors of everything in the other world. A great moment in the book is when Coraline leaves the immediate vicinity of the other house and things start to abstract. The trees become less like trees and more like the concept of trees. That is exactly what you see on the screen.

Technically brilliant, sparkling cast, witty dialog, and exciting plot combine to make Coraline well worth watching. If you can get to a 3D theater to do so, more the better.

I give Coraline six out of six button eyes on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything. Go see it, just preview it before taking the youngsters.

Modern, Cool Nerd

2009-02-06T20:22:00.004-05:00

Your result for The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test ...

Modern, Cool Nerd

74 % Nerd, 65% Geek, 48% Dork

Modern, Cool Nerd
For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Thanks to Jon for the link to the test. Here, take it yourself: The Nerd? Geek? Dork? Test

Toilet Follies

2009-02-06T16:40:00.006-05:00

On one of the first days home after the baby arrived, Stacy, Stacy's dad, Neil, and I took a trip to Home Depot to pick up some home improvement materials. Stacy wanted to get the microwave replaced, the basement bathroom painted, a ceiling fan installed in the playroom, a new kitchen light installed, and some other various wiring jobs done while her dad was still out visiting.

Laden with a new fan, a microwave/range hood combo, outlets and light switches, we arrived home ready to start on the kitchen light. We were going to replace the round two-bulb fixture with a 6', four-bulb florescent fixture. I was excited. I've hated the lighting in the kitchen ever since we moved in.

Naturally, Jo, Stacy's step-mom, had news that would change my immediate plans upon our arrival home. It turns out Scarlett had clogged the toilet upstairs. She's a super pooper! We're used to the toilet clogging, though. It gets clogged if you think about flushing more than a couple of squares. I shrugged and headed upstairs to plunge it, and plunge it, and plunge it, and plunge it, well, you get the picture. It wasn't a normal clog, it was plugged in such a way that the water could slowly leak out past the clog.

Next step was the snake we bought for the kitchen sink months ago. It runs off the drill, so I originally thought it would work there. It didn't work on the kitchen sink then and it didn't work on the toilet this time. Like its namesake, it would just coil back on itself. I had the ~~flushing~~ sinking feeling that I would have to disassemble the whole thing, which is never a guaranteed fix.

Ah well, I was already resigned to fixing it, whether that meant replacing the toilet (right, Travis?) or managing to fix it on my own. I shut off the water and set about bailing the remaining water with a 3 oz. bathroom cup.

After the bailing

Next came removing the tank. That was easy. I've done it a couple of times, so I was pretty confident with that step.

This is my toilet topless. Don't get any ideas, perv

I was ready to take the bowl off. Well, not really ready. I had never removed the bowl and was worried that I might drop and break it, cause a leak (heh, cause a leak where I take a leak,) or cause some other minor disaster.

Toilet? What toilet?

Thankfully, my father-in-law had to run back to Home Depot for a couple of missing items, so he was able to buy me a new wax ring. With the toilet successfully relocated to the tub, I was ready to work.

The patient awaits...

At first glance, I thought I could make out a valve of some sort from the bottom. That didn't make sense, though. Why would a toilet have a valve? As soon as I touched it with the snake, though, if fell deeper into the pipe. Curious. The snake let me down again, proving thrice-worthless. A straightened coat hanger did the trick, though. I was soon fishing out flushable wipe after flushable wipe.

Scarlett's contribution to the effort, a stack of wipes at least five high

I fished around until I couldn't feel anything else on the end of the hangar. No "valve" though. Fearing I would be defeated and have to replace the bowl completely, I tried one last thing in desperation. I lifted the bowl and shook it over the tub. Something fell out with a clatter. I looked down in disgust at a filthy, corroded circular piece of metal.

Look closely at the culprit, all will soon be revealed

It turns out that the piece of metal was a tin lid to a coin bank, a pink lid at that. The color was significant for a very good reason. None of my girls have ever owned such a bank, so I knew it wasn't one of them. The previous owner was a single mom with a adolescent son, so I was fairly certain it wasn't them. It could only have been deposited by someone that lived here before them, who knows how long ago?

All this time, the bank lid would act as a check valve. If too much was flushed down the toilet at once, it would clog up. Once plunged, the force of the water and debris would swivel the lid sideways and let the detritus flow by. It took Scarlett's stack of wipes to clog it in such a way that we couldn't plunge it.

With the clog finally removed, I painstakingly cleared off the old wax ring. I'm not sure how long it had been there, but I couldn't wash my hands enough to feel clean afterward. I installed the new wax ring, anchored the bowl, replaced the tank, turned the water back on, and stepped back as I flushed, so the geyser of water wouldn't hit me.

Oddly enough, there was no geyser. Not even a trickle of water seemed to leak from the many possible places on the toilet. There was no way I went through all of that and came out with a fully-functioning toilet, was there? And yet, there it was, flushing like it had never flushed before and nary a leak. Don't worry, I'll pay for my good experience later. The Universe lets no positive event go unpunished.

Fully installed and ready to flush!

Tristram's First Digital Photo Album

2009-01-25T19:47:00.003-05:00

Here's the first few photos taken of Tristram. More to follow as other cameras are emptied of their digital payload.

Please Welcome Tristram Scott Hawks

2009-01-22T11:52:00.001-05:00

Tristram was born at 10:56 AM EST. He is 9 lbs 2oz and at least 21" long. Mother and baby boy are doing great. Thanks everyone for your support and love.

Play Street Fighter on YouTube

2009-01-20T16:29:00.004-05:00

Topless Robot dropped this via somebody else. I'm not going to bother checking references all the way back to the originator, suffice it to say that it is awesome.

Thrill at the realistic animation (stop-motion at its finest!) Marvel at the exotic locales (is that a toilet floor in E. Honda's level?) Gape in awe at the interactivity that only Web 2.0 could bring you (okay, I just threw up a little bit in mouth at that bit of buzzword nonsense.)

Just choose your opponent, then choose your attack when the buttons light up. As TR said, it's the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure for the modern age.

Captain America, the Shiftless Bum, Finally Gets a Job

2009-01-16T11:23:00.001-05:00

For those of you that aren't fans of comic books, the Kevin Smith movie Clerks, or both, this will probably go right over your heads. For the rest of you, enjoy!

Back with Spirit and Thing You Shouldn't Do #8

2009-01-05T14:48:00.005-05:00

Hello, hello, hello! Have a good holiday? Ready for the new year? Yes? No? Don't care? Lovely!

I was going to use this space to write my thoughts and feelings on The Spirit, but Jon beat me to the punch by like - almost two weeks. He also hit all the points I wanted to make, so there's little point in doing it again. What he said about the movie goes for me, too. Also, he did this, which blows any commentary I have about the movie, at least about Scarlett Johansson in the movie, out of the water. So, well done there, Jon.

On to -
Thing You Shouldn't Do #8:
Take a sleeping aid on the same night as your spouse.

Why? Because ten minutes after you do, your kid is going to get out of bed and vomit all over the place. Oh, and another one of your kids will have nightmares and crawl into bed, proceeding to kick and flail around all night.

Seriously.

Last night, in an effort to fix our whacked schedules so we could function in a work week, I took a Unisom and Stacy took half of one (previously prescribed to her while pregnant with Vicki as part of an anti-nausea regimen.) Naturally, a few minutes later, Zoe stumbled into the room complaining of pains in her abdomen. Stacy, the wise woman that she is, did the nausea check and rushed her to the bathroom before chunks blew. She was up for another hour with stomach pains, but they seemed to ease off and she fell to sleep. An indeterminate amount of time passed before I was rudely jerked awake by a pair of little bony knees curled up into my back. Scarlett had nightmares and crawled into bed. She was snuggled up with Stacy, which meant I was the target of any flailing limbs. Being too tired to fumble with my sleep machine and lug her back to her bed, also knowing that it was only a temporary measure, I dropped back into slumber. It was pretty fitful, as I would be awakened by sporadic thrashing from Scarlett throughout the night.

All in all, not a good way to start a work week after nearly two weeks of vacation.

Zoe seems a bit better, but we're going to have her checked out if the pain comes back. I'm always paranoid of untreated appendicitis or worse when it comes to those nebulous pains in the abdomen of my kids.

Anyone else have a return from vacation story they'd like to share?

The Office Pranks Are Good For the Soul

2008-12-23T11:37:00.003-05:00

I'm just a crazy posting fool today. I can't help it, though. This has got to be one of the best compilations on YouTube. For those of you that don't know about the television show, The Office, shame on you. Dwight is the office dweeb/jerk. Jim is his foil. What you see here are a few of the pranks Jim has played on Dwight over the years. Look for comedic gold at 0:47.

You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry, You Better Not Try to Visit Santa

2008-12-23T10:52:00.003-05:00

We're all ready for Christmas here. The house is decorated, the presents wrapped, the kids excited. We tried to take the girls to see Santa yesterday.

That was a mistake.

We knew the mall would be busy, but we figured going at 4:00 would be tolerable. We were wrong. The place was already packed. The line to see Santa went past the queue and into the mall corridor. The people past the end of the queue were going to be left out until 6:00, since that was when Santa would get back from his dinner break.

We bagged it.

We took the girls to pick something out for themselves from the Disney Store instead. All told, we spent the same amount of money that we would have at Santa. The worst was yet to come, though. We hurried out to our van in the blustery cold. We had parked on the top level of the garage because we knew we'd be able to find a spot there. That was a mistake. Halfway down to the next level, we hit a jam. Every aisle of the garage was filled with people trying to leave. Most people were nice enough to shuffle fellow cars in fairly, though a few people were jerks about it. The biggest problem was the exit from the garage dumped out onto a street that connected to the main drag. The traffic light on that street was really short, so not only did we have multiple exits from the garage dumping out on the same street, but the light would only let a few cars off the street at a time.

It took us a full hour to leave the garage.

We decided not to head to the temple to see the Christmas lights like we had planned. Next year we'll plan a little better.

As for the holiday, our spirits still aren't dampened. We love Christmas in the Hawks home. I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

The Thundercats That Could Have Been

2008-12-23T09:24:00.003-05:00

Not much to say about this trailer that hasn't already been said elsewhere. It is awesome on many levels. Thanks to Topless Robot for the drop and WormyTV for the video.

Spiders, Why Did it Have to Be Spiders?

2008-12-15T07:18:00.003-05:00

This morning, I caught sight of a spider hanging out in the corner of the shower. It was waving it's little forelegs as if to say, "Yeah, I'm a spider. So what? You wanna fight about it?"

I hate spiders in the shower.

About 14 years ago, I was minding my own business, taking a shower. I had just finished rinsing the shampoo out of my hair and had opened my eyes. I saw spots in my vision. Things are a little blurry without my glasses, so I didn't really make anything out of the spots. I figured I had rubbed my eyes too vigorously to get the water out.

That was, until I noticed the spots were moving down slowly. One was right in front of my face. I took a closer look and noticed that it was a tiny little baby spider. That meant, you guessed it, that all the other spots were the same thing. They were all around me.

I freaked out.

I hopped out of the shower as fast as I could and sprayed those suckers down the drain. Yeah, they were just baby spiders, probably couldn't even hurt a fly, yet, but they were all over. I had been well-taught of the dangers of spiders from a particularly horrible scene in Something Wicked This Way Comes and the entire movie Arachnaphobia. Them spiders had to die.

And so did this morning's shower visitor. I accepted his challenge, and promptly washed him down the drain. Of course, I'm sure his spidery family will get revenge on me by crawling into my mouth while I'm sleeping.

A Post! A Post? Yes! A Post!

2008-12-08T07:36:00.004-05:00

Bleh. I feel so behind in posting. Much has happened in the past month and I have little time to post about it. Let's see if I can remember the highlights.

Stacy's belly has stretched to amazing proportions with our unborn son. We have settled on the name, Tristram Scott Hawks. The name was inspired by a favorite author of mine, Neil Gaiman, whom I have mentioned a few times before. My initial attempts at getting a Scott Jr. were shot down. On other fronts, Stacy is constantly busy with church, PTO, and HOA responsibilities. Inbetween all of this, she still manages to be a wonderful mother, wife, and friend.

Vicki is in girl scouts and 2nd grade. She's constantly amazing us with how mature and caring she is. I don't remember being anywhere near as conscientious at 7 years old. Zoe seems to be come out of her shell a bit more lately. She interacts with her fellow students and teachers in preschool, and did so faster this year than with her other class last year. It's my hope that she won't grow up being as painfully shy as I was. Scarlett is still a big personality in a tiny package. She just turned 3 and is queen of all she surveys. She's got a real soft, sweet side that many people don't see. We are still learning how to coax it out of her.

Had a fantastic Thanksgiving at the McCoards' house. We cracked our laptops afterwards and threw down on some Diablo 2 multiplayer goodness. It's an old game, but we had so much fun playing it that we've gotten together two more times since then to play some more. I'm looking forward to Diablo 3.

Saw Madagascar 2 and didn't hate it. Some of the jokes were pretty good. King Julian and Moto Moto stole the show.

Saw Suantom of Quolace and enjoyed it thoroughly. Still no gadgets or Q, but Bond was in top form. It was interesting to see the first true Bond sequel, which picked up directly after the last one, rather than a separate adventure to add to the series.

The new phone I want came out, the HTC Fuze. It's a slick piece of technology that may elude me, considering its hefty pricetag. Stacy is determined to get it for my Christmas present, but I'm not sure if that will, or should, happen.

My good friend Jon and I have been watching Riff Trax every week. While I thoroughly enjoy the experience, there are some movies we've seen that were not meant for mortal eyes. To whit, Battlefield Earth, Batman and Robin, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Star Wars Holiday Special, and especially Troll 2 should be cremated and rocketed into the cold recesses of space, never to be seen again.

Participated in a parade mostly by accident. Vicki was in the Manassas holiday parade with her girl scout troop. After they passed by our vantage point, I had to get to the end of the route to pick her up. A couple of groups ahead of her was Karen, a good friend of ours. When I caught up with her, she asked me to walk with their group to the end. As the sidewalks were effectively clogged, the only direct path to the end was with the parade, and good company along the way didn't hurt, I took her up on her offer. Incidentally, her group represented her church. So if anyone from my ward saw me walking with them, no, I have not converted.

Speaking of which, I received a new calling at church. I am now the Ward Mission Leader. That means I get to make sure the missionaries in our ward are taken care of and I coordinate ward member missionary activities. It is a daunting task, one that I'm not sure I'm up to, but also one that I'm going to dive into and do my best.

I recently finished the first phase of a project at work that is going to dominate my working life for the next few months. I'm not especially looking forward to the rest of it, but that's the lot I have for now. My company has yet to be purchased. There have been no rumors of layoffs. It looks like I'll be safe for this holiday season. I'm done with classes for my bachelors degree in IT. I now just have 8 elective credit hours to finish. I will be submitting technical certifications as credit and will hopefully have all that done before too long.

I hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday season. It may be a while before I really get any more meaningful posts here.

Welcome to December

2008-12-03T10:04:00.003-05:00

Was that a tumbleweed that just rolled by? Yup, this place feels deserted. It's not though, just in hibernation. Here's December's demotivational message to tide you over.

GET TO WORK
You Aren't Being Paid to Believe in the Power of your Dreams.

Yes sir, poster sir! Getting to work!

A Little Bit of Awesome

2008-11-25T09:38:00.003-05:00

I know, it's been a while. I'm afraid I don't have time for a proper entry today, either. I just wanted to drop this bit of awesome on your eyeballs, courtesy of Topless Robot. Geek out and enjoy!

The Something of Boris

2008-11-11T08:38:00.007-05:00

For those of you that know me, you probably know that I really dig James Bond. That's why I'm fairly excited for The Quantum of Solace coming out this Friday. Here is a sneak peek at the unofficial Quantum of Solace theme song.

Thanks to Clay and Ain't It Cool News.

In case you miss any of the lines:

Lyrics to Quantum Of Solace :
He's got a gun and great big man-tits
He's got jug-ears and tiny trunks
Dame Judi Dench is FURIOUS with him!
He's gone completely out to lunch

The Quantum of Solace! (The Quantum of Solace!)
I don't know what that means! (What does it mean?)

He's having flash-backs in black and white
No more raised eyebrows, no more quips
He's got the stunt team from the Bourne films
and lots of product sponsorship

The Suantum of Quolace! (The Suantum of Quolace!)
Did I get it confused? (I got it mixed-up!)

He's nearly dead or really nearly
It's much more gritty than before
No silly gadgets, just lots more fighting
with that French bloke that does parkour

The Thingy of Whatsit! (The Something of Boris!)
I forgot what it's called! (Is that what it was?)

Sometimes I wish Roger Moore would come back
with an underwater car or some kind of jetpack
or a hover-gondola and a Union Jack
Forget it, mate, it's not the '80s!
He'd rather kick you in the face!
We've got a new Bond for the naughties
because the world's a TERRIBLE place!

The Quantum of Solace! (The Quantum of Solace!)
I've written it down! (I'll remember it now!)

Me No Remember to Post November

2008-11-05T07:19:00.004-05:00

I took this back on the third, then promptly forgot to post it. Welcome to November! My favorite part of this one how the picture so aptly enforces the caption.

Halloween Pictures (Finally!)

2008-11-03T21:55:00.007-05:00

Finally got around to transferring, editing, and uploading the photos from the different Halloween activities this year.

First up, we have the trunk or treat at our church. We joined up with a friend of ours and her family and came as the characters from Clue. Those of us that weren't characters from the game wore a weapon on the front and a room on the back. It was a lot of fun building the costumes. The payoff was a little more disappointing. The group costume competition at our church is generally pretty fierce, especially between the Waltons (our allies this year) and the Beatty's. However, for the double whammy this year, the Beatty's couldn't make it, and there was no group category. Ah well, the kids had fun anyway.

Next up, we have the 8th Annual Hawks Halloween Party. We had a really good turnout this year with four other families attending. The Waltons were coming, so we all donned our Clue outfits, only to find that there was a little miscommunication and they had decided to come in individual costumes. With less than half of the Clue board represented, our costumes needed quite a bit of explanation. We really slacked off on the pictures this year. I didn't even get a good one of the food spread. The funnest part was using dry ice on our blood and eyeball punch. What I didn't realize is that putting more dry ice in after the bubbles died down would eventually freeze the punch. We had punch-encased chunks of dry ice fused to the bottom of the bowl by the time I was done. Good times. Anyway, the bulk of the pictures were of the apple bobbing, a mainstay of our annual festivities.

Here we have Zoe's costume for her preschool's Bible-themed costume party.

And last we have the girls all dressed up before attacking the neighborhood in some good old fashioned candy extortion.

I was very disappointed in our neighborhood this year. About half of the houses with exterior lights on, the traditional "I'm-giving-out-candy" symbol, didn't answer the door or didn't have candy. Even those were few and far between. The only reason the girls filled their buckets was because everyone was handing out handfuls of candy. They seemed to pick up on the other disappointing trend, a marked decrease in the amount of trick-or-treaters. Last year we had almost 200 kids raid our candy. This year we didn't even get a fourth of that. I'm wondering if it's a cultural thing. One of the houses we stopped at had their lights on, but there was a nice hispanic lady leaving. She nodded to us and directed us to the door, so we figured candy awaited. After waiting for a few moments, a hispanic gentleman came around the corner of the townhouse complex bearing fast food. It looked like he just made a food run. He stuttered out, "Ah! Halloween! Uh, no, uh, candy! Wait, wait, wait!" as he started rooting around in his pockets. I was about to usher the girls away, wanting no part of whatever candy he had stashed there, when I saw what he retrieved. He had a wad of $1 bills, off of which he peeled three notes for my girls. I told him he didn't have to do it, but he insisted. Whether or not the candy was a cultural thing, I'll say this, that was a durn nice thing for him to do.

Anyway, I'm going to get these up on Facebook, too. You should be able to get to larger versions of the pictures by clicking somewhere in the slideshows if you want copies for yourself (I'm looking your way, Mom.) If any of you want originals, let me know in email.

Save The Pie Maker

2008-10-30T08:29:00.004-04:00

I don't make impassioned pleas to my extremely limited readership often, except for those begging you not to waste an hour and a half of your life on a worthless movie, but this is different. I'm asking you to spend an hour of your life on a worthwhile TV program.

If you haven't seen it yet, let me tell you about Pushing Daisies. It is whimsical, fun, charming, and unique. The sets, props, and costumes are straight out of the storybooks. The plots are ingenious mysteries that serve to develop and showcase the fantastic characters.

The facts are these...

From Bryan Fuller (Heroes, Wonderfalls) and Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) comes a critically acclaimed series with an unprecedented blend of romance, fantasy and mystery, Pushing Daisies, a forensic fairytale about Ned, a young man with a very special gift.

As a young boy Ned discovers that he can return the dead briefly to life with just one touch. But his random gift isn't without deadly consequences& as he soon finds out. He discovers the rules of his gift early: First touch - alive; second touch - dead again, forever; Keep something alive for more than a minute and something else has to die in its place.

Grown up Ned (Lee Pace) puts his talent to good use by touching dead fruit and making it ripe with everlasting flavor. He opens a pie shop. But his life as a pie maker gets more complicated when private investigator Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) discovers Ned's secret. Emerson convinces the cash-strapped Ned to help him solve murder cases (and collect a hefty reward fee) by raising the dead and getting them to name their killers.

Then Ned is handed the case that changes his life forever. His childhood sweetheart, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel), is murdered on a cruise ship under strange circumstances. Her death brings him back to his hometown of Coeur d' Coeur to bring Chuck back to life, albeit briefly, and to solve the crime. But once reunited with Chuck, Ned can't bring himself to touch her again.

Chuck becomes the third partner in Ned and Emerson's PI enterprise, but she encourages them to use their skills for good, not just for profit. Ned is overjoyed to be reunited with Chuck, the only girl he's ever loved. Life would be perfect, except for one cruel twist: If Ned ever touches her again, she'll go back to being dead, this time for good.

This season Ned and Chuck's relationship begins to change as Chuck yearns for more independence and moves out of Ned's apartment - without Ned's support. Lovelorn waitress Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth) cracks under the pressure of keeping Aunt Lily's (Swoosie Kurtz) deep dark secret -- that Lily is Chuck's mother -- and runs off to a nunnery. Digby gets a new friend when Pigby, a hog with special talents, moves in. And the sudden appearance of mysterious Dwight Dixon (recurring guest star Stephen Root), supposedly an old friend of both Ned's and Chuck's father's, spells trouble for everyone.

Pushing Daisies was nominated for 12 Emmy Awards in its first season. Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Chi McBride, Ellen Greene, Swoosie Kurtz and Kristin Chenoweth star in the visually stunning series from Living Dead Guy Productions, The Jinks/Cohen Company, in association with Warner Bros. Television. Tony winner Jim Dale, reader of the Harry Potter series of audio books, is the narrator. In addition to Fuller and Sonnenfeld, Dan Jinks & Bruce Cohen (Academy Award winning producers of American Beauty) and Peter Ocko (Boston Legal) serve as executive producers.

From ABC's Pushing Daisies Site

Go, click the link and watch an episode or two online. Once you do, go here (http://www.savethepiemaker.com/) and sign the petition to save the show, maybe even send ABC a message via the link under #5. This is the third of Bryan Fuller's series that I has completely absorbed me for an hour every week. I would really love to see this one last.

Oh So Payneful

2008-10-28T18:12:00.008-04:00

Stacy and I went on a long-deserved date last week. We had both been interested by the trailers for the latest video-game-turned-movie, Max Payne. Full of action and valkyries, it looked exciting. Valkyries, for those of you that don't know, are the mythical warrior-maidens from Norse mythology that escort fallen warriors off to Valhalla after they die in battle. Valhalla is an eternal battle during the day and endless feasting at night, just what any warrior would relish in the afterlife. Valkyries are traditionally depicted as big, bold, tough, blonde Scandanavians wearing armor and bearing swords (no, the fat opera lady is not what I'm talking about.)

Like This, NOT

Like This, and DEFINITELY NOT

Like This.

While the valkyries in the trailer for the movie looked decidedly un-warrior-maidenlike, I was interested enough to see their variation.

It was a mistake.

I'm going to spoil it for you right now, so you don't get suckered like we did. There are no valkyries. It's all just a stupid hallucination brought on by drugs. Knowing that much and the fact that this movie had a hackneyed plot and you can probably figure out exactly what happens in the movie.

No? Well I'm going to spoil it even further for you now. Only, I'm going to give you the facts straight, unlike the convuluted, nonsensical plot in the movie.

Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is a detective relegated to a desk job in cold case after the brutal murder of his wife and baby. Turns out he was just in time to kill two of the three assailants that invaded his home. He has led a secret life pursuing the last killer. He has few friends, an ex-partner (Donal "I'm Awesome But Keep Playing Stupid Parts Like This" Logue) that gets killed by the shady psuedo-organization behind the death of Max's family and his ex-cop, present-exec-at-a-pharmacuetical-company friend (Beau "Dear Lord What Have I Sunk To" Bridges.)

Wait a sec, one of his friends is an exec at a pharmacuetical company? Why, that's questionable right there! There's more! His wife worked at the company. Is it all coming together yet?

No?

Well, allow me to confuse matters a bit. Every time Max gets close to figuring something out about the murder, people get killed. We're led to believe that it's the valkyries doing the killing. The special effects for the valkyries is pretty cool, but ultimately lame by extension of their explanation. No, turns out it's a crazy ex-marine (Amaury "I Hope No One Watches This" Nalasco) hopped up on the drug that exec-friend is shelling out. Highly addictive and a hallucigen, it also makes the user nigh-invincible. Drawback? The hallucinations are always of the valkyries, and terrifying. I've got a few problems with that. Why would it be a popular street drug (and thus motive for the shady goings on I'm about to illuminate) AND why would the hallucinations always be of the same thing? The answer to the first question is simple, because the writer, director, producer, and everyone involved in the creative process of this movie are stupid. The answer to the second is even simpler. They wouldn't be, drugs and hallucinations don't work that way.

On to the stupid conspiracy that you should already see coming from a mile away. Max's wife was about to blow the whistle on the company. Max's exec-friend decided the only way to silence her was to kill her. He's the missing killer Max has been searching for...for...we don't know how long.

We don't know this because the director has no concept of time. We are led to believe that it's been "a long time," yet the house is still cordoned off with police tape, there is no vandalism, and no squatters. Unlikely alone, however, we get the impression from other conversations that Max hasn't been in cold case for long, as well as in his apartment. I think we can guess that for the director, "a long time," is about a month.

Sooooo, Marky Mark Payne doesn't actually figure this out. He is dense enough that when his exec-friend preposterously shows up in the middle of the retarded fight scene with the ex-marine and shoots him cold dead, he still has to be knocked out and explained the entire plot right before he gets "killed" in the frozen river.

Does he die? Oh, you wish. No, he conveniently has a couple of vials of the wunder drug planted in his pocket by his erstwhile killer. Oh yeah, and a B(%^h of an undead wife that won't let him die in peace. "Not yet," my arse, by the time the retarded creative team lets Max finally die, he's not going to want one thing to do with you. Anyway, hopped up on the macguffin, Max single-handedly wades through corrupt and rent-a-cops at the company to reach the exec-friend. Guess what he does there? You got it, the movie is so predictable, Max talks it out with exec-friend rationally and convinces him to turn himself in to the authorities. Roll credits.

Hah.

He kills him, of course. Big whoop.

One other (did I say one? One in a loooong string of many, maybe) beef I have with the movie was Mila "You-Can-Tell-I'm-Tough-Because-I-Glare-In-All-My-Scenes" Kunis. Her character is introduced as the sister of a soon-to-be-dead hot chick (Olga "Way-Too-Hot-To-Have-A-Major-Role" Kurylenko) that can't keep her hands off of Max. Soon-to-be-dead hot chick, that is, not Mila. Naturally, she's pissed that her sister is dead and blames Max. That soon changes after a lazy plot device and she's suddenly eager to help him. Why? Some lukewarm vengeance for her sister or something. Mila kinda sleepwalks through this film, so it's hard to tell. Mila is a badass, though. You know this because she walks around everywhere with a machine gun. I mean everywhere. I'm sure there is a scene on the cutting room floor of her at the laundromat folding her baby-doll Tees with the gun strapped to her side. The problem is that not only is her motive oddly suspect, but her appearances are as well. Midway through the obligatory one-man assault on the evil corporation, she shows up to bail a hallucinating Max out of the hole he's dug himself. Why? What reason would she have to be there? She doesn't know anything about the company or Max's assault. She had no way of knowing where he would be. "I can hold them off for a while, but if you're going to finish this, you have to get up, blabbity-blah." WHY? Oh yeah, Ludacris, Nelly Furtado, and Chris O'Donnell, because, why not?

And that, my friends, is what this movie left Stacy and I saying at the end. WHY? Why did we pay good money to see this piece O hud? Why did anyone finance this stinker? Why did half the things in the movie even happen? Why didn't we walk out? Why is this post so stinking long?

That's it. I could complain about so many more things about this movie, but I won't. Just don't, whatever you do, see this movie. It's not as bad as Babylon A.D., but it's close, real close. I give this half of a hallucinatory valkyrie out of fifteen hallucinatory valkyries on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

To the John Moore, Beau Thorne, and Sam Lake. Next time, more supernatural valkyrie, less hackneyed drug-fueled conspiracy.

ITIL Will Drive You Crazy!

2008-10-23T18:47:00.004-04:00

Boy, it's been a while. I'm still around. I just finished ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) Foundation training today. It was pretty brutal. I'm also enrolled in my final class at University of Phoenix. It's been pretty intense. I was hoping it would be an easy class with how hard the last few have been, but no luck. Almost done, though. After this class, I've got 8 elective credits I have to try to get through work/life experience. Every certification I get is good for that, thus the ITIL Foundation training. I won't know if I passed the test for another few days. I'm just glad the class is over. One of the entertaining things about the class was the instructor. He kept reminding me of a slightly goofy version of Malcolm McDowell. Is it just me, or does Malcolm McDowell look like he would drive you to the brink of madness after a long quiet conversation?

Let me tell you a little something about Information Technology...that will drive you MAD!

Ah, I Love the Smell of Napalm (Hair Dye) in the Morning!

2008-10-12T23:53:00.006-04:00

This Thursday Stacy and I finally sat down to truly mark the season, we dyed her hair napalm orange. I'm running out of battery, so I'll post the pics quick.

Check out how much pink is left after a full hour of bleaching. Yeah, we didn't even touch that color.

It made some interesting effects with the roots and tips being blonde, though.

And here it is, napalm orange hair.

We plan on really finishing the job this coming week. I'll be dying vertical stripes of her hair black. Pumpkinhead, anyone?

Code Monkeys Get All the Fun

2008-10-08T11:31:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine is a Code Monkey at ThinkGeek. This is what she gets to do in her spare time.

Awesome.

In case you want to be a zombie killer too:
Dismember-Me

The Harper Collins Audiobook Widget

2008-10-03T12:59:00.002-04:00

Behold its mighty slickness, the new The Graveyard Book widget! Thanks, Jon!

Welcome to October, er, Three Days Ago

2008-10-03T07:17:00.003-04:00

Blurry caption reads: If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.

Semi-Related Side Note Dept.
As you can see by the widget to the right, this month brings us The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It's a charming all-ages story about a child that grows up in a graveyard a la Mowgli in Kipling's The Jungle Book. If you've read any of Neil Gaiman's stuff and liked it, you shouldn't hesitate to buy it. If you've never read Gaiman's stuff, then start with this one. It's a light and entertaining read.

Tangental Side Note Dept.
It's already been shared elsewhere, but Stacy, Jon, the girls, and I had a great time at the National Book Fair in DC last Saturday. We got to buy The Graveyard Book a few days early, hear Gaiman read an excerpt and answer some questions, and meet him personally to have our books signed. The last time he came to town, Stacy was pregnant with Scarlett and had long purple hair. This time, she's pregnant with our son and has short pink hair. When we got to the front of the line, I mentioned the fact that my wife was pregnant last time he was at the festival and signed our books. His reply was along the lines of, "Good lord, and she's still pregnant!?" He signed my book by drawing a little gravestone with the inscription, "Scott, she's still pregnant?" Neil Gaiman rocks.

Inexplicably Bruised/Broken Rib - or Gall Stones! Yay!

2008-09-30T15:08:00.004-04:00

My right bottom rib has been giving me some pain in the last few weeks. I finally went to the doctor today to figure out what's going wrong. He said that if I bruised it, it could take weeks and weeks to heal. Just in case I fractured it, he ordered x-rays, which were surprisingly fast and convenient to take. He says if it doesn't get better over time or gets worse after big meals or eating fatty foods, I could have gall stones. Yay! So here I am, with an inexplicably pained rib area that could be nothing to worry about, a broken bone, or a sharp, pointy stone that wants to pass through my innards.

My bet is on bruised rib. We have been camping a lot lately and I think the constant tossing and turning on the hard ground may have caused me some damage. I'm all for the air mattress that we picked up this week. We're going again on Saturday, so I guess I'll know then.

Wish me luck!

Unrelated Side Note Dept.
Iron Man came out on DVD today. If you remember, I was just a little fond of the movie. If you haven't seen it yet, now is your chance to get it on the small screen.

If Lovin' Spore Is Wrong, I Don' Wanna Be Right

2008-09-27T21:35:00.002-04:00

I've been playing a lot of Spore during the late hours of the night. Who needs sleep? Anyway, to see some of my creations, page down to the new widget I installed at the bottom of the page.

Pot Pie Win

2008-09-26T13:17:00.001-04:00

Since it turned out so good today, I thought I would post a follow-up to yesterday's fail pic.

Thank you.

Thing You Shouldn't Do #7

2008-09-26T08:05:00.002-04:00

Thing You Shouldn't Do #7:
Drive 65 MPH in pouring rain with bald tires.

Why? Because as thrilling as it is, hydroplaning can be hazardous to your health.

I'm not kidding, hundreds die while engaging in this xtreme sport. Thankfully, ever since the formation of the AXHEAD (Assocation of Xtreme Hydroplaners, Equestrians, and Dieters, they're an eclectic bunch,) the sport has become less dangerous. With safety measures such as Nerf guardrails, soft horseshoes, and calorie-free water, AXHEADs have cut annual hydroplaning-equestrian-diet-related fatalities by 5%! So remember, if you're insist on hydroplaning, get an AXHEAD license first!

Pot Pie Fail

2008-09-25T13:01:00.002-04:00

I've been visiting the Failblog quite a bit recently. It's good stuff. In the spirit of failure, I'd like to present to you, my lunch.

Thank you.

Birthday Wishes, OR, Oh Crap!

2008-09-23T22:15:00.004-04:00

Ah, the joys of a child's birthday party. Well, I enjoyed it, not sure about Stacy. Judging from the photo I took of her at a friend's party at "Pump It Up," she's just about had enough joy for the evening. To be fair, she seemed to have a blast as well. Most of the other parents were entertained by watching the pregnant lady with pink hair goe up and down the slide over and over again with Scarlett. It was definitely good times. Happy Birthday, Kylee!

Yar, Me Mateys!

2008-09-22T07:24:00.003-04:00

As many of you know, Friday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I truly enjoy this day of the year, probably a lot more than is healthy. The next day, we were invited to a pirate party for a friend of our daughters. Since his parents, Karen and Paul, are good friends of mine and he asked so nicely, Stacy and I dug out our pirate costumes from Halloween a couple of years ago and came dressed for the occasion. We decided to go all out this year and embellished my beard a bit. This is the final result.

We even gave the girls some pirate braids in their hair. Great fun was had by all. I think I enjoyed the treasure hunt and pin the flag on the pirate map the most. The cake was a crazy affair. They managed to get a full pirate ship, about 24" X 12" that reached probably about 10" at its poop deck (I said poop deck.) Delicious cake, but the real entertainment was watching poor Karen try to cut and serve it. The poop deck (I said it again,) pieces toppled as soon as they were cut, so some of the cake may have had an extra fingerprint or two. I don't think anyone minded.

Anyway, it was a very piratey weekend. I hope everyone had a chance to celebrate in their own way.

Unrelated Side Note Dept.
I finally received a response from my facilitator on the plagiarism accusation. She says, considering my contribution to the class, that she's inclined to believe that I'm not plagiarizing, but needs proof. So now I'm inserting date/time stamps in random places in my code in an attempt to prove innocence. We'll see how it pans out.

Birthday Thanks and Post-Birthday Infuriation

2008-09-20T22:30:00.004-04:00

First off, I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes and gifts. I had a great birthday. It started off nice and easy with a late morning courtesy of Stacy, thank you! We headed to the mall to enjoy a tasty lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with some friends, one of whom shares my birthday, happy birthday, Suzanna! That evening we dined at Not Your Average Joes with some more friends. It was a fantastic day.

The haul was excellent as well. I got a nice new wireless laser mouse for my laptop and cash from Stacy and the girls; a sweet Emma Frost figure from Jon; a bunch of Iron Man comics and an Iron Fist graphic novel, all signed by the writer, Matt Fraction, plus an iTunes gift card from Casey and Jamie; movies from my dad; cash from many other thoughtful gifters; and a lot of well-wishing. Thanks everyone!

Now, for one of the reasons I've been too distracted to blog. I'm in .NET II, a programming course, for school. It's kicking my @$$. Not the programming, I don't mind that at all. It's the facilitator. I have had abrasive facilitators before. I can handle that. They take a bit more work, but it's tolerable. I have never, however, been accused of plagiarism before. This is my second-to-last course to finish my degree. I have had nothing but As and A minuses throughout my courses. To be accused of cheating off other people's work at this point is not only insulting, but ridiculous. Why would I jeopardize my degree at this point, especially with work that I can do in my sleep? It's infuriating. I was furious as soon as I read the comments on my first assignment.

I wrote her an email, perhaps too hastily, but very respectfully. I am still waiting for the response. Just writing about it infuriates me more. I think I'm going to draw this to a close.

At Least It's Better than Battlefield Earth

2008-09-11T07:18:00.005-04:00

I recently wrote a review of The Land of the Lost, er, I mean, Journey to the Center of the Earth after going out to see it with my oldest daughter, Vicki, on a daddy-daughter date. What I failed to mention is that I went on another daddy-daughter date with my middle daughter, Zoe, the next day. She decided she'd rather see Star Wars: The Clone Wars than go mini-golfing. I will admit I groaned inwardly at the thought. I had read a few reviews about Lucas's latest offering and really had no desire to shell out for the big screen to see it.

Keep in mind that this movie should not be confused with "Star Wars: Clone Wars," the phenomenal Cartoon Network micro-series produced by Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of the equally awesome "Samurai Jack" and "Dexter's Laboratory." Which is out on DVD, you really should go pick it up. Especially if you plan on seeing THE Clone Wars any time soon. You'll need something to cleanse your palate.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Here's your plot summed up: Anakin (Matt Lanter) and Obi-Wan (James Arnold Taylor) are tasked by Yoda (Tom Kane) and Mace (Samuel M-Fing Jackson) to find Jabba the Hutt's (Kevin Michael Richardson) huttnapped son. To add a little needed female flare, Anakin is saddled with a new padawan learner, Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein) who apparently is really young, whatever. On their mission they face such dastardly villains as Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and his sith apprentice Ventress (Nika Futterman), though never as spectacularly or thrillingly as in "Clone Wars" (put it in your to do list.)

I don't have a problem with this. Even though it explores the same retreaded story of the reluctant teacher who learns a lesson while the learner learns learning from the learnee, blah, blah, blah. The same old jokes are trotted out to amuse the kiddies. It helps to keep in mind that this show is geared to them. The battle scenes, while not as good as those in "Clone Wars" (seriously, you need to check it out,) are entertaining enough, with plenty of clone (Dee Bradley Baker) on droid carnage.

The movie is watchable up until the subplot/plot twist, wherein Padme (Catherine Taber) and C-3P0 (Anthony Daniels) encounter Jabba's uncle, Zero the Hutt (Corey Burton) back on Coruscant. Zero, in case you haven't read about the furor surrounding the character, is so obviously gay in every stereotypical way Lucas could jam into your eye and ear holes during his scenes. He is painted bright purple with day-glo pink tattoos, a couple of pretty feathers on his head, and a grating southern belle-wannabe gay accent. Oh yes, Zero speaks English just fine, unfortunately. The voice itself is a horrible caricature that makes me wince just thinking about. He gives other gay stereotypes a bad name. It's horrible, just horrible.

Had they left Zero's completely unnecessary presence out of the movie altogether, I would probably rate this movie higher. As it is, I give it four out of twenty-one baby huttlets that are better left unmentioned on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything. Oh, I can't wait for this to become a regular series on Cartoon Network, yipee!

And Then There Were Two

2008-09-09T14:09:00.002-04:00

We just found out the gender of the baby today. Ima have me a son! Stacy and I are a bit shell-shocked from the news. We both expected it to be another girl. We should have known better, though. Stacy's grandmother, who has never been wrong yet, predicted a boy. Plus, our house is completely geared towards girls, so naturally, the funniest thing the Universe could do would be to give us a boy.

I'm excited, though. I never expected to have a son to pass my line down to. It's going to be great. Now the estrogen will be balanced just a little bit by some testosterone.

Land of the Lost - er - I Mean - Journey to the Center of the Earth - IN 3D!

2008-09-05T09:04:00.004-04:00

I took Vicki out on a daddy-daughter date last night. Since the Summer Blockbuster season is waning, we decided to go see a movie that's been in the theaters for a few weeks, Journey to the Center of the Earth IN 3D !

It was brought to us by Eric Brevig, director of - um - an episode or two of Xena (seriously.) He's pretty heavy on the special effects and second unit directing on some past blockbusters, though. I suppose that made him a good choice for directing a 3D action film. The movie is pretty effects-heavy, with lava, floating rocks, glow-in-the-dark hummingbirds, and plenty of the in-your-face pop-outs that 3D productions are required to have by federal mandate.

Journey stars Brendan Fraser (number 1 on my wife's drool list, just thought I'd throw that out there,) as the milquetoast professor, Trevor Anderson, that follows in his dead brother's footsteps to - well - you know - journey to the center of the Earth. Josh Hutcherson plays his nephew, Sean Anderson. He's the usual Hollywood teenage cliche, the troubled youth that just needs a positive influence in his life along with some near-death experiences to become a good man, you know the type. Newcomer Anita Briem plays the female lead, Hannah Asgeirsson, a mountain guide that gets roped (at times, literally,) into helping them - er - you know - journey to the center of the Earth. I'll be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing her in more roles. She's easy on the eyes and ears and plays the Strong Female Character What Can Take Care Of Herself But Still Can Be Soft For The Menfolk really well.

After a bit of set up and characterization, the intrepid journeyers end up - um - you know - at the center of the Earth. Okay, so more than a healthy amount of disbelief is required to enjoy this movie. Less than what you'd need for Babylon A.D., though. Scientifically, we know that it's not possible to have a thriving ecosystem in the crushing pressure of the depths under the Earth's mantle. There's no way dinosaurs, carnivorous flying fish, glowing hummingbirds, man-sized venus fly traps, enormous calcified mushrooms, and everything else in the movie could exist miles below the surface of the Earth, but it's sure fun watching what it would be like if they did.

The movie was rather enjoyable besides a couple of problems I had with some of the conceits, such as how a mild mannered professor becomes able to fight hand-to-hand a 'la Rick O'Connell. Or why Trevor and Hannah eventually hook up, other than the fact that they're the male and female leads of the movie and are thus legally required to make kissy-face somewhere in the movie.

I just hope they can manage to bring this one to video with the 3D intact, unlike Beowulf (you bastids.) Since "3D" is in the title of the movie, I would imagine that it'd be a pretty easy decision. But I imagine a lot of weird things, like that little guy on my shoulder with the funny tail. No, I will not insult their mama and laugh maniacally as I hit the post button! Go away!

I give Journey to the Center of the Earth IN 3D! twenty-three out of thirty floating magnetic rocks on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything. I have to admit, I kept hearing Peter Griffin's Land of the Lost recitation floating through my head through the whole movie.

Thing You Shouldn't Do #6

2008-09-05T07:14:00.004-04:00

Today we have a cinematic installment of Things You Shouldn't Do.

Thing You Shouldn't Do #6:
Watch Babylon A.D.

Why? Because there are much more useful things to do with 90 minutes of your life, like watch paint dry.

That's the short of it. For those of you that want some background on the finer points of why you shouldn't watch Babylon A.D., read on.

Vin, Vin, Vin. Why do you keep doing it? Furthermore, why do I keep watching you do it? Maybe it's because you are a self-admitted geek, so I give you chance after chance, but you continue to disappoint.

Babylon A.D., directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, the visionary director that brought us such blockbusters as Café au lait and Gothika - OK, I can't do it. This guy was the frakking mugger on The Fifth Element for crying out loud. He managed to cobble together a bunch of disjointed, badly shot, horribly scripted, poorly acted, lamely choreographed scenes from actors such as Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Gerard Depardieu, and Lambert Wilson, all of whom should disavow themselves of this hackfest as vehemently as possible.

While "Guide escorts helpless client to safety" movies can be done well, this one was not. Way too much focus was given on showing what a badass Diesel is, only to ruin the characterization with one giddy bonding scene with the female protagonists. Tell you what, I'm not even going to give you further details on why this movie sucks as bad as it does. I have three words for you,

Canadian Killer Drones

Just let that sink in for a bit. No amount of suspension of disbelief could allow me to enjoy this movie, and I have a lot of it. Having said all of this, I now know that Jon will be looking forward to this on cable. He's as much a glutton for punishment as I am.

I give Babylon A.D. zero out of two hundred fifty-five badass mercenary guides with hearts of gold on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything. Except that you shouldn't watch this movie. Yeah, don't.

Loud September Greetings

2008-09-03T09:17:00.002-04:00

With Focus, Dedication and Steroids, Men Can Achieve Impossible Dreams.
Like Breaking a World Record. Or Growing Their Own Breasts

My how isn't this year flying by? As can be seen by the crappy cell phone camera picture above, it is time for another month of demotivation! Yay September! Month that starts off Fall, my favorite season, my birth month, and school. That's a triple threat I can support!

Stay tuned for my abysmal review of an ill-advised movie!

I love question marks today!

They're great!

I can't stop shouting!

For the love of all that's holy, someone take away this keyboard!

Thing You Shouldn't Do #5

2008-09-02T16:39:00.005-04:00

This installment of Things You Shouldn't Do is brought to you by the letter D as in Doofus.

Thing You Shouldn't Do #5:
Go camping in the summer with no sunblock.

Why? Because the top of your head shouldn't look like a Red Delicious apple.

My Head

Thing You Shouldn't Do #4

2008-08-30T19:10:00.002-04:00

For this installment of Things You Shouldn't Do, we have a guest subject, Stacy.

Thing You Shouldn't Do #4:
Leave the front door open when you go out to move cars to different parking spots.

Why? Because it earns you the Mother of the Year Award

Things You Shouldn't Do #1, #2, and #3

2008-08-29T09:36:00.003-04:00

Hello! Welcome to Things You Shouldn't Do, a completely irregular new feature here on My Inanity. I will do things you shouldn't do and share them here with you in the faint hope that others will learn from my bonehead moves and avoid similar fates.

Thing You Shouldn't Do #1:
Pierce your thumb with a staple then peel an orange

Why? Because it hurts, dammit!

Thing You Shouldn't Do #2:
Clip your iPod Nano Video to your belt and go to a Redskins game even though you know the seats are so narrow that your big ass will brush the sides every time you sit down.

Why? Because you won't have an iPod anymore!

Thing You Shouldn't Do #3:
Temporarily store a full bucket of paint 2 1/2 feet off the carpeted floor just behind your home office chair.

Why? Because this:

I hope this has been educational. Remember, kids, don't do what I do!

The Mummy: Curse of the Dragon...er....whatever

2008-08-10T18:58:00.003-04:00

I'm going to make this a quick one. Stacy and I went to see the latest Mummy movie with a couple of good friends this Friday.

Meh.

It had its moments, to be sure. The action was good. The plot was solid. The storyline was good, even though it had a few holes. I loved the Yeti. However, the dialog felt very forced. We're supposed to buy into these characters, Evelyn (Maria Bello) and Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser,) our intrepid heroes from the first two movies, fifteen or so years after the second movie. Their son has grown and is now estranged while the two try to enjoy their golden(?) years in retirement. This relationship is not the focus of the movie, and perhaps that is one reason it fails so miserably. I had no investment in the conflict between them. We came in during the middle of it with only vague reasons behind the split. The eventual reconciliation suffered for the lack of characterization. I could even have taken Rachel Weisz's almost criminal absence from the movie if Bello was better written. She lacked the chemistry that Weisz and Fraser steamed up the big screen with in the first two movies. Shes' pretty, not a bad actress, but she was set up to fail.

Relationships make up a large portion of the movie: the relationship between the O'Connells with Evy's brother, Jonathan (John Hannah,) thrown in for comic relief, the relationship between the Dragon Emperor (Jet Li,) his lieutenant (Russell Wong,) and the witch (Michelle Yeoh,) the relationship between the witch and her daughter (Isabella Leong,) the relationship between the O'Connell lad, Alex (Luke Ford,) and the witch's daughter. It was a bit much, especially with the trite lines and weak dialog. I was very disappointed with that aspect of the movie.

Other inconsistencies sprinkled throughout the movie were all the more glaring with the failings in the characterization and script. As far as summer movie eye candy, it fits the bill. As far as the Mummy series goes, I'd call this the weakest of the bunch, and that's including The Scorpion King. It's the tail end of the blockbuster season. If you want your eye candy before it ends (and don't intend to see the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars,) then I'd recommend this movie. Otherwise, wait for video, you won't be as disappointed.

I give The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor five out of eleven bat-imposter corpse freakouts on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Okay, maybe the movie suffered in my estimation for being the first movie I've seen since watching The Dark Knight in friggin' IMAX. Not much could stack up well to that experience.

Scott: 1 1/2, !@#$% Wasps: 0

2008-08-10T11:51:00.003-04:00

I hate stinging insects. Flying ones, whether they're bees, wasps, or whatever, are even worse for me. I wouldn't say that I have a phobia, but it's pretty close. It's bad enough that I flinch any time one flies near me. Let's just say that the few times I was stung as a lad gave more than a healthy paranoia for anything with a stinger.

That brings us to yesterday. Remember those charming cicada killer wasps I wrote about last summer? Well, they're back. No, I take that back, they're not just back, they're BACK. It seems that my yard was so popular last year that some enterprising wasp opened up a time share and invited all of the extended family over for the Summer. Last year, I think I counted five or six burrows, mostly around the shed. This year there's at least three times that many, probably more.

I had to mow the lawn yesterday. It's been three or four weeks. When it's been three or four weeks in a wet Virginia summer, lawns become feral. They are full of wild beasts and foul insects lurking under the man-sized vegetation. I geared up and set forth to reclaim my lawn with my electric implements. I failed to take into account the inquisitive nature of the non-stinging male wasp and was freaked the hell out when a few kept dive-bombing me and the lawn mower. After about an hour of enduring the wasps doing fly-bys and barrel rolls past my ears, I had to take a break.

I headed back out after refueling and continued my reign of terror on the land-bound insects while their air force wreaked havoc above. With the density of the jungle undergrowth, it took me some time to finish the mowing. At one point, I found that I had actually rolled over one of the wasps before it could get off the runway. It was floundering near a burrow. I didn't know whether it was a male of female, but I knew if it found its wings and was vindictive, then I might as well be a big round target. I put it out of its (and my) misery (Scott: 1.) After I finished clearing out all of the vegetation, I found a ridiculous number of wasp burrows. They were hard to count since some had burrowed near each other.

Finally, it was my turn to terrorize the giant wasps. I broke out the weed eater. Every time one would start zooming in my direction, I'd brandish my whirling plastic spline of doom. They'd generally take one or two angles of approach before breaking off the attack and retreating over the fence for a short time. I'm pretty sure I gave one a little insect heart attack. It just wouldn't stop zooming near me, so I mulched the air around it with the weed eater until it limped off. I didn't hit it, but it didn't look healthy afterwards (Scott: 1/2.) That'll learn ya ta invade my territory, !@#$% wasps!

By the time I was done, my nerves were shot. I headed in with my legs covered in green and brown, disintegrated weeds and dust. I found that Stacy had fought her own battle with the kids and was convalescing in bed, so I headed into the bathroom to wage another battle, this one on the dander, dirt, and stink encasing our dog.

But that's a story for another day.

Tradition! AND! Why You No Post?

2008-08-04T10:09:00.004-04:00

Welcome to August! Where have I been? What have I been doing? Well, besides having viewed The Dark Knight a total of three times now, one being in IMAX (yes, it was awesome,) I've been hanging out with my brother, David, and niece, Shelby.

They flew in a the beginning of last week and we've been going nonstop since then. We hit the major local points, the Manassas Battlegrounds, the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum, Hershey's World of Chocolate, The National Mall (including the Lincoln, Korean War, Vietnam Veterans, and WWII monuments,) The National Natural History Museum, and King's Dominion. We also took some time out to go swimming, attend church, and play some DND, Magic, and Boom Blox.

On top of all that, I've been keeping up with my coursework for my bachelor's degree. It's been a crazy week. We've loved having them here, though. I'm really sad to see David go home today. It's the first time he's been out and the first time he and I have spent that much quality time together since I left for my mission back in 1995. Fortunately, Shelby is spending a few more weeks with us, so we'll get to have more good times with her.

As for the coursework for school, it's become considerably heavier since I got into a class that I can't coast through on existing experience and knowledge. I'm learning a whole new programming language and it's taking a bit to get into. Expect the sporadic updates to continue until I'm done with this class and the next. Sorry folks.

The Dark Knight? More Like The Dork Knight, Am I Right Guys? Guys? Nuthin? Ah Well

2008-07-18T07:29:00.004-04:00

Amazing.
Brilliant.
Exciting.
Exhausting?

Yes, The Dark Knight is all these things and much more. First, let me get the details out of the way for those of you ~~living under a rock~~ that don't pay attention to movies. This is straight from the front page of IMDB, because I got less than four hours of sleep last night and there's no way I can be this succinct this morning.

The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan with star Christian Bale, who returns to continue Batman's war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker (Heath Ledger), who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces the Dark Knight ever closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante.

Not listed are Maggie Gyllenhaal playing the absent Katie Holmes character Rachel Dawes, more on her later. Morgan Freeman as Wayne's tech man and head of Wayne Industries (or whatever they call the company in the movies,) Lucius Fox. And of course, Michael Caine as Bruce's butler and confidant, Alfred Pennyworth.

Before I get any further, allow me to confirm the hype, or add to it more, depending on your point of view, about Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker. Like others, I thought that much of the praise built around Ledger's role was influenced by the tragic circumstances of his death. I was wrong. I also have some inkling of the dark places Ledger had to go to get into the character on the screen. He was creepy, dangerous, insane, funny, and deadly. To put it into perspective, Heath Ledger's Joker is to Jack Nicholson's Joker as Christian Bale's Batman is to Adam West's Batman. I have never seen a more chilling portrayal of the character, nor do I ever expect to again. Hollywood can never bring The Joker back, because no one can follow Ledger's performance without unfavorable comparison. A posthumous Oscar is the least Ledger should receive.

And that's part of what was so exhausting about the movie. Ledger's performance was so in-depth and emotional, that I couldn't help but be drawn in emotionally as well. Not to mention watching new life breathed into this old character was so exhilarating that coming down from that couldn't help but be draining.

I did not expect the extent of the Harvey Dent/Two-Face story that we got as well. Eckhart was good. Not as good as Ledger, but who could be here? Not only was he good, but the special effects made him Two-Face. I'm not talking about cheesy latex prosthetics a la Joel CRAPmacher's Tommy Lee Jones Two-Face. I'm talking, "Good lord! You can see his cheek muscles! His eye is totally exposed! His teeth are completely visible! Is that a jawbone! Gross! Awesome!" You can tell Eckhart understood Two-Face's insanity and captured the character's particular unhinged dichotomy.

He's another reason this movie was exhausting. That is especially true considering his climactic scene, of which I will give nothing away, nothing, I tell you!

Unfortunately, I don't have all good to say about the latest Batman installment. Maggie Gyllenhaal? Really, Nolan? Really? You can't get Holmes so Gyllenhaal is your choice? Seriously? She looks horrible through the entire movie. There's a scene, part of which is in the previews, wherein The Joker encounters Gyllenhaal's Rachel at a benefit at Wayne's penthouse. He reacts to her as if she is the most beautiful woman in the room. Only she's so not. It's not that she's ugly. She's not really. But attractive? No way. She looks old and tired. Her hair is a limp mess through the entire movie. She can't fill out a dress half as well as the extras in the same scene. It was sad, really it was. She doesn't have any chemistry with either Bale or Eckhart, the latter of which plays her current beau in the movie. She's an average actress to boot. I really don't understand this casting decision.

Bale does a great job as Wayne/Batman yet again. Stacy and Jamie both mentioned that he looked really skinny. Can't say that it bothered me. His costume was a little odd. In order to make the turning of his head easier, presumably, they cut the cowl inward very close to the chin. The effect was to make his head look more round. I suppose I'm used to the cowl going straight into the cape, so it was a little jarring. Hardly much of a complaint considering past Hollywood interpretations of the character. The only real complaint I had about Bale's Batman was his final conversation with The Joker (the previous ones were all entertaining, oh and exhausting,) Bale doesn't so well with the voice change to Bats. He tries a little too hard to make it gravelly. This isn't a problem unless he's shouting, then he sounds a little silly. Still not much of a complaint, but it was a little jarring.

My final comment about the movie was the message it delivered, sometimes subtly, sometimes in your face; people are inherently good. While I generally don't like people, the message of hope still appealed to me. It was one of the scenes that delivered this statement that was extremely dark and exhausting, but ultimately satisfying and a relief. I hate being so cryptic, but I'm really trying to avoid being spoilerific. I think you'll know the scene when you see it. It's not the only one with the message, but the one where it is most clearly delivered.

The plot was chilling and twisty, the action was intense, the comedy was dark, the acting was superb (except where noted,) and the cinematography was excellent. Oh, and the Bat-bike was cool. I give The Dark Knight thirteen out of fifteen cat-proof batsuits on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Did I mention that I'm watching it again tonight? Jon and I discussed it after last night's advance viewing. Can we watch it two nights in a row, as emotionally exhausting as it was? Of course we can, because it was awesome.

P.S. Damn them for making a Watchmen trailer that actually makes me want to see the movie.

Hancock and Hellboy, It Was a Good Week and a Half

2008-07-15T14:17:00.005-04:00

Within the past couple of weeks, I've been to see both Hancock and Hellboy II. Here are my (un)timely reviews.

Hancock
OR
Why So Bitter, Critic?

Hancock has received a pretty miserable 37% at Rotten Tomatoes for reasons unknown (read: I'm too lazy to read through their reviews.) All I can figure is that as children, the reviewers were thrown bodily into the upper atmosphere by a scruffy super-powered wino. I'm sure each of them stumbled off to cry to momma and vowed to pan any movie based on their experience when they became a big powerful

Yeah, you ain't so big, critic. Plus, you're mother dresses you funny.

Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman star in this superhero story surprisingly not based on a comic book. It was directed by Peter Berg, currently directing Dune (another one?) Smith plays Hancock, a perpetually drunk, bitter, amnesiac super "hero" that is known for causing more damage than good when he tries to help people. One would wonder why he bothers if that particular point was not covered briefly in the movie.

While it is a super hero movie, replete with the trappings that come with the genre, Hancock is also one of the best examples of High Concept Done Right (TM) that I've ever seen. I can't really boil down the concept without giving away key plot points that would truly spoil the movie. The action scenes were good. We get some nice enjoyable Superman Amongst the Mortals moments as well as a little brawling between supers.

Bateman, as always, plays a great straight man, although this is not a comedy. In Bateman we get to see the everyman interacting with the superman. He's the audience's proxy, almost. He reacts with much more heart and compassion than I would attribute to your average movie going population, though.

Theron is sexy, no denying it. She even gets to try on different sexies throughout the movie. What? You say "sexies" isn't a word? Hey, if Justin Timberlame can bring sexy back, then I can treat the darn thing as a noun, too! I had my suspicions about Theron from the trailers that were confirmed as the movie progressed, though not nearly in the way I expected. What I liked about her character was how devoted she was to her husband, played by Bateman, and his son.

Smith's Hancock progresses dramatically through the course of the movie, which at heart, is more a tale of one (super)man's struggle to find his place in the world. I can dig that. Since this is the Fresh Prince we're talking about here, that progression treats us to some comedic gold as well as the usual tugging at the heart-strings. If there is one thing Smith has proved as one of Hollywood's leading men over the past thirteen or so years, it's that he can play both sides of that line.

Hancock was a lot more entertaining than it had any right to be, satisfying both my need for super powered badassery (I suppose you're going to tell me that's not a word either, eh, smartypants?) and emotional depth. I give it fifteen out of eighteen eagles inexplicably soaring through downtown New York on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
OR
About Time! Now Where's Hellboy III?

I had high expectations for this movie well before it even reached production. Those were escalated even more by early reports of its exceptional quality. Since seeing the movie (88% on Rotten Tomatoes, in case you were wondering,) I have talked to people that rate the movie as good or better than the original, but none below that. I think this speaks highly of director/writer Guillermo del Toro and creator/writer Mike Mignola's obvious love of the material.

What contributes even more is the cast's immersion into the characters. Almost all of the old cast returned for the sequel, thankfully. Joining them is a new "face" as well. We have Ron Perlman reprising his role as the titular Hellboy, Selma Blair as the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman, Doug Jones as the enigmatic Abe Sapien (this time with speaking part as well!) Jeffrey Tambor as the blustery, but somewhat diminished Tom Manning, and John Hurt as Hellboy's adoptive dad Professor Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm via a flashback.

What is there to say about Perlman? Once you see him in the role of Hellboy, there is no doubt that it was meant to be. Few people are as well-suited for a role as Perlman for Hellboy. Blair is one of those odd actresses that can come off extremely well or tragically horrible. Jon and I discussed that briefly. We're not sure what it is about her that causes that. Another actress that suffers from the same problem is Dina Meyer, at least for my money. Blair brought her A game this time, though. The moments of pure relationship between her and Hellboy are entertaining not just for the novelty of a demon and a human having everyday couple issues but also because of how dead-on they were.

It was not jarring at all to hear Jones' voice coming from Abe's mouth. That is probably because he voiced Abe in the two animated Hellboy movies that came out on DVD after the first movie. With David Hyde Pierce not reprising his voice over work, Jones was the natural choice. He is the actor underneath the mask, after all.

Tambor is a pleasure. I have never seen him in a role that I did not like, from his slimy Vance Crasswell in Life Stinks to his harmless sidekickery in "The Larry Sanders Show" and all his voice work between. However, his character seemed a bit less authoritative in this one. I had thought his relationship with Hellboy would have improved after their moment of bonding in Rasputin's tomb at the end of the first movie. Perhaps his castration was to open up the way for the newest member of the BPRD.

In an odd move, at least it seemed to me before watching the movie, Del Toro cast Seth MacFarlane as the gasbag Johann Krauss. Johann is a great character with a great concept behind him. He is a cloud of sentient ectoplasmic vapor, contained in a modified dry diving suit. Let that high concept soak in for a bit. His form gives him some pretty entertaining and useful abilities, the least of which is beating up on Hellboy with a bank of lockers. While the cinematic character differs a bit from the comic's, I still enjoyed Johann's presence.

That brings me to the movie itself. Hellboy stories are about good versus evil in a primal, beatdown sense with a large dose of matter-of-fact humor thrown in for good measure. Del Toro and Mignola deliver it like a sizzling fastball pitch right over the plate and into your face. The creature effects are fantastic, especially the tumor. The story is solid. The plot pacing is impeccable. The character development begs your investment. Hellboy II is all good. Well, all good except for one thing. It was over well before I was ready for it to be.

I do agree with Jon, though. Not nearly enough of those damn robot nazi gorillas! Seriously, though, what wasn't in this movie, I can only hope will be in a sequel. I really want a sequel. I give Hellboy II: The Golden Army ten out of ten robot nazi gorillas on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

You Buy Now!

2008-07-15T13:47:00.001-04:00

Jon already posted this, but for maximum exposure, (hah! As if I can contribute towards that!)

WALL-E's World

2008-07-05T13:50:00.004-04:00

On a spur-of-the-moment whim yesterday, we joined the Postmas and McCoards at the movie theater to catch a viewing of Pixar's latest digital masterpiece, WALL-E. Before I got into this review, you should know that I've been looking forward to this movie since I heard about it from the teaser interviews they released around the time Ratatouille came out. While it was cute, Ratatouille really didn't thrill me. Tease me with a sci-fi movie featuring a quirky Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth class robot and I'm there!

The plot of the movie is a bit more sophisticated than Pixar has dealt with in the past. I really don't know how much of it I should mention, considering that revealing anything past the most basic elements will ruin the plot twists for anyone that hasn't seen it.

WALL-E is a robot left on Earth to repair the damage humanity has wrought in the form of endless mounds of waste. Our little square friend does this by scooping waste into his compression cavity, hunkering down, and popping out a fresh steaming square of crushed garbage. We are treated to a panoramic sweep of Earth at the beginning with immense skyscrapers of these cubes towering over the rest of the buildings in the nameless town WALL-E lives in.

We find out early on that WALL-E is presumably the last of his line still working. Perhaps his survival has something to do with his progression beyond his original programming. WALL-E collects keepsakes from the garbage occasionally. We find that his home, the abandoned shell of a WALL-E unit transport, is decorated with strings of holiday lights, knick-knacks, and other random bits of trash that have become his treasures. Nestled in the midst of the trash are WALL-E's spare parts, scavenged from the rest of his rusting compatriots that lay motionless, in mid waste disposal.

One fateful day, a ship lands on Earth, much to WALL-E's surprise. It's obvious he doesn't know what it is or what to do about it. However, after it deposits its payload, a sleek ovoid robot that is years beyond WALL-E's design, the ship departs. This leaves WALL-E to tentatively establish a relationship with the only other living thing around besides his pet cockroach, the new robot EVE.

What is EVE there for? Will she fall for WALL-E's bumbling attempts to ape the human romance that he's watched on his ancient video iPod for the last few hundred years? What will happen when the ship comes back for EVE?

If you've seen some of the previews for the movie, you can probably guess at some of the answers, but I'm not going to give any more away. The voice cast for WALL-E is mostly unimportant. We get some entertaining glances at Fred Willard as Shelby Forthright, BnL CEO. Buy 'N Large seems to be the corporation that took over Earth before the exodus, more on that later. Only a few humans have more than a couple of lines further into the movie, including John Ratzenberger, naturally. I don't think there has been a Pixar movie without his voice yet. Kathy Najimy also makes a vocal appearance, she's got a good voice. Surprisingly, if only because I really wasn't paying attention, Sigourney Weaver supplied her voice to the movie as well. Jeff Garlin rounds out the human voice cast. And I do mean rounds out. Hah hah. What, you don't get it? Nevermind.

The reason I say the voice cast is largely unimportant is because they have few lines. Most of the lines are left to WALL-E, EVE, and the other robots. And they speak to me, deep down, with synthesized voices. It's that Commodore 128 geek in me. I've always had a soft spot for the old-school synthesized voices from computers. I know that human voices were actually modified to sound like the synthesized voices for many of the robots, but it's close enough. Apparently you can't get a full range of aural emotion from the computer voices. Whodathunkit?

As for the political commentary that the movie makes, I'm not as inflamed about it as some of the movie's critics. Yes, the humans in the movie destroyed the Earth with rampant consumerism and unbridled waste. Yes, their short-sightedness resulted in the entire population fleeing in a mass vacation-like exodus. Yes, the solution they came up with crashed down around their ears. So what? The way I see it, the situation depicted in the movie is plausible. Even down to what would happen to humanity if it came to rely on computers and robots for even the most basic tasks. However, the creators of the movie didn't try to shove any political message down the audience's throats, like Happy Feet, wherein we are told quite firmly that we are destroying the penguins' habitats. It was presented as a framework to tell the story of WALL-E, EVE, and their affects on the future of humanity.

I believe that movies are a perfectly acceptable medium for delivering socio-political messages, even children's movies. If you don't like the message presented, then it's up to you to avoid the movie or explain the situation to your children and indoctrinate them into your world view. Me, I'm a proponent of conservation. We recycle more waste than we throw away every week. We try to minimize our power and gas consumption as much as we can. We teach our children to respect the Earth and preserve it where we can. Having a movie deliver that message softly and gently isn't going to hurt me or my children any.

Wait, wha? How'd I get up here on this soapbox? I didn't know they even made these crates anymore! Hang on, let me get down. There we are. Where was I? Ah yes, WALL-E. I give Pixar's excellent sci-fi outing fifteen out of fifteen reduced-bone-mass fatties. They done good.

Happy Belated Greetings

2008-07-05T13:45:00.003-04:00

Because I'm a lazy jackhole, I failed to wish the appropriate greetings to the appropriate people this week.

Everyone, Happy Qwanza!

Tammy, Happy New Year!

David, Happy Thanksgiving!

Wait, that's not right.

Everyone, Happy Independence Day!

Tammy, Happy Birthday!

David, Happy Birthday!

I'd blame my forgetfulness on the dazzling firework display yesterday. We managed to put on a full hour spectacle for the McCoard's neighborhood with all the fountains and sparklers we bought. I'd blame that, except Tammy and David's birthdays were on the 2nd and 3rd respectively. Nah, I just suck. Maybe I'll do better next year.

Happy July!

2008-07-02T07:34:00.001-04:00

Happy July, everyone! And to get this month started off right, here's your latest demotivational message from those happy folks at Despair Inc.!

Family Coming to Visit

2008-07-01T00:26:00.004-04:00

W00t! I'm really excited. My brother David and his daughter Shelby are coming out to visit us for a few weeks at the end of the month. David and I always have a good time whether we're discussing computers, movies, Magic (yes, The Gathering,) Dungeons or Dragons, or whatever. Shelby is a great kid, very artistic and deep. I'm going to take a week off to spend some time with them and show them the sites with the girls. After David goes home in a week, Shelby will stay with us for another two. That's going to give her and our girls plenty of time to bond, which is very important to me.

The thing I miss most about living away from Utah is my family. It wasn't until after I got off my mission in 1997 that I really started forming and repairing bonds with my siblings. Stacy and I met that year and were married the next. As happens naturally in a new marriage, relationships outside are neglected a little bit. I may have been guilty of neglecting them more than I should have, I'll admit, but we still got together and had good times while we lived there.

When Stacy and I moved away in late 2000, she was four months pregnant with our first child, Vicki. I felt guilty taking her and our unborn child away from the nest. We have both realized after the fact that it was very good for our family and our relationship with each other. However, our relationships with our extended families have waxed and waned more than they would have if we still lived there. I'm more worried about the affect it has on my daughters and their relationships with their cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

We visit Utah as often as possible. Less now, we have rising airline ticket and gasoline prices to thank for that. Whenever we're out there, we try to split our time fairly between all of the family and friends we left behind. Some get more than others, especially those that seek us out, but we still make the effort to see everyone. That's one reason why we usually need a vacation from the "vacation" back to Utah.

We feel very blessed when family comes to visit us here. There is time to really develop relationships and enjoy each others' company in a way that's just not possible when we go to Utah. While we understand that it's sometimes just as hard, if not harder, for some of our family to come visit us here than it is for us to visit there, Stacy and I wish everyone would do it at least once. The invitation is always open.

In case you can't tell, I'm really looking forward to David and Shelby's visit this month. I'm also looking forward to Stacy's grandparents visiting in September. They've become my grandparents over the years, too. They even tried to coincide their visit with my birthday. How sweet is that?

Family is important. You've only got one, so treat it with care and love.

OD on Awesome

2008-06-27T11:31:00.005-04:00

I've been so busy this week with schoolwork, family, and playing Boom Blox (almost worth a sick day, that game,) that I haven't had chance to do much else. I've been wanting to post about this for a couple of days, though.

I think I overdosed on awesomeness last week. I finally got around to downloading the new episodes of Metalocalypse and Venture Bros. I cannot recall two series that have been as consistently entertaining as these. Every episode includes classic moments that Jon and I will recall repeatedly like the nerds we are.

Metalocalypse, in its over-the-top metal way, always gets a guffaw out of me. I was going to look for some quotes from the various episodes I watched, I think there were five or six, but my brain almost exploded thinking back on how many funny lines there were.

If you don't watch Venture Bros., you should. If you watched it and you don't like it, then we are in very different places. I've posted a few reviews of the last season here before. I'm not going to try to sum up the four episodes I watched last week. It's too much awesome for one place. Suffice it to say that my favorite guest star made a reappearance in a recent episode. That's right, Henry Killinger and his Magic Murder Bag. I love his character so much that I named my newest office computer after him. I now have orpheus, jonas, and killinger as my work PCs. If I could assign my Mac a static IP at work, it'd probably be number24 or something.

Ok, in retrospect, this post really doesn't do much to convey the sheer amount of face rocking that Venture Bros. and Metalocalypse delivered to me last Saturday. I guess yous goings to haves to take my words for it. OR! You could check out one or two episodes at Adultswim.com and be face-rocked yourself.

Venture Bros. - Home Is Where the Hate Is
Metalocalypse - The Revengencers

Simply Exhausting

2008-06-19T07:39:00.003-04:00

Holy crap, yesterday was exhausting. You know things are going to be busy when your work day feels like a break. We started out yesterday with a bang, the one from our tire to be specific. After work, Jamie and I met Stacy halfway because we just had too much to do. We somehow managed to avoid a reckless driving ticket as we zipped down route 28 to drop the kids off at a friend's house. From there, it was a warpspeed drive to the hospital for Stacy's first pregnancy appointment with the OB/GYN. We got there just in time for the appointment. Turns out we were just in time to wait for their backlog to filter through.

Dr. Nance is a fantastic OB/GYN. We wouldn't switch to another willingly, but he's the only doctor in his office. So when things get backed up, they stay backed up. I normally wouldn't complain since he's got a couple of comfortable chairs in his waiting room. However, when you're in an OB/GYN waiting room, you're bound to run into some pregnant women. So, after apologizing for being so clumsy, you've got to offer them your seat. At one point we had five pregnant women sitting and two husbands standing. I managed to perch on the arm of Stacy's Comfy chair. Those of you that know me should try to picture that in your mind. Imagine a
a bird the size of a walrus hanging out on the arm of a chair and you're halfway there.

Dr. Nance was great as usual. Stacy loves coming into his office with colored hair. He pretends to be annoyed by her, but he loves it when she's pregnant. He gets to tell all the other patients that, "don't worry, it's not her natural hair color," or, "on her, it's normal," and, "stay away from this one, she's a bad influence."

After the appointment, we re-engaged the warp drive to pick up the kids before Stacy dropped me off at home. She had to race to a PTO meeting and I had an appointment to go out with the missionaries from our church. Funnily enough, Stacy spent about fifteen minutes with the kids at Chick-Fil-A before remembering that no one was showing up because they had settled on the McDonalds up the street. Poor Stacy.

For my part, I got dressed to go out with the mission mormonaries and picked them up a few minutes later. We tried out about eight contacts, including a couple of families from church that I visit regularly. No joy. We caught one of my families as they were leaving for church activities. The only other two human beings we spoke with were either too busy or not interested. C'est la vie.

Stacy had just barely walked in the door by the time I got home. I had the foresight to stop by Starbucks and grab her a coffee-free frappacino before walking in, though. We ushered the kids to bed well past bedtime, as usual. Bedtime for us? Nah!

My new class had started Tuesday but I hadn't signed on and posted yet. I hate feeling behind (unless it's Stacy's) so I sat down at the computer. Two hours later I had posted all four of the first week's discussion question responses, my bio, and had a screaming headache. Stacy dropped off somewhere around eleven, the lightweight. By the time I shut down the computer it was after midnight. Who needs sleep?

Department of rhyme
I'm eating an orange with breakfast today and it prompted a memory. I remember reading somewhere that "orange" is the only word in the English language that doesn't rhyme with anything. I beg to differ. At least I did for a moment. I think that words like "arrange", "range", er, and other words ending in "ange" are perfectly acceptable rhymes. I said, "for a moment," because a quick google comes up with this. Thus my idle genius is proved as limited as my knowledge in the world of rhyme. I'm not a poet, and I know it.

Early Morning Adventures on the Freeway

2008-06-18T09:23:00.002-04:00

On the way to work this morning, Stacy and I noticed a rhythmic pulse coming from one of the tires. By the time we made it north of Manassas, we were getting into the groove, so we stopped to dance. No, wait, that's not right. I mean, we were getting a little worried, so we pulled into a gas station to check it out. I thought I heard it coming from the front passenger-side tire, but couldn't find any cause. I hopped back in and started to pull back into traffic when Stacy pinpointed the sound coming from an Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator one of the kids was playing with in the back seat. I kid! It was coming from the rear passenger-side tire. She got out and found the culprit, a nice big bolt stuck right in the tire.

No problem, right? The bolt was keeping in the air. We had a slow leak, but it should hold long enough to get me to work and Stacy to the garage. You already know where this is going, but I'm going to drive you there anyway, so buckle up and pipe down.

Once we hit 60 mph on route 28 just before the route 50 exit, we hear a loud noise come from the rear of the van. I could have sworn that I took the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator away from the kids! But it wasn't the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator that made the noise, it was the bolt explosively ejecting itself from the tire and the tire subsequently losing all pressure.

I pulled over and turned on the hazards and got out to survey the damage. The tire was completely flat, a chill wind was blowing, and I wore shorts today. After dealing with the bizarre way of retrieving the spare tire, which involved a winch bar, a winch, and a hook underneath the front of the van, I prepared to jack up the car. Then I noticed that I had no tire iron.

WTH? How could the manufacturer leave out the tire iron? I looked everywhere, under the van, in the jack storage compartment, in our crate of car gear, it was nowhere to be found. The car comes with a collapsible doohicky for operating a winch, but no tire iron?

By this time, Stacy had reached Jamie, whose kids she watches, and she was on the way to us. As I sat in the front seat toying with the jack, Stacy found the tire iron. It was in my hands. The handle for the jack doubled as the tire iron. Sheepish? Me? Nah, why do you ask?

Of course, finding the tire iron is only a small part of changing the tire. The lovely people that rotated the tires last were kind enough to tighten them down to 250 pounds of torque. Luckily, I've been working out (my eating arm) so I had enough weight to loosen them. After I finished jumping up and down on the tire iron to release the flat, I popped on the spare. Jamie had arrived by then, so we ferried the kids to the van and sent Stacy on her way.

I guess the mechanic was right, we would have to get new tires before our next inspection.

The Amazing Bulk, er, The Dramatic Sulk, er, The Fantastic Caulk, er, The Incredible Hulk!

2008-06-18T08:12:00.005-04:00

To the surprise and amazement of all, I'm sure, Stacy and I did not choose to celebrate our tenth anniversary by going to see The Incredible Hulk on opening day. I know, I know, I loose some geek cred. Then again, I'd rather have a happy wife than the adoration and respect of millions of geeks. See what I did there? I made a funny. Anyway, back to the point, I saw it last night with Jon of Threshold fame and a friend of ours, Jamie.

I went into this movie with mixed feelings. Having already been burnt by one offering in the Hulk franchise, it was natural that I'd be a bit gunshy. I took solace in the fact that it wasn't likely to be worse than its predecessor, regardless of the Internet rumbling that it was more inspired from the TV series than the comics. I also had a bit of trepidation that Edward Norton's widely publicized creative changes may make it even worse. As we all know, actors get paid to lie well, they are not generally valued for anything creative beyond delivering lines in a certain way.

As far as I know, Norton's changes didn't screw up the movie. Not seeing what it would have been without him, I can't really say. However, the movie with him delightfully exceeded my expectations. He and Louis Leterrier, director of Transporter 2 of all things, delivered a solid entry into the Hulk mythos.

Thankfully, Bruce Banner/Hulk's origins are told during the credits. The credits also introduce much of the supporting cast. Such as Bruce's One True Love™, Betty Ross, played by the surprisingly un-annoying Liv Tyler. I suppose if you just don't have her speaking in Elvish, things aren't nearly as bad. We also meet Betty's blowhard father, Gen. Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross, played by William Hurt. I like Hurt, but he is no Thunderbolt Ross. As Jon mentioned, Thunderbolt should be constantly screaming, veins bulging, eyes wide, "Get me that Hulk!" kinda urgency. Hurt's Ross is good, he's just not Thunderbolt good.

The supporting cast is rounded out by some good, some bad. Dr. Samson was played by Ty Burrell. I just don't like Burrell. He always seems slightly, I don't know, douchy onscreen. I don't know if he'll grow muscles and a long, flowing mane of green hair by the sequel, but it's hard to imagine him as Doc Samson, shrink to the superheroes. He had a good snarky line at Thunderbolt in one scene, I have to give him that. The mad scientist that tries to help Banner is Samuel Sterns, played by Tim Blake "We Thought You Was a Toad" Nelson. We get a sneak peak into what he may become in his final scenes. You're going to have to click on the link if you want the spoiler, though. Although, if you recognize the character name like I didn't, you already know who he is.

Finishing up the cast is our villain, Emil Blonsky, played by Tim Roth. Roth was a good choice for Blonsky. He definitely has the normal guy/psycho guy transformation down pat. It's not too much of a stretch to picture him making the leap into the Abomination's Speedos. I know, Jon, I know, he didn't wear his Speedos in the movie. Is that really such a bad thing?

There's really not a lot to say about the plot that those familiar with the theme of Hulk don't already know. Banner is on the run from the government in general, General Ross in particular and Emil Blonsky, Ross's bulldog. While he evades capture, he seeks a cure for his condition and strives to keep the Hulk in check. Betty loves Bruce, no matter what he does, so it's no surprise when she dumps Samson like he never existed to jump into Banner's arms at the first opportunity.

Too bad they changed the rules on her! Instead of only showing up when Banner gets angry, Hulk makes his appearance any time Brucie's heart rate exceeds 200. Kinda arbitrary, but it's not a significant change, at least not to me. Betty didn't seem too happy about it.

Anyway, back to the story. Whilst fleeing Thunderbolt, Bruce and Betty seek the help of the enigmatic Mr. Blue, or Samuel Sterns. Sterns, the amoral little rascal, had been reproducing Banner's blood from a sample he sent early on. Meanwhile, bad little Blonsky has been juicing up with Super Soldier Serum, or some variation, and wants more. After Bruce is out of the picture, Blonsky forces Sterns to give him a transfusion of Bruce's blood.

Blonsky + Super Soldier Serum + Gamma-irradiated Blood = Abomination

That's when the real fun begins. The whole movie is a ramp up to the ultimate battle between the two behemoths. It does not disappoint. Hulk gets whacked around pretty good, but we all know who's the strongest one there is. It's not until this battle that we get to see some of Hulk's trademark moves, such as the thunderclap or the earthquake-producing ground pound. They're well worth the wait, though.

Jon mentioned that the pacing of this movie wasn't very good, better than the previous movie, but not as good as it could have been. I agree that the portions between Hulk's appearances felt long, but I can't think of how they could have paced it better. We definitely get some good Hulk scenes. The first appearance in the bottling factory only gives us tantalizing glimpses of him. Hulk's next scene is out in the open, fighting the army. It's just as good as the best Hulk scene of the previous movie, when he fights the army in the desert.

There are plenty of nods to fans of the comics and the old TV series. Naturally, Stan "The Man" Lee makes a cameo. So does Lou Ferrigno, doing double duty as a security guard (mit lines!) and as Hulk's voice, nice touch. Even dear, departed Bill Bixby makes a cameo on a TV. There's a character named McGee that is a reporter for the college paper. For those of you that don't remember, McGee was the reporter that continually hounded Bixby's Banner in the TV series. The Super Soldier Serum had the name Reinstein, code name for Abraham Erskine, the inventor of the Super Soldier Serum that transforms 98-pound weakling Steve Rogers into Captain America. Even Robert Downey Jr. makes an appearance as Tony Stark to tease Thunderbolt Ross and the audience about a team they're putting together.

Besides the pacing issues, which are by no means a deal breaker, and some deviations from the original source material, which is commonplace in the transition to the silver screen, The Incredible Hulk comes out on top. As far as recent Marvel movies go, I'd put it below Iron Man but above Spider-Man 3.

I give The Incredible Hulk seven out of nine non-existent gamma bombs on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Kung Fu Panda OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ska-doosh

2008-06-16T21:56:00.004-04:00

Stacy and I took the girls to see Kung Fu Panda with a friend of ours and her two boys. I wasn't expecting much from this movie. It looked like another in a long line of computer animated movies featuring big-name voice talent.

Well, it was that, but it exceeded my expectations. The relative unknown directing team of Mark Osborne and John Stevenson delivered a surprising amount of laughs and a few touching scenes among the whirlwind martial arts action in what could have been a standard reluctant hero movie. Naturally, they had help in the form of the aforementioned big-name voice talent

Leading the pack is Jack Black as the title panda, Po. Working with his father in the family noodle shop, Po dreams of something bigger, pun intended. His father, played by my favorite ethnic actor, James Hong, is a crane or some kind of bird. In a delightful twist, we never find out how he came to raise a panda as a son, not even during the big heart-felt father-son talk that usually couches the reveal. Thanks to a freak set of circumstances, mostly of his own hapless doing, Po is chosen by Kung Fu Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim, another great ethnic actor) as the dragon warrior, destined to defeat the evil and nigh-unbeatable Tai Lung (Ian McShane).

This pisses off the Furious Five and their master, Oogway's student, Shifu, to no end. Shifu, played to my surprise once the credits were rolling, by Dustin Hoffman, bears the terrible burden of being the one that taught Tai Lung before he went bad. Obi Wan much? His Quintessential Quintet is led by Master Tigress, aka Angelina Jolie, didn't notice. Followed by Master Crane, or David Cross, didn't register. Next is Master Viper, Lucy Liu, really? Then we have Master Mantis, voiced by Seth Rogen, don't watch enough Appatow to know him. Finally we have Master Monkey, our beloved Jackie Chan, so that's why his accent was so strong! Seriously, either I was having an off night or this voice talent was just too vanilla. I'm leaning towards the former. I was juggling no less than three kids in and out of my lap during the course of the movie, so I may have been somewhat distracted. Let's just say my exceptional voice-placing talent took a break.

Ooo! Ooo! What? No, I'm not doing my Master Monkey impression. I don't believe he once uttered a single Ook through the whole movie. I just remembered one of the voice actors that I actually recognized, smartass. Michael Clark Duncan was ununrecognizable as Tai Lung's over confident warden. He shared his scenes with Dan Fogler, who I loved in Balls of Fury, but didn't even recognize here.

I'm sure that, armed with this knowledge, I would be able to recognize each and every one of these fine voice talents if I were to watch the movie again. That ain't happenin' 'til the DVD comes out, though.

Shifu's Fantabulous Five give our hero, Po, the harsh treatment that is his due for having the temerity to be nearly randomly chosen by their master's master. Their treatment of Po pales in comparison to Shifu's treatment of him, though. I thought Kung Fu masters were supposed to be wise? This one doesn't wise up until the metaphorical head slap by his master is delivered right before Oogway, ah, but that would be telling.

Like all great reluctant hero movies, we get a training montage midway through that makes a veritable master of Kung Fu out of Po. I'm not really bothered by this or the events leading up to it. It's all familiar, ingrained in the sub-genre wherein this movie lives. I suppose accepting the format allowed me to appreciate the nuances and humor used throughout. This movie doesn't tread any new ground, but then, who wants to be challenged by a kid flick?

The final reveal and climactic battles were enjoyable in their predictable ways. I think my favorite part was when Po finally realizes that he can stand up to the super-powerful Tai Lung, all by his lonesome. It's the ensuing battle and Po's tactics for winning that are so entertaining. What? Upset that I didn't post a spoiler alert? You obviously haven't been reading this, then. Po is the reluctant hero in a kids movie. You thought that maybe the outcome or how we got to it was in doubt? Then you need to google yourself a "hero's journey archetype" and remember all those stories you already know.

The animation was top notch. This movie was produced very much in the Madagascar style. That's not to say the movie was like a southeastern African island-nation that is no doubt beautiful and cinematic in its own right. No, the style reminded me a lot of the 2005 Dreamworks movie named after the island. The cartoony style lends itself well to the CGI medium. Rather than striving to look like something it's can't be, realistic, the CGI seems to take a back seat to some good cartooning.

Black and company deliver on the laughs, tug a couple of heartstrings (slightly, only slightly) and give us some good fast-paced action. At least, I'm assuming on the last one, since I missed the penultimate battle between Shifu and Tai Lung since Scarlett chose that opportunity to get out of her seat and hold a loud conversation with anyone within ear shot. I love that little girl!

I give Kung Fu Panda five out of eight noodle bowls on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything. For a good time with the kids, there's nothing better in the theaters right now.

Tomorrow, The Incredible Hulk!

Tenth Anniversary Adventures

2008-06-15T21:26:00.003-04:00

Anniversary time! Stacy and I had our big tenth this weekend. I took the weekend off so we could spend some time alone together. This will be the first time since Vicki was a baby (now seven) that we've been away from the kid(s). We headed out to Chincoteague Island on the VA shore Friday night. The island's main claim to fame is bordering Asseteague Island, home of herds of wild ponies. While we didn't get to see any of the ponies because of smoke from some mainland wildfires, we had an excellent time.

We stayed at Miss Molly's Inn, a bed and breakfast in an old Victorian mansion. Marquerite Henry wrote the Newbury Award-winning novel about the Chincoteague horses, Misty of Chincoteague, while staying there. Having made our reservations late, we ended up in one of the attic rooms, but even that was great. The whole house was out of square, walking up the stairs was like being in a V8 commercial. The furnishings were antique and books were everywhere. In other words, a place specifically designed to piss off kids. Fantastic!

The next day, we went to the beach. Having perhaps the most alabaster skin this side of a bad poem, Stacy and I opted for the beach umbrella and SPF you-can-swim-in-the-sun-with-this-stuff-on sun block. Stacy insisted on bringing buckets and shovels to build a masterpiece in the sand. Unbeknownst to me, Stacy has never built a sand castle before. We've been to Hawaii twice, she's been three times total, and she's never done it. I feel kinda bad, since we actually didn't get to do it this time either. Instead, we did what all cheesy tourists do at the beach, buried each other. The water was frigid. We swam in it anyway, of course. At least until we couldn't feel our feet anymore. The rest of the time, we just read on the beach. That is the life.

Anyway, here's the pics:

As for anniversary gifts, Stacy gave me mine early. A little background, I went golfing for the first time in my life last month. I had a great time and have been wanting to go again since then. After a few "hints" from me and from a couple of my golf partners, Stacy bought me the only logical thing she could:

Is she not awesome?

For my part, I got Stacy a surprise gift. Gleaning on some hints she dropped months ago, I picked up a top-of-the-line TomTom GPS for the minivan. To throw her off the scent, since the purchase was sizable, I told her I had bought a new router to replace our erratic one. She was naturally confused as to why I didn't install it as soon as it got here. I mumbled something about waiting until FiOS came to our area and she forgot all about it. Earlier in the week, I broke it out while she was at a PTO meeting and had the girls record direction prompts. When I picked Stacy and Vicki up from ballet Friday night to head to Chincoteague, the GPS was installed. Stacy was dully surprised. I think her words were to the effect of, "Scott! You booger!" I love surprising her.

GPS rocks, by the way. Although we did get lost following it to pick up the girls. We listened to its directions even though the road we were on had a "Dead End" sign. I should have gotten the maps updated before we used it. It was a great diversion, however, as we surprised a bunch of high school kids setting up for a kegger at the end of an industrial park alley. It was hilarious! The first couple of kids parked on the side of the road before a small cul de sac just stared at us as we drove by, bald fat guy with a long goatee and chick with pink hair in a big minivan with a Tinkerbell antenna topper. I can't imagine what was going through their heads. I wonder if they scattered after we turned around and left? I tried to get Stacy to call the cops on them. No youth is complete without running from the cops at least once.

Hm. I guess my childhood wasn't complete.

What Do You Get for Fathers Day? Double Blog Post!

2008-06-15T21:00:00.003-04:00

Woo hoo! Congrats to all the dads out there for making it through one more year. Happy Fathers Day! I decided to celebrate the day, I'd post not just once, but twice! I know, I know, it's an amazing gift. Don't spend it all in one place.

I had a great fathers day today. I received my fathers day gift a couple of days ago, but still haven't used it. For a while now, I've been frustrated by our charcoal grill. The time it requires to warm up and the frequent moving food to find hot spots has worn on me over the years. Since our most recent one has started to rust, I've been looking at new ones.

This is what Stacy got me:

Yup! Nice, eh? Stacy rocks.

Not only that, but the girls bought me Batman Pez, I have Batman, The Joker, Two-Face, and Penguin. They also got me a couple of talking cards, including an Indiana Jones one that played a personalized message and the Indy theme. Very sweet.

I've got a great family.

Gastrointestinal Blues

2008-06-11T08:57:00.003-04:00

Stacy woke up in the middle of the night with some serious gastrointestinal complaints. After hearing her repeated trips to the bathroom, I decided that there was no way she was able to take care of our three kids, the two she watches every day, and herself. So I'm home today taking care of the girls. I feel a little bad that we canceled day care on such short notice, but there was no predicting this one. I'm more sad that I'm going to miss the farewell lunch for my coworker today. I wish her well in her new job at ThinkGeek

My previous class ended Monday and the next one won't start until next Tuesday, so I'm left with a bit more free time than I'm accustomed to. Maybe I'll have a chance to update this blog a little more regularly this week.

Yeah, you're right, probably not. I'm too much of a slacker and I won't amount to nuthin'.

It's All a C - O - N - Spiracy

2008-06-02T08:05:00.003-04:00

Being sick sucks. At least I know I'm in good company. I have counted at least five other friends and family that have sinus infections or colds right now. What is up with that? That's the kind of thing that you expect to happen in the Winter, not at the beginning of Summer. I'd blame global warming if it wasn't so clearly a fabrication by the liberal media in some convoluted scheme to get me to subscribe to their homosexual agenda.

Department of Other People's Departments

2008-05-28T20:42:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post to point you to Stacy's post from today:

Steps to freak out your husband

It was a good freak out, so don't hesitate to click the link.

Indian Jones and the Geriatric Kingdom of the Arthritic Skull

2008-05-28T18:05:00.007-04:00

Note: I had this mostly written up this weekend, but circumstances arose that prevented me from posting it until now. Sorry for the tardiness!

Stacy and I went to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with a bunch of friends this weekend. What can I say but that it was an Indiana Jones movie, through and through?

Indiana Jones movies definitely follow a formula. First, we get to see Indy in his element. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, he is retrieving a golden idol from an ancient temple in the Peruvian jungle; a rousing John Williams score and adventure ensue. In Temple of Doom, he is exchanging the ancient remains of Nurhaci with some Shanghai gangsters; a rousing John Williams score and adventure ensue. In Last Crusade, he is a young boy and retrieving the Cross of Coronado from grave robbers; a rousing John Williams score and adventure ensue.

Steve Spielberg always treats us to character development during the whirlwind adventure in act I. We get to look into a small window into Indiana’s character. One of my favorite things about the first acts in the Indy movies is that he is revealed as wholly human: fallible and mortal. Indiana isn’t super human, things don’t always go his way, he doesn’t always make the right decision. I think this element of the Indiana character helps us normal people identify with him.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn’t part from the norm. The first act starts strong and doesn’t finish until Indiana Jones survives a nuclear bomb. Oops, spoiler alert. I don’t feel too bad, it’s a tiny spoiler and I guarantee I didn’t ruin it for you. I could be wrong, but I think Kingdom features the longest first act of the four movies in the franchise. I have no complaint; the first act is the most fun-loving of the three. You don’t yet have a sense of the seriousness of the opposition or what is at stake in the first act. It’s just good clean adventure. We get more insight into Indy, which is very important considering how much water has flowed under his bridge since last we saw him.

The second act of the Indiana Jones movies usually involves a bit of exposition. This usually happens in Indy’s day job at Marshall College. (The events of the first act in Temple of Doom force Indy to have act II in an Indian village and temple, though.) We get to see how every student wants a piece of Indy, sometimes in a good way, sometimes, not so good. Spielberg reveals the impetus of act III here, too.

Act III consists of the culmination of the previous two acts along with a healthy dose of the supernatural. No matter how faux-realistic the first two acts are, the last one always pushes at the borders of reality, first with the decidedly macabre opening of the Ark of the Covenant, then with the Thugee priest and sacred stone’s otherworldly powers, and rounding out the original trilogy with the divine power of the Holy Grail.

Kingdom’s act III, as its previous two acts, follows suit more so. It’s as if Spielberg distilled down the essence of Indiana Jones plots and presented them to us in a concentrated form. The first act is longer and more adventurous than its predecessors, the second act, while expository, includes more than a healthy amount of adventure as well, and the final act stretches the boundaries between reality and fantasy even further (in my opinion) than the previous three movies.

As for the acting, we have an interesting mix in this one. First and foremost is Harrison Ford. Can he do it? Can he pull off the physically demanding role of Indiana Jones so long, a full nineteen years, after his last outing as Indy? Yes. Yes he can. Ford is Indiana Jones, there is no doubt of it as soon as he steps out of the trunk of the car in the opening scene and dusts off his signature fedora. Time has obviously passed for him, but Spielberg handles that easily by adding enticing hints into Indy’s life since Last Crusade and the fact that the movie is set in the fifties. Also, dig Scrub's Janitor as an uptight FBI agent!

Karen Allen reprises her role as Marion Ravenwood, Indy’s love interest from his youth and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Marion has always been my favorite foil for Indy. She’s tough, no nonsense, and witty. She knows how to handle herself and Indiana, but she still has a soft spot for him. Those feelings haven’t been lost, just tempered with the years between Raiders and Kingdom. Their relationship adds for some excellent dynamics in act III.

That does it for recurring roles. My favorite newcomer by far is Mutt Williams, played by the always entertaining Shia “The LaBeouf” LaBeouf. The LaBeouf shines as an insecure greaser kid, intent on rescuing his mother and childhood mentor, Professor “Ox” Oxley (John Hurt). He masks his insecurities with a tough-as-nails attitude and a fixation with his switchblade.

John Hurt is one of my favorite elderly British actors. I loved him as Professor Broom on Hellboy. Professor Ox is a bit more eccentric, but still enjoyable to watch.

Somewhat enjoyable, but also possessing that wince-inducing quality of a British actor portraying a Russian soldier, is Cate Blanchett as a special officer of the Russian intelligence (I think,) Irina Spalko. She’s chilling and enigmatic, but lacks the sinister quality of Indy’s previous arch-villains.

Ray "I'll Kill Your Monstah!" Winstone, who I totally did not recognize, played Indy’s old as-yet-unmentioned friend George ‘Mac’ McHale. Where we have The LaBeouf playing the young innocent sidekick almost a la Jonathan Ke Quan as Short Round in Temple, Mac plays the world-wise, self-serving sidekick. No Sallah, he. His performance is quite good. You really don’t know where he stands until the end. Speaking of Sallah, I really missed seeing John Rhys-Davies as my favorite Egyptian and Denholm Elliot as my favorite bungling dean of students, Marcus Brody.

Igor Jijikine is only notable as Dovchenko because he fills the ever-important role of the burly Eastern European that just won’t fall down. This character is vital to the Indiana Jones series. Without him, we wouldn’t have the immensely satisfying SMACK of fist on flesh that sounds so unique in the Indy series.

All of these factors combine to make a thoroughly enjoyable installment in the Indiana Jones Franchise. While the movie may not appeal to those that aren’t fans of the films, it will hit all the triggers that Indy enthusiasts enjoy. Being a fan of the Indy movies, Harrison Ford, Spielberg, and many of the other actors in the movie, I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

I give Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull twelve out of thirteen crystal skulls on a scale I just made up that might just mean something.

Chronic - What? - les of Narnia: Prince Caspian

2008-05-22T07:37:00.005-04:00

Stacy and I took the girls to see the latest installment in The Chronicles of Narnia franchise, Prince Caspian, last night. We should probably preview these movies before we take the kids to them, but getting out alone to do that is nearly impossible, unless we really go out alone, leaving the other to watch the kids. Stacy is actually going to do that to see Iron Man. I told her that I loved her enough to watch the kids while she went off to watch an awesome movie without me. Actually, I think my exact words were, "If it's a choice between seeing the movie alone or not seeing it at all, then go to Iron Man alone." It's that good.

Wait, this isn't another Iron Man review. Let's get back to the prince. The reason I mentioned previewing movies for the girls is the sheer amount of violence in this movie. Don't get me wrong, it's rated PG, but if you watch closely, you can see why. There's little to no blood, no actual evidence of wounds caused by blade or horn, only one on-screen death. They were very savvy in shooting and editing this film to retain the PG rating.

Did that make it a bad movie? NO! It was a great movie. It was just violent. Keep in mind this is coming from a guy that had no problem taking his girls to Speed Racer, a movie filled with ninja fights, cars with deadly weapons, and general race track viciousness. I think the fantasy violence is a little more visceral than the Speed Racer fare. It just stood out to me.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe scribe/director, Andrew Adamson, returns to give us Prince Caspian. I didn't realize until looking him up that he also directed all three Shrek movies as well as penning the last two. With the consistent hand of someone familiar with the world of Narnia as well as six of the actors from the first, Adamson delivers his vision of the fantasy world exactly as before. The feel of Narnia and her denizens remained, which I think served the movie well.

In this tale, we are introduced to Prince Caspian, played by Ben Barnes. Caspian is the tenth in a long line of despotic rulers that invaded Narnia shortly after the Pevensies left at the end of the first story. Since time passes differently in Narnia, ten generations of these Telmarine invaders have lived and flourished in the space of one year for the Pevensie kids in the real world. Caspian's rule is threatened, however, by his power hungry uncle, Lord Miraz, played by Sergio Castellitto. Fleeing the castle on the night of the birth of Miraz's son, Caspian happens across true Narnians and in his fear summons the Kings and Queens of old, the Pevensies.

Here we are re-introduced to Peter (William Moseley), Susan(Anna Popplewell), Edmund(Skandar Keynes), and Lucy(Georgie Henley). In a move that would shock Hollywood executives all over California, the creators of Prince Caspian actually managed to get the actors back into recording while they still looked only a year older. I am the most disappointed in the Pevensies in this story than in any other in C.S. Lewis's series. I always thought the story of Prince Caspian showed us the Pevensies at their worst, but the movie really showcases their lack of nobility and grace that a lifetime as kings and queens in Narnia should have taught them. This is not a knock on the actors. They portray them exactly as they should be, I think.

The first thing we see of Peter is him brawling another schoolboy because he was treated like a child. We see Susan brush off a geeky boy by giving him a false name. We find later that Lucy, by postponing a very important task, may have caused much unnecessary harm. The only one that seems to have grown is Edmund, the worst of the lot from the first story. In this one, he comes to his brother's aid not once, but twice. He believes Lucy when no one else will, and generally shows more chivalry and wisdom than any of the others.

After being teleported back to Narnia, the children discover how long they have been away, first through some exploration on their own, and then through some exposition from my favorite Narnian dwarf, at least as of the viewing of this movie, Trumpkin. In the first stroke of genius casting in this movie, played by Peter Dinklage. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, he's the small actor du jour now. He's where Warwick Davis was about a decade ago in his career. Speaking of which, Mr. Davis plays the evil dwarf, Nikabrik. Interesting casting for Davis. I've not seen him play anything more threatening as a Nelwin before. He's good, but he's no Dinklage.

Trumpkin re-introduces the Pevensies to the world of Narnia as it is now. Eventually they meet up with Caspian and the meat of the story really begins. Through a clashes of steel and wills, the Pevensies, Caspian, Miraz, the Narnians, and the Telmarines struggle for control of Narnia. Where's my favorite character through all of this? Where's Aslan? No where to be found, unfortunately. Aslan doesn't make his true appearance until rather late in the movie. When he does though, it's pretty kickass. Voiced again by Liam Neeson, he as impressive and imposing as Aslan should be.

The only other character I feel worth noting is one that has been another of my favorites from the books, thankfully voiced by a favorite actor/comedian of mine, Reepicheep the mouse. Eddie Izzard brings him to life in Prince Caspian. While he serves as a worthy comic foil, he has an appeal of his own, I think.

All four Pevensie actors play their parts well. I was especially impressed with their stunt work. I am sad that we will not get to see Moseley and Popplewell reprise their roles again, as the next Narnia story features the younger two Pevensies and a new boy in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I hope we will see a return of Keynes, Henley, Neeson, Izzard, Dinklage, and Barnes, preferably directed by Adamson.

I give The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 15 out of 17 DLFs on a scale that I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Doin' My Best to Stay Outta the Bathroom!

2008-05-20T15:34:00.003-04:00

Being sick sucks. I came down with whatever stomach crud Vicki started with last week. So, rather than get some important work done and follow it up with a trip to the latest Narnia flick with my family Monday, I spent the day trying not to barf my guts up. I'm just getting to the point where I feel somewhat human and it's Tuesday afternoon. Looks like we won't be making it to Prince Caspian for another day or so. I'm hoping it will be before Friday night, because that night is reserved for...

bum ba da bum bum, bum ba da bum bum

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL!

Go, Speed, Go!

2008-05-16T07:10:00.006-04:00

Bad Scott! Bad Scott! I went to Speed Racer not once, but twice last weekend. I had fully intended on posting a review Sunday, but I got sick for the first half of the week and then busy with work and school for the second half. Yeah, I know, excuses are like a**holes, they crash parties and make people uncomfortable, or something like that.

"You saw it twice?" I hear you say in my mind, "There's no way a live-action remake of an old Japanese cartoon could be that good."

"Hah!" I say, "Shows what you know! How'd you get in here anyway? My head's only got room for one, thankyewverymuch. There's the door."

I went to opening night with a couple of friends and enjoyed the movie thoroughly. Knowing full well that Stacy was not interested in the movie, I decided to take the girls to it the next day while she was out doing scrapbook stuff. They loved it. Well, mostly. Scarlett fell asleep halfway through. That should be more of a testament to how tired she was since she refused to nap and not to how ho-hum the movie is.

Because ho-hum it ain't. This isn't the Wachowski bros first rodeo, and it shows. The writing/directing team of brothers Andy and Larry showed considerable polish in their treatment of the venerable Speed Racer.

Before I get into the movie proper, I should give you my background on Speed Racer. Scratch that, before I get into my background, I should give you some background on Speed Racer. Speed was one of the early anime (nee Japanamation) imports to hit American television. The original series is circa 1967, if that tells you anything.

The animation is sub-par, especially by today's standards. Shortcuts abound, such as static scenes with minor animation, speed line backgrounds, reused footage, etc. The dubbing is laughable. You can tell the voice actors are trying their best to fit all the words into the small amount of time the characters are actually moving their mouths while other moments are given over wholly to reaction grunts. Oooh! Ahhh! Uhhhh? That kind of thing.

What Speed Racer had going for it was excitement. The excitement of a race car called Mach 5 (kick@$$ name!) that could jump, cut through trees, go underwater, whatever they wanted it to do. The excitement of a death race as Speed went head to head with ruthless criminals and spies, both on the track and off. The intrigue of Racer X, who you knew was Speed's presumed-dead brother, but was still a mystery to Speed and family. Plus, there's a chimp. All things that appealed to young Scott.

So I had a bit of nostalgia for Speed Racer. Not an immense amount, the bad animation and dubbing still stand out in my mind.

Speed Racer The Movie blew me away. I could tell by the previews that it was going to be psychedelic, as it should be. The old series had that drug-induced fever dream quality to it, so it was appropriate. They delivered much more than that, though. The Wachowski's get credit for ignoring physics whenever they became inconvenient to giving us a bit of eye candy. I respect that if you're trying to tell a story about a car that can jump and flip 20-30 feet in the air, repeatedly bash other cars with no signs of damage, contain a plethora of secret gadgets (Spritle, would you say I have a plethora of gadgets? Si, si, Speed, a plethora! Spritle, do you know what a plethora is? Hah! I crack myself up.) and still race around a track that would give any NASCAR driver nightmares for weeks, then you don't need to be tied down by such mundane details as gravity, cause and effect, material strength, and all that crap.

The cast has some winners in it. Speed is played by Emile Hirsch, who has a kind of recognizable quality. That's not because I've seen him in anything, he just reminds me of other actors. He did a passable job. Sadly enough, the role of Speed is the most forgiving of any of them. Speed is the Hero, any young man with the right look that can deliver that Hero persona would probably have worked in the role. Hirsch does well in his emotional personal conflicts, which is certainly more maturity than we ever got from the original series.

Christina Ricci seemed to me an odd choice for Speed's girl, Trixie. Don't get me wrong, she did a great job, she just seemed an odd fit. Trixie was always a bit of a dim damsel in distress in the original series. Ricci's Trixie was a bit more competent and helpful, which is just fine.

Matthew "Lost" Fox was fun to watch as Racer X. He's definitely got the brooding mysterious hero look down pat. He showed quite a bit of range, more than I expected from the character. I don't know whether to attribute that to the bros Wachowski or Fox, but kudos anyway. His counterpart, Scott "Friday Night Lights" Porter as pre-Racer-X Rex is good, but he has little screen time.

Now for the brilliant casting. John Goodman as Pops? Genius! Goodman has the build, demeanor, and facial expressions that make him perfect for the role. Perhaps the greatest moment, strike that, the greatest moment with Pops was watching him wipe the floor with a ninja using his old wrestling moves. A ninja. I couldn't stop laughing.

Trixie: Was that a ninja?
Pops: More like a nonja. Terrible what passes for a ninja these days.

Great line or greatest line ever?

Susan Sarandon as Mom. At first glance, she seems to be a bit of an over-qualified actress for the role. However, Sarandon brings a spirit and heart to the maternal character that solidifies the sub-text of family unity that would be sorely lacking without her presence. That was a good bit of casting.

Paulie Litt as Spritle. Speed's younger brother would always tag along in the adventures by hiding in the trunk of the Mach 5 with his trusty companion, Chim Chim, in the old series. That hasn't changed at all. The extra scenes given to Spritle and the family chimp were well worth the effort. While obviously thrown in to keep the kiddies amused, there's no discounting the power of a chimp in entertaining folks of all ages. Litt channels his inner New-Yorker as the protective hero-worshipper to his older brother Speed, while retaining independence as a troublemaker and Saturday morning martial artist. The moment he and Chim Chim squared off over the sofa as their favorite cartoon Kung Fu characters, I was sold.

Roger Allam as the villainous Royalton was another master stroke. I don't know Allam from anything, not from lack of acting. I just don't watch in his circles, I guess. He comes across so smarmily at the beginning that it's impossible to not recognize him as a dastardly character with a shriveled, black heart. Allam sold it and I loved the character because I was supposed to hate him. Is that weird?

I'm going to cut the name dropping there. That's not the whole principle cast, but it's enough. The others did well enough. I just really enjoyed the performances of these guys a bit more.

We're already moving into epistle territory, so I'll touch on the story and other elements then wrap this up. Speed is a small-time racer with an eye on the Grand Prix, like any aspiring driver. Obviously talented, he is scoped out by the corrupt Royalton to join the "winning team". After finding out the truth, that the every high-level race is rigged by the corporate big-wigs behind the scenes, Speed (with a little convincing) decides to Do The Right Thing (tm) and fight the Powers That Be (also tm). One of the defining factors of Speeds life up to this moment was the loss of his older brother Rex to the cutthroat world of rally racing. Little does he know that his brother faked his death and now races from the shadows as the Harbinger of Boom, Racer X. With the help of this mysterious stranger, his family, and his girl Trixie, Speed races to right the wrongs of the big business fat cats and teach them rotten nogoodniks a lesson.

I already touched on the action a bit, what with the leaping race cars and other gadgets. The races are truly exciting. My favorite race by far was the rally race near the middle of the movie. Racing against four extremely hostile teams (as well as the rest of the racers,) Speed, Racer X, and their sponsoring team's racer, Taejo (Rain), ride through three climate changes and countless dangers. We get to see poison sprayers, sledgehammers, (remote controlled!) tire knives, giant steel spiked balls on the end of chains, and a, I kid you not, catapult loaded with a beehive. Classic!

There was also a particularly good fight scene during this race, though it doesn't come close to Pops Vs. Nonja. As the originators of "bullet time" I feel that the Wachowski's were under some pressure to deliver another cool fight-scene dynamic. They did. This time, they used the pretense of snowfall to create speed lines of sorts behind particularly fast and vicious punches and kicks. It sounds kinda cheesy, but the combination of the effect with the judicious use of slow and fast filming made for some great eye candy.

I also enjoyed, as did my girls, the mechanism the Wachowski bros. dreamed up for soon-to-die racers to net them that PG rating. Right before a car would suffer a mortal crash, sensors would trigger a safety mechanism that would cocoon the racer in a sphere of elastic bubbles. As the car exploded in a fiery, er, fireball, the racer would bounce out in a cute CGI sphere of bubbles, presumably picked up later safe and sound.

I knew this blockbuster season was going to be good. Prince Caspian opens today and (cue heavenly choir) Indiana Jones opens next week. There is a movie opening every week from now until the end of summer that I will probably try to see. However, I was not expecting to enjoy the first two so thoroughly. First, we were given Iron Man, which was undeniably awesome. Next, Speed Racer, which blew me away. I really wasn't expecting it to be that good. Plus, there's a chimp!

I give Speed Racer forty-two out of forty-five Chim Chim Cookies on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

To forestall any complaints about my reviews (like anyone that reads this cares enough to complain,) I know that my reviews are not completely objective and don't really take a critical look at the plot, writing, etc. Here's what I have to say to that. Phbtbtbtbtbtbt! Git yer own blog! I know what I like and I tell you why I liked it or didn't. You want a well-thought review that deeply examines the finer points of the cinematic experience, then go look up one of the psuedo-intellectual "critics" that foist that crap on the public. They're movies, the blockbusters in particular bear only a passing resemblance to art. If I wanted to pay $20.00 to see art, I'd take the metro into DC and pay to get into a high-end museum. Enjoy the blockbusters for the visceral thrills and spills, or you're going to waste your twenty.