Tertiary Thoughts on Transformers

That’s right, I saw Transformers a third time. Last Monday, as a matter of fact. That made three viewings in a week and a day. It’s a damn good movie.

Nothing new really came to me from this last viewing. I enjoyed it just as thoroughly as the first two times, but I didn’t want to bore my few readers with more pontificating on the awesomeness that is giant transforming robots on the silver screen. Instead, I present to you a handy comparison guide to the transformers in the movie and their original counterparts. You'll see that there are quite a few interesting differences.

Decepticons



Megatron



Barricade


Starscream



Blackout


Frenzy


Bonecrusher


Devastator



Scorponok


Autobots



Optimus Prime


Bumblebee


Jazz



Ironhide


Ratchet

Quasi-Bachelorhood Strikes Again!

I just realized that I did not mention in the past few days that Stacy and the girls are on vacation. I put them on the plane back on July 3rd, just before my first viewing of Transformers and a day before my visit to Jamie and Casey's for a barbeque and Wii playing to celebrate the 4th. The girls are visiting our families out in Utah for the next six weeks. I'll be playing quasi-bachelor again here at home until mid-July when I fly out for a few days to visit and come back to work.

I miss my family, but it is important to Stacy and I to reconnect with extended family at least yearly. This way our kids know who their uncles, aunts, cousins, and most importantly, grandparents, are.

I'll be filling my time with a mixture of work, school, video games, and probably more than a few movies. Also, my blog will more than likely be a bit more active as I have much more free time on my hands without the girls at home. Enjoy my prolificity (it is so a word, spell checker!) while you can, suckers!

Secondary Thoughts on Transformers

It’s Friday night and I have just finished watching The Transformers for the second time in three days. The way things are shaping up, I will probably see it a third time within the next week.

And I am perfectly fine with that.

The movie is quickly moving up on my list of favorites. It has action, it has humor, it has a struggle between good and evil, it even has a romance. Perhaps most important of all, it didn’t rape my childhood memories.

Hollywood has been getting it wrong for so many years, that we moviegoers are trained to expect adaptations of our favorite things growing up to be crappy. In recent years, a few brave directors have stood up to the onslaught of sewage that Tinseltown spews upon us and are struggling to close the sluice gates. Peter Jackson was one with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Sam Raimi has done it with the Spider-Man trilogy, Bryan Singer did it with the first two X-Men movies before losing his way and crapping out the polished turd of Superman Returns, and Christopher Nolan delivered a shining example in Batman Begins.

I’m not going to spend time on all of the horrible television, movie, toy, and comic book adaptations that have moistened the silver screen with their waste (too much with the sewage references?)

Now, we have Michael Bay. He already proved himself in the action arena with Armageddon and The Rock (the movie, not the Dwayne “Look at my eyebrow!” Johnson,) among others. He has now proved himself high among the ranks of creators that have lovingly cradled childhood nostalgia, polished it carefully, cut off the detritus, and delivered it to the masses.

Bay didn’t play with no Go-Bots.

So, a couple of things that stood out to me this time. I noticed that Bumblebee seemed very feline in his transformations. He almost took on the appearance of a yellow panther crouching to spring before becoming the Camaro. I noticed a few more subtle placements of the autobot and decepticon symbols on the respective robots. Not as many on the decepticons, but they were still there. Frenzy actually talks. At first listen, he seems to just chitter, but if you know what he’s talking about, you can make out words, (such as “Witwicky, Witwicky,” or, “Megatron, Megatron, Megatron!”) As I watched Starscream transform in midair, I thought to myself,

Self?

Yeah?

It’s totally time for someone to make a Robotech live action movie.

Totally.

I’m glad we’re in agreement.

Yeah, now quit talking to me, people are going to think I’m crazy.

Oh, and the soundtrack and score for the movie were perfect as well. While the following was not in the movie, perhaps because it’s on the cheesy side, it is still kinda cool. Don’t know who did the song, but the footage seems to be a mix of scenes from the trailers. Trust me on this, as cool as some of these scenes are, the coolest were saved for the movie itself. Do yourself a favor and check this one out while it’s in the theaters. For my part, I’m eagerly waiting the sequel.

Transformers Kicked @$$

Jon and I caught a screening of Transformers yesterday. The question about this movie is not whether it is awesome or not. No, we need only a determination of how awesome it is.

Pretty damn awesome.

So little was wrong in this movie and so much was right. The LaBeouf's comic timing was perfect, much as I've come to expect from the boy-man. My concern with him is that he is rapidly approaching Colin Ferel levels of movie role saturation. Ah well, I don't blame him for riding that gravy train until it hits the last stop. He was a perfect choice for the lead role in this movie.

Did I say lead role? Perhaps only in the human sense. This is a movie about frickin' transforming robots, right? They were excellent. The animation was so seamless as to make you forget they weren't real. I just realized that as I look back on the movie. I had no problem believing that these giant robots were rampaging in the deserts of Iraq and the streets of New York. Michael Bay did such an artful job of integrating them into the scenes that I did not for one second come up out of that level of disbelief to say, “Now hang on a minute!” Bay also played to the fans of the old-school cartoon. Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime among many others on the cartoon, voiced, you got it, Optimus Prime. How awesome is that? For my money, it doesn't get any better than Prime blurting out, “Oops, my bad.” after inadvertently crushing a lawn ornament.

The rest of the Autobots and Decepticons were excellent. The good guys were rounded out with Jazz (Darius McCrary,) Ironhide (Jess Harnell,) Ratchett (Robert Foxworth,) and of course, Bumblebee (Mark Ryan.) While Bumblebee makes the jump from perky little VW Bug in the old cartoon to beefy muscle car in this one, his spirit remained. The decepticons were led by Megatron (Jon called it, voiced by Hugo Weaving) of course, and included Barricade (dual role for Jess Harnell, but few lines here,) Bonecrusher (Jimmie Wood,) Blackout, Devastator, Scorponok, Starscream (voice by Charlie Adler and not nearly whiny enough), and Frenzy (Reno Wilson.) The creators seemed to have the most fun with Frenzy, a small vaguely humanoid robot that had echoes of Johnny 5. He was entertaining to watch.

Speaking of humor, the movie hit on the funny bone early and often. Something I did not expect. The LaBeouf was not the only one raking in the laughs. Everyone from the computer geek to the Autobots and even Frenzy brought a lot of laughs. Heck, The LaBeouf's parents had one of the funniest/cringeworthiest scenes in the movie! We even got a hilarious cameo by Bernie Mac as a used car salesman.

Speaking of the human characters, Anthony Anderson, one of my recent favorites, makes an appearance as the computer geek way out of his depth. John Turturro also plays a character a little out of his depth in his own quirky way. Josh Duhamel plays a tough sergeant with a soft side. Jon Voight played a predictable and a little clichéd defense secretary. Not a big complaint there, just not a great choice. The definitely hot (and according to Jon, not quite right,) Megan Fox (more than just a clever name) played The LaBeouf's romantic interest, which was a little too interesting to the Autobots at the end of the movie, if you ask me. Oops, I let something slip. Yes, the Autobots are alive at the end and the boy gets the girl. Dammit, I screwed it up for everyone.

There is so much to say about this movie, but I don't have the time or inclination to list everything that rocks about it. If you have any fondness for the Transformers from your youth, or you like Action movies with a capital A, or if you enjoy a bit of humor thrown in with your explosions, or if you just want to see a good movie, go see Transformers. I'll personally take responsibility if you come out of that theater disappointed (that and $3.50 will get you a snack at the concession stand.)

I give Transformers five out of five little autobot heads that transform into decepticon heads as we go to commercial on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

It Sounds Like Rat and Patooty, That's not Appetizing!

I took my two older girls to see Ratatouille this Friday. I'm afraid that I have become accustomed to a sort of mindless quality that has overcome the computer-generated kids flick genre in the last three or four years. Even Shrek the 3^rd was unable to overcome it. However, I failed to realize that Pixar is exempt from this pitfall. Pixar has consistently delivered entertaining and heart warming tales that can amuse everyone in the family. That is a claim that is promised by many but fulfilled by few. Ratatouille is one such film.

The voice acting was superb. However, it caused me some trouble. All through the movie I wracked my brain to place the voice of the main character, Remy. It was so familiar, yet so hard to associate. I finally had my answer during the credits, Patton Oswalt. Patton Oswalt!? I was going through name after name of young Hollywood up-and-comers as that seems to be the preference for leading roles in CGI movies lately. Nah, not at Pixar. These are the people that cast Coach Hayden Fox as Mr. Incredible and Albert Brooks as Marlin, they won't bow to the trend (let's just ignore that blip on the radar with Mr. dicknose in Cars.) I don't know why I couldn't place Oswalt's voice. It's very distinctive. He did a marvelous job.

His costars were a mix of established actors and some unknowns. For example, his opposite, Linguini, was played by Lou Romano. A quick scan of his IMDB profile doesn't lead to any standout performances. However, Linguini's romantic interest was played by dame comedienne Janeane Garofalo. She's another one I didn't associate until after the movie. The ev-il food critic was played by none other than Peter O'Toole (he hasn't been knighted yet?) having been almost animated into the part as well as offering his voice to the role. The true villain of the story, however, was Skinner, played by Sir Ian Holm. Will Arnet, Brian Dennehy, James Remar, and Brad Garret (of Raymond fame) fleshed out the rest of the notable cast, though I'm sad to say none of them really made an impression on me. I was pleased to see that the old Pixar standby, John Ratzenberger made it into this one as well.

The movie hinges on the unlikely plot device of Remy the rat controlling Linguini the human's actions by pulling on various locks of hair. I readily overlooked this aspect as I had already suspended my disbelief of a rat that could not only read, but cook as well as a finely-trained French chef. It takes some surprising turns towards the predictable end, which is refreshing for a Disney movie. I have found that most of their recent offerings can be sussed out by the first fifteen minutes. I'm not going to offer any spoilers, however. Those of you that are interested will probably go see the movie, those of you that aren't don't care, so here we are.

As far as Summer CGI entries go, I predict that this will be the top of the heap, including Shrek the 3^rd. Thankfully, The Simpsons Movie does not fall into that bucket, or I may have some words to eat. Next up, Transformers!

I give Ratatouille four out of four half-eaten pieces of stinky cheese on a scale I just made up that doesn't mean anything.

Die Harder Than You’ve Ever Died Before

Stacy and I caught an early showing of the new Bruce Willis movie, Live Free or Die Hard yesterday. For those of you woefully uninformed, this fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise, like the other three, features wisecracking New York Detective John McClane fighting terrorists. John McClane is one of those sorts that is always in the wrong place at the right time; since he always manages to be in a position to foil the terrorists in one way or another before anyone else can or will. John is not in any sort of anti-terrorist or quick response unit. He’s just this normal guy that can’t get a break. I think that is one of the appeals of the Die Hard movies. Willis has got the everyman character down to a science. We want to believe that we would do what John McClane does if given the opportunity.

Enough about the franchise, how was the movie? Let me get what I don’t like about the movie out of the way first. Semi-spoilerish details follow.

The Bad:

• The terrorists use computers to take control of all traffic signaling in major US cities, all from one central location. There is no such thing. No central location controls every traffic signal in New York, DC, Chicago, LA, etc. Taking over such systems simultaneously would take much more manpower than the terrorist had and much more coordination.
• The terrorists trigger “Anthrax alarms” in every government building in DC at the same time. While this may be more plausible than the traffic control, it is not very likely.
• The terrorists take control of every broadcast, cable, and satellite television channel as well as EVERY networked computer to broadcast their videos to the public. WTF? Why does Hollywood always get this stuff wrong? Let’s assume that it was possible to control the television signals from three disparate sources as if there is a central location to control those. I know, not bloody likely, but let’s assume that for a moment. Where would they get the power and capability to broadcast their video to every networked computer, full screen? Computers just don’t work that way. The terrorists would have to pipe their signal to every computer, which is crazy to think of considering the varying types of networks out there and all the different safety and security components they would have to bypass on myriad systems. They would then have to trigger an automatic upload that simultaneously started every video player on every computer at the same time and played their synchronized message. Nuh uh. It could be conceivable if they used a virus to gain access, but the time it would take to propagate to every machine would allow it to be found by countless people that are paid to watch for such activity. Nope, it’s too much.
• In addition to all of this crazy-ass control the terrorist wield, they also have access to military secrets such as Air Force “go codes” and the ability to hijack a military jet to do their bidding. I’m ignoring how badass it was to watch John McClane versus a Harrier Jet for now and calling BS on the terrorists.
• The Mac (more on him later) constantly complains that, “the satellites must be down” when his cell phone won’t get signal. Who at this point has not heard of a cell phone tower? Cell phones don’t use satellites, they use towers to connect. Satellite phones use satellites, and they did not have those. If the power is completely out in a given area, it’s a good bet that the cell phone tower is out as well, which is a much more likely reason you are not getting cell signal. The Mac, being a consummate hacker, even able to do so with said cell phone, would be intimately familiar with how one works. I’m willing to bet the majority of the audience at least knows about cell towers. Why insult our intelligence?
• The terrorists perform all of their acts from a single, albeit mobile, location and no one figures out how to track them. We must accept that the anti-terrorism cyber unit or whatever they’re called in Homeland Security are completely unable to track these signals controlling so many disparate centralized systems to a single location? Come on!

Okay, as much as those little points irked me, they were all secondary to getting John McClane from point A to point yippee-ki-ay, mother trucker. That’s what Die Hard is all about, after all. So, even though the plot devices sucked to high heaven, the rest of the movie was cool as hell.

The Good:

• Bruce Willis naturally hits McClane out of the park. Ever since Moonlighting, Willis has proved that he knows how to play the wisecracking detective occasionally out of his depth.
• The hacker geek sidekick, played by The Mac was actually pretty entertaining. Not too surprising considering the other things I’ve seen him in.
• Timothy Olyphant, who I didn’t recognize even though I have seen him in a project or two, plays the villain. He actually does a pretty decent job.
• His hot second-in-command was played by Maggie Q of recent Mission: Impossible 3 fame. There’s nothing like a little hot ninja kickass action.
• Kevin Smith played the enigmatic Warlock. Okay, he’s not enigmatic, you just think that until you see him, then he’s just the shlub that’s portraying the stereotypical hacker nerd, but he does a good job there!
• Surprisingly, I enjoyed Cliff Curtis as the hardass in charge of figuring out what the hell is going on. Not surprising because I don’t like Curtis or anything. Honestly, he wasn’t familiar at all. Surprising because I usually don’t care about such secondary roles, but he performed well and his character’s decisions made sense. It’s just too bad his entire operation was inept.
• Mary Elizabeth Winstead played McClane’s estranged daughter Lucy. She channeled her inner Willis and was as tough as John. I really enjoyed her scenes in the movie.
• The action, holy crap was the action good. I don’t think I have ever seen that many car chases, explosions, gun fights, fist fights, helicopter versus car fights, jet versus man fights, apocalyptic end-of-the-world action in one place.
• Locations. While this movie doesn’t have any exotic locations like the Bond series, but it didn’t stay in one place for too long. I enjoyed watching Willis and The Mac playing catch up with the bad guys at various locations until the culminating scenes towards the end. And when all hope seems lost, yippee-ki-ay, mother-

If you dig action movies, then this is your first stop this summer.

I give Live Free, Die Hard four out of five explosions on a scale I just made up that doesn’t mean anything.

Oh, and in case you haven't caught it yet, here's a kickass tribute to John McClane by a group called Guyz Night. Language definitely NSFW!

More Will Ferrelly Goodness

That darn Pearl is back. This time she's out for Ferrell's blood! Check out the latest, and sadly last, of Pearl's appearances in Ferrell's funnyordie.com "Good Cop, Baby Cop". Thanks for the drop, BWE.tv!

Happy Father's Day! That's This Week, Right?

I feel a little guilty for not posting this last week right after Father’s Day, but here we are. I had a wonderful Father’s Day, complete with a stirring rendition of “Daddy’s Homecoming” by my daughter and the rest of the young children at church. Stacy and the girls gave me what could possibly be the sweetest and most cherished gift ever (forgive the sentimentality, I have a weakness for it when my kids are concerned) in the form of a custom photo album designed to sit on a desk and rotate through pictures (Creative Memories Picfolio Minutes, standby for shameless plug leading to Stacy's Web site.) There are three pages in the album each drawn or written by one of the girls along with some poems calculated to bring a tear to my eye and some great candids of the girls. It has a place of honor on my desk, right near my workstation. I have already proudly showed it off to a few of my interested cubicle visitors.

They also picked out a Wii game for me, Super Paper Mario. It’s a good one, full of the unique humor that made Super Mario RPG so fun on the Super Nintendo. It uses the Wii’s particular controller mechanism only peripherally, but that doesn’t detract from the fun of the game. It poses itself as a 2D sidescroller, but has the highly enjoyable feature to turn the screen sideways so you can look at the game field in all its flat glory from the side. Many hints, secrets, and required items can be found hidden in this third dimension that is so strange and unusual to the two dimensional inhabitants of that world. If you have a Wii and enjoy Mario games, I highly recommend the game.

MetaBlog Update Department:
This is my 100th post. Woo hoo!

More Than Meets the Eye, Potatoes Have Eyes, It’s a Joke, Get It? Ah, Forget It.

As you already know if you read Jon’s Threshold, I received another awesome gift for my new cubicle yesterday. Jamie gave me an Optimash Prime which may be the sweetest Mr. Potato Head ever. I would have to rate this over Darth Tater at least because Optimash is a good guy. Hmm, maybe I need to get a Darth Tater and pit the two in a duel to the julienne. Anyways, Optimash has taken up a benevolent watch over Power Girl in my upper cabinet. Someone must protect her virtue as she poses heroically, after all. That is assuming she doesn’t flatten any threats to her virtue with her two huge – muscles. You thought I was going to say boobs, didn’t you? Get your mind out of the gutter, perv. Not everything is about sex with me, okay? Speaking of which, this particular photo sparked quite a nerd conversation between Jon and I. Go check out his blog for the particulars. Here are the two heroes chillin’ in my cabinet with Optimash’s bitchin’ miniature Optimus truck sidekick. Thanks, Jamie!

Ain't nobody messin' with this cabinet!

Somebody Looks Fantaaaastic!

Jon, Jamie, Casey, and I went to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on Monday. Judging by their previous effort, I could have gone into the movie expecting it to fall somewhere between Fantastic Four and Daredevil in the realm of crappy comic adaptations. However, the trailers made it look much better than that and may have skewed my expectations more towards X-Men levels.

Happily, I was not disappointed. This one was far better than the first in almost every respect. Unfortunately, three of the things that sucked from the first one made their way into this one. Namely, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, and Julian McMahon. Grifod just doesn’t do a convincing Reed Richards. He tries his darndest, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t make it. Jessica Alba, though one of the holy three Jessicas, has just about zero acting ability. Naturally, she makes up for it by showing off her boobs. Being the 21^st Century Cro Magnon Man I am, I don’t mind that much. Still, she is no Susan Storm.

The biggest stinker of the bunch is without a doubt McMahon. The man has no presence. He’s about as threatening as Mort Goldman from Family Guy. How can he even hope to pull of someone of Dr. Victor Von Doom’s imposing personality? It is as if the Casting Powers That Be decided that there was no way they could impart Doom’s over-the-top megalomania in a realistic manner, so they went 180 degrees and cast a milquetoast instead. There may be some truth to that sentiment, but that is no reason not to try, dammit!

Mort Doom, pleased to meet you.

Oh gosh, I hope that didn't come off as too pushy!

That said, Dr. Doom in his armor was definitely a sight to behold. They got that part right. Too bad it didn’t happen until the end. Doug Jones as the Surfer was outstanding. Laying Laurence Fishburne’s voice over the top made the Shining One fun to watch. He did some kee-razy things with his board that made for some splendid visual effects. Chris Evans gave his encore performance of Johnny Storm the same treatment as his first. He may not be born for the role like Michael Chiklis is for The Thing, but that doesn’t hurt him any. Chiklis was great. They roughed up his rock a little bit and lengthened his brow. I can see them slowly working him into the current comic book incarnation just as Ben Grimm evolved into a rockier Thing there.

One of Jon’s complaints was Galactus. I was just relieved that they didn’t have him as a giant space fart as some of the early images indicated. What they did do was nod to the comic community in the form of a silhouette in the shape of Ol’ Purple Pants’ helmet over Saturn and then again when the Surfer met with Galactapus. I had no complaints. Considering what form Galactus has taken in the comic books from time to time, specifically in an issue of Quasar back in the day, it wasn’t far from the source.

The visuals were excellent. Even seeing the Fantasticar in action wasn’t as cheesy as it could have been. Sue’s use of powers was not only well done, but appropriate for her ability. The Thing didn’t get as much clobberin’ time as I would have liked, but what he did was good. Human Torch looked perfect, especially in the scenes with the Silver Surfer. Dr. Doom’s weird organic lightning power was present, but did nothing that he couldn’t have designed his suit to do, so I still see that as an unnecessary conceit. The Surfer’s power was fun to watch, but had an odd origin that didn’t really jive with the comics. It was used as a plot device, though, so I can’t fault them too much.

The one power I did not appreciate the use of was Reed’s stretching ability. There is just something about Ioaian Griuoffffffiuod that doesn’t sell it to me. There were a couple of good scenes with it, one of which was in London, the other when it was not Reed using it. Speaking of that scene, which you see briefly in some trailers, I loved watching Johnny do the Super Skrull thing and use all four powers at once. While it remains to be seen if the Skrulls will make an appearance in a future FF movie, who knows if the Super Skrull will as well? This is probably the closest thing we’ll get to seeing that sort of action and it was fantastic (pun intended.)

I was a bit disappointed with the blatant product placement throughout the film. Dodge was plastered all over the Fantasticar, which struck me as contrary to Reed’s earlier sentiments about corporate sponsoring. Dos Equis was not just prominently featured, it was practically shoved in my face and spilled in my lap. They would have had to give out free bottles of the stuff to make the message any clearer.

I give this movie 3 ½ out of 5 super powered astronauts on a scale that I just made up and doesn’t matter for a thing.

New Job Blues

I realized again as I wrapped up my day in the NOC last Saturday that I really don’t like endings. I don’t like saying goodbye. I don’t like closing chapters on what was overall a positive experience in my life. I wasn’t too sentimental about leaving Reston. I will miss RTC, but I think that is because I am very familiar with it and Dulles is considerably more daunting in comparison. I will miss my friends in the NOC more.

As I came into work on Monday and sat down in my empty cubicle. I do mean empty; no computer, nothing on the desk, in the drawers, or in the cabinets. I think they thought I would be bringing my own equipment with me. The joke is on them. I got nuthin. I brought in my home laptop after a warning last week from Jamie, a friend and fellow programmer.

So I sat there with my laptop, which was dwarfed by the empty space around it, completely at a loss. I had no direction. I had no equipment, I had nothing to do but wait for the all-hands meeting to start at 10:00. After a few minutes, two of my new team members strolled in and we chatted for a little bit. However, it was clear they had their own things to do before the all hands, so I went back to the scant solitude of my empty cubicle.

The all-hands meeting was considerably better. They gave each of us assigned seating and I happened to be at a table with two people I had worked with before. The familiar faces were nice to see. Two hours later and we adjourned to the “fun” portion of the meeting at the Dulles Golf Center down the way. The food was good, but since Jamie decided to stay at work to finish some things up, I really had no one to talk with. I searched out a couple of my new teammates and sat with them, but after a few minutes of not being introduced to others at the table and being politely ignored in conversation. I realized something else.

I really don’t like beginnings. I am slow to make friends and I fear my shyness often comes off as aloofness. I tend to stay on the quiet side until I get to know the people around me, and I haven’t done that yet. Things tend to get off on a slow pace for me in social situations, which is one reason I avoid them when possible. I’d rather have a close-knit group of friends that I can identify with and feel comfortable around.

What I like is middles. That time period when I am comfortable in my surroundings, I know what I’m meant to do, I know the people I need to interact with, and I can see what’s coming. Call it a comfort zone thing or whatever, but I like it. I am eagerly looking forward to reaching that point here.

Best Farewell Present EVER, OR, The Magic Cleavage Window Makes Everything Better

Jon got me a little something to see me off on my way to the new job next week. He made sure that I would have company in my new pod, company of the HR infraction variety:

Thanks Jon! I'll think of you everytime I look at her. Ewww, not like that!

Pandora and Imeem

I love music. I don’t listen to the radio much, since I have audio books in my car, but I like having some music in the background when I’m doing schoolwork or programming on the computer. I have an extensive MP3 collection somewhere, but I have no MP3 player (I know, what decade am I living in?) and hauling out the CDs is kind of a pain.

www.pandora.com
Instead, I use an online music streaming site that I found a couple of years ago. If you want the radio experience online, but do not like the playlists you find at places like radio.aol.com, check out www.pandora.com. Just enter in an artist or song title that you like and the “Music Genome Project” will put together a streaming playlist that features similar artists. I have been introduced to quite a few new artists that I may have never heard this way. You can customize your playlist by marking songs you like or dislike until the station plays the type of music you want to hear. It is revolutionary as far as streaming music goes. I do not see why more companies don’t adopt this model. If you sign up, let me know and I’ll share a station or two with you.

www.imeem.com
Duddy recently introduced me to another music station. This one is like MySpace for playlists. People upload their favorite music on their profiles, and other people are free to link to it in their own playlists. The result is a huge database of songs with which to build endless playlists. Unfortunately, it appears record labels are flagging their artists’ work slowly but surely on the site. Instead of complete tracks for these artists, you’ll only get 30 second samples. Even ignoring those f-wit record executives, you can make a mighty playlist with everything available. You can also share tracks and entire playlists with others. You can find me by searching for merlintwizard under “People”. I’ve got one eclectic playlist and a couple others favorited. Try it out at www.imeem.com while there are still good songs online.

Movie Review Bonanza!

I was going to write up my usual take on the movies I’ve seen this month, but I’ve posted a ton today already and things are about to pick up here at work – I mean, um, I would never blog at work, that would be an ineffective use of company time and inappropriate use of company property! Um, anyway, here’s my abbreviated take on the latest cinematic adventures I’ve viewed.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Fitting bookend to the trilogy. Nothing above and beyond the first two that makes this one really stand out. It was an entertaining piratical romp. Rush and Knightley make this one worth watching. Of course, Stacy would have you believe that Depp made it worth watching, but while his Sparrow is entertaining, he doesn't do it for me.
Three out of Four Jolly Rogers

Shrek the Third
Meyer’s Shrek is wearing on me. He was the least entertaining character. Luckily his supporting cast of fairytale friends hit the laughs often. Add in a dash of Python players in the form of Cleese and Idol, some delightful Julie Andrews, and a couple of rousing speeches to sway the villains one way or another, and you get a decent movie. I did like the second one better, though. For the record, nothing beats Snow White lilting to the woodland creatures in a voice straight out of the original Disney movie before launching into Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song.
Seven and a Half out of Fourteen Jellied Eyeballs

Surf’s Up
Surprisingly good! I expected more of the standard CGI schlock that has littered cinema screens in the wake of Pixar’s gems. However, this one succeeded where others have failed miserably. The voice cast really did it for me. I love Diedrich Bader’s work and having him reprise his character from Napoleon Dynamite was perfect. Speaking of Napoleon, Dynamite himself gave a great performance as the hapless stoner chicken. Jeff Bridges basically played the Dude in penguin form, so that was cool. James Woods does great voice over work. I loved Brian Posehn as the older brother. The LaBeouf played the lead character, but I find that lead character voices in the CGI movies all sound alike, so I didn’t realize until I looked him up.
Nine out of Ten Chum Buckets

Hero or Villian, I’m Still a Nerd

Which Super Hero are you?

My results:
I am Spider-Man

Spider-Man 95% Green Lantern 75% Superman 70% Hulk 60% Robin 53% The Flash 45% Iron Man 40% Supergirl 38% Batman 30% Catwoman 30% Wonder Woman 28%

I am intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test


Which Super Villain are you?

My results:
I am Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 65% Lex Luthor 49% Apocalypse 47% Mr. Freeze 46% Magneto 44% The Joker 37% Riddler 33% Juggernaut 32% Mystique 32% Dark Phoenix 31% Kingpin 30% Catwoman 28% Green Goblin 28% Two-Face 28% Venom 27% Poison Ivy 13%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

MAF Take 2

A long time ago, back in Utah, I had some car trouble. I had to keep my foot on the gas at all times or the engine RPMs would flatline and the car would stall. This made for some interesting stops as I double-footed the gas and brake. I’m not good at hitting the brake with my left foot. I use that foot for the clutch. You don’t ease the clutch pedal down, you hit it, and then gently release.

Picture me jamming my foot down on the brake like I’m trying to stop the car with my feet. Heck, just imagine Fred with a red beard and no hair and you pretty much have it.

The cause turned out to be the Mass Airflow (MAF) sensor. It sits on the air intake vent just behind the air filter. All it consists of is a couple of tiny pieces of metal that test the air as it passes through. It helps the computer decide how to mix the air and fuel, though. A problem with the MAF means your engine doesn’t get the right mixture.

The first time I removed it and cleaned it out with the assistance of my father-in-law. Very easy and very cheap fix. In case you can’t figure out where I’m going with this, it happened again.

My experience was a little different this time, so I didn’t assume it was the sensor right away. I took the car in to my mechanic to have him read the error codes. Apparently, they don’t know how to read them since the 95 Probe shares so many characteristics with the Mazda MX6. They didn’t charge me for the code reading and sent me to a Ford dealer.

Any guess at Ford’s answer? Only a $1500 dollar quote to replace the MAF sensor AND the distributor. Thanks, but no thanks. I think that is about the car’s net worth now. I paid them the $90 for the code reading and took my busted ride home. I tried to get the MAF off to clean it. I had forgotten that Ford is run by a bunch of proprietary jerkholes. The two tiny bolts holding it down were star bolts with a peg in the middle. That meant that my star bit would not fit since it didn’t have a depression in the tip. Naturally, no local hardware or auto shop carried the bit. So I said, “scroot,” and drilled out the bolts. Replacement hex bolts from Home Depot cost me $0.20.
The MAF was pretty dirty, so I polished it off and put it back in. Excited to test my fix, I hopped behind the steering wheel. I didn’t even get out of my parking spot.

Dammit.

I drove my wounded bird to the mechanic and gave them Ford’s prognosis. Stacy picked up a cheap MAF from a local auto shop and dropped it off for them to try first. Distributors cost a lot more than MAF sensors and are a lot harder to replace. They popped in the new one while I was at work and the engine purred like a kitten. The final price from them was $80, but it included the charge for installation and additional testing on the distributor and system.

All told the entire situation cost us $300. That’s just a little bit less than Ford’s quote. Only one frickin’ fifth of their quote! How do these people sleep at night? I kicked myself a little for not just replacing the MAF sensor myself in the first place, which would have saved about $180, but what’s a little extra to be sure it’s all working?

Until next time you break my car, Murphy.

On to Bigger Things

On a decidedly good note, I have a new job lined up. After nearly seven years in the NOC, I am moving on to work I actually like doing. I met with my new manager a few weeks ago about a programming position on his team. Ironically, I was in Dulles that week attending a programming training course. My current manager set June 18 as my transition date. Tomorrow is my last day in the NOC.

I have talked to one of my future teammates. It appears that I will be doing the scut work for a while. Whenever something comes across their desks that they don’t want to handle, they’ve been setting it aside for the new guy. Ah well, that’s fine by me. Anything is an improvement over what I’m doing now.

It’s been a few weeks now, but I was involuntarily moved to the IC side of the desk when management split them back off from dial and wireless support. I miss dial and wireless. I miss sitting at the desk with Jon. I'm a mess without Jon. I miss Jon so damn much. I miss being with Jon, I miss being near Jon. I miss Jon’s laugh. I miss Jon’s scent; I miss Jon’s musk. When this all gets sorted out, I think Jon and me should get an apartment together.


So yeah, IC sucks unmentionables. I love programming. So even though I’m going to be inheriting a bunch of PERL maintenance gigs (PERL is an fergly programming language,) I am happy to leave the NOC work behind. However, I will miss the NOC. More specifically, some of the people I worked with. Many have moved on, but those that have not know who they are. Once you guys get to Dulles, we’ll do some lunches.

Air Conditioners, Can’t Live Without Em, Can't Let Em Piss On Themselves

My recommendation to everyone that has a central AC: don’t break it at the beginning of summer.

Stacy and I have known since we moved in that we’d have to replace the AC within a couple of years. We were tipped off by the home inspector who said, “Yeah, you’ll have to replace the AC within a couple of years.” It’s old and it creates a noticeable halocline right at the second floor (yeah, yeah, halocline is the vertical salt water/fresh water barrier in bodies of water and has nothing to do with temperature, work with me here!) We figured the deafening sound every time the AC kicked on was another step towards that great big Freon factory in the sky. Little did we know that the AC’s demise was closer than we thought and that it would not die of natural causes.

Poor little AC, it deserved better than that.

It started early in the season shortly after the first heat wave hit us. Stacy found a puddle of water at the feet of the furnace/condenser stack in the basement. I figured it was the pvc pipe leaking since I never cemented the couplers I installed a couple of years ago. I was proved wrong after finding that the AC had soiled itself again post-cement.

Time to call a professional.

That was a mistake.

The HVAC tech said the condenser wasn’t draining properly and installed a little clear U-pipe near the top of the pipe leading out of the unit (yes, Jon, I said unit.) Yay! Our problem was fixed for only a couple hundred dollars!

That is, until the AC left a puddle like a puppy frightened by the postman. This time we could see the leak inside the cabinet. The water was going down the U-pipe, but it couldn’t make it back up the other side because it was actually higher then the beginning of the U-pipe. Basic physics must not be a prerequisite to servicing HVACs. The leak was actually on the other side of the cabinet, right above the electrical panel and eventually leading down to the furnace pilot light. Warning bells rang in the dim recesses of my mind. Surely this was not a good combination.

I fashioned a makeshift drain out of some old dryer ducting and a bucket. Macguyver’s got nothing on me! Of course I can’t leave well enough alone. We had already called the HVAC guy back, but I wanted to see what I could do in the meantime. I must have bumped the dryer duct, because as I was messing with the U-pipe on the other side, I could smell the telltale scent of burning plastic and metal that signals an electrical fire and the HVAC’s impending doom.

Being the genius that I am, I continued to work at the U-pipe while the AC struggled on. It didn’t last long, though. A loud snap-pop, the death rattle of the aged equipment, signaled the end of it all. Stacy ran into the other room to hit a circuit breaker, but it was too late. I glanced in the cabinet and saw a small blue flame. I snuffed it out and hung my head as the acrid smoke wafted up from the HVAC.

What’s the cost of a new HVAC? Oh, only five grand. It’s a good thing we’ve been saving up. What’s that? We haven’t? Darn. I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got credit for it. Oh? We don’t have that either? Crap. Well it’s good that the HVAC company offers 12 months same as cash! What do you mean I don’t qualify for that? What’s that? Home Depot is selling window AC units for $200? Sold!

I didn’t find out until yesterday that applying jointly, Stacy and I qualify for the 12 months same as cash from a different lender, so it looks like we’ll get a new HVAC next week. I’m really not sure how Stacy’s complete lack of income helps us qualify when I can’t get the financing alone. Ah well, at least we’ll have a cool house once the 100+ temperatures hit.

What’s the moral of the story? Don’t let your AC piss on it’s own electrical panel.

I’m ba-ack!

And just a few days shy of a full month off blogging. Meh, nothing has happened. Unless you count my air conditioner story, or my car problems, or my new job, or Paris going to jail. Okay, I probably won’t write anything on that last one except for the fact that it lifts my spirits to see a privileged fame-whore experience justice like everyone else should. I have also been to several movies in the past month, so expect to see some reviews up in here. Ah, there’s nothing like timely movie reviews, right?

So, if you read from top to bottom, this post is completely extraneous. For those of you that move forward through time, here is the beginning of a veritable flood of posts (plood? floop?) from yours truly.

Adieu, The Office, Adieu

Fare thee well, The Office. I will miss thee ere thine return to mine waves in air yonder season when the very leaves of the trees adorn the ground. ::sniffle::

Fantastic double episode this Thursday. It was a great ending the season. I certainly did not expect the ending.

Nor did I expect Jan turning into a complete basket case.

What I did expect was Michael Scott’s overboard confidence, leading to putting his house on the market (E-bay, no less!) and turning his reigns over to Dwight (could there have been any doubt as to his successor?)

I expected Dwight’s immediate conversion of the office into a tyrannically oppressed dictatorship with a toady of his very own.

I did not expect Stanley’s hilarious reaction to “ShruteBucks” offered by the new regime.

Nor did I expect what happened in/after Jim’s interview.

It was certainly a senses shattering episode! Okay, maybe not so much in the sense shattering department. Still, it had me alternately laughing my arse off and agape at the developments. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty with quotes and everything this time, but I will remark on one particular development.

I am pro-Jim/Karen and have firmly been even after my waffle not too long ago. Pam had her chances and blew them (that’s what she said) twice. Not to mention, any diddling around between Jim and Pam would ruin the sexual chemistry and kill that aspect of the show. I’m beating a dead horse here, but I don’t think Jim and Pam should get together for the sake of the show. The romantic in me disagrees, but I’ve long since learned to stifle his objections with a metaphorical shovel to the head.

On a better romance front, we have developments (and I mean developments) on all three office romances. Michael, like most men, is unable to resist the allure of fresh breastage and hops back into the arms of his damaged goods girlfriend, Jan. Angela rides a wave of euphoria as she imagines the power she will wield through Dwight’s dictatorship. Ryan drops the bomb on Kelly at the end when he reveals, “We’re Done,” (note the capital D, that’s very important,) Kelly’s subsequent outburst, and the slow grin that spreads across Ryan’s face. Is he imagining his freedom from Kelly? Is he considering the possibilities now that he will be Michael’s boss? Did he just remember a funny joke Creed told earlier involving a transvestite hooker, a penguin, and fifty bucks?

Wait, that last one didn’t happen on the episode, did it?