This Looks Fun

Smokin' Aces (click for the trailer)

Basically this movie is about some witness in a mob trial. He's holed up in a Reno hotel, and the mob boss puts a massive bounty on his head, so all of the world's top assassins show up kill the guy. There are some cops there to defend him, and you end up with tons of assassins and cops fighting in ridiculous fashion.

If nothing else is good about it, Jason Bateman plays some sickly looking guy, so that'll be gold.

Blogger Problems

For some reason I cannot get Blogger to post anything from Fire Fox 2.0. Is anyone else having this same problem? Thus I was forced into Internet Explorer to post that delightful Sifl & Olly episode, which made me look at this blog in IE, and I was reminded that there's an error when you open it. Similar errors pop on any Blogger blogs that have the top bar hacked off of them. Take that error as a sign you shouldn't be using IE.

(By the way, Fire Fox 2 has a spell checker built into it that spell checks any text you enter into anything on any website. It's the best thing ever.)

Sifl & Olly

I don't know how one forgets a show this fantastic, but it had slipped my mind until I saw a sock puppet on the internet.

Magazine Revival

I recently ordered several magazines subscriptions from this site - which has insane prices. (Yes, I am an affiliate, and this is an affiliate link, so you can help pay my hosting fees.) I'm serious about the prices; I subscribed to three different magazines for $5 a piece (full year subscription). Everything I saw is hugely discounted, and quite frankly I don't understand why you'd pay full price.

On top of the prices, they throw you some 'points' which you could save up to get free magazines, though it looks like you'd have to order quite a few things to get anything for free. Anyways, I thought if anybody was interested I'd share. I'll throw a button on here and on the blogulution somewhere in case the mood strikes.

LED DLP HDTV

That's "Light Emitting Diode Digital Light Projection High Definition Television". Thank god for acronyms. I'm really looking forward to checking out the new DLPs that are finally starting to show up with LED backlighting instead of a standard bulb. I love my TV, and it looks amazing (especially when displaying something other than Comcast's half-assed, compressed, choppy HD signal), so it's not getting replaced for quite a while. I've heard that some of the advances in color wheels and bulbs make things even better, though, and the new tri-LED setup is going to kick some serious ass. Where's Pat? Didn't he want a $4,000 television?

Someday, not too far from now, we will never again replace bulbs. People will ask "Grandpa? Did you really used to climb up on your table and replace the light emiting diodes in the chandelier?", and us oldies will reply, "Well, see we used to use strings in a vacuum that we'd heat up enough that they glowed, and sometimes they would break." Then once the laughing stops we'll probably get put in a home. Mark my words, light bulbs will be the next generation's candles; something girls use to relax in a bath and guys use to seduce those girls. (Candles will be gone forever when the last bee is killed by a bug zapper.)

For those of you with girlfriends and thus don't know these things (I know I have one, but that's a fluke), a DLP television works by shining a really bright light through a wheel which contains colored windows. That now-colored light bounces off of millions of tiny mirrors (you may have heard them mentioned by a little girl and an elephant) and onto the screen that you look at. My DLP has a third-generation wheel (they're up to 7th now), and that wheel/light setup is about to go away. They're replacing the whole thing with three super-bright LEDs which will shine the proper color, changing faster than I can understand. This means no bulbs to replace, no warm-up time at startup (which is a bit annoying), and no "rainbow effect", which only some people notice.

If you're at all interested in this stuff, there's a great HDTV write up here that discusses all the different signal formats, and the real difference between televisions. As you can tell, reading it got me all dorked up.

I was just thinking, and no TV I have ever owned broke or really had any problems at all. Here is a list of every TV I have ever owned:
*19" off-brand CRT bought when I was 13-ish (still used in my old bedroom in Brookfield)
*27" Toshiba CRT bought when I was 17 (and working at Best Buy), worked great. I got it replaced via a service plan for no reason
*32" Toshiba flat screen CRT, gotten on the cheap in that service plan exchange when I was 20, still working like a champ in Dan's house in Madison
*46" Samsung DLP (my current set)

Pictures from my Phone

I pulled all the pictures off of my phone, and I thought I'd share some of the most fantastically amazing ones. These are all small versions; you can find the full-sized pictures and others not included here in the photo gallery. Enjoy!

Here's a picture of the smoke from a big fire that gutted a building downtown today. It was about 3/4 of a mile south of where I work, and it made a mess of the loop for a few hours. I don't think anyone was hurt.

This is the NBC tower. I took this when Chris, Mark and crew visited and we saw Marie Antionette downtown. NBC looks pretty cool at night.

A view out my window during a particularly cool storm. This shot doesn't really do the image justice, but it was extremely dark, with a strip of full daylight just above the horizon.

This the view north up Lakeshore from a friend's balcony. This is easily one of the most impressive views I've seen of the city. Just to the right is a marina, and to the left is a great one-block neighborhood of huge single-family homes in the midst of high rises. (Pictures of the marina in the photo gallery.)

Office bug #1 - this is one of the huge spiders that lived outside my office window for a few weeks at the end of this past summer. This was the long, skinny one. Pictures of the short, fat one (cleverly framed so it looks like he's a monster on a building) can be seen in the photo gallery.

Office bug #2 - this guy is a praying mantis that the QA boys keep as an office pet. He spends quite a bit of time out of his cage, crawling around on monitors and people's heads. He'll attack anything that comes close to his face, which is pretty fun.

Maria's best friend, Helen, has a tiny dog. Helen's parents have a medium-sized dog. They spent the afternoon playing together on the family farm, and I got to watch.

This is the view from Maria's parent's backyard. That field right there is currently occupied by soy beans (pictures in the gallery), and you can see at least a few miles over rolling farmland beyond. Every time we visit I try to stand out there for at least a bit in the morning. Drinking coffee while your entire field of vision is rolling fields is a very nice way to start the day.

A sign I stumbled across downtown, claiming that this building is managed by Arun? And that he has a company of some kind? That's crazy - here I thought Arun was a teacher in New York!

This is from Marcus' big videogames on a building party. My personal favorite was a six-foot tall Pikachu calling down a massive lightning bolt upon his similarly giant foes.

Shure E2C Headphones

Shure E2C Headphones
I just recieved my pair in the mail yesterday, and thus far I am quite impressed. I got them specifically for their sound-isolation properties, and they work almost too well in this regard. When I walk to work in the morning I go down a coupld of blocks of quiet residental neighborhood, then cross a busier street. I didn't notice until I was on the sidewalk of that busier street that I could not hear the traffic. It's actually sort of an uncomfortable feeling; once I noticed it, cars would pass me without making a sound. I walked up to the train platform and found a train leaving the station - I saw it before I heard it - and I can typically hear a train pulling in from a couple of blocks away. The only sounds I heard all the way into work were a train pulling up right in front of me (and the sound of the train when I was actually on it), a little kid screaming when she was about 10 feet away from me and a car honking (again, right next to me).

The headphones sit inside your ear canals, and come with three different tips; two rubber ones and some foam ear plugs. The foam ones seem best to me, though the rubber ones are easier to put in and pull out. The bigger rubber ones actually hurt my ears, but the others may be okay once I get used to them. (Those last few sentances sure felt dirty.) The music quality is quite good (much better than my other two pairs of cheap headphones), and I really like that you can listen to things at a lower volume. This morning I was listening to some epic instrumental music at about 1/4 volume, where I usually have to play music at like 4/5 volume to hear it over the train.

The only annoyance thus far with the headphones is that they seal off your ears so well that you can hear your feet hitting the ground, and when you swallow it's like a nervous cartoon. As I sit at my desk writing this I can actually hear my heart beating (which is reassuring, but sort of odd). I had already gotten used to the walking noise by the time I got to work, though, so I don't think this will be an issue.

So all in all, I give the Shure E2C Headphones an 8.5, I guess. (There is no precident for a numerical rating system, so this is meaningless.)

300 Update

There's no "the". It's just 300. I think. I got it last night and read it, and it's good, but not really fantastic. I thought it was going to be tons of crazy fighting, and there was some good stuff there, but it wasn't as awesome as i was hoping. The art work also didn't live up to what I had heard. Good, but not amazing. Feel free to stop by and borrow it any time. I am still really hopefuly for the movie, as the visuals look great and the story is a good one.

Transformers will be Good

I just heard that Stan Bush (who did the music in the first Transformers movie) is doing the music in the new one.

This movie just keeps getting better and better, people. Honestly, if things continue in the fashion, I may have to kill myself immediately after seeing it to avoid being dissapointed by everything else in the world. (I'm not getting my hopes up, though.)

The 300

I just came across an upcoming movie based on a comic called The 300 by Frank Miller. Check out the trailer here. I think the trailer looks pretty awesome, and I'm going to grab the trade of the original comic, which I think sounds cool. Originally it was a run of 7 issues, with each page being drawn as a two-page spread, so the trade is one wide book to combine each spread onto one piece of paper.

The Z List

• Brian
• Pat and his entire family
• A zombie wolf I threw in front of a car to kill it
• Family of Heroes

If your name is on that list then congratulations! You were in my amazing, mind-altering zombie dream I had a couple of nights ago. This dream was the best thing ever, and featured such glorious bits as:

• Me running down a staircase with my feet only touching the walls to escape a psychopath
• Several discussions about that psychopath refrencing how he "masterbated with his own blood for 20 years"
• A hotel full of zombies
• A heroic, yet unidentified family who tried to save everyone in the hotel, only to be eaten
• This surreal bit where I was shown the view point of the son of that family as a zombie somehow dragged him underground, as zombie worms and bugs attacked his face

If you're not sold yet on how fantastic and amazing my dream was, perhaps you'll be interested to hear that it began with me on some sort of futuristic jet fighter avoiding incoming missles. I spoke to Brian over the phone, who was in a hotel with one of our fellow crew members who turned out to be a psychopath (who masterbated with his own blood for 20 years), and I came back to help him. After the awesome stairwell chase I ran through a door onto the first floor and BAM! zombies everywhere.

Things only got better from there, as I holed myself up in a room with other survivors. Outside the hotel there was this small service building that the heroic family was in. They saw the lights in the hotel go dark, and thought we were in trouble, so they came out (shotguns a'blazing) to save us, but it turned out that we had just blacked out the windows so the zombies couldn't see in! Then they tried to get back to their small service building, but couldn't get the door shut because of the zombies, and were dragged away to their deaths.

Following this I decided to make a break for it, and ran out, fighting zeds with my bear hands. One of the best parts of this dream was that animals became zombies too, and they could still move at normal speed (like the zombie bugs and worms). While I was running, two zombie wolves attacked me. I grabbed one by back of it's neck as it ran at me, and the other took off. Then there I was, holding this zombie dog who was still trying to bite me, so I had to find a way to kill it.

I ran behind the service building and suddenly I was in front of Pat's parent's house in Brookfield. There were a bunch of people there getting in cars to run away from the zombies (one of them was a really creepy guy that offered me a ride to the beach). I waited for a car to drive by at high speed and I threw the zombie wolf in front of it. The wolf bounced off the front of the car, flew over my head, and landed behind me on Pat's yard. I was afraid it was still undead, but after a few steps it fell dead on the ground.

Then I ran into Pat's house and found his entire famly there. Pat's Dad was his usual stoic self, and didn't seem worried about the zombies at all. Pat seemed injured (or maybe just lazy), as he was laying on the couch. This is where the dream ended; apparently Pat's house was somehow a safe place, and getting there meant I survived.

It was a fantastically amazing dream, especially since I usually can't acomplish things in dreams. It's rare for me to be able to do things I set out to do (like escape psychopaths or kill zombie dogs) when dreaming. So good job, my subconscious! Keep 'em coming!!

A Warning Shot Across the Pond

Harry fired the first shot in the "Which Side of the Pond is the Most Extreme Side of the Pond?" war today with a very subtle post which first claimed he's not blogging enough (lowers expectations) followed by a fantastic post including something about him joining the British KKK (blows expectations out of the park). Well, Harry, I'm not going to be caught with my pants down (that's knickers down for you). I'm listening to The Streets right now to get in the proper british gangster mood to represent.

Oh, uh, first of all, I, um, also haven't been very good about blogging lately. Boy, I sure am rusty from not blogging much. Bear with me as I try to relearn how to type on this board full of keys here...

Chicago has been totally extreme lately. Totally extreme. I just got around to buying some $5 magazine subscriptions online (that's american dollars, not Euro Trip dollars). I also recently read Harry's blog- aw crap, I already talked about that. I better switch up the topic to keep up the extremity!

Woah!!!!

In a wicked move to not only increase the extreme cache of Chicago but also decrease that of Europe in one fell swoop, I'm going to attend a soccer game (or 'footy match') this weekend. Hey Harry, are you going to a footy match this weekend? I sure hope so...

But in all seriousness this is a friendly competition; I'm not out to rag on the fog-hole that is Harry's day in Britian, but rather to celebrate my day, which is like a firework factory before the Fourth of July*. I look forward to reading about all of Harry's crazy adventures, and I just hope that mine can keep up. Can Harry possibly compete with the craziness of a day where I go to Qdoba for lunch? Or buy a new shower curtain at Target? We'll find out!!

*You may have noticed that this date was capitalized. Typo? NAY! The Fourth of July is actually a special day which is set aside to observe the date that the USA rid itself of British rule (then considered something of a big deal) so it could focus completely on getting ready for my birth, which would come a couple hundred years later.

On Watching the Packers Lose

Last night I got to watch the Packers play the Eagles, thanks to a Monday night game, but it was pretty hard to stay with it through the second half. I love watching any Packers game, even when they lose, but it kills me when they go out like they did last night; the Eagles were very, very beatable. Two fumbles on the goal-line should not translate to a one point lead going into the half. The Eagles were also missing key players in both their offensive and defensive backfields, yet we could not stop the run or pass effectively. Worst of all, I had to watch Favre step out to try to lead a comeback, which every football commentator on the planet thinks is his specialty, and what does he do? He starts throwing interceptions, that's what he does. The problem, as I have said time and time again, is that Favre still plays like he's 28 with a cannon for an arm and good legs; he can still throw hard, but he can no longer throw at the right people. I hate watching him scramble around and decide not to make the easy pass, deciding rather to hurl the ball 50 yards into triple coverage, then listening to everyone defend him.

Yes, there was a time when Favre could come back from any score. This was followed by a period where he'd lead a heroic effort, though sometimes the team would come up short. Then he pretty much stopped being able to lead a come back, though he still played alright, and we all agreed to blame his recievers when things went wrong. After a while we found that the Packers wound up losing in the forth quarter in almost every game, so every game became a potential comeback, but even with 12 chances a year Favre could never lead a comeback. So I'm not entirely sure why people still say things like "the game's never over when you have Brett Favre on your side". If I was an opposing corner back who had seen a Packers game in the last couple of years I'd be pretty excited when I saw I was up by 14 and Favre was stepping out onto the field; "Hooray!" I'd think, "I'm going to catch an interception!"

One of the bright spots of last night's game was that we got to watch one of my favorite Packers, Aaron Rogers, play a short series. Had the coaching staff let him run even one stinking bootleg on the goal line he may have even done what Favre couldn't; score a touchdown. Unfortunately for Aaron Rogers, he's going to have to be amazing starting on that day Favre steps down. If he's even just good he'll have a couple of years around Green Bay listening to people say, "Whatever happened to Brett Favre? Let's get him to come back from retirement," and then he will leave and play elsewhere. Unless you're a Steve Young it's pretty damn tough to follow a legend.

You'll notice that this post was titled 'On Watching the Packers Lose', and then it was all about Brett Favre. Well, that's what it's like to watch the Packers these days. Favre's insistance on playing like, well, Brett Favre means that the team lives or dies by his performance, and these days, more often than not, he's killing us. I like Favre, and I don't want to see him playing for another team, but unless he can adjust his style of play to line up with his ability he's going to continue to cost us games, and it'd be a damn shame for him to end his career with a string of 4-12 seasons. All that being said, had we won last night we would have been tied for second in our division. And had the Bears lost on Sunday we would have been one game out of first place. So I'll see you all at my house for a Packers Superbowl party.