2008

Archive for the year 2008

Cloverfield

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Brian under Movies, Reviews.

The anticipation of this film is starting to drive people mad! It looks like the PR people at Paramount Pictures hit a home run with the media hype on this film. Unless you have been living under a rock, you all know that there is little info circulating about the film “Cloverfield“, releasing January 18, 2008. Other than a few choice teasers and some interesting stills that have been leaked and placed on various web sites. I like the concept of a film that is done from the peoples point of view instead of watching it from a distance. I think this will add to the suspense of a film like this. For those of you that have been living under a rock and don’t know what I am talking about, let me fill you in. “Cloverfield” is rumored to be filmed entirely from the point of view of a group of friends and their Handycam. What was supposed to be a going away party for a good friend turned out to be a fight for there lives to not only get out of the city, but to get a glimpse of the monster that was devastating New York. Now the concept of a Handycam generated movie is not new, “The Blair Witch Project” did the same thing back in July of 1999. However, I think this is going to take it one step further. This will be done with more suspense and more action and from what I am reading, you don’t get to see the monster till like the last moments of the movie, everything else is glimpses and shadows that entice you and keep you guessing. I know that the Handycam changes hands several times in the film and from what I am hearing about it, they begin with a large group and end up with a few left. Nothing is concrete and as I said earlier, this is all very tight lipped at the moment. We only have a week left before we can finally put the rumors to rest and get the facts on this highly anticipated film and then I can do a proper review. Until then, enjoy the teaser.

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Aww, So Cute

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Ching under Babies, Sponsored Post.

Two years ago when we were looking to add to our family, I was initially interested in getting a Maltipoo (Maltese-Poodle hybrid). I really wasn’t familiar with the various hybrids but had seen pictures of Maltipoos and found them completely irresistible.

We found Molly from a breeder in Conway Springs who sold Yorkipoos (Yorkie-Poodle hybrid). I had never heard of them until then. Molly is really adorable and I love her to pieces but I think that I am partial to Malteses, which is why I think I was initially attracted to Maltipoos.

The other day I came across the web site for Salt Creek Kennel. They have the most adorable Morkies (Maltese-Yorkie hybrid). I’d never really seen a Morkie in person, but I’ve seen many pictures and I think they’re absolutely adorable!

Salt Creek Kennel currently has Morkie and Yorkie puppies for sale on their web site. Perhaps the best thing about Salt Creek is their proximity to Wichita. They’re locate just 20 miles East of Tulsa in Oklahoma so they are not that far at all from us. I think the next time we decide to add to our family we will definitely be looking them and their adorable puppies.

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The Invasion

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Brian under Reviews.

For those of you that missed “The Invasion” in theaters because you thought it was yet another remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (myself included), never fear. “The Invasion” releases on DVD on January 29, 2008. I recently had a screener pop across my desk and decided that I needed to give it a fair chance. After watching it I was mildly surprised at the film overall. There were some aspects of the film that did remind you of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. However, unlike those films there were no pod people or Gigantic plants roaming the streets. Instead this take was much more plausible. In “The Invasion”, starring Nicole Kidman and Danial Craig, the aliens are actually a complex spore that invades the human body and essentially rewrites the basic aggression sequence and other essential strands of our DNA and takes over like a parasite or a virus. There are some people that are immune to the invaders and through out the film these people are hunted down and we assume, destroyed. The invaders can only take over the body at its weakest state, when you are asleep and inactive. This is when the spore takes control and start to do its little deed of converting you into one of them. mind you, this transformation is mealy mental, but there are a few physical side effects. Like a large membrane that forms over you while you sleep, like a cocoon. It also seems that the converted people are working like one large community or Hive, kind of like a collective. I found a few flaws to this, in one scene a man on the subway tells Nicole Kidman that you can fool them, you just show no emotion. In several other scenes they state that they all know what each other is doing and they are all connected. If this was the case then they should have known who was converted and who wasn’t regardless of how you acted. This to me was a major flaw in the story line. I liked that the invaders were thwarted by science instead of gunning down a small town or nuking a city into extension like we see in so many of these films. in this you could step away from the film and say to yourself “I can see this happening”. They took the most logical form of an alien invasion and built the story around that. All-in-all I think the film was ok, regardless of it flaws. It kept me entertained and intrigued. Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig make a great on screen team and the underlying message that is in the story will leave you thinking, are we truly alone and would we be better off being ourselves, or one of them.

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Reasons for Using Tumblr

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Ching under Blog, Web.

I think it’s interesting how blogging has evolved and regressed at the same time. I remember when Blogger was a lot like how Tumblr is now. Remember? Back in the day, you had to use a third party commenting thingie in order to allow comments on your blog. Blogs were so simple then. As time progressed new features were added, making blogs more and more complex. The nice thing about Tumblr is that it allows you to easily post pictures, music, and videos without having to do any messy HTML coding. It reminds me of the good, ol’ days when blogs were really, really simple.

Of course, my blogging platform of choice is WordPress. Obviously, this blog is still on WordPress. I like all the plug-ins. There’s plenty of room in my heart for bells and whistles. Besides, this blog makes money. Not a lot, but some. Enough for lunches, anyway. So we have to keep this blog as it is and not mess with it.

This blog isn’t well suited to short updates, though. That’s where Twitter comes in. I post short updates in Twitter. Some classify it as a micro-blogging tool, but it’s not quite. I mean, you can’t really say much in 140 characters. Tumblr bridges the gap between Twitter and WordPress. In my mind Twitter is on one end of the spectrum, WordPress is on the other end, and Tumblr is somewhere in between.

While it’s not likely that I’ll be moving Life After Marriage to Tumblr, it is growing on me. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

Everyone’s doing it
I figured since all the cool kids had one, I should have one too. I’m a little behind, I know. I didn’t get in on the action until the other day. So I didn’t find out about it until release 3.0? That’s okay. This is the best release anyway.
Mobile browsing and mobile posting
Mobile browsing is great for those days in class when you are just bored out of your mind and you’ve checked your email several times already. Just kidding. Class is never boring and I always pay attention. Mobile posting through Tumblr is neat because there’s nothing to it. There’s no code thing that you have enter in order for it to get set up. You have an email address, and you simply start emailing. Not exactly the most secure way to do it, but the simplicity is worth it.
Feeds
You can integrate your WordPress, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook posts, Del.icio.us, Twitter (etc. etc. etc.) all into Tumblr so, theoretically, you don’t even have to do anything on Tumblr. Your Tumblr will update itself. I think this is a great feature, which I’m probably getting too carried away with. Currently, they only allow integration of up to five feeds. I really need a lot more than this because I want to integrate everything. It’s a start, though. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll allow me to have more.
No comments = no comment spam
So yeah. I’m not really worried about not having comment functionality. If I want comments, I’ll post it on here. My Tumblr is more of a monologue. I speak, you listen. LOL. Sometimes, you need an outlet like that.
And the best reason to use Tumblr: It’s so simple that even your grandparents can use it!

Anyway, I’m really digging Tumblr except mine is kind of broken right now. I tweaked Bill Israel’s Easy Reader theme and now it won’t show up in IE. It works fine in Firefox, though. So either I messed up something pretty badly or IE is just really stupid. Probably the latter. It’s time to switch to Firefox, anyway. LOL. Get , it will make your life better.

UPDATE: Okay, so maybe IE isn’t stupid – I AM. Ugh. I was at least smart enough to track down the theme designer. He was nice enough to step me through troubleshooting via instant messenger. Apparently I am too stupid to troubleshoot on my own because as soon as he stepped me through it, everything started working just fine.

Brian always tells me that when I panic, I go blind. Like when I’m looking for something in the closet. It could be right there in front of me and I won’t see it.

My apologies to IE for blaming the problem on it. Obviously, this was a simple ID10t error. I just need to calm down a bit. But Firefox is still better. So get , anyway.

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Will “Surface” Ever … Resurface?

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Brian under Reviews.

If you ask any average person if they saw “Surface” on Monday’s in 2005 most would say no. If you asked any fan boy, comic book geek or just all around sci-fi fan they would not only tell you yes, but give you a hundred reasons why it was one of the best sci-fi series on TV to date. However, not even the panicked screams of 10,000 virgin geeks could stop the preplanned conclusion of the series. It was reported on several sci-fi forums that the writers were told from the start that the series may not go further than a year, and that they should write the final episode to go either way. This to me says that they TV exec’s were not interested in the ever growing popularity of sci-fi based series. Instead they worked on producing more over 50’s crowd or reality niche TV shows that seems to be ever expanding and increasingly more ridiculous. You can look out on the net and find forum after forum and article after article of people complaining about the loss of what could have been a series equal to that of the current “Hero’s” (NBC’s redeeming quality) or the over 20 years and still going in syndication “Star Trek” franchise. But the upper echelon’s of TV God-hood don’t care about the niche market or the hoard’s of faithful sci-fi viewers that would kill for anything that has great effects and a rich story. I would have to say that this was one of the biggest mistakes that NBC made and in the log run it could have cost them millions of viewers that will now go to other channels instead of NBC. “Star Trek the Next Generation”, was on TV for a long time and managed to spin off “Star Trek, Deep Space Nine”, Star Trek Voyager and the prequel series “Star Trek: Enterprise”. All with decent track records (over 5 years) and all starting on Fox and now in syndication. Fox is not afraid to give something a chance it seems. Something I think other stations should try and not for just one season either. Actually give a show a chance! Anyone that watches a serious TV series, especially one with an ever growing plot and an in depth character make-up knows that it may take half a season or even a full season for a series to pick up speed. They really should have signed “Surface” for no less than 3 seasons. I think this would have given the series adequate time to build a following and prove its worth, and quite possibly still be running to date. With any luck this will go the way of Stargate SG-1 (originally shown on Showtime) and get picked up by the Sci-fi channel and they will continue on with the series, the story line itself had so much potential. Then fan boys like myself will finally get to enjoy the rest of the story (because we know there is more) and have some resemblance of closure to what could have been a resounding hit. Look for the DVD set in your store and be sure to pick it up, I promise that it will keep you interested and you will want more.