Movies, The good, the Bad and the ???

First off is the Chicken Little movie.
Other than Shrek, the non-pixar theaters have had trouble making a critically acclaimed all CGI movie. But as always I hope for the best with Disney. It would be nice if this and Toy Story 3 both came out as hits, enticing Pixar back. But as we all know, CGI failure at the Disney Studios will make Pixar smug. They will remain insistent on demands Disney can't grant. On the other hand if the Disney Studios do show they don't need Pixar, Disney may not want to renew their relationship.

Second are the sequels/remakes
The Mask of Zorro was not that great. I loved the movie but it wasn't that great, just campy. Sequels are hard to make especially when it was a perfectly done first movie. Such is King Kong. It may have been a wonderful idea of a movie in 1933 but watching that movie now is painful if your not a old movie buff. However if anyone can make it work it is Peter Jackson. Now all the sequels/remakes about to be released can make moviegoing suck. However if Batman Begins showed us anything it is a sequel can be fresh. And as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory proves, only a pre-prejudice to the original can ruin a genius redo.

The worst is going to be DOOM.
This movie was originally going to be a blockbuster budgeted movie from Warner. When Universal was able to grab the rights of this fast track property in 2004 it quickly laid out a schedule which even with a 2 month extension took only a year from start to screen. To put this into context choosing a script and director, filming, and post production can take a year and a half each. This movie took a year and a half from the grabbing of the DOOM property to the screen next month.** This isn't a list of the worst movies, but a list of movies I would like to look forward too that might not live up to my hopes. Well, I may be painting a bleak picture but the future is not that bad. I mean Harry Potter and The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe is also just around the corner. On my watch list of posable good movies is Serenity and Mirror Mirror. (Speaking of Serenity, the TV show Firefly was on a short time and I never got into the story-line. Mirror Mirror looks way weird but in a good way. And I love Henson stuff. I'm so looking forward to The Power of the Dark Crystal) **I found it interesting after watching months of interviews back in 2001 and 2002 with "Dwayne Johnson" the Serious Actor he became "The Rock" after only the first round of Scorpion King focus groups.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

It happens to be the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrrr what be a better language? I heard of this most interesting of days when Dave Barry's column used to be funny. I still find him funny at times but not enough to read his articles (which are on "hiatus"). My favorite pirates are A. Captain Jack Sparrow and B. The Dread Pirate Roberts. Now as it is unlikely to have a new adventure with the Dread Pirate Roberts (as the sequel "Buttercups Baby is more like a running joke by the author William Goldman) I will have to look forward to PoTC:2 and PoTC:3 But for you who want to Type like a pirate Here is a keyboard for you...

books and movies

I posted some songs I have in my iPod a while back.. I thought I would post the movies i have on my shelf and the books i can find around here.. Books So many I can't recall. But the ones in my iPod right now are the books Eragon and Eldest by Christopher Paolini, The Artemis Fowl books, The Traveler (John Twelve Hawks), Harry Potter books, The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Wizard of Earthsea Series by Ursula K. LeGuin Enders Game books by Orson Scott Card (including the shadow series) All vampire books by Anne Rice, All books by Douglas Adams, Dan Brown Books (starting with Da Vinci code.) All Michael Crichton books. The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind, Dean Koontz books, The Butlerian Jihad Series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Achk too many good books out there. (why is the two thickest / longest ones (Eragon and Harry Potter books) considered children's books?) Some movies I have: Bugs Life, Aqua Diaries, Beatlejuice, Brother bear, Edward Scissor hands, Fantasia 2000, Harry Potter Movies, Lord of the rings movies, Hocus Pocus, Joseph and the technicolor dream-coat, legend, Lilo and Stitch, Little Shop of Horrors, Mary Poppins, Monsters Inc, Moulin rouge, Mulan, Newsies, October Sky, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Sleeping beauty, Spider-man 1&2, Spirited Away, Star-trek first contact, Star-trek 4, Strangers with candy, Tarzan, The Black Hole (cause its so bad its good) The dark Crystal, Emperors new groove, Lion King, Little Mermaid, Nightmare Before Christmas, Sword in the Stone, Witches, Toy Story, Tron, Twister, Xmen. Batman Begins (future) Charlie & the chocolate factory (future)

Happy Birthday Mario

Happy 20th Birthday Mario (Sept. 13, 2005) Although I never made it to level 8 on Super Mario Brothers I have loved and completed every other major Mario Bro. game, Mario World game and Mario RPG game. Apart from his own game Mario has starred and appeared in many sports, action, and other video games. Some even chalk up Nintendo's survival to their franchise games. (I know I'm looking forward to Mario 128 and Zelda: The Twilight Princess.)

Interests

AP HOLDER JUNE 4, 2005 - JUNE 3, 2006

This is my 3rd or 4th round with a Annual Passport. But this time as an AP holder I haven't returned. I'm thinking October.

NIGHT ELF DRUID DEC. 25, 2004 - PRESENT

Still playing. though not as often. But as the host for the guild website even when I don't play I stay in the game a little.

iPOD MAY 2003 - PRESENT

I am currently on my second iPod, used the first to death.. Also have a shuffle, want a Nano. This relates a bit to other interest: Audiobooks. Audible and ipod is great for audiobook lovers. I have 70 or so unabridged audiobooks. That many would have cost around 2-3 thousand dollars. I have probably spent only 200 bucks (20x10months) your first month you get 5 books and you have no obligation for more months. And ever month you resign up you can get 3 books. At 20 bucks a month its the best deal out there. (And ipods are the best for audio books, CD Quality with the the place saving convenience of cassettes.)

MAC OS X AUGUST 2004 - PRESENT

Well after loving my iPod (and being an apple fan-boy forever) I decided to make the "Switch" which sounds scary isn't that bad. My powerbook has changed my life so much. It is also not incompatible with life as Microsoft has led everyone to believe. Now in the past it may have been so. I have seen past mac operating systems and OS X blows everything else out of the water, even XP. (But i still keep my XP PRO desktop and end up using it often, especially as I can only create images on the dead program "Microsoft Image Composer". (I really need to learn my Adobe/Macromedia products.)

NINTENDO 1986 - PRESENT

I say 1986 but I don't remember when I got my first Nintendo. I do know it was shortly after the NES came out. Currently Im a Nintendo DS player. The Nintendo Micro looks very attractive, but its hard for me to buy GBA (Game Boy Advance) games because my first gameboy advance (my first portable game system at all) was stolen with tens of games. For some reason its just frustrating to buy a game for the second time. (plus I need to save up for the revolution in 2006)

EVERYTHING TNBC AND TIM BURTON 1993 - PRESENT

I've been fan of Tim Burton from the beginning.. One of the few that liked TNBC (The Nightmare Before Christmas) from the moment it came out in theaters. Not all of his movies are masterpieces but most are good enough to own. (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is going to be a pre-order) Incidentally I'm a Danny Elfman fan through Tim Burton's movies. Pee Wee's Big Adventure couldn't have been such a classic without the both of them. (P.S. here is to hoping that the corpse bride is another TNBC)

TV SHOWS: USA NETWORK/COMEDY CENTRAL/E!/G4

I seem to spend all my TV time on 4 channels. And all but USA has only one show I watch religiously. Although I do like Reno 911 on Comedy Central too. And I must admit that I press record whenever I see CSI: Whatever or Law & Order: Whatever on the schedule grid, with the hope of one I haven't seen. I wonder if you put all CSI and Law & Orders back to back if it would last over a year... (P.S. Although TiVO will always have a place in my heart I am loving my Dual Tuner on my Comcast DVR.)

WEBSITES

I enjoy creating websites. I have one for my guild (thedungeonmasters.com) and one for my family (howtonfamily) my work one (PCFOCUS.NET) and a few others. Im not a good coder, got a C in Java/perl class. But I do pretty good HTML and can recreate almost anything on frontpage. Also im learning to customize PHP websites and forums.

Ipod Graveyard

A longtime favorite news feed "engadget", had a great article on past iPods today. It reminded of me of that first ipod back in '03. The 3rd Generation iPod arrived as I was drooling over the Apple online store with my credit card out. I might have had some control if i hadn't been spending my time wandering the isles of Compusa, returning to the Digital Audio counter time and time again. I am glad I became a iPod owner. But be warned that second apple purchase will be much more easy to make. You will realize after using apple products that although they are sold at a premium they don't have the compatibility problems of the past. (example text.doc might be a word document emailed to my powerbook. I can pay for word like on my PC or use the openoffice port "NeoOfficeJ" but surprise surprise it opens with no programs installed!) Well once I grew to love my iPod I went dual platform with my desktop being PC and my first laptop in Aug. '04, a PowerBook. With the student discount a $399 iPod was $369 and $300 back with purchase of a Laptop. Well $69 for an iPod I couldn't pass up, so I got my 4th Generation which I still have today. I must say the new $299 ones with a color screen is making me think of another one. But a $199 2gig Nano is what has everyone talking. Sorry for my gushing about my Apple stuff. But its just so great. I got my sister a iPod Mini and my brother constantly has my Shuffle. My brother, who doesn't ever spend money even on books at CSUS (he uses the library reserve system), wants me to get one of the new iPod Nanos. Of which he couldn't remember the name and called it an iPod Galore or iPod Nemenor. I must say it is tempting with the color screen and near Shuffle size & Weight.

Globalization of the internet

LARGE COMPANIES CONSOLIDATE WEB CONTENT Globalization, Sometimes called Walmartization is picking up speed on the internet. This time, however, Walmart is not taking part as they have kept their quarter trillion dollor company out of the content market, which is what the internet is. This of course is not for lack of trying. They have moved into the music market but can't seem to beat out iTunes, and DVD rental which fell so far behind Blockbuster and Netflix that they nixed the idea and decided to just resale Netfllix service. The news of the day is that News Corp is buying IGN. Also known as "Snowball" network. Which includes Gamespy.com & Rottentomatoes.com. If this is a bad (or good) thing is yet to be seen. This caught my eye because Rotten Tomatoes has been a nice, non-corporate, place to see what movies are good (and how good). Will the future of Rotten tomatoes include a push for Fox Movies? The new Family Guy DVD may have been a front page feature before because its a hilarious show, now if it shows up as a featured DVD it may be suspect. Some of the site i have used as free good utility sites is Flickr.com and Sacramento.Craigslist.org. Flicker (as well as konfabulator and others) have been purchased by Yahoo! which is becoming more google like by day, and Craigslist has been partly purchased by ebay.com. However the big three search engines still remain big developers of content rather then purchasers of such they all incorporate acquisitions into their empires. THE BIG THREE AT HOME One thing we see in the world of the big three is that the differences are starting to blur. In-fact they crawl each other so many of the results are the same as well. The biggest most recent change is a more open development and customizable pages. Although MSN and Yahoo have long made their home pages customizable they have recently made FULLY customizable pages that can have your choice of web feeds among many other things. The result of Open Development and Customizable pages make the three into the same function. One develops a feature the others can release the same feature almost immediately. OPEN DEVELOPMENT Google: Google Labs labs.google.com MSN: MSN Sandbox sandbox.msn.com Yahoo!: Yahoo! Next next.yahoo.com Custom Pages Google: http://www.google.com/ig MSN http://start.msn.com/ Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com/ MSN's custom "Start.com" is, as stubborn MSN is apt to do, Internet Explorer only. However it is by far the best with full RSS compatibility and popular RSS feeds to start with.

Major Disasters of Bush Administration

I don't mean to get political. I just think the list on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart yesterday (Tuesday August 6th) was very funny. Every presidency has their problems no matter what party they belong to. That is what government is designed to do, solve problems. The list is one of "Major Disasters of Bush Administration" and has 26 Alphabetic item where Katrina is (obviously) the latest. I didn't see the list on their website so thought i would copy it here.. [x] Abu Graib [x] Bin Laden [x] Chalabi [x] Deficit [x] Enron [x] Failure To Find WMDs [x] Halliburton [x] Iraq [x] John Bolton [x] Katrina [_] Locusts [_] Mars Attacks [_] North Korea [_] Osama & Jenna [_] Pregnancy: Osama & Jenna [_] Queer Revolt [_] Rodents of Unusual Size [_] Syrian War [_] Tigers [_] Unicyclists, Nuclear [_] Voldemort [_] WWIII [_] X-Rated Tape: Osama & Jenna [_] Yam Shortage [_] Zero People left on earth What caught my eye was of course Rodents of Unusual Size which is from the best movie of all time, The Princes Bride. Also great movies: Mars Attacks & Harry Potter (Staring Voldemort). (thanks to the "TV Squad" for pulling the image of their TiVO.)

Campout at Aunt Nelda's Cabin.

Our annual reunion at washington city california.

Unfortunately my favorite hike to the waterfall i missed by choosing an inopportune time to relax on the couch inside the cabin. But it was a great campout as always. I did sleep well on the double deck air mat that i wrote about previously. It did loose air, and could have used a little more air on the 3rd night.. but because the mattress was so thick it still kept me up off the ground.

Back to school

Well its that time of year again.. Time to look at the clock 3 or 4 times thinking up excuses to miss school then running out the door arriving a few minuets late. (& blame it on the traffic). Its not just me is it? Well my first class, which is always the one in most jeopardy (as demonstrated last year when i didn't go to my first class more than a half dozen times), is another Stat Class. I don't know if i can take another stat class. If there are any more stat classes after this I will scream. They try to hide it too. Calling it "Data Management" isn't fooling anyone (not anymore anyway). Well today the school unveiled the new logo. It can be found at http://www.csus.edu (as the picture is hard to make out.) I think it is great. It does however have a small resemblance of the church young women's logo. One more thing.. Thanks to NPR for finally getting out their stuff as pod-casts. Now if they would just put out "All things considered" out as well, I will be happy.