It’s been a year, but I have made my fateful return to the Toronto area this week.  I’m here on business, and it feels nice to be back.  I’m here on work, but I always enjoy Canada.  To be honest, I think Montreal is okay, but I like the city of Toronto.  It’s very metropolitan.  Lots of places to see, lots of great restaurants, and I think the people are nice.   I’m not actually staying in Toronto this trip – we’re in Mississauga, but maybe we’ll get to visit.  One of my wife’s cousins lives somewhere around here, so I should try to visit him and his family.

The trip itself was pretty uneventful.  No problems getting to Newark airport, flight was on time, no problems with bags, and the hotel is pretty nice.  Even better, they upgraded my car rental (at no cost) and I’m driving a Chevy Trailblazer.  What can I say?  So far, so good. 

This is also a good week, as it’s my birthday on Wednesday, which marks it the 2nd year in a row that I’ve spent my birthday in Canada.  Coincidence? I think not.  I think it’s a conspiracy involving the Canadian Prime Minister, and possibly the Queen of England?  Why the British Queen?  The question is why not?

I think I’m rambling.  Long story short: I’m north of the US border, everything is peachy. Don’t text or email me, because I’m roaming, and will cost me each and every time you write. Wait until I get back, but if you need to reach me, the cell phone works fine.  I love having a phone that works internationally.

UPDATED: Man, I have such a bad memory.  My wife was kind enough to remind me that I was home last year during my birthday, and not up north.  I was actually working in NYC that day.  I wonder why I thought I was in Canada during my birthday last year?  Blame the encroaching senility!

The next movie in my queue was Man on Fire, a 2004 action movie starring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning. It’s got so-so reviews from users, but I thought it looked interesting.  The movie is about a man with a questionable past, and dealing with a lot of demons (Denzel) becoming a bodyguard to a little girl (Fanning) in Mexico City.  He tries to keep his emotional distance, but ends up getting close to Fanning’s character.  Not a big surprise, but she gets kidnapped, and he goes on the warpath against anyone who was involved with it. 

I thought the movie was good, although there were some aspects that I didn’t like.  I felt there was a bit too much artsy-ness when showing Denzel being tormented internally with his drinking and past demons — that part wore thin in the beginning.  Understanding the fact that this was  2-hour movie, I do understand they had to get the Denzel and Fanning characters ingratiated, but it still felt a bit rushed.  Then again, maybe more time passed chronologically, and possibly didn’t notice. 

I enjoyed the parts where Denzel’s character was kicking ass. Denzel’s character didn’t pull any punches either.  No, he’s killing them brutally, which I felt was honest to the character, and made it a better movie.  I thought the ending started to fall apart, but I’d still recommend this movie as a rental.

Do you know who else is in this movie?  Marc Antony and Radha Mitchell.  Marc Antony, you know.  Radha Mitchell, if you remember, was the actress who starred with Vin Diesel in Pitch Black.

Man on Fire (2004)

Michael Bay has posted the ShoWest sizzler real for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen online. Check out the action compilation at the end.

Whoa. I just caught a glimpse of the real Devastator.

*Exclusive* Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Footage from Bay Films/Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

UPDATED: Looks like Vimeo page is no longer available.  Unless things change, you can also see the video here, which has been posted on YouTube (but I don’t have the YouTube-specific URL.)

This is an interesting week, and a complete reversal of sorts.

Next week, I’m on the road, as I have been in the past during my career, and she’s managed on her own to take care of the home, then one kid, then two kids, and working, etc.  Before I head to the airport, I generally verify that the house isn’t on fire, kiss the family goodbye and good luck, and see you in a couple of days.  God bless my wife, because she’s always survived somehow.  I remember one time I was heading out to Montreal in 2005, and we had just moved into our house a few days earlier.  She calls me while I’m waiting at the Newark airport gate, and tells me all the power is out in the house. It’s been hours, Josh’s infant formula would be going bad, etc.  What could I do at that point for her?  I mean it, my wife has done her bit for king and country on her own while I’ve been working.

Now for the reversal: My wife is off on a business trip (her first ever) this week, and I am the one home with the kids!  It was a last-second change in plans, and my wife was off to bring home the bacon.  I’m surviving so far, and it hasn’t been that bad.  Of course, my wife did more than verify the house wasn’t on fire before she left.  She made the baby food (and labelled and told me the schedule), she filed our 2008 federal & state taxes, did the kids’ laundry, and a slew of things to make my life easier while she was gone.

You know what this means?  Before I head out next Sunday, I gotta….. geez, how do I even get to her level?  I’ve already gotten a new appreciation for my wife. I don’t even know how to show it to her.  This is gonna be a thinker.

Killzone 2

My other redeemed-rewards-points PS3 game arrived today: Killzone 2.  I installed it this evening, but I haven’t had an opportunity to play it yet.  Too many other things to do around here than to play videogames.  I have played the downloadable demo, and the game is pretty neat.  Good graphics, good feel to it.  I’m not ready to play it yet, as I have to finish Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune first.

The premise of the game (turns out to be the 3rd in the series) is you take your battle against the alien invaders to their home planet.  Expecting a quick win, it turns into a slugfest.  Not much of a story, I gather, but it’s an opportunity to do cool stuff in a combat zone with your squad. I’ll play it in a couple of weeks, no rush.

I’m not sure why I find Indian cookies amusing, but I do.  Let’s be accurate.  It’s not the actual cookies — they’re delicious.  I find the packaging and marketing of them amusing.

• I love the wholesome boy on the Parle-G package.  He just screams “I’m round and healthy, because Mummy feeds me Parle-G with every hug.”
• You can successfully market anything, even “Dream Cream” cookies if Shah Rukh Khan must be eating them all day in his mansion.
• In the ingredients/nutritional information for the Good Day cookies, it lists how much fat, sugars, and “energy” are in every serving, measured in kJ.  Energy? So you could develop a next-generation fuel cell based on these cookies?

Indian cookies

Dang, tell me this doesn’t sound familiar?  Yahoo Japan and a Japanese billboard manufacturer are collaborating on electronic signage that photographs the faces of a passersby, analyses it using NEC’s facial analysis technology, and estimates his or her age. Once the demo is confirmed, the device spits out appropriate advertising content.”

Whoa.  It’s just like Minority Report.  I’m telling you.  People mock sci-fi, but imagination is an amazing ability.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Isn’t someone working on the same hands-in-the-air interface?  And you know they’ve been working on flying cars for a while.

Identity theft scares the bejeezus out of me. I’ve been reading a lot about card skimmers being snuck onto ATM card slots. Freaky.  Gizmodo has an article about one found at a Chase ATM in NYC.

Gizmodo – Attack of the Card Skimmers: It’s Happening Right Here, Right Now

I went to see Fast & Furious with my friend Doug who came over to visit me today.  He wanted to see a movie, and this one ran a little over 1.5 hours, which fit the window of free I had.  Granted, I’ve never seen any of the Fast and the Furious movies, including the original 2001 film.  Still, Doug wanted to see something, and this was the only film we could agree on.

Usually, I only commit to watching a movie if I know enough about the movie to expect to like it.  Here, I didn’t even know the plot.  Luckily, the plot wasn’t the most complex.  I actually felt some brain cells die during this movie.   How have they made four movies in this franchise? We only had a few folks in the theater this afternoon, but they brought their young kids.  Having seen all the girl-on-girl action, the close-ups of women’s posteriors in super-tight dresses in the movie, I don’t think it was particularly appropriate for young children.

Let’s be reasonable here. It’s not supposed to be a though-provoking drama, or a movie about cyborg flesh-eating zombies from the Elizabethan period.  It’s a movie about fast cars, smokin-hot women, and escapism.  I suppose if you grade it against that, then it was a good movie.

Fast & Furious (2009)

Major announcement.  With a little help from my sister, and some time set aside for catching up, I have quintupled the number of photos online. What does that mean?

BOOM! More January photos!

BOOM! More March photos here! And here! And here!

BOOM! New April photos!

Buy now! We’re practically giving them away! Operators are standing by.  What are you waiting for? Act now!!!