I had a little free time while I folded laundry on Sunday afternoon, so I watched the 3rd in the Futurama direct-to-video movie series, Futurama: Bender’s Game, through Netflix streaming. is the third of the four direct-to-DVD Futurama films that make up the show’s fifth season. So far, I’ve seen the 1st, 2nd, and now the 3rd. One more to go after this, and I’ll be all caught up.

I am a big fan of the television series, but I have sadly not enjoyed the direct-to-DVD movies. The jokes have been lame, and the stories haven’t been exciting. I would go out on a limb and say that the films have been boring. Was it a lack of focus by the writers? I couldn’t tell you. Still, I respect the series enough to continue to slug through each film. Sadly, my reviews have found the films to be less than praise worthy.

In this film, the plot is standalone from the previous films. There is a plot about dark matter being overpriced fuel, and controlled by the evil Mom. For some reason, the writers used a series of fantasy themes, such as Dungeons & Dragons, and The Lord of the Rings, and quickly beat the jokes to a pulp. It was funny for a little while, but after a while, meh.

Yet another bad review of a Futurama movie. Sigh, this is getting annoying. I’d give up, but the new 6th season of Futurama has been almost as good as the early seasons in terms of quality. One more film to go – Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder.

Futurama: Bender's Game (2008)

The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is a new Marvel animated series coming out on the Disney XD Channel. I’ve watched a few online webisodes with Josh and Lily, and they like it. Looks to be a nice show to watch together with my kids.

Saturday night, we went on a date night sans kids! We went to see The Social Network, a film written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. I normally would not at all be interested in watching a film about a social-networking website like Facebook. As this film received a lot of buzz and good early reviews, we were intrigued. Why not, you know?

We elected to drop off the kids, catch the earlier 7:40pm show in Freehold using some AMC tickets previously purchased at BJ’s. [Note: At BJ's this week, we found a deal for 4 AMC movie tickets plus a small popcorn, all for $37. Figured that's a decent savings, so we used two for this movie. Next movie, we'll use the popcorn certificate.] I was initially worried about getting seats, but we got to our smack-dab-in-the-middle seats with time to catch the movie. We don’t usually catch a film this early in the evening. Being an earlier showing, the movie theater slowly filled up with groups of loud “teenagers” making a lot of noise.

Oh, I’m sorry, did I say teenagers? I meant 60 and 70-year old senior citizens, but they acted like teenagers. They entered in large groups, talking loudly (“Hey Bernie!”), making a lot of noise, talking loudly, and there was one couple seated behind us having a fight. Do people truly regress as they get older? I’m starting to believe it.

The film itself was very good. It was less about the internet and web startups, and more an interesting character study about smart people butting heads as Facebook was born. It features an excellent features an ensemble cast — Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Max Minghella, Rooney Mara, Rashida Jones, and Armie Hammer. I liked the film, and Aaron Sorkin doesn’t answer the question whether he thought who was right or wrong. It’s up to the audience to form their own opinions, but I thought there was a plenty of douchery to go around.

The Social Network (2010)

For those of you who are avid followers (and I question your mental state), I used a time machine to go back in time. I added a few additional September postings and photos about events that happened that month.

Why did I use a time machine to do this, instead of giving my earlier self a copy of Gray’s Sports Almanac? In all the hustle of September, I missed a few postings. This is my attempt to put right what once….. er, wasn’t posted. It didn’t make sense to throw it all into into October.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m taking the time machine to go watch a dinosaur eat a caveman.

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A Captain America game? Coming 2011? Interesting!

I had this crazy craving for Reese’s Pieces this morning. Have you ever read the ingredients? In the same order as listed on bag.

Sugar; partially defatted peanuts; partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel and soybean oil); corn syrup; dextrose; contains 2% or less of: artificial color (yellow 5 lake; red 40 lake; yellow 6 lake; blue 1 lake); salt; resinous glaze; soy lecithin; modified cornstarch; carnauba wax; vanillin; artificial flavor; milk.

Wow. My favorites in that list are partially defatted peanuts and resinous glaze. Turns your stomach, don’t it? BTW, they’re delicious.

The news this week is that cycling champion Alberto Contador failed not one, but two drug tests back in July. This is all very disappointing. I’m not a fan of Contador — I found him to be self-centered after witnessing his actions in the last two Tour de France races, and a bit pompous in his disaparaging comments about Lance Armstrong in last year’s race. Still, I have grudging respect for him as an athlete. He’s got talent.

Now, disappointment. Seriously, even he was possibly doped up? How can so many of these racers be doping? I acknowledge that these races are difficult. They’re absolutely grueling. To watch an athlete succeed in spite of the conditions is what I find amazing. To have the stamina, courage, and hardened will to win each stage, or the overall race at the end. It’s riveting to watch the absolute pain on the rider’s face, and still do their best to push their limits to try to win. To find out that these riders had been doped up……

Disappointment.

Yup, the iPhone. It’s finely happened.

I’ve been a fairly happy with my BlackBerry Bold 9000 from 2007. It’s a nice large screen, comfortable keyboard, and overall good size for browsing AND slipping into one’s pants’ pocket. I have a healthy respect for the BlackBerry phones. They are good products. And I do a lot of emailing and texting, so having a good keyboard is critical.

So why do I want to upgrade to an iPhone no less? Four reasons:

1. My Bold is becoming unreliable.
2. The good apps in RIM’s App World are few and far between.
3. I want something new.
4. Jealousy.

Sound reasoning? Sure it is.

1. My Bold becoming unreliable is the norm, as the normal wear-and-tear cycle is accelerated in a sphere around me. It hasn’t changed either. My phone constantly has an hourglass. The reception is hokey. The trackball becomes unresponsive. The hourglassing is the worst. As a side note, there’s a new BB OS available for the 9000, but AT&T won’t certify it.
2. RIM’s selection of applications pale in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of apps in the iTunes store. App World was an attempt to compete, but you won’t find anything useful
3. I’ve had a BB for about 3 years now (Curve, Bold.) Isn’t it time for something new, especially with all the Android phones out in the marketplace?
4. Ah yes, jealousy. I’ll admit it. A base human emotion. My wife recently upgraded to the HTC Incredible, and it certainly has the wow factor. A beautiful device, a nice form factor, and just so useful. We used Google Maps on her phone during our Midwest roadtrip, and after using it, I was sold. I looked at my Bold in comparison, and it paled. Paled! I was immediately consumed with envy.

So here I am. One month to go until Nov 12th, which is when I can get my discount towards a new phone. AT&T allows you to upgrade at the 18th-month mark. While there are a number of interesting phones in AT&T’s stable, none of them wow me. I checked the Android phones, but they’re nothing special. The 2009/2010 BlackBerry Bold 9700 and Torch are interesting, but didn’t wow me either. As a matter of fact, I found the Torch underwhelming.

In the end, the iPhone 4 is different enough, interesting enough, and comparable enough to the Incredible or Evo, to be worth upgrading to. To be fair, The iPhone 4 has had its share of issues in the news, such as the antenna reception issues and this problem with the proximity sensor. Still, I’m going to jump in bed with Apple and ride it out for better or for worse.

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Oh, those Europeans and their uplifting stories. This short was created as a proof-of-concept for an open source 3D animation package called Blender.

Friday night, the kids and I stayed up to watch Planet Hulk on the Disney channel. Planet Hulk is a direct-to-video animated flick based on a 2006 crossover storyline in the Hulk comics. The premise of the story is that Hulk has been banished against his will (and Bruce Banner’s?) to a quiet and uninhabited planet so that he can do no harm to others. Instead, his ship takes a different trajectory and lands on the planet Sakaar, an inhabited planet ruled by “The Red King.”

In a plot line that (as it seems to me) borrows heavily from Ridley Scott’s 2000 film Gladiator starring Russell Crowe, Hulk is enslaved and forced to fight gladiatorial games for the amusement of the Red King and the populace in a large arena. He becomes the leader for other prisoners, and eventually takes on the Red King himself. As I watched the film, it was extremely reminiscent of Gladiator. I like Gladiator, and the film wasn’t bad, but it seemed cliched tens years later after the original film.

Planet Hulk (2010)

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