I guess the kids like their new respective game systems… Josh’s Nintendo DSi XL, and a hand-me-down Leapster handheld for Lily.

Josh & Lily like their handhelds

I’m shopping for replacement refrigerator water filters for our Whirlpool fridge, and found the correct type on Amazon.com. My question is who would want to buy USED water filters? I suppose you can get anything on Amazon, but the question is why?

Used water filters

Eastern Promises is a 2007 gangster film directed by David Cronenberg, and stars Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. I’d heard a lot about this film, but hadn’t had much of a chance to watch it. I was told it was a powerful film, and no kidding. It was a tough film at times — graphic, violent, and you never quite knew what was going to happen. The film is about how a British midwife (Watts) tries to find out more about a young pregnant teenager who appears to be abused, and dies while giving birth. The teenager had a diary with her written in Russian, and a business card for the Tran-Siberian restaurant. As Watts’ character he tries to find out more about this teenager, she gets introduced to the Russian mob in London as she tries to discover more clues.

Viggo Mortensen plays Nikolai, a driver and a person attempting to become a “made man” in the organization. He does the mob’s cleanup work, but there seems to be something different about him. Does he have a heart of gold? Does he want to do the right thing, but too fiercely loyal to the family? My first question after watching this film is how did Mortensen not win the Oscar for this film? It was a complete transformation for him as an actor.

Eastern Promises (2007)

Damn, these are good.

Once upon a time, I used to like Best Buy. I remember walking into my first store sometime around 2000. It was big and brightly-lit. It was gorgeous. The selections were wide and all-encompassing. The smell of ozone and the technology all humming away; it was intoxicating. Do you remember the awe when you walked into a Best Buy? I know others felt the same way, as Best Buy was elevated in the minds of consumers while it ate up the foot traffic and market share from competitors like Circuit City. 

In recent years, my love for Best Buy has diminished. While I won’t ever turn down a visit to the brick-and-mortar retail store, I won’t buy anything there anymore. Why? Uh, have you noticed that it is severely overpriced? From electronics to DVDs to accessories, everything can be purchased for less online. I suppose that whole rant is not entirely true. If you had an immediate need, needed purchasing advice, or wanted to touch and feel a product, you would go to the store. In the summer on our road trip, somewhere in Michigan on the way to the Detroit-area, we stopped and purchased a 2-in-1 mobile power inverter from a Best Buy. In that instance, yes, having an actual store was convenient. There was no way we could have waited two days to have something shipped. 

For the most part, though, I think Best Buy is overpriced and not worth a trip. Best Buy also doesn’t negotiate, as I tried to get a lower price on an HDTV when I was shopping for one in early 2010. Also, I don’t think the sales reps give good advice either. Case in point, I went to the South Brunswick Best Buy on Tuesday night to purchase some alcohol-free screen cleaner for my Panasonic HDTV. I’ve noticed a growing number of screen smudges (the kids), but my eyeglass cloth has always removed them. On Tuesday, I found my daughter had drawn on the screen in white crayon while I was otherwise occupied. I went the cloth, but not much success. GASP! Anger! FRUSTRATION! 

Monster TV Cleaning Kit

I drove to the Best Buy, and found that the price on the Monster TV screen cleaning kit (well-rated but previous customers) was $19.99 + tax. Meanwhile, I used my phone to check Amazon.com’s price, and it was $15. I’m a member of Amazon Prime, so if I waited two days, I’d still save myself at least $7-8. I decided I could wait two days, on principle. I ordered the screen cleaner from Amazon right there in the aisle. Meanwhile, a sales rep was “assisting” a woman next to me on HDMI cables, and convinced her to purchase an HDMI for about $80. 

 The conversation went something like this: 

Sales Rep: “Here’s the cable that you want.” 

Ill-Informed Customer: “But it’s $80.” 

Sales Rep: ”Yes, but you want to pay for quality. Now come this way, and we can ring you up” [or something like that.]

Joel: [Palm of hand slapping my own forehead.]

I wanted to stop her from paying an exorbitant amount for an HDMI cable. I purchased mine from Amazon for maybe $7-10. However, I didn’t want to cause an altercation with the sales rep right there with her holding her hand through the process of bamboozling her. Sigh. 

Buyer beware, my friends. BTW, the screen cleaner worked like a charm.

Wednesday night after work, I drove down to New Brunswick to meet up with my friends Doug and his brother Mike to see TRON: Legacy, the 2010 sequel to the 1982 Disney film. This marks two movies in two weeks that both featured/starred Jeff Bridges. One more, and I’ll have to officially join the Jeff Bridges Fan Club.

TRON (1982)

Early last year, I decided to rent the original TRON film and watch it again. I wanted to introduce it to my wife, as she never saw the original. I remembered watching it as a child, and being awe-struck by the lightcycles, the tank, and those flying things. The identity discs were cool, and I was intrigued listening to the programs being happy to perform their intended functions on behalf of their users. In some slight anticipation after receiving the Netflix disc, I stuck it into the PS3 and fired it up.

Lo and behold, I was bored. Bored! Oh, the lightcycles, the tank, and those flying things were still cool. The rest of the movie, on the other hand, wasn’t that good. I fast-forwarded through the rest of the film, and returned it in the mail the next day. Sigh. I decided that it was not important for my wife to watch it. I’ve discovered that in the past seven years of being married, it’s important that I don’t make her think I’m insane.

TRON: Legacy, however, was entertaining, which was a relief. It wasn’t a mind-bending film or anything, but it was entertaining. The story was basic, but decent. The movie was directed by first time director Joe Kosinski, and stars Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and even Bruce Boxleitner in a small role.

Most importantly, it was a gorgeous movie. I liked looking at this fantasy world of glass and light. It was pretty. We watched it in IMAX 3D, but I didn’t notice a lot of 3D, so be warned.

TRON: Legacy (2010)

I had some free time on Tuesday to watch Zombieland on Netflix. Gosh, I like streaming. It saves me time without having to wait for physical discs to arrive. A few years, I was saying how Netflix disc mailers were, and how I didn’t have to drive to/from the video store. Now I’m too tired to deal with going to the mailbox!

I’m not particularly a fan of the zombie horrow genre. That whole creeping death thing freaks me out, and not in a good way. I don’t like more anxiety than I have now, and really, zombies slowly approaching you to eat you isn’t my idea of fun. Still, I’ll enjoy a good movie, even if it involves the aforementioned zombies. I watched most of Shaun of the Dead earlier this year, and that was fairly entertaining. I’ve heard good things about Zombieland, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Zombieland stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin as survivors of a zombie apocalypse. They meet up during a road trip in an attempt to find survivors or some sort of sanctuary. They don’t reveal their original names, but go by the names of their respective home towns. It was an entertaining movie, and I liked the characters. There’s some talk online about a sequel, and I’d watch that.

Zombieland (2009)

What I liked most about the film were these rules that the Jesse Eisenberg character (“Columbus”) explained to the audience on how to survive in the United States of Zombieland. According to Wikipedia, they are:

1. “Cardio”
2. “Double tap”
3. “Beware of bathrooms”
4. “Wear seatbelts”
5. “Cast iron skillet”
6. “Travel light”
7. “Get a kickass partner”
8. “Bounty paper towels”
9. “Bowling Ball”
10. “(Don’t) be a hero”
11. “Limber up”
12. “Avoid strip clubs”
13. “When in doubt, know your way out”
14. “The buddy system”
15. “Check the back seat”
16. “Enjoy the little things”
17. “Swiss army knife”
18. “Hygiene”

I hope everyone had a great New Year’s Eve. My wife and I followed our annual tradition of banning Dick Clark from the house. Nothing personal against Dick Clark kissing his wife, but we prefer sitting at home and watching a movie while the clock ticks to midnight. Just another night to cuddle.

In 2010, Vudu was bought out by Wal-mart, and they elected to stop making their own set-top boxes. Instead, the software is embedded in media components. A few months ago, Vudu was rolled out to PlayStation 3 consoles, and if you registered it (no charge), you got a $5.99 credit towards a free rental. I found the interface to be very aesthetically pleasing. There is a selection of 4,000+ movies to choose from, and rental fees cost between $2.99 for standard def, $4.99 for HD (720p), and $5.99 for HDX (1080p), but these can be further discounted depending on the movie selection. I also like the additional features, such as watching a film’s theatrical trailer, reading the associated reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and reading the Wikipedia entry.

For New Year’s Eve, we sat down to watch Inception again on Vudu. With our broadband, we watched the HDX version, which as I mentioned earlier, allows you 1080p resolution and 5.1 surround. I thought the experience was good, but the picture looked a little dark for me, compared to television, Netflix, and movies played on the PS3. I had to switch to an alternate picture setting on the tv with less contrast.

In addition, I also noted that rentals are only good for a 24-hour period. Since we didn’t finish watching Inception on New Year’s Eve, we watched the end at night the next day. I thought you had at least 48 hours, but no, it’s just 24 hours. In the evening, I turned on Vudu on January 2nd to find that we only had 6 more hours to go. We had to pause it again in the middle when my sister and my BIL stopped over, but it seems that pausing is okay. By pausing the stream, we were able to avoid running out of time, so we got around the 24-hour rental window.

After many years since their departure for distant shores, our friends Ranjith and Priya came back to the States. Sure, they’ve been back to the U.S. since then, but it’s never quite worked out. This time around, and the stars were aligned. It’s been so long, they had a son Jai. Ranjith’s sister Reeba, and their visiting parents, also came over to visit.

Ranjith & Priya came to visit

For Christmas this year, my wife bought me/us the relatively new Tivo Premiere. The Premiere is basically the Series 4 model, and was released in March/April 2010. It sports newer hardware and software, especially HD tuners and screens. We’re not new to Tivo, but we’ve been on hiatus from Tivo since June 2009. Last month, Tivo was running a deal where you can pay $19.99 a month for a two-year committment, and no upfront cost to purchase the hardware. Not a bad deal at all. The only recommendation I would make is that it is important to change the contract after 24 months!

A little history — a friend gifted us (late wedding gift) a Tivo Series 2 way back in 2004. A single tuner, but wow, so much better than a VCR! It died in June 2007, so we bought a new one Series 2 with dual tuner. Wow, even better! This lasted until June 2009 when we switched to the wonders of FiOS. We dumped the Tivo and went for the Verizon-supplied STB that doubled as a DVR. It wasn’t as intuitive or nice as Tivo, but it was cheaper and easier than maintaining two boxes. Tivo’s one claim-to-fame is their interface. If they screw that up, that’s it.

Fast-forward to 2010 when Tivo screwed up the one claim-to-fame, the Tivo interface. More on that later.

In April 2010, Tivo showed off their new Tivo Series 4 and the new interface. It looked pretty nice. However, there were many complaints about the sluggish interace, crashes, and system freezes. Meanwhile, telco and cable companies are renting their garbage DVR STBs to people who want to save money and consider them to be “good enough.” Heck, we decided against purchasing a new Tivo last year to save money. I dislike the Motorola DVRs and their interfaces, and the new Motorola QIP7232 are not being rolled out existing FiOS customers. While the new v1.9 of the DVR Interactive Media Guide is getting good reviews, there’s no date on the production release. What’s a consumer to do?

I decided to jump in with both feet, and ride it out, so I opened the box. We can’t hold our collective breath while waiting for Verizon to release new products. The new DVR and software is delayed with no release date. The announced new Actiontec router providing 802.11n wireless was due to be released to production in August 2010, but that date came and went. Personally, I’m the type of fellow who, if I want something to make my life better, I’d rather pay for it than sit unhappy. I don’t mind paying for the Tivo service — I’m already paying monthly fees to rent a DVR from Verizon. I might as well go back to paying a few dollars more a month to get a better DVR.

Tivo Premiere Series 4

As I decided to jump in with both feet, I called Verizon on Christmas Day (they were open!), and scheduled an appt for Jan 31st to have a technician come out and install our M-Card (multistream CABLECARD.) I’ve read that cable companies and telcos can either just let you install it, or require a technician to do it. I would have done it myself, but Verizon requires a technician. Dumb, and do you know why? The technician arrived, gave me the M-Card, I slipped it into the slot on the back of the Tivo, and he called the same FiOS support number available to me to have it activated. He didn’t have to do anything that I couldn’t have done.

TiVo 802.11n wireless adapter

The installation was basically smooth, except for one hiccup. I had difficulty getting the external 802.11n wireless adapter working correctly and attaching to my wireless network. I’m not running 802.11n yet, but I’m future-proofing when FiOS finally releases the new 802.11n routers. I didn’t think I needed to read the wireless adapter manual, but I finally had to refer back to it. If you don’t have a WPS router, you apparently need to set up the adapter by connecting it to a desktop/laptop. Once I did that, the adapter was ready.

Is it a better DVR? Well, yes and no. Tivo has been releasing updates since March 2010, and released the v14.7 update last month. For stability reasons, they still haven’t enabled the second processor. The only real benefit that I have at the moment is the huge jump in hard drive space, allowing us to record up to 45 hours of HD programming. That’s double the 20 hours we had on the Motorola STB. However, there are two aspects of the Tivo that bug me:

1. Without the second process enabled, the HD interface is slow. It’s one of those click a button, wait, the cursor moves. I talk a mile a minute, so waiting for my Tivo to catch up to my brain is frustrating. Someone online made an interesting analogy — it’s the same feeling when you use a PC with too little RAM or processing power. It’s that feeling that it’s struggling to handle the requests.
2. I can not understand why Tivo would rush out the Premiere without migrating all the screens to HD versions. I find it extremely odd and jarring to suddenly be thrown into the old SD screens. Kittens aren’t being eaten as a result, but where is the quality? I wouldn’t rush a half-completed product to market. Maybe this is a case of the corporations using the ability to roll out updates after the fact via the Internet and getting lazy, but this is egregious.

I wouldn’t worry about the fixes being made, except that it has been about seven months now, and Tivo still hasn’t remediated these issues. When they promise you fixes “in the coming weeks and months”, and it’s still unresolved. That is worrisome, and you lose faith that they can or will fix it. I still like the Tivo, and it’s an improvement over the ones provided by cable and the telcos. It could be so much better though.