Did you ever notice that GPS / Google Maps can behave a little strange sometimes? Most of the time, it can be accurate, and I wouldn’t want to go without it. However, other times, you gotta wonder what the hell is wrong. Case in point:

Today, I had to run to a local CVS during church to get a picture developed, then get some coffee for my wife. While I was standing in line at the single CVS cashier line, I checked Yelp for nearby coffeehouses or coffee shops. In luck, there was a yelp.com entry for a nearby coffeeshop called Rockin’ Joe’s Coffeehouse and Bistro, and it’s right on Rt. 27 where I was, maybe 0.1 miles away. Nice!

I look closer at the map, and I get befuddled. See below. I’m supposedly at the red dot, but also at both blue dots. The coffeehouse is at the green dot, or is it closer than that? I ask the slightly-flaky CVS cashier if she knows where this Rockin’ Joe’s might be, but not holding up much hope that she knows. Luckily, she does know where the coffeehouse is. In fact, it’s in the same strip mall — I just have to walk to the left a few stores.

Nice job, Google Maps.

Google Maps can act a little bizarre

This week, I watched the 2011 X-Men: First Class film by Matthew Vaughn. After the miserable Brett Ratner X-Men:   The Last Stand travesty from five years ago, this film is an attempt at a reboot of the franchise. Now, let’s agree to never speak of X3 ever again.

As I mentioned above, this film is a reboot. However, I think it’s an interesting reboot. Instead of taking place in the modern era, the film takes place in 1962, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Well, that’s not entirely true. The film initially begins with a recap (or another take) on Erik Lehnsherr first discovering his mutant abilities while at a Nazi concentration camp. This is basically a slight variation or reshoot of the same scenes from the first X-Men film way back in 2000. It gives additional backstory, then the story gives a similar introduction to the young Charles Xavier, and Mystique. Afterwards, the story fast-forwards to the 1960s when Lehnsherr, Xavier, and the others are presumably grown-up. Lehnsherr is hunting Nazis, including Kevin Bacon’s Schmidtt / Sebastian Shaw character. In time, Xavier and Lehnsherr will build a team of mutants, seen in the poster below.

I thought the film was pretty good. I like how the film’s events were moved to the 1960s, which makes this very unique compared to other superhero genre films. At times near the conclusion, I felt that the story was starting to get away from the writers, i.e. becoming incohesive.  I started to get a little incredulous at parts, primarily when they all started giving cool nicknames to each other. I’m not a big fan of cornyness in a serious film. If this is truly a first in a new trilogy, I’m excited.

I watched on blu-ray, and the video and audio quality were good. Everything looked crisp and colorful, and it all looked natural. The disc features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track, which sounds good, especially during the dialogue and the action scenes. However, I found the audio to be very front-heavy, with little activity on the surround speakers. Maybe it’s the nature of the film as there was a lot of dialogue.

X-Men: First Class (2011)

iOS 5 is finally here. I know everyone and their mother was salivating in anticipation over the possible iPhone 5, but not I. I’m still under contract with AT&T for another year, and I just fixed my cracked phone. A new iPhone doesn’t do anything for me. What do I care about at the moment? A new operating system with over supposedly 200 improvements, like a better notifications process.

iOS 5 was supposed to be available for download on Wednesday, October 12th, and I assumed that meant midnight. Nope I was up late Tuesday, October 11th, checking iTunes. A few mins before midnight, there was a notification of a new iTunes 10.5 available. Sweet! Step 1, I figured Once installed, I checked constantly for an iOS update, but there was nothing. Hmmmm.

I checked various tech websites, but there was no info. On Twitter, I found statements alluding to Apple generally following a rolling deployment schedule globally. For the US, and the East coast, iOS 5 wouldn’t be available until sometime after 1pm. Rats!

Last night after I got home, I started the install process by first attempting to download the 774 Mb update. I couldn’t believe it — 774 Mb? That’s huge, and it failed he first time. Once I got it successfully downloaded, the installation took hours. It wasn’t the actual installation of the new OS that took a long time, but restoring the phone from backup, and specifically restoring the purchased songs, videos, and apps. It seems that I had some 79 applications installed, which took a disproportionate amount of time.

Now that I have iOS 5 installed, what do I think? I haven’t used all the new features yet. I like the new Notifications system, as that’s much less obtrusive. I also haven’t used the new rich HTML email features, but I’m looking forward to bolding some text.

A big thanks to my friend Sunil for sharing his photos from last month’s Onam party at his place. I published a select number to the 2011 September Photos gallery. I think they came out great — kinda wish I had a DSLR now.

Group photo - Onam 2011

I’m glad management recognized that they screwed up. It’s one thing to raise the subscription fees by 60%, because naturally customers are going to hate it. I dislike it, but I still perceive a value in the service. To raise prices, and then decide to screw around further to make the service harder to use and more inconvenient for customers? Mutiny.

Obviously, online streaming is the future for the company, as the greater convenience to stream to a multitude of internet-connected devices, and the lack of waiting for a new disc, are win-wins for customers. However, Netflix’s online catalog is lacking.

MSNBC.com – Netflix drops Qwikster plan, says it moved ‘too fast’.

We celebrated my niece Abby’s first birthday at my sister’s on Saturday. They invited family and friends over for a low-key affair. Nowadays, I think that’s exactly the way to go. With all the costs associated with throwing a large party together, and dealing with the frustration of people and their no-shows or lack of interest in even responding to an invite, I’d rather stick to small kids’ parties from now on.

In order to properly inaugurate the new 7.1 surround sound setup, we watched Hulk Vs. on Blu-ray. This is a 2009 direct-to-video set of two short films starring Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Wolverine comic book characters. I didn’t mind seeing them, as the kids obviously animated films featuring comic book heroes. We don’t allow the kids to watch stupid stuff like Spongebob. No way.

More importantly, I wanted to put the new back surround back speakers through the paces. I was sure they would be fine, but still, I want to rent a few more loud bombastic action films, and decide if it’s better or not.

Regarding the disc itself, it features two short 30+ min films featuring Hulk fighting each marque character, but the plots were very basic. Heads up on spoilers:

• In Hulk Vs. Wolverine, the Hulk leaves a path of destruction in the Canadian wilderness. The Canadian military flies Wolverine in to stop the Hulk any way possible. The first half of the short film has Wolverine up against the Hulk. However, Deadpool, Omega Red, Sabretooth, and Lady Deathstryke are on a mission to capture both Wolverine and the Hulk. Their objective is to capture them, so that the evil scientist can weaponize them. Wolverine must then work together to escape their fate.
• The second short film is Hulk Vs. Thor. Loki, the Norse God of Mischief intends to use the Hulk to attack Asgard during the last day of the Odinsleep. Loki eventually loses control of the Hulk, and the Hulk’s destruction is likely to bring about Ragnarok.

So what did I think of both short films? I sat and watched both with the kids, and there wasn’t too much that was inappropriate for the kids. The Hulk/Thor story was much stronger, but I didn’t feel either film was all that. The characters were more interesting in the Thor film, but not by much.

Regarding the audio and video quality in either film? Video and audio quality was good in both, but I didn’t find the back surrounds were utilized all that much. I know in a good home theater setup, the audience shouldn’t be surprised to hear noise behind them, but I want to hear something.

Hulk Vs. (2009)

Well, that didn’t go as smoothly as I expected. At least the speakers are finally up.

I hooked up the speakers late this week, with only a modicum of difficulty. Yes, the good news was that I had pre-wired the back speakers by running the extended speaker wiring back in February. That was the good news. However, I apparently forgot a few other things:

1. Each speaker needs to have the proper positive and negative terminals connected to the AV receiver’s corresponding positive and negative connections. While I had done this for the original surround back speaker that I owned back in February, I failed to mark up the other wire. So late Thursday night, I was staring at a wire with identical two strands, and no way to easily know which goes into which terminal.
2. To be safe, I decided to test the wiring with the old surround back speaker. No sounds during the MCACC testing/setup. Twice. What’s up? Following a hunch, I checked the wiring connection at the back of the AV receiver. Lo and behold, I was too lazy in February 2011 to actually hook up the other side of the pre-wired speaker wire at the AV receiver end. So, I had to spend time removing the wire insulation on that side, and trying to hook it up to the proper AV receiver pos/neg terminals.

I finally got it all working fine. You can see how it looks below, but that’s not the end of it. As you’ll notice below, the painting is now not centered, so I’ll have to move that over 16″ to the left. I will also need to pick up some clips to secure the speaker wire to the wall, and make it neater.

Getting the surround speakers installed

After nine years of servitude, it was now time to retire the old apartment-era microwave, and move on up to a bigger model that matches our current kitchen appliances. So far, it works as expected. I mean, seriously, what more can I say? It’s a microwave. ;)