Egads, I’ve been so behind on uploading photos. Without much further adieu….
Joshua's graduation
This “movie” is less a movie, and more of a series of six animated short films. Each short story is in anime style, which reminded me greatly of 2003’s The Animatrix. Each story is in the same universe as the Christopher Nolan reboot movies, and supposedly take place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
Here’s the synopsis from IMDB:
In this 6-story anthology collection, Batman faces new villains and old ones in a time-line after Batman Begins. In “Have I Got A Story For You”, 3 kids tell wildly different stories about Batman during a fight through Gotham. “Crossfire” focuses on two policemen who end up getting in the middle of a crime battle. “Field Test” has Lucius Fox creating a new technology for Batman, but is it too powerful? “In Darkness Dwells” features Killer Croc and Scarecrow, who have kidnapped a priest. “Working Through Pain” goes through flashbacks of Bruce Wayne’s training while Batman finds his way through the sewers. Finally, “Deadshot” focuses on the titular sniper, who has a new target in Gotham.
I thought overall this was a decent movie to rent. It’s about a little over an hour, so it’s not a huge investment. The individual stories are interesting, and while the anime styles are all different, each Batman costume was nice. My favorite aspect of the movie was that Kevin Conroy, who has voiced the various animated Batman characters since 1992 performed the voice of Batman for each of these stories. That was icing on the cake for me. Kevin Conroy IS Batman to me.
Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)
It’s been two weeks now with the new Panasonic, and we’re well into the 100-hour break-in period. Since this was my dream lusted for so long, it would be prudent to list some thoughts and impressions so far. In no particular order:
I’m a little behind on my riding time this year, due to some busy weekends. However, let’s be happy for the milestone itself. I rode 26 miles today around central NJ, and hit a nice milestone for the year — 200 road miles. Good, but I don’t have a target for the year before autumn. 500 miles? Hard to say, but let’s try. The most I’ve ridden in a year was 595 in 2004, I think. That would be tough this year, but who knows what the future holds.
200 miles so far for the year 2010
Friday night, the kids were asleep, and we were browsing the Netflix Watch Instantly queue for something good to watch. We settled on Sunshine Cleaning, a 2008 film starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, and Alan Arkin. The film takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Amy Adams plays a single mother who works as a maid to support herself and her son. When her son gets in trouble at school, she needs to find money to send him to private school. She starts a crime scene clean-up company with her slightly-undependable sister, played by Emily Blunt. Alan Arkin plays their father who is always looking for odd ways to make money, be it selling popcorn or frozen shrimp.
This is a small indie black comedy, and it had its moments. It was nice to see a film about regular folks working hard to make it. Too many times, we’re watching movies about well-to-do people with meaningless problems. These characters were just trying to make it, which was more satisfying. I’d give this a 6 or 7 out of ten.
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
I like mass transit a lot, but mostly trains, not buses. However, one problem can cause delays, and you can be really stuck. Case in point: this evening, there’s been some sort of electrical power failure at NY Penn Station, and there are NO trains coming through to Newark.
I hope I get home in a reasonable hour tonight.
Train delays at Newark Penn Station
Found out about the new WordPress forr BlackBerry app now available on RIM’s Appworld store. Downloaded it last night, and I’m writing this test blog entry from the train this morning. Let’s post this now and see what happens. I’m not into Twitter, so if this works, then it would be cool microblogging option.
Here we go. 3… 2… 1…
Happy July 4th, everybody! It was certainly one of the biggest, busiest weekends for us in a long time. I’m not claiming that our engagment weekend or our wedding weekend were not busy, but this was certainly up there. Let’s recap, shall we?
My friend Paul (one of two houseguests scheduled this weekend) arrived Friday evening to stay over at our house. We picked up some pizza, ate dinner quickly, and then all walked over to see our town’s fireworks display. Much like last year, it was easy to walk the two blocks to a grassy area with other residents, plop down on picnic blankets and chairs, and watch the show.
My friend Paul attended an engagement party for a mutual friend/acquaintance of ours named Reggie. As a matter of fact, a number of Michigan folks were also attending the engagement party @ Royal Albert Palace/Hall in Fords, NJ. Interestingly enough, I met Reggie in December 2006 at Paul’s bachelor party in Cancun.
While he was at the engagement party, we ran busily errands, in preparation for our July 5th houseparty. In the afternoon, Paul brought our 2nd houseguest, Sean, back to our place, as he also would be crashing with us. We chilled out at the house playing Madden 2K10, had another fellow named Robby come by, and Namita cooked us up a fantastic dinner of pork chops, chicken, crispy onion-flavored potatoes, and roasted veggies.
After dinner, the four boys got ready for a night in the East Village. We would be meeting up with the previously mentioned Michigan folks who were in town @ Cloister Cafe. We ultimately ended the night at Gray’s Papaya down near. Home by 5:30am.
This was the day of the big BBQ party at our house. We originally had just one friend, Paul, staying with us, so I planned to grill up lunch this day. Then I heard from friends Leena & Sanjay that would be up north, and wanted to come over. Gradually, more and more people were available to come over until we had a full-fledged party expected.
We don’t normally host many parties or gatherings at our house. For various reasons, we weren’t able to have people over, because we hadn’t done much with the house in the four or five years since we moved in. In the past 12 months, we’ve finally been in a position to really do some work on the place. Since the house is now in a better shape, we’re ready to have folks over.
July 4th BBQ party
One of the tasks still remaining was to finish up cleaning/tidying up the backyard, where I’d be grillin’! I rented a power washer from Home Depot that morning, and Sean & I powerwashed the patio and the front door area. I also did some weeding and put down mulch on the flower beds. Namita took care of some last-minute grocery shopping. Paul helped by, I heard, chopping onions and watching the kids.
By the time I got back from returning the powerwasher, guests had already arrived. Overall, the lunch BBQ party turned into also an afternoon and dinner, which ended around 10pm. I ended up doing no grilling, as Sean did an excellent job with the burgers, hamburgers, and italian sausages. We also offered buffalo chicken wings, shrimp cocktail, chips & guacamole, and a few other things. The alcohol was flowing, and you know, that helped. We kept all the kids busy by providing bubbles, Wall-E, and letting them run amock through a sprinkler.
A late lunch at a very busy Perkins, then cleaning up post-party junk after Paul took off for the airport. We hosted a BBQ dinner for my in-laws and sister-in-laws’ family, but this time I did the grillin’. And yes, that went well too. Wow, a busy weekend, but it was certainly fun. We are ready to host more parties, so if you want to come hang with the Ipes, just let us know.
After all these years, I finally got my HDTV. Oddly enough, it hasn’t truly hit me yet. You would think that I would be dancing around, giddy like a little schoolgirl. It would be within the realm of possibility that I would do that, and justifiably so. I’ve absolutely salivated over the thought. Instead, I’ve been pretty chill about the entire purchase. I think it’s partly because I haven’t truly had an opportunity to enjoy it very much. I should explain. We’ve had a busy few days, so my mind has been elsewhere.
With all that going on, who has free time to sit on the couch and vegetate? Not us. I think televisions are fine, but my life stopped revolving around it years ago. What I do think is that when I DO get to sit in front of it, I like it. I watched Star Wars: A New Hope Sunday morning with Josh & Lily. It was something else to see all the visual detail that I’d never noticed before. I also watched a bit of the USA vs. Ghana World Cup game, and that was picture perfect bummer of a result. I played a little Uncharted 2, and the game went from nice vista to panoramic beauty.
On Friday morning, I woke up at 4:30am, and began to put the tv stand together. The AV receiver has been sitting here since last Saturday, and I was expecting to move the old Sony tv and stand to someone’s house. The tv was scheduled to come Saturday, and I wanted a headstart to get the new stand up, and the packaging bagged and thrown out. It took me about four hours to put the stand together. On a tangent, if I could go back in time, I’d invent the Allen wrench. It’s as if the entire slate of Chinese-manufactured products are required to be built with Allen wrenches. I can not tell you how many months of my life so far have been spent putting together some piece of furniture with an Allen wrench. And dowels. And those annoying bolts that you have to stick into one of those round things in a hole, and twist and lock that bolt in. You know what I’m talking about. Anyway, occasionally, I used a Philips screwdriver as needed, but towards the end, I did have to switch to my Black & Decker cordless screwdriver, which was a big help.
I finished assembling the stand around 9am, which was good, because I had to switch over to doing work. Good timing, eh? I think I’m getting better at putting furniture together after all these years. In the evening, one of Namita’s friends came over to pick up our old 32″ Sony Wega tv and stand. We put that heavy tv in my Highlander, and loaded the stand in her car. Josh wanted to come along, so I belted him in, and we then drove to Princeton to move it all into her apartment. It was heavy, but she was pretty happy. And it was free, since we couldn’t find a buyer. In 2010, everybody wants an HDTV, not a clunky, heavy, SDTV. On the way back, we picked up some Papa John’s and wings for dinner at home for the whole family.
On Saturday afternoon, I moved the old AV rack, and old Onkyo receiver and 6-disc DVD players into storage in our basement. I moved the stand into place, and put all our current devices into their respective spaces. The tv delivery guys from Ceva arrived in the late afternoon, unboxed the tv, assembled the stand, and turned it on for me to verify all was in order. Below is a picture of the new setup, until we re-arrange the rest of the living room. I have mixed feelings about no longer using the old Onkyo DVD player and receiver as they’ve served us well since I purchasing in Nov 2003. Unfortunately, the only reason driving my decision is that neither was compatible with HD. I’m happy that my PS3 plays Blu-rays and upscales DVDs well. For now, I don’t need another Blu-ray player, and that means one less device that I have to buy.
We were busy the rest of the weekend with kid birthday parties and more shopping, but I was a little frustrated with getting the new Pioneer receiver working properly. I did the automatic setup (with the included microphone), but I could tell that the 5.1 surround features weren’t working. It kept defaulting to Stereo, and I couldn’t get the subwoofer to go from Standby to On. It should turn on if the receiver tells it to. Late Sunday night, I read most of the thick VSX-1020-K manual, and played with the HDMI connections via trial-and-error. Eureka! The subwoofer’s little light changed from Standby red to Green On, and I could hear a little bass now.
I’ve also noticed a slight buzz with this G25. If you stick your head behind it or have the surround sound on low, I can hear the slightly perceptible buzz. It’s probably not a dealbreaker, but I thought I should notice it. It’s very reminiscent of a flourescent bulb. I’m wondering if it’s just because I’m in the break-in period on the set? I’ll wait out the two weeks, adjust the display settings (color, brightness, etc.) and review the results.
The new AV setup
Finally, just to note, I’m currently kicking myself for miscounting the number of HDMI and digital optical cables I needed. I had ordered them last week through Amazon for outstanding prices at less than $7 each, but found out that I needed one more of each. I considered running out to Best Buy, but the brick-and-mortar big-box retailers charge 4x the amount. I decided to order from Amazon again, and just wait until Tuesday. In the meantime, if we want to watch movies / play games , or watch television, I have to switch the cables to different inputs. By Tuesday, this should all be better. We renewed our Amazon Prime membership again this year, and I’m very pleased. When this type of situation like the need for additional occurs, it’s not too bad. I can order more stuff, and am not penalized by additional shipping fees. It’s all paid for, and it gets here in just two days. It’s a win-win-win situation.
This week, I’m working in Delaware, but I don’t have an available hotel room. Crazy, right? I considered driving back and forth every day, as it’s about a 1:45 drive each way. I am already accustomed to my regular 1:15 commute, so enduring an extra 30 mins of highway driving isn’t outside the realm of possibility. In the end, my sister offered to let me stay with them for a few days in South Jersey. I was happy, as it saved me a good hour off my commute, and I could hang out with them for at least 2-3 nights.
Now, on to the movie review. Wednesday night, we all decided to catch the late showing of A-Team. If you haven’t heard, this is the latest 2010 remake of 70’s & 80’s entertainment properties. Now, I grew up in the 80’s getting my weekly fix of the A-Team. Who didn’t love Hannibal, Face, B.A., and Howlin’ Mad Murdock?
A-Team (2010)
Coincidentally, I recently caught a viewing of the pilot episode, which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen. I had no clue that Dirk Benedict was not the first choice for Templeton “Faceman” Peck. It was some Tim Duggar fellow who lasted one episode, and he didn’t have the same charisma of Dirk Benedict. You need a guy who can turn on the charm, and this fellow was just some guy with dark hair. He was that nondescript.
Back to the movie review — how do I put this? Starring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Rampage Jackson, and Sharto Copley, this movie is an amazing movie to be written and directed by…. an eleven-year old boy. That’s the only explanation for a film like this that had no basis in reality, history, or common sense. I don’t know where to begin to describe it, except that I had major problems with the movie’s logic within the first, say, 10 minutes of the beginning.
I’m not a 34-year old A-Team fanboy complaining that Rampage Jackson wasn’t a good Mr. T. As a matter of fact, I generally liked the actors in their specific roles, but I do admit that Jessica Biel didn’t quite fit. Instead, I’m referring to the non-sensical plot. Very little in the movie makes actual sense. Some examples from just the 30 mins, in no particular order, and here’s the obligatory minor spoiler warning anyway:
The movie made about as much sense as the old 1960’s Batman tv show. It is extremely illogical, and most of the time, you get the sense that certain events and scenes are just set up for the next action sequence. The writers made up story elements so that these key events can occur, or to move the flimsy plot. At one point, the A-Team steals a C-130 Hercules plane (with tank) from 3 Air Force men, from an Air Force base, without any weapons. Oh, they didn’t sneak and steal it. They walked onto the plane, and told the soldiers they were stealing it. One soldier says, “Oh, you’re the famous Hannibal Smith!” and says ok, and the three airbase men walk off the plane. Absolute nonsense.
