July 22, 2008

Invincible

Finished this one a little while back. It's the conclusion to the Legacy of the Force series. I can't say that the ending is surprising, cause you totally knew that Jaina was going to kill Jacen several books ago, but that doesn't retract from this series are book at all. And I think the biggest reason for that is that the struggle between Jaina and Jacen really kinda gets pushed to the side and the things happening around them are of more import. In fact, I found myself caring more about the other bits than the Jacen plot line.

If you check the online reviews of this book, you can see that a lot of people were disappointed in this book. I can't say that it was great, or even more than 'OK'. However, being a fan of the series, and needing to know how things were wrapped up and where we're starting from for the new series, I had to read this one. And like I said, the other plot lines were interesting. Some stupid shit was pulled though, don't get me wrong. I mean, the new Chancellor? Get. A. Grip.

If you're into the Star Wars EU, you need to read this series. A lot of people die, a lot of demarcations are redrawn. A lot of stuff happens. And you spend a lot of quality time with Fett and the Mandalors. In fact, I'd revisit this entire series just for that particular bit as it's really well done. Perhaps some new series will continue that further. One can hope.

Mixed bag. I hate to use that phrase, but it's apropos.

Posted in at 00:44:20

July 18, 2008

Jumper

First of all, Hayden Christensen? Not much of an actor. I was willing to believe it was the craptastic direction of Lucas, but...

So anyway, on to the movie. This movie was merely OK. The commercials/previews made it look a lot better than it was. In fact, they made it look like it could/should have been. The dude can teleport. And there are other people who can do it too. Always have been. And there's this religious order hunting them down on the premise that only God should have this power. And that's about all the movie tells you. Is it genetic? Is it only males who exhibit this or was that merely a casting bias for the movie? They can take things w/ them when they jump, but only certain things. Why? Etc, etc.

This movie could have spent the 90 minutes of my life exploring the jumping ability and its origin and the impact it has on the life of the person (while said person happens to be fleeing for their life). Heck, they could have had the religious cult explain the whole situation when the main character confronts them about why they are chasing him. Yet, this movie goes on and on about how the main character's life sucks and all this crap that is orthogonal to the fact that he can jump. I mean, OK, you want to build character depth/history. I get it. But people went to see this movie cause of the jumping. So let's focus there, eh?

Posted in at 11:54:48

July 17, 2008

Rambo

I watched this a while back (I'm insanely backlogged on blog posts). I'm really kinda 'mixed' on how I feel about this one. It was nowhere near as good as Rocky Balboa and I really didn't see the need to have another Rambo. Nor did it 'wrap up' the story for me at all. He doesn't die, he doesn't come back and trash the US military that made him who he is. However, it is the most realistic Rambo ever and it's highly visceral. I kinda like it just for the 'eww, did you see that?' factor..

Rocky has once again retired to the middle of nowhere hiding from the world. And he gets wrapped up in what happens to this group of missionaries, and suddenly he's Mr Bad-Ass again (reluctantly, of course). And, predictably enough, he's only a 'bad ass' in getting these people back. He's not interested in stopping the oppression per se. He just happens to wipe em out as a by-product. Which means if you've seen Rambo 2 or 3, you basically know the story, just transplant it to another location on the planet.

Posted in at 16:17:35

July 14, 2008

Mind Hacks

I finished this book up quite some time ago and must admit that it took me forever to finish. You see, the subtitle of this thing "Tips & Tricks for Using Your Brain" led me to believe that the book would be a bunch of cool tricks you could learn to make better use of your brain (better memory/recall, etc). In reality, the book is more like a technical guide to the hacks used by the brain to function in the day-to-day of the world.

Which is interesting, in and of itself. It just wasn't at all what I thought I was buying. And the writing is, well, a little dry. Thorough, to be sure. But dry. Man, it sounds like I'm coming down on this book when that's not really my intent. I learned a lot of neat things about the brain, about exploiting some of the hacks it uses to cope with life to achieve some interesting (if not quirky) results, and about why Psychology as a field is such a crap shoot.

I will say that there were lots of interesting pieces of information for anyone who does 'user interface' or 'user experience' work. In fact, I recommended this to our UEx person repeatedly.

Yeah, so, take that for what it's worth, I guess. Go read the user reviews on Amazon and you'll see that my sentiments are echoed by just about everyone there. A good book, in all, but not what you probably thought this book was.

Posted in at 15:16:34

July 14, 2008

fit update

After this morning's workout, I'm pleased to report that I've lost 2 lbs and my Wii Fit Age is 28. As is apparently normal, I've lost weight over the past weekend and will not gain it back during the week itself. I've also increased my Wii Fit Age, even though all of my tests were better today than the last run. Not sure what's up with that.

There won't be an update next week, as I'll be in the office. Which should prove interesting since next Sat (not this Sat) is the first 'deadline' date I set in Wii Fit. And I won't be here the whole week to record any workouts. I'm curious how the Fit is going to handle my 'not participating' and missing my goal.

Posted in at 07:37:25

July 10, 2008

tits on the table

The family all went to our local Hooters for dinner one Sunday about a month ago. I didn't think much about it, as we've all been several times and everyone seems to enjoy it well enough (though Tina complains about the service and menu some). So anyway, we're sitting there having a meal, and watching American Gladiators (it was better than the sports on the rest of the tvs) and things were going well. Or so I thought.

About 3 weeks later, we were trying to decide where to go for dinner again and one of the kids suggests Hooters. At which point Tina gets all huffy and is like 'no, not ever again'. After much prodding I was able to determine that Tina no longer wants to go back because of the behavior of our waitress. It seems that said waitress had a habit of using her arms to squeeze her breasts together and then squatting down so they were basically 'resting' on the table surface.

In all honesty, I don't recall this at all. I vaguely remember the waitress squatting down to be at 'eye level' with us (which I hate, BTW. You're waiting on my. You're not my friend or family. Don't sit down in the booth with us or any of that crap) but I clearly missed the tits on the table. Of course, Tina finds it very hard to believe that I missed such behavior (I don't think she believes it to this day) even though both kids swear they didn't notice it either.

I'm fairly tempted to say that Tina's insecurities colored her perceptions of what happened, but the truth of the matter is that it doesn't really matter. She honestly believes the waitress was doing this to 'give me an eyeful' and Tina is thoroughly insulted that she would do so when I was there w/ my wife and kids.

Who knew a simple meal could be such an ordeal?

sigh

Posted in at 12:17:19