There's a lot to blog about today. I'm back from NYC, where Mondo and I had a great time. We saw Spamalot, (I loved it) went to Yankee Stadium and watched the Red Sox beat the Yankees, we splurged at Tavern on the Green, and the whole weekend was fun. More on that later this week because I came home bruised and sore, from the soon to be infamous moment where Mondo almost got me killed! First, I must backtrack. Mondo and I really want to go on The Amazing Race. We both travel a lot and always get where we're going but in a round-about sort of a way. Together, we seem to be in a state of perpetual confusion, which is odd since we're both intelligent beings. (mostly) And, we'd make great TV. CBS are you reading? Back to the present story. Mondo used to live in NYC. She knows the subway system well. Last year when we went there, I never bothered paying attention to where we were going because Mondo always put us on the right train, in the right direction. S...
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Mondo and I are off to NYC this weekend for Memorial Day Redux. Our confirmed plans are Spamalot, Yankees vs. Red Sox, and Tavern on the Green. Unconfirmed but probable are wandering Times Square at night and shopping on Broadway. And eating. I'll be phoneblogging this trip. Enjoy the weekend everyone!
I'm back at the scene of the crime - Palm Desert. Luckily there's not a sand dune or any sign of a sand storm in sight. If I can make it through the next 200 miles without getting tempted to try my luck in the dust then I know I'm cured of A/C trouble. At least after that lecture from the dealer, the A/C is fixed since it's 105 degrees out here.
After lagging for the past few weeks, I finally took my car into the dealer to get the A/C fixed. I'm in Santa Barbara on business and there's a Ponitac dealer nearby. Since the car is only a few months old and has 8500 miles, it fell under the warranty category. Of course the dealer calls this morning to let me know that the part was out of town and could they keep the car a while? That would be no. I told him that I was getting my car tomorrow A/C or not. They asked, will you bring it back if we order the part? That also would be no. I live in Carlsbad and I am not driving back to Santa Barbara to replace the part. I'm then told that they'll get the part and have the car ready today. Okay, now we're talking. So I go back to the dealer this evening to rescue my car. The dealer brings it out and as he drives it up to me, he looks at me very seriously and says, "just between you and me." And then he stops. I'm looking at him like "Yeah?"...
Kingdom of Heaven
In an effort to balance out the Star Wars of my life, I decided to give "Kingdom of Heaven" a chance. I was excited about this movie a few months ago since it has Orlando Bloom Liam Neeson and Alexander Siddiq (Dr. Bashier of DS9) all in the movie. Visually, Ridley Scott makes good films and usually maintains audience interest even when the running time is over 2:30. With all the negative reviews that came out prior to the film's release, I had all but given up on even seeing this movie. That was then and now I've paid my $5.00. "Kingdom of Heaven" is a super slow-paced movie, especially after seeing Star Wars. There are long stretches where we just watch Orlando Bloom wander around and no one speaks. We have the same war visuals that were used more successfully in "Gladiator." The central character just exists without purpose and wanders where people tell him to go. It's good to know that any farmer/blacksmith is smarter than the king ...
Revenge of the Sith - with details
I took my second pass at ROTS yesterday. Within our group we had differing opinions and I found that you just never know what's going to work or not work for everyone. So regardless of what I post here, go out and make up your own mind about various scenes or the movie as a whole. Remember - today there is no mercy. I am blogging spoilers. Spoiler space here just in case you're still undecided. Too late! The opening scroll opens with "War!" and informs us that Palpatine has been kidnapped by Count Dooku and General Grevious. Two jedi have been sent to rescue Palpatine. We go straight into a space battle which looks great but it's hard to follow Anakin and Obi-Wan. When the two jedi land, they go into a big fight scene with battle droids. This goes on slightly too long because battle droids are uninteresting and you might as well shoot BB's at tin cans if that's high drama to you. (This is really just a filler scene designed to look cool. It did lo...
Revenge of the Sith
I'll keep this spoiler free until Sunday when everyone will have seen ROTS at least once. I'll even try to be neutral about the movie. I managed to see ROTS in the Oahu version of the Carlsbad Secret Theater. While Dole and Ward theaters had 4 - 6 screens going, with SW every 30 minutes, they were all sold out. But walk up to the Kahala Mall 5 minutes before showtime and you'll still get a great seat. So - where to start? Well it helps if you've been keeping current with the animated "Clone Wars" on TV. Because Episode 3 starts exactly where episode 25 of the "Clone Wars" ends. If you're not watching, then the beginning scroll will get you caught up with minimal confusion. After the scroll, stuff happens. More stuff. Hey! Look at Obi-Wan get out of his ship! Obi-Wan is just too cool for words! More stuff. And more. Obi-Wan has all the best lines and no one notices. More stuff happens for about 60 minutes. Then the movie starts. T...
The last 36 hours has been nothing but clouds and rain here in Honolulu. Luckily for me, it's a Star Wars day! Once I get all the work related stuff done I can head on over to the theater and see the long awaited movie. One theater here has it on 4 or 5 screens, so the movie has showtimes every 30 minutes or less!
The last episode of Enterprise pretty much summed up why the show was cancelled. After an overall excellent 5th season, the creative helm was snatched back by those who ruined Enterprise in the first place and together they produced a dud! Did we really need to see obese Riker & Troi trying to act as if they were 15 years younger and still working for Picard? Did we really care about Riker's mental anguish? After all, in the Trek universe they're married and Riker has his own command. Get with the timeline Trek controllers! I really enjoyed the last season of Enterprise under the writing and direction of Manny Coto. It was a shame that he was not allowed to write or direct the series finale. Let's hope that Berman and Bragga have nothing to do with any future Trek endeavors.
Airline
I'm on the next plane but we've powered down to reset the computer! At last I've arrived at my destination! I hope all this airline trouble settles down before Thursday.
That was a flight that I don't want to repeat! LJ and I had a simple PHX-SAN flight home on America West, departing PHX at 4:20 pm. At 3:00 pm, there was an announcement that the inbound from Houston had been delayed due to weather. Our new ETA was now 5:45. At 4:30 or so, we were told to change gates so the lot of us had to march to the new (and far away) gate. Every 15 minutes we were given an apology and a new 15 minute delay. Eventually the aircraft showed up and we were on the plane around 5:45. At 6:00, the pilot announced that the ground crew had not provided the paperwork for the weight and pax list. We would be delayed another 15 minutes. A few minutes later, we all observed a flurry of activity around the lavatories. It seemed that 3 or the 4 were not working. At 6:20 we had paperwork but no lavatories. Another delay to fix toilets. At this point people were really getting annoyed and in my section, 3 guys (who didn't know each other) were shouting out ...
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Oh the dreaded thing has happened! Bad weather in Houston has delayed our flight for 2 hours. I'm going to start another book! -- Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com
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It's a beautiful morning in Sedona and the sun is glinting off the red rocks. This morning we're hiking and then to a spa! -- Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com
More Star Wars goodness! The soundtrack for "Revenge of the Sith" (ROTS from this point forward) arrived on Tuesday. I popped it in the cd and gave it a first run today. I have to say that I'm disappointed that there is no stand-out new score for this movie. In TPM, we had Duel of the Fates, and Qui-Gon's funeral and in AOTC there was the love theme, Across the Stars. There's nothing like that in this score for the next movie. What John Williams did was blend in the themes from the previous 5 movies to bring everything together in the final film. Sometimes I liked it (Vader's theme) and sometimes it just didn't work for me. (Anything with battle droids) I'll listen to it a few more times before I see the movie and maybe once I have the film to put with the music, I'll like the score better. I also have the Star Wars TV Guide in my hands. There are a few cool pictures inside but nothing new as far as movie content. I did see that the R2D2...
Sometimes the DSL universe is kind but sometimes not. I've been having trouble with my local DSL sbc connection at home but not anywhere else. When I use broadband for work with the same line, no trouble either. And go figure that trusty old AOL that everyone makes fun of - gives me the best broadband connection of all, using the exact same DSL cable! Of course the phone company won't listen or care so I choose to not take action at this time. Then in the world of "Doh!" I went and deleted the beautiful beer pictures from the most recent Oggi's trip. They turned out good too! Darn! What's right with the universe? Well only 17 more days to Star Wars of course! And the CD gets released tomorrow!
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"Hitchhiker's" has been a long wait for fans of the book and there's good news and bad news for the fans. First off, the movie isn't as bad as the critics are saying but it's also not great. If you don't like abstract and meandering science fiction, then you'll be lost and if you are a book purist, you'll be annoyed. Everyone else inbetween will enjoy the movie. The story is faithful to the spirit of the books (there are more than one for newbies) and follows the plight of Arthur Dent as he is swept away from Earth seconds before the planet is destroyed by Vogons. Book fans will compare what was left in vs. what was omitted and mostly everyone is satisfied with something. There are some characters that were added in just for the movie and their storylines end with no resolution. Luckily, they have little impact so most people will just forget. John Malkovich plays one of these new characters and it's cool because it's him but ultimat...
