Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Review: Very good German language film about a girl running. Well, that's what most of the movie is about. Sort of. I guess it's about feeling helpless/unable to fix a situation and how every action you make, no matter how small, can affect the outcome greatly. Movie was very well done and the music was great. I don't want to give too much plot away, so just go and watch it.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Movie Review: Tropic Thunder
Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Review: Great movie about the making of a Vietnam war movie with pretentious/overrated actors. This was a hilarious movie. The whole concept of a movie about the filming of an over-the-top Hollywood blockbuster movie that is over budget and over acted was great. The actors play stereotypical big name actors and they are fantastic in their humor/portrayal of the Hollywood scene. Great movie, go see it. Oh, and Robet Downey Jr. is amazing! This is the best character acting I've seen in a long time. (What is funny, though, is that it's his character who's doing the amazing character acting. Just adding another layer of funny and confusing)
Review: Great movie about the making of a Vietnam war movie with pretentious/overrated actors. This was a hilarious movie. The whole concept of a movie about the filming of an over-the-top Hollywood blockbuster movie that is over budget and over acted was great. The actors play stereotypical big name actors and they are fantastic in their humor/portrayal of the Hollywood scene. Great movie, go see it. Oh, and Robet Downey Jr. is amazing! This is the best character acting I've seen in a long time. (What is funny, though, is that it's his character who's doing the amazing character acting. Just adding another layer of funny and confusing)
Movie Review: I Am Legend
Rating: 4.0 out of 10 (original)
Rating: 7.0 out of 10 (alternate version/ending)
Review: The first half of the movie is great. It's about the last guy on Earth after some sort of virus thing has "killed" off the rest of the population (or turned them into vampire/zombies). It has some good action sequences. And it has a bit of foreshadowing to tell the audience that there is more going on than they realize. The problem is that the last half of the movie pretends like the whole plot development and foreshadowing stuff didn't matter. And the ending is just stupid. It makes you mad at the movie. Why go through all of the work of setting up an interesting plot line and ending if you are just going to throw it away for a stupid ending? Well, it turns out that there are two possible ending on the Blu-Ray disk (and possibly the DVD as well). I'm not sure what the back-story on the "alternate version" is, but it is a much better movie. Watch this version, only. The plot development and the foreshadowing make much more sense in this version and the ending is not idiotic. So, in summary, the plot is not as good as the book version, but if you watch the "alternate version", at least you won't end up hating this movie.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10 (alternate version/ending)
Review: The first half of the movie is great. It's about the last guy on Earth after some sort of virus thing has "killed" off the rest of the population (or turned them into vampire/zombies). It has some good action sequences. And it has a bit of foreshadowing to tell the audience that there is more going on than they realize. The problem is that the last half of the movie pretends like the whole plot development and foreshadowing stuff didn't matter. And the ending is just stupid. It makes you mad at the movie. Why go through all of the work of setting up an interesting plot line and ending if you are just going to throw it away for a stupid ending? Well, it turns out that there are two possible ending on the Blu-Ray disk (and possibly the DVD as well). I'm not sure what the back-story on the "alternate version" is, but it is a much better movie. Watch this version, only. The plot development and the foreshadowing make much more sense in this version and the ending is not idiotic. So, in summary, the plot is not as good as the book version, but if you watch the "alternate version", at least you won't end up hating this movie.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Movie Review: Kung Fu Panda
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: It was actually better than I thought it would be. The action and kung fu bits were really well done. Jack Black is hilarious as always (almost always; we don’t count Nacho Libre). Not much to say, except that it is a solid cartoon that stays true to the Kung Fu vibe throughout.
Review: It was actually better than I thought it would be. The action and kung fu bits were really well done. Jack Black is hilarious as always (almost always; we don’t count Nacho Libre). Not much to say, except that it is a solid cartoon that stays true to the Kung Fu vibe throughout.
Movie Review: Bolt
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: Took my 2.5 year old son to see this. He and I both liked it quite a bit. It is a CG movie about a dog who is an actor portraying a super hero dog, but the dog thinks he is really a super hero. Hilarity ensues. While the dog is funny and a solid lead character, the little hamster steals the show. I would recommend this movie to most everyone, mostly because of the hamster. He is hilarious and has some very quotable lines.
Review: Took my 2.5 year old son to see this. He and I both liked it quite a bit. It is a CG movie about a dog who is an actor portraying a super hero dog, but the dog thinks he is really a super hero. Hilarity ensues. While the dog is funny and a solid lead character, the little hamster steals the show. I would recommend this movie to most everyone, mostly because of the hamster. He is hilarious and has some very quotable lines.
Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: Okay, I wanted to hate the plot at first. I thought they went way too far outside of the whole Indiana vibe, but I now think I was wrong. If you look back on movies like the Temple of Doom, I mean, come on. You can’t get much more out there than a guy magically yanking another guy’s heart out. So, I am good with the direction they went. Other than that, I loved all the throw backs to the old Indy movies with quotes and reappearing actors. It was great. The reason I only gave it a six is because all of the action sequences were way too over the top. They were so unbelievable that they were laughable. They should have let up a bit on those. Otherwise, a good edition to the Indy series.
Review: Okay, I wanted to hate the plot at first. I thought they went way too far outside of the whole Indiana vibe, but I now think I was wrong. If you look back on movies like the Temple of Doom, I mean, come on. You can’t get much more out there than a guy magically yanking another guy’s heart out. So, I am good with the direction they went. Other than that, I loved all the throw backs to the old Indy movies with quotes and reappearing actors. It was great. The reason I only gave it a six is because all of the action sequences were way too over the top. They were so unbelievable that they were laughable. They should have let up a bit on those. Otherwise, a good edition to the Indy series.
Movie Review: Cloverfield
Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Review: The plot of Cloverfield is that you are watching a video tape left over after some sort of thing attacks New York. And you get the privilege of experiencing the events along with the characters as if you were right there with them. This was a good monster flick. Not really horror, but somewhere between Blair Witch and Godzilla in style. The suspense of not knowing what is going on with some very good visuals and lots of action made this one of the better monster movies I have seen.
Review: The plot of Cloverfield is that you are watching a video tape left over after some sort of thing attacks New York. And you get the privilege of experiencing the events along with the characters as if you were right there with them. This was a good monster flick. Not really horror, but somewhere between Blair Witch and Godzilla in style. The suspense of not knowing what is going on with some very good visuals and lots of action made this one of the better monster movies I have seen.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Movie Review: Be Kind, Rewind
Rating: 5.0 out of 10
Review: I have a fondness for Jack Black movies. His movies are usually hit or miss, though. This one was pretty much a miss. This movie was about a VHS movie rental store in the slums that suddenly finds that they have no movies to rent. So, Jack Black and Mos Def have to start filming their own versions to rent to people. The plot isn’t bad and I like whole concept, but the execution wasn’t great. The movie took too long to get to the good stuff and they went all science-fictiony at one point when they did not have to do so to develop the story. All in all, it is not a bad movie to watch if it comes on television.
Review: I have a fondness for Jack Black movies. His movies are usually hit or miss, though. This one was pretty much a miss. This movie was about a VHS movie rental store in the slums that suddenly finds that they have no movies to rent. So, Jack Black and Mos Def have to start filming their own versions to rent to people. The plot isn’t bad and I like whole concept, but the execution wasn’t great. The movie took too long to get to the good stuff and they went all science-fictiony at one point when they did not have to do so to develop the story. All in all, it is not a bad movie to watch if it comes on television.
Movie Review: Diminished Capacity
Rating: 3.0 out of 10
Review: This is a fairly slow drama, sort of a romantic comedy, that doesn’t really have much in the way of romance or comedy. It is actually kind of a depressing movie. The plot is that a father and son are having memory troubles and they are using each other as support to go out into the real world to sell a rare baseball card. It was alright for a sappy movie, I guess. My biggest problem with the movie was that the most exciting part of the movie had people wrestling around on the ground over the baseball card. That was the climax of the movie? It was an extremely lackluster ending to a pretty boring movie.
Review: This is a fairly slow drama, sort of a romantic comedy, that doesn’t really have much in the way of romance or comedy. It is actually kind of a depressing movie. The plot is that a father and son are having memory troubles and they are using each other as support to go out into the real world to sell a rare baseball card. It was alright for a sappy movie, I guess. My biggest problem with the movie was that the most exciting part of the movie had people wrestling around on the ground over the baseball card. That was the climax of the movie? It was an extremely lackluster ending to a pretty boring movie.
Movie Review: Swing View
Rating: 4.0 out of 10
Review: I liked the story. It was about an election that was so close that it comes down to just one vote by one guy. Of course, this guy is a lazy, unemployed, red neck guy who just doesn’t care. So, the movie turns out to be about how low politicians can stoop to get what they want and how far is too far. I thought it was a great idea for a movie. The problem was that the dialog felt like it was written by a 10 year old. The script was just bad. The connections between the father and daughter never felt real because of the awkward dialog. This is a fun movie to watch if it is TV someday. Just don’t expect great character development or witty banter.
Review: I liked the story. It was about an election that was so close that it comes down to just one vote by one guy. Of course, this guy is a lazy, unemployed, red neck guy who just doesn’t care. So, the movie turns out to be about how low politicians can stoop to get what they want and how far is too far. I thought it was a great idea for a movie. The problem was that the dialog felt like it was written by a 10 year old. The script was just bad. The connections between the father and daughter never felt real because of the awkward dialog. This is a fun movie to watch if it is TV someday. Just don’t expect great character development or witty banter.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Movie Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of those movies that may have slipped past your radar, but was actually a decent comedy. It’s about a guy trying to forget about his recent break up. Of course, this proves to be quite difficult when he keeps finding her around every corner. This is actually a pretty good romantic comedy, even with its very vulgar content. Believe it or not, but this movie has the most nudity that I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. The guy nudity kind of got a little over the top; but, it was done to be funny, of course. I wouldn’t say the whole movie was great, but it definitely had its funny parts. A decent romantic comedy with some crude, but usually funny, content.
Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of those movies that may have slipped past your radar, but was actually a decent comedy. It’s about a guy trying to forget about his recent break up. Of course, this proves to be quite difficult when he keeps finding her around every corner. This is actually a pretty good romantic comedy, even with its very vulgar content. Believe it or not, but this movie has the most nudity that I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. The guy nudity kind of got a little over the top; but, it was done to be funny, of course. I wouldn’t say the whole movie was great, but it definitely had its funny parts. A decent romantic comedy with some crude, but usually funny, content.
Movie Review: Iron Man
Rating: 9.0 out of 10
Review: Excellent action movie. The plot is great, the visuals are great, the dialogue is great, and the acting is great. The only thing I can say bad about it is that the whole movie is about the beginning of the Iron Man story. It is not about the “super hero” Iron Man, but about how he came to be. I guess we can wait for Iron Man 2 to see him in full superhero form.
Review: Excellent action movie. The plot is great, the visuals are great, the dialogue is great, and the acting is great. The only thing I can say bad about it is that the whole movie is about the beginning of the Iron Man story. It is not about the “super hero” Iron Man, but about how he came to be. I guess we can wait for Iron Man 2 to see him in full superhero form.
Movie Review: War of the Worlds
Rating: 5.0 out of 10
Review: This is a retelling of the classic War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The biggest difference is that this version is set in modern U.S. instead of turn of 1800’s England. The action is great and the visuals are fantastic. The story just does seem substantial enough for a good movie. The ending is kind of anticlimactic and doesn’t hold up to 21st century expectation of an action movie. All in all, a fairly good action movie with a plot that doesn’t hold up in the end.
Review: This is a retelling of the classic War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The biggest difference is that this version is set in modern U.S. instead of turn of 1800’s England. The action is great and the visuals are fantastic. The story just does seem substantial enough for a good movie. The ending is kind of anticlimactic and doesn’t hold up to 21st century expectation of an action movie. All in all, a fairly good action movie with a plot that doesn’t hold up in the end.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Trebuchet Project (part 1)
One day, I opened up my work email and read the boring things going on at Wright Patterson Airforce Base and found out about the 5th annual pumpkin chucking fundraiser. Now, this sounded interesting. The contest was to build a catapult or trebuchet that could fling a 6 pound pumpkin a good distance. Unfortunately, this requires a fairly large catapult and is way beyond the scale of anything I can do with my time and money. But, for the first time, is read, there was going to be an amateur class with a 5 x 5 foot size limit and a projectile (pumpkin) of only 2 pounds. This sounded much more reasonable.
So, over the
next week, my coworkers and I talked about designs and feasibility of actually competing in the contest. We started with a rotating arm that went round and round until it finally released the pumpkin, but decided that a trebuchet was probably the most efficient method. I visited many websites and absorbed as much knowledge as I could about trebuchets and finally found the most complicated design out there: the floating axel king Arthur trebuchet. Not only are these things incredibly complicated (compared to a regular trebuchet), but they are very efficient for their relatively small size. This means, if we could figure out how to build it, we could get a really good range for a small trebuchet. So, after drawing up some plans based on a wooded FAKA (floating axle King Arthur) trebuchet, I convinced some of my coworkers to actually try and build it.
The FAKA compared to other trebuchets (from the Hurl site):
"The FAKA is a trebuchet design invented in late 2006 by Craig Macomber. It stands for Floating Axle King Arthur. It combines the efficiency of a Floating Arm Trebuchet (FAT) with the increased potential energy of a King Arthur.
Basically, it gets a lot of energy for it's size and weight, and uses it very well, but there are many challenges. A FAKA is a very high end trebuchet form the efficiency perspective. They work great over a huge range of mass ratios. The FAKA is very efficient for its frame height and arm length as well. FAKAs are hard to build, and have have a tendency to go very wrong, and often break things, if the timing is a little off."
Video of other FAKAs:
A regular trebuchet consists of a long arm (usually wood) that can turn on an axle. At the end of the long side of the arm (the long arm or TA) is where the sling is attached. The sling is two ends of a rope with a pouch attached in the middle. You put your projectile in the pouch. When the long arm swings upward, the sling is pulled up and around with it. This creates a whipping motion for the projectile, which is released at about a 45 degree angle so as to get the best distance. The other side of the arm has the short arm and the hanger. The hanger is attached to the short arm and contains all your weight (counterweight). So, to set it up you prop up the weight, stand back, and pull the pin to let it start dropping. The picture below shows the setup.
The next Sunday, Terry and I met at Lowes and purchased all the supplies. We met over at Dan’s and spent the entire day assembling the structure, the track, and the arm. The track gave us a lot of problems. At first, we tried to go with casters on a metal rail, but this didn’t even come close to working. After some redesign and prototyping on the spot with whatever we could find, we finally came up with a rollerblade wheel block for our track. This, so far, seems to be doing fairly well. After a long day, we decided we could try out a dry run (no pumpkin or sling), just to see what it would do. We attached 15 pounds of weight (hoping to get up to 100 pounds by the end of our testing) and propped up the arm. We stood back and pulled the pin, just to watch the counterweights get pulled down by gravity and sheared right out of the wood that was holding them. I guess 2 x 4s are now strong enough to support a little weight. So, back to the drawing board. Our new design for the counterweight arm is made entirely out of iron pipe and should be strong enough to support the 100 pounds. So far, we are up to 30 pounds of counterweight and could throw a 2 pound ball 45 feet. Next weekend we will try to up the weight and see what happens.
Time Lapse Video of the Creation of the Trebuchet
Testing and Tuning the Trebuchet (Sir Launch-a-Lot)
So, over the
next week, my coworkers and I talked about designs and feasibility of actually competing in the contest. We started with a rotating arm that went round and round until it finally released the pumpkin, but decided that a trebuchet was probably the most efficient method. I visited many websites and absorbed as much knowledge as I could about trebuchets and finally found the most complicated design out there: the floating axel king Arthur trebuchet. Not only are these things incredibly complicated (compared to a regular trebuchet), but they are very efficient for their relatively small size. This means, if we could figure out how to build it, we could get a really good range for a small trebuchet. So, after drawing up some plans based on a wooded FAKA (floating axle King Arthur) trebuchet, I convinced some of my coworkers to actually try and build it.The FAKA compared to other trebuchets (from the Hurl site):
"The FAKA is a trebuchet design invented in late 2006 by Craig Macomber. It stands for Floating Axle King Arthur. It combines the efficiency of a Floating Arm Trebuchet (FAT) with the increased potential energy of a King Arthur.
Basically, it gets a lot of energy for it's size and weight, and uses it very well, but there are many challenges. A FAKA is a very high end trebuchet form the efficiency perspective. They work great over a huge range of mass ratios. The FAKA is very efficient for its frame height and arm length as well. FAKAs are hard to build, and have have a tendency to go very wrong, and often break things, if the timing is a little off."
Video of other FAKAs:
A regular trebuchet consists of a long arm (usually wood) that can turn on an axle. At the end of the long side of the arm (the long arm or TA) is where the sling is attached. The sling is two ends of a rope with a pouch attached in the middle. You put your projectile in the pouch. When the long arm swings upward, the sling is pulled up and around with it. This creates a whipping motion for the projectile, which is released at about a 45 degree angle so as to get the best distance. The other side of the arm has the short arm and the hanger. The hanger is attached to the short arm and contains all your weight (counterweight). So, to set it up you prop up the weight, stand back, and pull the pin to let it start dropping. The picture below shows the setup.
The next Sunday, Terry and I met at Lowes and purchased all the supplies. We met over at Dan’s and spent the entire day assembling the structure, the track, and the arm. The track gave us a lot of problems. At first, we tried to go with casters on a metal rail, but this didn’t even come close to working. After some redesign and prototyping on the spot with whatever we could find, we finally came up with a rollerblade wheel block for our track. This, so far, seems to be doing fairly well. After a long day, we decided we could try out a dry run (no pumpkin or sling), just to see what it would do. We attached 15 pounds of weight (hoping to get up to 100 pounds by the end of our testing) and propped up the arm. We stood back and pulled the pin, just to watch the counterweights get pulled down by gravity and sheared right out of the wood that was holding them. I guess 2 x 4s are now strong enough to support a little weight. So, back to the drawing board. Our new design for the counterweight arm is made entirely out of iron pipe and should be strong enough to support the 100 pounds. So far, we are up to 30 pounds of counterweight and could throw a 2 pound ball 45 feet. Next weekend we will try to up the weight and see what happens.
Time Lapse Video of the Creation of the Trebuchet
Testing and Tuning the Trebuchet (Sir Launch-a-Lot)
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Movie Review: Spider-Man 3
Rating: 5.0 out of 10
Review: I saw Spider-Man back in the day and liked it. It wasn’t the greatest superhero movie ever, but it was pretty good. It had realistic character development, great graphics, and was just fun to watch. The second Spider-Man was definitely not as good as the first one, though. It just seemed a little bit cheesier and had a shallower plot. This seems to happen quite often in sequels. The third one had a chance to redeem itself and get Spider-Man back on top of the superhero movie chart. It has completely failed to do so, in my opinion.
Spider-Man 3 was cheesy, shallow, goofy, and insulting to my intelligence. It was poorly written and directed. The movie felt like it was written by a 12 year old. Or, it feels like it was written by a team of 50 people. Every scene is very explicit in the emotions that are taking place and how the audience is supposed to be feeling at the time. They do not leave anything to interpretation. If the scene is about romance, the writer and director would make damn well certain that you know the characters are feeling romantic in their exaggerated facial expressions and over acted roles. In one shot, Peter Parker is going to propose to Mary Jane. So, before he goes into the restaurant, the director makes sure to show you a 10 second long shot where Parker takes the ring out of his pocket, looks at it for a while, and then puts it back into his pocket. This is to tell the audience to get ready for the proposal part of the movie. We don’t need such obvious clues; just let the movie tell the story. The movie treats its audience like they are blathering idiots and need to have everything spelled out for them.
My second big complaint is about the goofiness. Why do we need goofy comedy in Spider-Man? I don’t get it. There are goofy characters in Spider-Man that are there to provide juvenile comedy relief; and there is goofy, Adam Sandler style, humor base. I like Adam Sandler, but I don’t want his humor and his goofy characters in my Spider-Man. The butler for GREEN GOBLIN was stupid and no place being in this movie. He was just there to act like a moron so we can laugh at him. Also, why would they spend one solid minute making fun of French accents? I would have thought that Spider-Man was above childish, schoolyard mockery. These are just a few of the goofy things in the movie. This humor style is below the intellectual level of what Spider-Man should be.
Lastly, what the hell is up with the flag? At some point, when Spider-Man is chasing down a criminal, he lands on top of a building where a ginormus American flag is waving in the background. Spider-Man pauses, strikes a slight pose, and then continues on his chase. What was the point of this? Yes, we all know the Spider-Man lives in the United States; do we need to be reminded with a flag as large as Texas? Stupid, pointless nationalism.
Things I did like about Spider-Man 3:
1. The Sandman character and the actor playing him.
2. The overall concept of Spider-Man.
3. The plot wasn’t bad, it was just poorly written.
4. Graphics are good (maybe a bit too much, though).
5. Venom was pretty good.
Review: I saw Spider-Man back in the day and liked it. It wasn’t the greatest superhero movie ever, but it was pretty good. It had realistic character development, great graphics, and was just fun to watch. The second Spider-Man was definitely not as good as the first one, though. It just seemed a little bit cheesier and had a shallower plot. This seems to happen quite often in sequels. The third one had a chance to redeem itself and get Spider-Man back on top of the superhero movie chart. It has completely failed to do so, in my opinion.
Spider-Man 3 was cheesy, shallow, goofy, and insulting to my intelligence. It was poorly written and directed. The movie felt like it was written by a 12 year old. Or, it feels like it was written by a team of 50 people. Every scene is very explicit in the emotions that are taking place and how the audience is supposed to be feeling at the time. They do not leave anything to interpretation. If the scene is about romance, the writer and director would make damn well certain that you know the characters are feeling romantic in their exaggerated facial expressions and over acted roles. In one shot, Peter Parker is going to propose to Mary Jane. So, before he goes into the restaurant, the director makes sure to show you a 10 second long shot where Parker takes the ring out of his pocket, looks at it for a while, and then puts it back into his pocket. This is to tell the audience to get ready for the proposal part of the movie. We don’t need such obvious clues; just let the movie tell the story. The movie treats its audience like they are blathering idiots and need to have everything spelled out for them.
My second big complaint is about the goofiness. Why do we need goofy comedy in Spider-Man? I don’t get it. There are goofy characters in Spider-Man that are there to provide juvenile comedy relief; and there is goofy, Adam Sandler style, humor base. I like Adam Sandler, but I don’t want his humor and his goofy characters in my Spider-Man. The butler for GREEN GOBLIN was stupid and no place being in this movie. He was just there to act like a moron so we can laugh at him. Also, why would they spend one solid minute making fun of French accents? I would have thought that Spider-Man was above childish, schoolyard mockery. These are just a few of the goofy things in the movie. This humor style is below the intellectual level of what Spider-Man should be.
Lastly, what the hell is up with the flag? At some point, when Spider-Man is chasing down a criminal, he lands on top of a building where a ginormus American flag is waving in the background. Spider-Man pauses, strikes a slight pose, and then continues on his chase. What was the point of this? Yes, we all know the Spider-Man lives in the United States; do we need to be reminded with a flag as large as Texas? Stupid, pointless nationalism.
Things I did like about Spider-Man 3:
1. The Sandman character and the actor playing him.
2. The overall concept of Spider-Man.
3. The plot wasn’t bad, it was just poorly written.
4. Graphics are good (maybe a bit too much, though).
5. Venom was pretty good.
Movie Review: Semi-Pro
Summary: Another stupid Will Ferrel sports movie.
Rating: 4.0 out of 10
Review: Stupid Will Ferrel comedy about a semi-pro basketball team. This was a bad movie. I enjoy Will Ferrel movies, but this was scraping the bottom of the barrel, even for Ferrel. The plot was kind of stupid and the dialog was not as funny as it should have been. The acting was way over the top, as you would expect. But, it just didn’t work like it does in Old School. All in all, a failure. Don’t watch this unless it’s on cable late at night, you can’t find Star Trek on, you’ve surfed the internet all that you can for one night, your arm hurts from too much drumming on RockBand, your tired of sniping in Call of Duty 4, and you can’t find your Lord of the Rings DVDs.
Rating: 4.0 out of 10
Review: Stupid Will Ferrel comedy about a semi-pro basketball team. This was a bad movie. I enjoy Will Ferrel movies, but this was scraping the bottom of the barrel, even for Ferrel. The plot was kind of stupid and the dialog was not as funny as it should have been. The acting was way over the top, as you would expect. But, it just didn’t work like it does in Old School. All in all, a failure. Don’t watch this unless it’s on cable late at night, you can’t find Star Trek on, you’ve surfed the internet all that you can for one night, your arm hurts from too much drumming on RockBand, your tired of sniping in Call of Duty 4, and you can’t find your Lord of the Rings DVDs.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Movie Review: Shooter
Summary: Sniper movie with a bit of a "who-done-it".
Rating: 5.0 out of 10
Review: Shooter is a movie that will appeal to people who like to watch snipers kill people. That’s it. Okay, I’ve being a little harsh, but I really think that was the only reason this movie was produced. It’s about big guns, a bit of a mystery, and lots of killing.
The first half of the movie will seem very familiar. You’ve seen the plot a hundred times. One innocent military guy gets shafted by the government because of some heartless politicians. This causes his life to get turned upside down. He spends the rest of the first half of the movie trying to figure out who the bad guys are. If the movie had continued with this theme, I probably would have liked it alright. But, the second half was very different.
The second half of the movie turns into a murderous rampage. This is where the viewer has to turn of the thinking part of their brain and just enjoy the blood splattering spectacle. If you can’t do this, you probably won’t enjoy part two of Shooter. I was very disappointed with the direction of the movie.
So, with a rehashed plot line in the first half and a weird transition in plot for the second half, I found this movie very inconsistent and downright distasteful. Not only that, but, thinking about it further, I’m not sure that the plot even made sense. I give the first half a 6 or 7 and the second half a 2 or 3.
Rating: 5.0 out of 10
Review: Shooter is a movie that will appeal to people who like to watch snipers kill people. That’s it. Okay, I’ve being a little harsh, but I really think that was the only reason this movie was produced. It’s about big guns, a bit of a mystery, and lots of killing.
The first half of the movie will seem very familiar. You’ve seen the plot a hundred times. One innocent military guy gets shafted by the government because of some heartless politicians. This causes his life to get turned upside down. He spends the rest of the first half of the movie trying to figure out who the bad guys are. If the movie had continued with this theme, I probably would have liked it alright. But, the second half was very different.
The second half of the movie turns into a murderous rampage. This is where the viewer has to turn of the thinking part of their brain and just enjoy the blood splattering spectacle. If you can’t do this, you probably won’t enjoy part two of Shooter. I was very disappointed with the direction of the movie.
So, with a rehashed plot line in the first half and a weird transition in plot for the second half, I found this movie very inconsistent and downright distasteful. Not only that, but, thinking about it further, I’m not sure that the plot even made sense. I give the first half a 6 or 7 and the second half a 2 or 3.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
GenCon 2008
Gaming conventions are crazy, both in concept and in practice. Imagine gathering together thousands of people who enjoy board games, war games, card games, fantasy role-playing, and even some online gaming folks into one large event. You see a lot of weird things and people and have a lot of fun just browsing around and people watching. The two big gaming conventions that occur near Cincinnati are Origins, in Columbus, and GenCon in Indianapolis. Earlier this year, I spent two action packed days at Origins playing as many games as I could squeeze in. Because of this fact, I didn’t expect that I would go to GenCon. For one, Parker had just arrived and because of this fact, I had no time to get myself up to Indianapolis. So, I was resigned to the fact that Origins would be my convention of choice, this year. That works for me. Then, I heard on The Spiel (one of my board gaming podcasts) that they were going to be holding a “Spiel-a-Thon” event at GenCon. It would be a fund raising event where you can go and meet the podcasters and play lots of game and possibly win a few. I figured I had to make my way up to the event and play a few games and meet the Dave and Stephen from The Spiel.
So, I skipped out of work a little bit early on the Friday of the event and made my way to Indianapolis. When I got to GenCon I quickly made my way into the main hall where all the vendors are located. This is the main feature of GenCon. The convention center is huge and there were literally hundreds of booths of a wide spectrum of the gaming world. The place was so expansive, it was impossible to see everything in the short amount of time that I had, but I saw many different booths and vendors, including super heroes, dice vendors, Japanese graphic novels, war paraphernalia, the latest miniature games, a $9500 wooden gaming table, Guitar Hero contests, and the latest in MMORPGs. Somehow, I missed the Fantasy Flight Games section where they were testing the new Battlestar Galactica game out. I’ve heard this is a pretty good game. Oh, well.
So, after a few frantic hours in the main vendor hall, I made my way over to the Rio Grande Gaming room where the Spiel-a-thon was being held. Once there, I meet Dave and Stephen from the The Spiel and recorded a sound bite for their show. They also had a huge 5 foot dice tower that was to be used throughout the day. They also had a prize table with about 50 different games that would be raffled off that day in order to raise money for their charity. The grand prize in the raffle was Risk: Black Ops, but they had many other good games they were giving away. I will go ahead and spoil the ending and tell you that I did not win anything. No problem, I was there to play some games.
They way the Spiel-a-thon worked was people just looked around and found a game that was not being played and sat down. Within a few seconds someone would join you and the group would teach the game to themselves, or have someone else teach it. I was able to play three different games over the course of 5 hours. I had a really good time, even though I didn’t win the raffle. I’m thinking I might have to go back next year. Just don’t tell my wife.
Here are some quick reviews of the games I played:
Utopia
This is a game about placing your different types of workers around a large map. If you formed specific combinations of workers you could build small buildings, build large monuments, change the value of buildings, get more workers, or move workers around. It took us a while to get the hang of the rules, but about halfway through the game, we kind of knew what we were doing. I usually like worker placement games, but this one didn’t feel very smooth. The game just didn’t grab me as one I would want to play over and over. Also, the monuments and the buildings looked too much alike.
Nefertiti
I can tell there is a really good, deep auction game here. On your turn, you simply place one of your markers on a bid space. That is it. You have a number of things to balance in this game. You have to make sure you don’t run out of bid markers, or run out of money, and you need to make sure you collect cards that other people have (this will decrease their value), and corner the market on items that you have to raise the price. This is a really good “gamers” game that, for some reason, I am only marginally interested in playing again. For some reason, it just wasn’t very exciting. I did like it, though.
Dominion
Dominion is a pre-release game from Rio Grande Games that will include over 500 cards. This card game you only use about 50 cards in a game. The 500 cards are there so that two games that you play will never be the same. The game is a very quick and simple cards game. You start with 10 cards in your deck. Some are action cards and some are coin cards. On your turn, you draw 5 cards and play up to one action cards and you can buy one card with any coins in your hand. So, the cards you can buy are more actions cards, more coin cards, or victory point cards. When you are done, you throw all the cards in your hand and the new cards into your own discard pile. Then you draw 5 more and wait for your turn to do it again. When you run out of cards to draw, you shuffle your own discard pile back into your draw deck. This way, your deck of cards starts to grow and you start getting better and better cards in your deck. Eventually, you’ll get enough coin cards so you can buy some victory point cards. You don’t want to do this too early or they will take up space in your deck and be useless until the end of the game. The game plays very fast and is a lot of fun trying different strategies in a short 10-15 minute game. The only problem that I see is that Dominion has very little player interaction. In fact, with the cards I played with, there was only one card you could buy that affected the other players. Despite this fact, I could sit there and play game after game and have a great time.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati: Shayne Graham Event
Yesterday I got to participate in one amazing event. You know how celebrities organize charity golf event where a corporation pays a large sum to th
e charity and then they get to send three guys (or gals) to golf with a celebrity? Well, when Shayne Graham organizes the event, you never know what you're going to get. He doesn't do things the normal way. He figured that golf was boring and he should spice things up. So, instead, he organized the Shayne Graham Celebrity Race-Off at the Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati. The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is a new 0.7 mile KART track near Eastgate. It was a blast!
The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is about 10 minutes east of 275 on the east side of Cincinnati. So, it took
a little while to get there and we had to drive through some really small towns out in the middle of nowhere. But, once we finally got there, the place was hoppin’. As we pulled in, we saw a bright yellow Lamborghini parking in front of us. I didn’t realize that celebrities enjoy driving their fancy cars to events like this, but I took a few pictures of the cars that cost more than my house. Shayne had his own Lamborghini there, as well.
So, we go up and register and meet some more people from Mercy: a few surgeons and friends of Greg (my in-law and PR guy for Mercy Hospital). Mercy sponsored two karts, so that meant they got to bring 6 drivers with them; three drivers per kart plus a random celebrity for each kart. I got to be a driver and we thought my brother Justin would just get to observe and take pictures. But, when we meet one of the surgeons from Mercy who was going to drive, he decided that he would rather watc
h and let Justin be a driver for their kart. Excellent! Justin would now be able to drive and I would be able to kick his butt on the race track. That would be fun.
Greg and I meet up with Jungle Jim (of Jungle Jim’s International Market in Fairfield) and proceeded to mingle with some celebrities. I meet Kenny Irons, Shayne Graham, Dave Fulcher, “Frosty”, and a couple other celebs (mostly Bengal players) that were going to be driving with us. To be honest, I was more excited to meet Jungle Jim. After a little while, they served us some very good Montgomery Inn ribs and chicken and then we proceeded to the drivers meeting and pre-race talk. This is where they told us how to make the karts go and how not to kill ourselves.
The karts are cool. They are not your run of the mill, “putt-putt adventure park” style go-karts. These babies can go 60 mph and can hurt you if you’re not careful. So, after the talk we got out on the track and had half an hour for our team to practice driving the course and to get a feel for the track. The whole event was set up like an actual race. We had helmets (absolutely needed at 60 mph), caution flags, a pace kart, and even a pit area. The karts are just amazing. Those things can fly. The best way to drive was to
go as fast as possible around the track without slipping (aka drifting). As soon as you started drifting around corners, you would lose too much speed and somebody would probably pass you. It was incredibly tiring driving, too. You had to have all your concentration focused on the race and kart and your arms were straining around the corners. At the end of my laps my hands were shaking and I was weak. My lap times were only a few seconds off of Shayne Graham’s times, so I was happy with how I was doing. It looked like we might have a chance to win this thing.
So, after the practice, we picked one driver to set our qualifying time. Shayne Graham was our celeb and he had done been racing these karts for a couple weeks, so he set our time and got us into second place. So, I started the race and quickly g
ot right behind the second place guy and followed him for the first lap when I slipped a little coming around the last turn and went into the grass. This allowed a few people to pass me, one of them, unfortunately, being Justin. So, I got back on the track and over the next 10-15 minutes I got us back into second place, behind Justin. At this point, Shayne flagged me down for a shift change; it was Greg’s turn. Greg ran a couple laps without any problem, but at about lap five, he had one spectacular wreck (the best of the day). One the sharp S-turn, he didn’t break enough and jumped off the track, over a small hill, crossed over more track, and smashed into a couple hay bails. Hay went everywhere. It was quite spectacular. But, this put us down 2 laps and then when Greg entered back into the pack, quite dazed I’m sure, and behind the pace car, he took a wrong turn and they counted another lap against us. So, when Jungle Jim came up to drive, we were pretty much out of it. But, Jungle had some great lap times and gained a couple places. Shayne was our last racer and he had no chance to catch up but ran some of the fasted times of the day. Justin’s team did a great job (although, I’ve heard they may have cheated a little bit) and ended up in third place. All in all, we got last, but it was one of the most fun experiences I’m had in a long time. So much so, that Justin and I are trying to figure out how we can race more in the future. I would like to thank Shayne Graham (and Greg for inviting me) for his unique charity fund raiser event. It really was a great time and I’m sure they raised a lot of money for the Shayne Graham Foundation.
e charity and then they get to send three guys (or gals) to golf with a celebrity? Well, when Shayne Graham organizes the event, you never know what you're going to get. He doesn't do things the normal way. He figured that golf was boring and he should spice things up. So, instead, he organized the Shayne Graham Celebrity Race-Off at the Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati. The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is a new 0.7 mile KART track near Eastgate. It was a blast!The Motorsport Country Club of Cincinnati is about 10 minutes east of 275 on the east side of Cincinnati. So, it took
a little while to get there and we had to drive through some really small towns out in the middle of nowhere. But, once we finally got there, the place was hoppin’. As we pulled in, we saw a bright yellow Lamborghini parking in front of us. I didn’t realize that celebrities enjoy driving their fancy cars to events like this, but I took a few pictures of the cars that cost more than my house. Shayne had his own Lamborghini there, as well.So, we go up and register and meet some more people from Mercy: a few surgeons and friends of Greg (my in-law and PR guy for Mercy Hospital). Mercy sponsored two karts, so that meant they got to bring 6 drivers with them; three drivers per kart plus a random celebrity for each kart. I got to be a driver and we thought my brother Justin would just get to observe and take pictures. But, when we meet one of the surgeons from Mercy who was going to drive, he decided that he would rather watc
h and let Justin be a driver for their kart. Excellent! Justin would now be able to drive and I would be able to kick his butt on the race track. That would be fun.Greg and I meet up with Jungle Jim (of Jungle Jim’s International Market in Fairfield) and proceeded to mingle with some celebrities. I meet Kenny Irons, Shayne Graham, Dave Fulcher, “Frosty”, and a couple other celebs (mostly Bengal players) that were going to be driving with us. To be honest, I was more excited to meet Jungle Jim. After a little while, they served us some very good Montgomery Inn ribs and chicken and then we proceeded to the drivers meeting and pre-race talk. This is where they told us how to make the karts go and how not to kill ourselves.
The karts are cool. They are not your run of the mill, “putt-putt adventure park” style go-karts. These babies can go 60 mph and can hurt you if you’re not careful. So, after the talk we got out on the track and had half an hour for our team to practice driving the course and to get a feel for the track. The whole event was set up like an actual race. We had helmets (absolutely needed at 60 mph), caution flags, a pace kart, and even a pit area. The karts are just amazing. Those things can fly. The best way to drive was to
go as fast as possible around the track without slipping (aka drifting). As soon as you started drifting around corners, you would lose too much speed and somebody would probably pass you. It was incredibly tiring driving, too. You had to have all your concentration focused on the race and kart and your arms were straining around the corners. At the end of my laps my hands were shaking and I was weak. My lap times were only a few seconds off of Shayne Graham’s times, so I was happy with how I was doing. It looked like we might have a chance to win this thing.So, after the practice, we picked one driver to set our qualifying time. Shayne Graham was our celeb and he had done been racing these karts for a couple weeks, so he set our time and got us into second place. So, I started the race and quickly g
ot right behind the second place guy and followed him for the first lap when I slipped a little coming around the last turn and went into the grass. This allowed a few people to pass me, one of them, unfortunately, being Justin. So, I got back on the track and over the next 10-15 minutes I got us back into second place, behind Justin. At this point, Shayne flagged me down for a shift change; it was Greg’s turn. Greg ran a couple laps without any problem, but at about lap five, he had one spectacular wreck (the best of the day). One the sharp S-turn, he didn’t break enough and jumped off the track, over a small hill, crossed over more track, and smashed into a couple hay bails. Hay went everywhere. It was quite spectacular. But, this put us down 2 laps and then when Greg entered back into the pack, quite dazed I’m sure, and behind the pace car, he took a wrong turn and they counted another lap against us. So, when Jungle Jim came up to drive, we were pretty much out of it. But, Jungle had some great lap times and gained a couple places. Shayne was our last racer and he had no chance to catch up but ran some of the fasted times of the day. Justin’s team did a great job (although, I’ve heard they may have cheated a little bit) and ended up in third place. All in all, we got last, but it was one of the most fun experiences I’m had in a long time. So much so, that Justin and I are trying to figure out how we can race more in the future. I would like to thank Shayne Graham (and Greg for inviting me) for his unique charity fund raiser event. It really was a great time and I’m sure they raised a lot of money for the Shayne Graham Foundation.
Movie Review: Wall-e
Summary: What if there was one robot left on Earth to clean up the mess and he gets curious.
Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Review: This is another really good Pixar movie. They know how to make movies over there. Wall-e is instantly lovable and you actually care about what happens to him. I would say he is a cross between ET and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. The movie does have some pretty harsh social commentary about how we treat our planet and how we treat ourselves. But, this is needed to setup the entire basis of the movie, so I’ll let it go. If you can get past the movie yelling at you to fix the planet, then this is a great movie.
Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Review: This is another really good Pixar movie. They know how to make movies over there. Wall-e is instantly lovable and you actually care about what happens to him. I would say he is a cross between ET and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. The movie does have some pretty harsh social commentary about how we treat our planet and how we treat ourselves. But, this is needed to setup the entire basis of the movie, so I’ll let it go. If you can get past the movie yelling at you to fix the planet, then this is a great movie.
Origins Gaming Fair - 2008
Summary
Origins is a great gaming convention. I mostly go for the board gaming, but they have many types of games: roleplaying, card, miniatures, war games, collectible card games, and even LARPing (Live Action Roleplaying). This year I spent two days up at Columbus playing as many games as I could get my hands on. Here is a summary of my experience and games played.
Vendor Hall
This is the vendor hall where the main part of the convention is held. Go here and you can spend hours walking around looking at hundreds of booths of everything you can think of from dice to games to T-shirts to kilts. Spend a lot of your time here just taking it all in and play lots of games that people are trying to sell you (the Rio Grande and Mayfair booths are really great). Most of the major vendors are here and you can find all the new releases and even get to try them out.
Events
Sign up for some events for any specific games that you want to play. I played a 18xx train game where they taught me the rules to one of the more advanced board games that I have played. This is a great way to make sure that you get to play something you have been waiting to play. This does seem to be a more serious side of the convention and some people take the games much more serious than they do in the board room.
Board Room
This is a room run by the CABS club and they offer a library of hundreds of games. You buy a ribbon and you can go here and play as many games as you would like. It’s a bit nerve-racking to go and start up a game if you are the shy type, but well worth the effort. People are always looking for new players for games. Just hang around long enough or start your own game. This place was packed Saturday, but was a ghost town on Sunday. Sunday was pretty much a waste for the board room and I spent most of that day in the Vendor Hall.
Games played
1830
Train game from the 18xx line where you buy and sell stock in train companies to make the most money. This game was interesting and fairly complicated to learn. I found the counting of money very tedious and that definitely hindered my enjoyment of the game. I can see that it could be very strategic, though.
Eketorp
This is a new game from Rio Grande about building up your castle walls. You have to decide whether to spend your time building up your walls, defending your wall, or trying to knock down other people’s walls. The game just wasn’t that interesting. I won, but didn’t feel like I accomplished much. Not great.
Mimic
Mimic is a fairly weak card game about laying down animal cards to make pairs. I did get to play the developer of the game, but that didn’t help it enough.
Race to the Galaxy
I was really looking forward to playing this game. I had read the rules to get somewhat familiar with the game’s mechanics before the convention. I couldn’t find anyone starting to play it, so I checked the game out myself and could only find one person to play with. He didn’t know how to play, so I had to read the rules and teach him, right there. I could not believe how difficult the first game of Race for the Galaxy is. The game is a moderately simple card game that is made very difficult by the symbology on the cards. To make the game more international, there is no text on the cards. They use symbols for everything. After muddling through the first game, I understand how to play, but in that first game, a new player is going to be lost for most of it. I also didn’t think that it was a very deep game. You just seemed to play a few cards and before you know it, the game is over. I was not impressed. This has now dropped off my “go to have” list.
Cuba
This was a very good game from Rio Grande. Cuba is about buying and selling products from a market so you can use those goods to buy new building or ship them off and earn points. Cuba is a very good game that has a Puerto Rico feel, but seems to be much more intuitive. I like this one a lot and it is high on my “must have” list.
Cluzzle
This is a simpler version of Barbarossa. In short, you have to sculpt items from clay that people will be able to guess, but not right away. Good sculpting is not rewarded in this game. This would be a fun, easy version of Barbarossa, but I don’t think Barbarossa needed to be that simplified. Plus, I already own Barbarossa and it is essentially the same game.
Say Anything
This is a cross between Apple to Apples and Wits and Wagers. I would say it is for anyone who likes Wits and Wagers, but doesn’t want to play a trivia game. This is a great party game for people who just want to have fun and laugh at what people come up with. What is the scariest thing you could find in your parents sock drawer? Everyone write down your answers, the host will pick his/her favorite, and laughter will follow.
Hey, That’s My Fish!
Hey, That’s My Fish is a simple game where you hop your penguin from iceberg to iceberg trying to get the most tiles and trying to trap the other players on a small iceberg. It is great for young kids and adults.
Warhammer Online
I know this is not a board game, but they had a demo of the MMORPG at the convention. If you have played World of Warcraft, then you already know how to play this game. It didn’t seem to be that big of a difference from WOW, though; so I don’t know if it will drag people away from WOW. It was amusing for the short amount of time that I played.
Origins is a great gaming convention. I mostly go for the board gaming, but they have many types of games: roleplaying, card, miniatures, war games, collectible card games, and even LARPing (Live Action Roleplaying). This year I spent two days up at Columbus playing as many games as I could get my hands on. Here is a summary of my experience and games played.
Vendor Hall
This is the vendor hall where the main part of the convention is held. Go here and you can spend hours walking around looking at hundreds of booths of everything you can think of from dice to games to T-shirts to kilts. Spend a lot of your time here just taking it all in and play lots of games that people are trying to sell you (the Rio Grande and Mayfair booths are really great). Most of the major vendors are here and you can find all the new releases and even get to try them out.
Events
Sign up for some events for any specific games that you want to play. I played a 18xx train game where they taught me the rules to one of the more advanced board games that I have played. This is a great way to make sure that you get to play something you have been waiting to play. This does seem to be a more serious side of the convention and some people take the games much more serious than they do in the board room.
Board Room
This is a room run by the CABS club and they offer a library of hundreds of games. You buy a ribbon and you can go here and play as many games as you would like. It’s a bit nerve-racking to go and start up a game if you are the shy type, but well worth the effort. People are always looking for new players for games. Just hang around long enough or start your own game. This place was packed Saturday, but was a ghost town on Sunday. Sunday was pretty much a waste for the board room and I spent most of that day in the Vendor Hall.
Games played
1830
Train game from the 18xx line where you buy and sell stock in train companies to make the most money. This game was interesting and fairly complicated to learn. I found the counting of money very tedious and that definitely hindered my enjoyment of the game. I can see that it could be very strategic, though.
Eketorp
This is a new game from Rio Grande about building up your castle walls. You have to decide whether to spend your time building up your walls, defending your wall, or trying to knock down other people’s walls. The game just wasn’t that interesting. I won, but didn’t feel like I accomplished much. Not great.
Mimic
Mimic is a fairly weak card game about laying down animal cards to make pairs. I did get to play the developer of the game, but that didn’t help it enough.
Race to the Galaxy
I was really looking forward to playing this game. I had read the rules to get somewhat familiar with the game’s mechanics before the convention. I couldn’t find anyone starting to play it, so I checked the game out myself and could only find one person to play with. He didn’t know how to play, so I had to read the rules and teach him, right there. I could not believe how difficult the first game of Race for the Galaxy is. The game is a moderately simple card game that is made very difficult by the symbology on the cards. To make the game more international, there is no text on the cards. They use symbols for everything. After muddling through the first game, I understand how to play, but in that first game, a new player is going to be lost for most of it. I also didn’t think that it was a very deep game. You just seemed to play a few cards and before you know it, the game is over. I was not impressed. This has now dropped off my “go to have” list.
Cuba
This was a very good game from Rio Grande. Cuba is about buying and selling products from a market so you can use those goods to buy new building or ship them off and earn points. Cuba is a very good game that has a Puerto Rico feel, but seems to be much more intuitive. I like this one a lot and it is high on my “must have” list.
Cluzzle
This is a simpler version of Barbarossa. In short, you have to sculpt items from clay that people will be able to guess, but not right away. Good sculpting is not rewarded in this game. This would be a fun, easy version of Barbarossa, but I don’t think Barbarossa needed to be that simplified. Plus, I already own Barbarossa and it is essentially the same game.
Say Anything
This is a cross between Apple to Apples and Wits and Wagers. I would say it is for anyone who likes Wits and Wagers, but doesn’t want to play a trivia game. This is a great party game for people who just want to have fun and laugh at what people come up with. What is the scariest thing you could find in your parents sock drawer? Everyone write down your answers, the host will pick his/her favorite, and laughter will follow.
Hey, That’s My Fish!
Hey, That’s My Fish is a simple game where you hop your penguin from iceberg to iceberg trying to get the most tiles and trying to trap the other players on a small iceberg. It is great for young kids and adults.
Warhammer Online
I know this is not a board game, but they had a demo of the MMORPG at the convention. If you have played World of Warcraft, then you already know how to play this game. It didn’t seem to be that big of a difference from WOW, though; so I don’t know if it will drag people away from WOW. It was amusing for the short amount of time that I played.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Movie Review: Balls of Fury
Summary: Stupid comedy about Ping Pong.
Rating: 4.0 out of 10
Review: I like ping pong (aka table tennis) so I thought I would like this movie, but it wasn't very good. They tried to do a little bit of Matrix-style Japanese action movie with a bit of Dodgeball-style comedy. It wasn't that bad, but definately not good. The only saving grace was Christopher Walken's character. He was pretty good and made the movie laughable in some spots. If you want the weird Matrix-style, sports comedy mixed with Japanese weirdness, go see Shaolin Soccer. It's a much better movie.
Rating: 4.0 out of 10
Review: I like ping pong (aka table tennis) so I thought I would like this movie, but it wasn't very good. They tried to do a little bit of Matrix-style Japanese action movie with a bit of Dodgeball-style comedy. It wasn't that bad, but definately not good. The only saving grace was Christopher Walken's character. He was pretty good and made the movie laughable in some spots. If you want the weird Matrix-style, sports comedy mixed with Japanese weirdness, go see Shaolin Soccer. It's a much better movie.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
LFotW: Slippery Slope
This logical fallacy is the argument that a position is not consistent or tenable because accepting the position means that the extreme of the position must also be accepted. But moderate positions do not necessarily lead down the slippery slope to the extreme. There may be legitimate reasons to accept intermediate positions.
For example, those, like Thomas Szasz, who believe that mental illness does not exist have argued that if we classify depression as an illness that will lead to governments classifying political protest as a mental illness, because they are both mental states. This slippery slope argument ignores the important differences between a debilitating mood disorder and a political opinion.
For example, those, like Thomas Szasz, who believe that mental illness does not exist have argued that if we classify depression as an illness that will lead to governments classifying political protest as a mental illness, because they are both mental states. This slippery slope argument ignores the important differences between a debilitating mood disorder and a political opinion.
Movie Review: Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Summary: Two people get married and have very boring lives. But when they find out that each of them leads a double life as an assassin, things get interesting.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: This movie was a lot of fun. It had great action sequences, a plot that wasn’t too predictable, and two fairly hot stars; something for the whole family. Oh, and a whole lot of killing. This is not going to win any awards or make you think too hard, but go into the movie knowing that and you will have a good time.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: This movie was a lot of fun. It had great action sequences, a plot that wasn’t too predictable, and two fairly hot stars; something for the whole family. Oh, and a whole lot of killing. This is not going to win any awards or make you think too hard, but go into the movie knowing that and you will have a good time.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
LFotW: The Moving Goalpost
A method of denial - arbitrarily moving the criteria for "proof" or acceptance out of range of whatever evidence currently exists. Creationists are most famous for this fallacy. In Darwin’s time they argued that in order for evolution to be true there would need to be a method of inheritance that allowed for new variation to persist and propagate, rather than merely become diluted in the larger population. Mendel’s discovery of “genes” fit the bill. They then argued that if evolution were true there should be many transitional fossils, but no number of transitional fossil discoveries seems to be enough to satisfy them. Intelligent Designers now argue that evolution cannot explain the appearance of biochemical pathways and microscopic structures – but as these pathways and structures are rapidly being explained they simply continue to move the goalpost further and further back.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
LFotW: False Continuum
This is the idea that because there is no definitive demarcation line between two extremes, that the distinction between the extremes is not real or meaningful: There is a fuzzy line between cults and religion, therefore they are really the same thing. This fallacy is especially important to understand in the context of medicine; most human traits vary according to a Bell curve of variation. “Unhealthy” is often defined as being too far out to one extreme or the other. The false continuum logical fallacy is sometimes used to argue that these extremes are merely part of a continuum of variation, and therefore have no meaning or significance. However, this is like saying that “short” and “tall” have no meaning because human height is a continuum of variation. Blood pressure is a good example. We can meaningfully define high blood pressure because it correlates with increased risk of certain disease, such as heart attacks, even though high blood pressure is at the upper end of a continuum of variation.
In part this logical fallacy represents discomfort with the concept of a fuzzy line of demarcation between two extremes. But such fuzzy lines are more the rule than the exception in this complex world.
In part this logical fallacy represents discomfort with the concept of a fuzzy line of demarcation between two extremes. But such fuzzy lines are more the rule than the exception in this complex world.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
LFotW: False Dichotomy
This is a very important fallacy to recognize and is used quite often. This fallacy consists of arbitrarily reducing a set of many possibilities to only two. For example, evolution is not possible, therefore we must have been created (assumes these are the only two possibilities). Actually, this fallacy can apply to any premature reduction in the possible set of explanations for a phenomenon – not necessarily down to only two possibilities. UFO proponents, for example, will often analyze a sighting by saying the object was not a plane, not a balloon, and not celestial object, therefore it was a flying saucer. They are limiting the set of possibilities to a few easily dismissed choices, and the desired choice, while ignoring the many other possibilities.
This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a continuum of variation to two black and white choices. For example, science and pseudoscience are not two discrete entities, but rather the methods and claims of all those who attempt to explain reality fall along a continuum from one extreme to the other.
This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a continuum of variation to two black and white choices. For example, science and pseudoscience are not two discrete entities, but rather the methods and claims of all those who attempt to explain reality fall along a continuum from one extreme to the other.
Movie Review: V for Vendetta
Summary: Futuristic tale about fascist Great Britain and a masked guy named V and his goal to overthrow the government.
Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Review: Kind of a light/dark, comedy/action, comic book movie with a solid storyline. A good movie about Big Brother in the near future with some relevant ties to our current political state. Natalie Portman did an excellent job with her role.
Rating: 8.0 out of 10
Review: Kind of a light/dark, comedy/action, comic book movie with a solid storyline. A good movie about Big Brother in the near future with some relevant ties to our current political state. Natalie Portman did an excellent job with her role.
Movie Review: Enchanted
Summary: Princess from Disney-style cartoon comes alive and has to find help in New York City.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: This was actually a pretty good movie. I was just expecting a silly, chick flick, but it was quite humorous and well done. Amy Adams did a fantastic job of being the spacey fairytale princess. It was over the top, but that was what they were going for. It did a good job of poking fun at all the quirky features of Disney fairy tales.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: This was actually a pretty good movie. I was just expecting a silly, chick flick, but it was quite humorous and well done. Amy Adams did a fantastic job of being the spacey fairytale princess. It was over the top, but that was what they were going for. It did a good job of poking fun at all the quirky features of Disney fairy tales.
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Backyardigans: Live!
So, Jacob's favorite show is the Backyardigans. He is obsessed with them. I think Pablo might have been his first word. So, when we heard that a live-action theater performance of the Backyardigan's "We're Knights , That's Right" was coming close to us, we knew we had to go. Let me tell you, I have never seen so many kids in one room. It was crazy!
So, the only thing we got Jacob was a Backyardigan's magic wand. We already had the CD and they had a bunch of T-shirts, but he was happy with his wand. So, we found our seats and waited 15 minutes for the show to start. Jacob was really good waiting in the noisy room for his favorite guys. So, finally, the lights dimmed, the music started, and the curtain opened.
Fig 1: What we expected
Fig 2: What we got
Well, you could say that I was a bit surprised that the production decided to go that way. After the initial surprise, I decided it would be fine. But, then the actors opened up there mouths. Jacob can tell you who is talking by the sound of their voices. But, these actors sounded nothing like the Backyardigans. So, now they didn't look like them or sound like them. What's next? Well, come to find out, I don't think these actors (for the most part) have ever seen an episode of Backyardigans. The Pablo character was a bad imitation of Nathan Lane, the Tyrone character was whiny and annoying, and Uniqua was not herself as well. Not an impressive start to the show.
But, we were not there for me, we were there for Jacob. So, if he was okay with it, then so was I. I looked over at him at the beginning of the show and you could tell he was perplexed. But, when the first character opened his/her mouth, that is when he started his scared crying. He was just freaked out by the weirdness of his beloved characters. I don't blame him. He calmed down and started watching the show, but every time the Backyardigans did something that was just too out of character, he would kind of cry. We felt bad forcing him (sort of) to stay and watch the show, but I think he did enjoy it in the end. I almost took him outside to calm down, but he wanted to stay and didn't cry at all in the second act. I'm sure he would have preferred mascot characters with prerecorded voices of the actual voice actors, but it wasn't a failed show for Jacob.
I would like to say that most of the kids there did seem to enjoy the show. I thought the Tasha actor did a really good job with the character and I thought the dragon was pretty funny. But, I think we will stick to the 10 minute show of Dora at King's Island. He loves that show, big-head Dora and all.
So, the only thing we got Jacob was a Backyardigan's magic wand. We already had the CD and they had a bunch of T-shirts, but he was happy with his wand. So, we found our seats and waited 15 minutes for the show to start. Jacob was really good waiting in the noisy room for his favorite guys. So, finally, the lights dimmed, the music started, and the curtain opened.
You know the type of outfit that mascots and theme park characters where? With a big outfit and even larger head (and probably 110 degrees inside)?
Fig 1: What we expected
Yeah, well, when the Backyardigans came out on stage, they were not dressed like that. Imagine a kid coming up to your door on Halloween wearing a costume they bought at Walmart. You know, the big one piece outfit with a hood with ears on it? Yeah, that was more like the costumes that the actors were wearing.
Fig 2: What we gotBut, we were not there for me, we were there for Jacob. So, if he was okay with it, then so was I. I looked over at him at the beginning of the show and you could tell he was perplexed. But, when the first character opened his/her mouth, that is when he started his scared crying. He was just freaked out by the weirdness of his beloved characters. I don't blame him. He calmed down and started watching the show, but every time the Backyardigans did something that was just too out of character, he would kind of cry. We felt bad forcing him (sort of) to stay and watch the show, but I think he did enjoy it in the end. I almost took him outside to calm down, but he wanted to stay and didn't cry at all in the second act. I'm sure he would have preferred mascot characters with prerecorded voices of the actual voice actors, but it wasn't a failed show for Jacob.
I would like to say that most of the kids there did seem to enjoy the show. I thought the Tasha actor did a really good job with the character and I thought the dragon was pretty funny. But, I think we will stick to the 10 minute show of Dora at King's Island. He loves that show, big-head Dora and all.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Eddie Izzard: Stripped (Stand Up Comedy Show)
Eddie Izzard is the hilarious English comedian/actor who made it big in the US from his hit HBO comedy performance "Dressed to Kill" in 1999. He has played a ton of bit parts in movies (including Ocean's 12 and 13, Mystery Men, etc.) and has the lead in the hit television show "The Riches". But, for us, Izzard became famous for the "Dressed to Kill" HBO special. That comedy routine is insanely quotable, it has become standard lingo in our family ("Do you have a flag?" or "Cake or death?"). So, when we (Sarah, really) found out that he was coming to Cincy on a comedy tour, we had to go. I was a little worried that this performance couldn't live up to his epic HBO show. But, it turned out, I had nothing to worry about.
The show was fantastic. Eddie walked out on stage and the sold out crowd went ballistic. From the moment he spoke, I was in tears. He was hilarious. At the beginning of the show he explained that he was going to talk about the entire history of the universe, from the big bang to present day. His hisotry bits are great; it's what he is best at. But, very soon into the show, another theme started to show. He really likes making fun of religions and religious extremists. He explained that he didn't believe in God and preceded to explain why it was ridiculous to believe in a personal God (of course, he did this in a very amusing way). When he started on this rant, you could tell some of the people in the audience were getting uncomfortable. I think a lot of the religious folk couldn't take Izzard poking at them. And, we are in Ohio, so it shouldn't be suprising to find some who are too stuck up to find the humor in their religion. In fact, a few people actually left to show. I love it when people are pushed out of the safe zone and are forced to actually think about what they believe.
So, the show was about the history of the planet and its people and critiques of religion. All in all, I don't think he could have picked a better theme (for me especially). I was very impressed with his performance and would definitely go back to see him. This show seemed just as good (if not better) as the "Dressed to Kill" routine. It was a fantastic show!
Here's a small bit from his critique of religion so you don't think he was just being mean: (Here is a video clip with poor sound quality: here ) "What about the 10th commandment? Thou shalt not covet (ie. want) thy neighbor's ox. Are you serious? What's wrong with wanting an ox? I shouldn't covet my neighbor's ox? But, THIS IS THE ENTIRE BASES OF TRADE!?!? How are you going to have an ox market without coveting oxen?"
The show was fantastic. Eddie walked out on stage and the sold out crowd went ballistic. From the moment he spoke, I was in tears. He was hilarious. At the beginning of the show he explained that he was going to talk about the entire history of the universe, from the big bang to present day. His hisotry bits are great; it's what he is best at. But, very soon into the show, another theme started to show. He really likes making fun of religions and religious extremists. He explained that he didn't believe in God and preceded to explain why it was ridiculous to believe in a personal God (of course, he did this in a very amusing way). When he started on this rant, you could tell some of the people in the audience were getting uncomfortable. I think a lot of the religious folk couldn't take Izzard poking at them. And, we are in Ohio, so it shouldn't be suprising to find some who are too stuck up to find the humor in their religion. In fact, a few people actually left to show. I love it when people are pushed out of the safe zone and are forced to actually think about what they believe.
So, the show was about the history of the planet and its people and critiques of religion. All in all, I don't think he could have picked a better theme (for me especially). I was very impressed with his performance and would definitely go back to see him. This show seemed just as good (if not better) as the "Dressed to Kill" routine. It was a fantastic show!
Here's a small bit from his critique of religion so you don't think he was just being mean: (Here is a video clip with poor sound quality: here ) "What about the 10th commandment? Thou shalt not covet (ie. want) thy neighbor's ox. Are you serious? What's wrong with wanting an ox? I shouldn't covet my neighbor's ox? But, THIS IS THE ENTIRE BASES OF TRADE!?!? How are you going to have an ox market without coveting oxen?"
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Movie Review: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Summary: Adam Sandler and Kevin James play two guys who have to get married in order to bypass a weird insurance law.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Review: Okay, I was ready to hate this movie. I didn’t think the previews looked very good and I thought I had heard that it wasn’t very good. BUT, I found this movie to be really funny and it fit perfectly with Sadler’s other movies. Adam and Kevin had some great chemistry and worked well together. Most of Sandler’s crew were there doing there supporting actor thing, and it worked. There really isn’t much to say about this except that it is better than the title or previews lead you to believe. Good, solid, Adam Sandler movie.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Review: Okay, I was ready to hate this movie. I didn’t think the previews looked very good and I thought I had heard that it wasn’t very good. BUT, I found this movie to be really funny and it fit perfectly with Sadler’s other movies. Adam and Kevin had some great chemistry and worked well together. Most of Sandler’s crew were there doing there supporting actor thing, and it worked. There really isn’t much to say about this except that it is better than the title or previews lead you to believe. Good, solid, Adam Sandler movie.
Movie Review: MST3K: Manos: Hand of Fate
Summary: Mystery Science Theater 3000 makes fun of one of the worst movies ever to exist.
Rating: 2.0 out of 10
Review: I love Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is/was a great show. They are really good at making fun of laughably bad sci-fi movies and hilariously awful monster flicks. But, when they started Manos: Hand of Fate, I had no idea it could be this bad. The Manos movie is so unbelievably horrible that it is impossible to watch, even with MST3K doing it. Manos is incredibly boring, really badly edited, the contrast was way too dark to see what was going on, the film was constantly out of focus, and the plot was uninteresting. No amount of humor could be added to this movie to make it watchable. Do not bother with this one. Did I mention that it was really bad?
The best part of this movie was that the disk came with a 30 minute blooper reel from MST3K. This bumped my rating up from a 1 to a 2.
Rating: 2.0 out of 10
Review: I love Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is/was a great show. They are really good at making fun of laughably bad sci-fi movies and hilariously awful monster flicks. But, when they started Manos: Hand of Fate, I had no idea it could be this bad. The Manos movie is so unbelievably horrible that it is impossible to watch, even with MST3K doing it. Manos is incredibly boring, really badly edited, the contrast was way too dark to see what was going on, the film was constantly out of focus, and the plot was uninteresting. No amount of humor could be added to this movie to make it watchable. Do not bother with this one. Did I mention that it was really bad?
The best part of this movie was that the disk came with a 30 minute blooper reel from MST3K. This bumped my rating up from a 1 to a 2.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Movie Review: My Kid Could Paint That
Summary: Documentary about a 4 year old abstract artist who’s painting go for thousands of dollars.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Review: This was a very good movie. It starts out as just a movie about the little girl painter and how she got into painting. Then the movie turns to the question of whether this is really art. How can you tell if her work is really good abstract art? Why is abstract art even considered art? How can her painting be worth thousands of dollars? I am not an abstract art kind of person. I don’t get it and don’t usually think that they are worth the money. This movie does a good job in combining a story about a cute little girl and questioning the validity of art. Good movie. A definite rent.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Review: This was a very good movie. It starts out as just a movie about the little girl painter and how she got into painting. Then the movie turns to the question of whether this is really art. How can you tell if her work is really good abstract art? Why is abstract art even considered art? How can her painting be worth thousands of dollars? I am not an abstract art kind of person. I don’t get it and don’t usually think that they are worth the money. This movie does a good job in combining a story about a cute little girl and questioning the validity of art. Good movie. A definite rent.
LFofW: Confusing currently unexplained with unexplainable
Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the "God of the Gaps" strategy of creationists that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god. The history of science has taught us, however, that even the most intransigent of natural mysteries may eventually yield to scientific investigation.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
LFotW: Argument from Personal Incredulity
I cannot explain, imagine, or understand this, therefore it cannot be true. However, reality is not limited by our ability to comprehend it, or by our comfort with it. Creationists are fond of arguing, for example, that evolution is false because they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind natural processes, but that does not mean life did not evolve.
Subtype: Appeal to Ridicule
This form of the argument from personal incredulity argues that a claim is false because it seems ridiculous. Of course, some claims are ridiculous and it is legitimate to arrive at such a conclusion after careful examination of the logic and evidence. However, it is a fallacy to dismiss a claim a-priori simply by labeling it ridiculous or absurd. Many ideas that initially seemed far-fetched, such as the notion that invisible tiny organisms cause disease, or that space and time are relative and not constant, turned out eventually to be proven scientifically valid.
Subtype: Appeal to Ridicule
This form of the argument from personal incredulity argues that a claim is false because it seems ridiculous. Of course, some claims are ridiculous and it is legitimate to arrive at such a conclusion after careful examination of the logic and evidence. However, it is a fallacy to dismiss a claim a-priori simply by labeling it ridiculous or absurd. Many ideas that initially seemed far-fetched, such as the notion that invisible tiny organisms cause disease, or that space and time are relative and not constant, turned out eventually to be proven scientifically valid.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Hang Gliding !?!?!?
One of my major goals in life is to attempt a little bit of everything. I would like to experience as many things as possible before I die. I am also very interested in unusual sports (i.e. broomball) and unique activities (i.e. juggling, magic, etc). Sarah knows this is a fairly encouraging in this pursuit. So, for my birthday this year, she got me hang gliding lessons! Crazy, huh? Not only is hang gliding pretty far out there on the unique/unusual scale, but it is also fairly dangerous and impossible in rural Ohio Ohio
So, after three weekends of really bad weather and poor flying/field conditions I finally made it up to the Aerodrome Wes/Mar in Orient, Ohio. This is a small grass runway where John teaches hang gliding and other more experienced gliders come to fly (plus other “schools” use it as well including ultralights and skydiving classes). So, John teaches a 3-day beginner course that gets you almost ready to fly by yourself and a 8-day Novice course that teaches you the skills, confidence, and certification needed to fly by yourself. But, he also does a one day, “learn what it is all about” kind of course. That’s what I did. I didn’t realize that "one day" was going to mean from 8 am to 9 pm, though.
So, I got there early and John arrived right on time. John is a very nice guy and everybody I talked to said the same thing. He was an excellent teacher. But, first I signed my life away for insuran
ce sake. Then he ran through how gliders work and how the harness works. Very shortly, we pulled out a hand glider and started assembling it. It was not very hard to put together at all. So, the first thing he had me do, was get underneath it, lift it up, and start running across the field. First, the hand glider I was using was a “light” one and it weighed a lot more than I expected. Secondly, the glider was hard to keep level with the wind pushing it around. Thirdly, it was hard to run fast with the glider. But, once you got going, you could feel the glider start to lift off your shoulders and try to fly. So, that was step one; just to get a feel for the glider.
Next, he pulled out the "Andre the Giant" of hang gliders. The one I had just used had a surface ar
ea of about 150 square feet. This one was over 300 square feet. This would be the glider I would use for the rest of the day. There was no running with this glider, though. It was a challenge ju
st to lift it up and hold it steady. So, John Alden broke out his secret weapon, the wench. He has a snowmobile that he has converted into a glider pulling wench. This is put at one end of the field and the line is strung to the chest of the hang glider. Then the pilot gives the go sign and the glider is pulled (yanked) up into the air at a fairly steep angle getting around 1000 feet up and then letting the line go. I saw a guy do this and stay up in the air for over 30 minutes. But, I was not going to be ready for that this day. My goal was to get about 50 feet in the air, let the line go, set up the landing, and not crash in the muddy ground.
So, for the first pull, John was just going to pull fast enough for me to run really fast and the glider to start pulling me up into the air. He started the wench and I started running pretty fast to keep up. About halfway to wench a few things happened really fast. First, the glider got some fairly strong up lift and was almost getting airborne. Second, one of the stupid dogs, that was roaming around the airfield, ran in front of my feet. Third, I tried to jump into the air and over the dog. Fourth, the glider, now with my full weight, came straight back down to the Earth and I did a head-first belly slide. Damn dog. So, John, who didn’t like the dog anyway, drove it (with a golf cart) over to its house and tied it up. So, the next few tries went much better. I got pulled up to about 5 feet off the ground and he slowed the wench and I pushed the nose of the glider up to make a soft landing.
At this point the wind was getting stronger and other more experienced pilots were showing up to get pulled by the wench. So, in the middle of the day, I took a break and just watched others take their turns getting lifted to about 1000 feet and trying to stay up as long as possible. They do that by riding hot thermals rising from the ground. Just look for the hawks; they can tell you if a thermal is nearby. You will see them circling around and around gaining altitude.
So, the later half of the day consisted of me getting very long pulls (about 500 feet) and rising to about 40 feet. It was a great feeling, being up that high. My final challenge was to control the glider up into the air to about 40 feet and pull the tether line off and float down toward the ground. Well, on my first attempt, I forgot to point back toward the ground and kind of did a stall float to the ground and sort of crash landed on my belly. I finally got the hand of it and my last launch went perfectly. If I go back, I will graduate to a lighter, higher performance glider and probably get launched up to about 100 feet.
Controlling the glider was different than I expected. I sort of thought that I would just be hanging there for the ride and moving the glider around if I wanted to go somewhere. That’s not really true. You are constantly in control and you have to maintain control. You are always banking a little bit this way or that and making sure your pitch isn’t too high. Really, a lot to think about. I’m sure it would come naturally after a little while.
This was one fantastic experience. I am very tempted to go back and progress a bit more into the sport. It is a bit scary as well, though. I can’t say which exciting sport was better: hang gliding or race car driving. I think I will have to pursue both of them. Now, lets see, the glider costs about $5000, the harness is $1000, plus other incidental costs….. I only need about $10k to start hang gliding. Oh, and a cliff.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Movie Review: The Mist
Summary: Thriller/horror film written by Stephen King about a creepy mist that envelops a town and bad things start to happen.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
Review: I read the Stephen King novella and liked it a lot. The movie followed that plot line really well and I was only disappointed with one section of the CG. Most of the CG was good, but one scene was of noticeably lower quality.
Really, the story is about how people deal with intense, emotional situations. And some monsters, I guess. My biggest problem with the movie, and the reason I didn't like it as much as I would have, was the ending. The book ended just fine. I was happy with it. For some reason, they changed it in the movie. And the movie went too far. I was not pleased with the result of the movie ending. Other than that, a good, spooky time. I would read the novella first, though. Tells the story just as well, but with a better ending.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
Review: I read the Stephen King novella and liked it a lot. The movie followed that plot line really well and I was only disappointed with one section of the CG. Most of the CG was good, but one scene was of noticeably lower quality.
Really, the story is about how people deal with intense, emotional situations. And some monsters, I guess. My biggest problem with the movie, and the reason I didn't like it as much as I would have, was the ending. The book ended just fine. I was happy with it. For some reason, they changed it in the movie. And the movie went too far. I was not pleased with the result of the movie ending. Other than that, a good, spooky time. I would read the novella first, though. Tells the story just as well, but with a better ending.
Movie Review: Flightplan
Summary: Woman and young daughter get on a plane and suddenly the kid goes missing. But, everyone on the plane says she got on alone. Is she going crazy or is everyone in on the missing child?
Rating: 5.0 out of 10
Review: Not a bad movie, but not great. Really, the only point to this movie is to figure out if the woman is going crazy or not. The build up to the reveal isn’t too bad and the viewer gets to try and figure out what is going on, at least. After the reveal, the movie wraps up fairly quickly and entertainingly. Despite some plot holes which I couldn’t quite figure out, it was a satisfying “what is going on” movie.
Rating: 5.0 out of 10
Review: Not a bad movie, but not great. Really, the only point to this movie is to figure out if the woman is going crazy or not. The build up to the reveal isn’t too bad and the viewer gets to try and figure out what is going on, at least. After the reveal, the movie wraps up fairly quickly and entertainingly. Despite some plot holes which I couldn’t quite figure out, it was a satisfying “what is going on” movie.
Movie Review: Hot Fuzz
Summary: A parody (sort of) of action cop movies (Bad Boys, Lethal Weapon, etc.) by the same guys who did Shawn of the Dead, Cube, and Nothing.
Rating: 6.0 out of 10
Review: Well, this movie had the same feel that Shawn of the Dead did. And it pokes fun at cop movies in an over-the-top dramatic feel. I’m having a hard time describing the feel of this movie, though. It is definitely not like Airplane or Naked Gun; but, it was a parody of cop movies. The setup is a “super cop” in London is doing too good of a job and making his coworkers look bad, so he is shipped off to a small town in the country. How is this “by the book” cop going to adjust to small town living, especially when weird things start happening?
So, I liked the ending of the movie much better than I liked the other 90%. It wasn’t bad, it was just a little boring; a bit too much dry, English humor for most of the movie. Although, this isn’t completely true, because it did mix in the “super cop” feel of action movies and a “who done it” feel of mysteries, just so it could make fun of them. So, all in all, I would say that it is just not my style of comedy. If you liked Shawn of the Dead, you would probably like this movie; and vice versa.
Rating: 6.0 out of 10
Review: Well, this movie had the same feel that Shawn of the Dead did. And it pokes fun at cop movies in an over-the-top dramatic feel. I’m having a hard time describing the feel of this movie, though. It is definitely not like Airplane or Naked Gun; but, it was a parody of cop movies. The setup is a “super cop” in London is doing too good of a job and making his coworkers look bad, so he is shipped off to a small town in the country. How is this “by the book” cop going to adjust to small town living, especially when weird things start happening?
So, I liked the ending of the movie much better than I liked the other 90%. It wasn’t bad, it was just a little boring; a bit too much dry, English humor for most of the movie. Although, this isn’t completely true, because it did mix in the “super cop” feel of action movies and a “who done it” feel of mysteries, just so it could make fun of them. So, all in all, I would say that it is just not my style of comedy. If you liked Shawn of the Dead, you would probably like this movie; and vice versa.
LFotW: Ad ignorantum
This week's Logical Fallicy is Ad Ignorantum or the argument from ignorance. The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don't know that it isn't true. Defenders of extrasensory perception, for example, will often overemphasize how much we do not know about the human brain. It is therefore possible, they argue, that the brain may be capable of transmitting signals at a distance.
UFO proponents are probably the most frequent violators of this fallacy. Almost all UFO eyewitness evidence is ultimately an argument from ignorance – lights or objects sighted in the sky are unknown, and therefore they are alien spacecraft.
Intelligent design is almost entirely based upon this fallacy. The core argument for intelligent design is that there are biological structures that have not been fully explained by evolutionary theory; therefore a powerful intelligent designer must have created them.
UFO proponents are probably the most frequent violators of this fallacy. Almost all UFO eyewitness evidence is ultimately an argument from ignorance – lights or objects sighted in the sky are unknown, and therefore they are alien spacecraft.
Intelligent design is almost entirely based upon this fallacy. The core argument for intelligent design is that there are biological structures that have not been fully explained by evolutionary theory; therefore a powerful intelligent designer must have created them.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Airwaves Kite Fest
Once again, it was time for the great Airwaves Kite Fest in West Chester. I really like going to this. This year was a little different in the experience. First of all, we’ve had floods for many days leading up to the event, so the fields were very muddy and even swampy in some areas. So, the mud meant that there was no parking on the fields (and caused some huge lines waiting to park) and it meant that the open field for flying was very wet. Secondly, on the Sunday that I went, the wind was almost nonexistent. These were some tough conditions for a kite show, but the show went on, nonetheless. It just meant that more people spent time watching the professionals than flying their own.
Due to the 0 to 3 mph winds, only the ultralights (very lightweight kites) were flying on Sunday. So, the performers that I saw were the Chicago Fire Kite Team, Zach and Josh Gordon, and a few others who attempted the winds; including a guy with a 18 foot wing span stunt kite. All the performers were great, but the EOS team of Josh and Zach was great. They did an amazing job with their music and complicated, synchronized tricks (including flat spins, which I’m going to have to figure out how they do). The only quad-line kite I saw was Josh’s. His performance was very upbeat and entertaining. I think I will have to get me one of those kites. All in all, despite the conditions, it was a great show. Here are some pictures I took last year (forgot my camera, this year).
Quad-line "Revolution" Kite
Pinewheels
Chicago Fire's "Killer Bee" Kites
Restarant Review: Mesh (2008)
Went to Mesh for the second time the other day. Great restaurant. Believe it or not, but this time it was for my birthday, again. Mesh is one of the fancier restaurants that I have been to. Here is last years review by me.
First off, everybody there knew it was my birthday and was very nice in congratulating me (not that I had a choice with anther birthday). Anyway, Sarah and I stated things off with the Potato Poppers again. They are definitely one of the best things on the menu. I got the corn chowder soup and it was just alright. Not nearly as good as their tomato bisque. For our meals, Sarah got the pan roasted chicken with gnocchi and I got the swordfish special. Both meals were excellent and the swordfish was the best I’ve ever had, perfectly cooked with a great flavor.
The desserts deserve their own special honors. As good as the rest of the food is, the desserts are just incredible. We have never been less than amazed by them. Sarah got Oreo ice cream. Yep, that’s it. And it was probably the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted. Simply great. I got “a tasting of 5 truffles” (the chocolate candy, not the fungus). Let me talk about each one. The first one was “chocolate toffee”. Really good and rich. Lots of flavor there. The second one was “blueberry”. This had a white chocolate coating and a very light blueberry flavored filling. Again, really good. The third on was my favorite. It was “gingerbread”. Holy cow! Sarah thought it was too much, but I liked it a lot. Really strong cinnamon and clove flavor. The last two were a little different. How about “Balsamic Vinegar”? Yeah, that was my least favorite. I appreciated how it was different and I didn’t hate it. But, there was something weird about eating chocolate and smelling and tasting vinegar. Kind of weird. The last one was “lemon rosemary”. This one was fantastic. It has a white chocolate coating with a lemon filling that had a strong rosemary essence to it. I thought the combination was great.
So, overall, good experience at Mesh. I would recommend it to anyone (who doesn’t care to spend $100+ for two people and doesn’t mind getting a babysitter for the kids).
Movie Review: The Darjeeling Limited
Summary: Three brothers go to India in order to have a spiritual journey to renew their relationships with each other. Nothing seems to go as planned, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.
Rating: 6.0 out of 10
Review: The movie wasn’t great. It seemed weird just to be weird. You didn’t really know where the plot was going (although, that may be the point) and I’m not really sure if the brothers solved anything. I guess, if you’re into Natalie Portman, then there are about 3 minutes of the pre-movie (Hotel Chevalier) that are good. I put The Darjeeling Limited into the weird, quirky, surreal movie category; where I’m sure the movie had some deeper meaning that I just didn’t get. Seems to fit with other Wes Anderson (Director) movies: Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Rushmore. Really, it was just not my type of movie.
Rating: 6.0 out of 10
Review: The movie wasn’t great. It seemed weird just to be weird. You didn’t really know where the plot was going (although, that may be the point) and I’m not really sure if the brothers solved anything. I guess, if you’re into Natalie Portman, then there are about 3 minutes of the pre-movie (Hotel Chevalier) that are good. I put The Darjeeling Limited into the weird, quirky, surreal movie category; where I’m sure the movie had some deeper meaning that I just didn’t get. Seems to fit with other Wes Anderson (Director) movies: Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Rushmore. Really, it was just not my type of movie.
Monday, April 7, 2008
LFotW: Ad hominem
An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter another’s claims or conclusions by attacking the person, rather than addressing the argument itself. Taken broadly, this fallacy can be any argument that a person’s claims is false because of a negative quality possessed by the person. True believers will often commit this fallacy by countering the arguments of skeptics by stating that skeptics are closed minded. Skeptics, on the other hand, may fall into the trap of dismissing the claims of UFO believers, for example, by stating that people who believe in UFO's are crazy or stupid.
Sometimes this fallacy can be more subtle. For example, undesired research results can be dismissed because the researchers have an apparent conflict of interest. While true conflicts are a legitimate concern, the use of even minor potential conflicts to dismiss research finding a-priori is little more than an ad hominem logical fallacy.
Subtype – Argument from prior error
This form of ad hominem logical fallacy argues that the current claims of a person or group are incorrect because of errors committed in the past. Creationists, for example, often point to fossil frauds, or the discovery of living coelacanth previously thought to be extinct to counter the current evidence for evolution.
Sometimes this fallacy can be more subtle. For example, undesired research results can be dismissed because the researchers have an apparent conflict of interest. While true conflicts are a legitimate concern, the use of even minor potential conflicts to dismiss research finding a-priori is little more than an ad hominem logical fallacy.
Subtype – Argument from prior error
This form of ad hominem logical fallacy argues that the current claims of a person or group are incorrect because of errors committed in the past. Creationists, for example, often point to fossil frauds, or the discovery of living coelacanth previously thought to be extinct to counter the current evidence for evolution.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
LFotW: Tu Quoque
Tu quoque translates to “you too.” This is an attempt to justify wrong action because someone else also does it (two wrongs make a right). “My evidence may be invalid, but so is yours.” This fallacy is frequently committed by proponents of various alternative medicine modalities, who argue that even though their therapies may lack evidence some mainstream modalities also lack evidence.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
LFotW: Confusing Correlation with Causation
This fallacy is similar to the post-hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables simply because they occur together. This fallacy is often used to give a statistical correlation a causal interpretation. For example, during the 1990’s both religious attendance and illegal drug use were on the rise. It would be a fallacy to conclude that therefore, religious attendance causes illegal drug use. It is also possible that drug use leads to an increase in religious attendance, or that both drug use and religious attendance are increased by a third variable, such as an increase in societal unrest, or even just population. It is also possible that both variables are independent of one another, and it is mere coincidence that they are both increasing at the same time.
This fallacy, however, has a tendency to be abused, or applied inappropriately, to deny all statistical evidence. In fact this constitutes a logical fallacy in itself, the denial of causation. This abuse takes two basic forms. The first is to deny the significance of correlations that are demonstrated with prospective controlled data, such as would be acquired during a clinical experiment. The problem with assuming cause and effect from mere correlation is not that a causal relationship is impossible; it’s just that there are other variables that must be considered and not ruled out a-priori. A controlled trial, however, by its design attempts to control for as many variables as possible in order to maximize the probability that a positive correlation is in fact due to a causation.
Further, even with purely epidemiological, or statistical, evidence it is still possible to build a strong scientific case for a specific cause. The way to do this is to look at multiple independent correlations to see if they all point to the same causal relationship. For example, it was observed that cigarette smoking correlates with getting lung cancer. The tobacco industry, invoking the “correlation is not causation” logical fallacy, argued that this did not prove causation. They offered as an alternate explanation “factor x”, a third variable that causes both smoking and lung cancer. But we can make predictions based upon the smoking causes cancer hypothesis. If this is the correct causal relationship, then duration of smoking should correlate with cancer risk, quitting smoking should decrease cancer risk, smoking unfiltered cigarettes should have a higher cancer risk than filtered cigarettes, etc. If all of these correlations turn out to be true, which they are, then the smoking causes cancer hypothesis is supported above other possible causal relationship and it is not a logical fallacy to conclude from this evidence that smoking probably causes lung cancer.
This fallacy, however, has a tendency to be abused, or applied inappropriately, to deny all statistical evidence. In fact this constitutes a logical fallacy in itself, the denial of causation. This abuse takes two basic forms. The first is to deny the significance of correlations that are demonstrated with prospective controlled data, such as would be acquired during a clinical experiment. The problem with assuming cause and effect from mere correlation is not that a causal relationship is impossible; it’s just that there are other variables that must be considered and not ruled out a-priori. A controlled trial, however, by its design attempts to control for as many variables as possible in order to maximize the probability that a positive correlation is in fact due to a causation.
Further, even with purely epidemiological, or statistical, evidence it is still possible to build a strong scientific case for a specific cause. The way to do this is to look at multiple independent correlations to see if they all point to the same causal relationship. For example, it was observed that cigarette smoking correlates with getting lung cancer. The tobacco industry, invoking the “correlation is not causation” logical fallacy, argued that this did not prove causation. They offered as an alternate explanation “factor x”, a third variable that causes both smoking and lung cancer. But we can make predictions based upon the smoking causes cancer hypothesis. If this is the correct causal relationship, then duration of smoking should correlate with cancer risk, quitting smoking should decrease cancer risk, smoking unfiltered cigarettes should have a higher cancer risk than filtered cigarettes, etc. If all of these correlations turn out to be true, which they are, then the smoking causes cancer hypothesis is supported above other possible causal relationship and it is not a logical fallacy to conclude from this evidence that smoking probably causes lung cancer.
Movie Review: Horton Hears a Who
Summary: CG movie about the Dr. Seuss book with Jim Carrey as the Horton voice.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: This was Jacob’s third movie (he’s 26 months old) and his first in a first run movie theater. So, a lot of my time was spent on worrying about him and not on the movie. But, Jacob did a great job. He was really into the previews and enjoyed all of the except for Ice Age 3. It scarred him with the dinosaur roared. Once the movie started, he got excited and sat through most of it while I force feed him crackers. I think he went through about a pound of crackers. Jacob kind of got fidgety during the boring parts, but he did a great job, overall.
Oh, the movie. It was very good, for what I watched. I thought visually, they did a perfect job. I can’t really say much more about it, because I honestly was just there to make sure Jacob enjoyed it. But, I think anyone, parent or not, would enjoy this movie.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: This was Jacob’s third movie (he’s 26 months old) and his first in a first run movie theater. So, a lot of my time was spent on worrying about him and not on the movie. But, Jacob did a great job. He was really into the previews and enjoyed all of the except for Ice Age 3. It scarred him with the dinosaur roared. Once the movie started, he got excited and sat through most of it while I force feed him crackers. I think he went through about a pound of crackers. Jacob kind of got fidgety during the boring parts, but he did a great job, overall.
Oh, the movie. It was very good, for what I watched. I thought visually, they did a perfect job. I can’t really say much more about it, because I honestly was just there to make sure Jacob enjoyed it. But, I think anyone, parent or not, would enjoy this movie.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Movie Review: Stranger Than Fiction
Summary: An IRS guy who is obsessed with numbers starts to hear a voice in his head. The problem is that the voice is narrating his actions and causing turmoil in his “perfect” life.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: I was expecting just another chick flick movie. I thought this was a movie about Will Ferrell playing an idiot but falling in love in a very romantic way. I’m not sure where I got that idea, because it was nothing like that. This was actually a very good, quirky movie. The main character, Harold Crick, is an IRS agent who lives his life through numbers. Numbers involve everything he does, from counting his steps, to timing the bus, to calculating probabilities in everyday life. To go along with this, the movie had a very cool computer interface that floated around the whole movie. It help the audience to see the world as Harold Crick sees the world. He also reminded me of me. A bit too much. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much. Once Harold Crick starts hearing the voice, it starts to make him question his choices in everything he does. I won’t give too much away, but the rest of the movie is about Harold Crick figuring out the voice and what he’s going to do about it. The movie is pretty good and Will Ferrell does a decent job acting in this straight role.
Rating: 7.0 out of 10
Review: I was expecting just another chick flick movie. I thought this was a movie about Will Ferrell playing an idiot but falling in love in a very romantic way. I’m not sure where I got that idea, because it was nothing like that. This was actually a very good, quirky movie. The main character, Harold Crick, is an IRS agent who lives his life through numbers. Numbers involve everything he does, from counting his steps, to timing the bus, to calculating probabilities in everyday life. To go along with this, the movie had a very cool computer interface that floated around the whole movie. It help the audience to see the world as Harold Crick sees the world. He also reminded me of me. A bit too much. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much. Once Harold Crick starts hearing the voice, it starts to make him question his choices in everything he does. I won’t give too much away, but the rest of the movie is about Harold Crick figuring out the voice and what he’s going to do about it. The movie is pretty good and Will Ferrell does a decent job acting in this straight role.
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