I tape coppers busting roustabouts  //  7.24.05  [Music: Coldplay - X&Y]
Yesterday was Fran's birthday.  We all went out to Ladd's to celebrate, Jenna included, and had a great time.  I had the chicken breast with blue cheese and bacon, which worked out very well.  Afterwards, we went home and gave Fran her gifts of Swedish fish and scratch tickets.

The NP1 stickers finally came in the mail, and here's one now!

They came out very well.  If you want some stickers made for your website, band, book club, etc, give Sticker Guy a try.   If you want some, just ask, I don't plan on profiting off them.  I already put one on my car, too.  Looks good. 

Also, I figured I'd share a picture of the new computer...

Sweet lookin', ain't it?  I love this flatscreen, too.  It was a helluva bargain if you ask me.  Also a bargain: Half-Life 2.  As you can see, I have it running on the machine there, and the best part of it is that I didn't get a deluxe video card for the system.  This game is simply a technical marvel.  The line between games and movies has become blurred quite a bit lately, but Half-Life 2 is beyond anything that's ever been done.  It'll take a while before the industry catches up with it.  It's fully engrossing, and there have been points so far in which I've actually been scared by atmosphere and things lurking in the dark.  Great fun!

And in V for Vendetta news... Darryl linked me to the first trailer for my most anticipated movie of the fall.  Go check it out!
I can't come up with a title today  //  7.22.05  [Music: Eric Clapton - The Cream of Clapton]
Greg and I saw Wedding Crashers last night.  Great stuff there.  Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson can't disappoint, and when you throw in some Christopher Walken, things don't get much better.  Sure to be a guy-movie classic for years to come, but this is one you can watch with the girlfriend thanks to a Rachel McAdams love-connection for Mr. Wilson.  Surprisingly, it doesn't bog the story down much, and McAdams is actually very good.

I also spent a few nights this week trying to get caught up on movies people keep telling me to check out, so here they are, in the order I watched them:

  • I Y Huckabees (Recommended by: Corey, an NBC tour guide) - I realized today that it would have been great to use the phrase "More like 'Suckabees'" to describe this movie, but it wouldn't be fair.  David O. Russell creates a movie that is half quirky comedy and half philosophy lesson, and for the most part manages to make it work.  However, it's a stretch.  This movie was obviously attempting to score on the Wes Anderson scale, even going as far as bringing out Jason "Max Fischer" Schwartzmann as an activist trying to get to the bottom of an 'existential crisis.'  Plenty of characters, played by a great cast, flesh out the story while still trying to get different views on life, existence, etc across to the audience.  I'd say that in the end it's a little overambitious, but I still would say that I enjoyed it.  Dustin Hoffman's haircut, Jude Law, and Naomi Watts in a bikini are some of the high spots.
  • American Psycho (Recommended by: George, Patrick, and Joe) - Christian Bale may have been great as Batman, but it's obvious that his role as Patrick Bateman in this movie was what sealed the deal to don the cowl in the first place.  An unapologetically hilarious satire on the 1980's, yuppie culture, and violence in the movies, American Psycho is one of those flicks that spawns memorable lines that you can run with your pals all day and images that you'll remember for quite some time.  Bale plays a Wall Street stock man in 80's New York who happens to have a penchant for serial killing.  His smarmy delivery will endear you to him too fast for you to wonder why you approve of him hacking a guy up simply because he's got a better business card.  Not for the faint of heart, by any stretch. 
  • Donnie Darko (Recommended by: Ashley, 90% of MySpace) - Thoroughly disappointing.  After hearing that this was the big psychological thriller to see after the likes of Fight Club and others, I tried to remember to pursue this one.  After a Big Video streak for the week, I capped it off with Donnie Darko.  The setup is enough to keep you interested and Jake Gyllenhaal's performance might be brooding, but is also engaging... to a point.  However, character development takes a backseat to the storyline:  Donnie, a disturbed teenager, starts sleepwalking and seeing a mysterious being in a creepy bunny costume.  The bunny, named Frank, tells Donnie the world will end in only a couple of weeks and instructs him to carry out destructive behavior.  Soon, elements of travel crop up, and formulaic plot points that must be remembered for later begin to show up.  Some of them seem so obvious, the director practically put a sign up that said "remember this for my totally awesome ending."  The ending isn't much of a "mind-blowing" payoff and is instead really pretty depressing.  It's too bad, because sometimes these kinds of flaws (and others I haven't mentioned) can be remedied by a really cool ending (see: endings by M. Night Shyamalan and Darren Aronofsky), but instead, the ending pretty much wipes the whole movie out.  It's kind of sad, really, and that must be why the emo kids get such a big kick out of it.  Still, a soundtrack that includes Joy Division and Tears for Fears means that something had to be going right here.

So that's it for the movie vault for now.
M-m-m-my Computer  //  7.18.05  [Music: The Who - The Ultimate Collection]
Well, this is finally my first post from the new computer.  We've had it for about a week now, but we've been working on getting a wireless network going along with Charter Internet, so now things are much faster and smoother and without all the cords getting in the way.  The computer is really sleek, I'll have to put up some pictures soon.

Not much else is going on around here.  Dad's illness is still a baffling mystery, so we don't have any developments to report, but I'm still praying and hoping and knocking on wood.  I've taken over looking after the lawn, which I've been having fun with.  I think I killed a little frog today at one point with the lawnmower, actually.  I didn't mean it.

SCIENTOLOGY!

I did get to see War of the Worlds last week with Greg and Fran, and I was thoroughly impressed.  I've said plenty about how much I've enjoyed Steven Spielberg's work over the past few years, and he just kept the hits coming with this one.  I've read a lot of less-than-stellar reviews from different sources, including some sources that I trust.  But I don't think it's just because I love big sci-fi movies, this was a really cool movie in its own right.  The effects and pacing were outstanding.  Tom Cruise has been getting pretty scary lately (see above) but he's still a pretty good actor.  Fran says she'll see anything he's in, so there's one endorsement. 

Dude I'm getting a Dell OK  //  7.9.05  [Music: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here]
Yesterday was Mom and Dad's anniversary, and they decided to get a new computer as their present to each other.  I was put in charge of picking out a good deal, and I decided to go with the Dell Dimension 3000.  It's a big jump over our current PC, and comes with a great price.  Here's just a few of the specs...
  • Intel Celeron D processor (2. something gigahertz)
  • 512 megs of 400 mHz RAM (I don't remember what kinda RAM, but I sure do hope it's DDR RAM, that way we can Dance Dance LOL)
  • 160 gig hard drive (4X bigger than the one in our current computer, which we've only used about half of)
  • 17" flat screen monitor (Didn't want to get a new monitor, but it was included no matter what, so twist my arm)
  • Keyboard
  • New computer smell
  • 16X speed CDRW/DVD RW +/- Up Down Sideways super duper disc drive
  • 22" Spinnaz and hydraulics
  • 128 Meg USB flash memory thingy
  • Wires

It's been a long time since I've paid attention to computers and what goes with them.  It's been probably three years since I last knew what the best specs on a computer should be, and that's just when the first Pentium IV processors were coming along.  You see, when I was in high school, a 1 gHz processor was just a beautiful dream, and now it's science fact.  I didn't understand the fact that RAM had a speed until a few months ago, I failed to grasp the importance of video cards until I tried installing Halo on the computer, etc.  Things really have changed over the last couple of years.  Before you know it, things will be like in Star Trek or Minority Report, just you wait. 

So this means it's time to back up all the files on the computer again.  The only question is... will the computer let us?  It's been very cranky the last couple of days, and I think it's because it knows it's being replaced.  It'll start sparking and smoking soon.  All I can say is, we've had this thing for over four years and it's done a respectable job (albeit with a little augmentation and reformats along the way).
Hello Cleveland  // 7.5.05  [Music: Barenaked Ladies - Stunt]
Time for a Dad's Health Update... I'm not sure whether or not I mentioned the fact that Dad doesn't have anything incredibly serious like a brain tumor or something, which is obviously very good.  Blood tests still haven't come back with anything, so at this rate, he's going in for a spinal tap in a couple of days.  That should let us know what's going on and then we can start treating it, whatever it is.

I'd talk about more, but I really can't come up with anything to talk about.  I'm basically posting so that I can move the old stuff to the archives.  So here's a picture of Raton.