I went to see a pre-screening of Transformers colon The Movie last night. Overall, if you're in the mood for two solid hours of mindless entertainment, you will not be disappointed. There are plenty of cheeseball antics and silly one-liners, but the action sequences really shine, some of which are quite long, and there were a couple of geniunely funny moments. In my opinion, the best scene in the movie is in the first fifteen minutes when one of the evil robots attacks an American foreign military base. Considering it now, the quality of that scene was probably intentional if for no other reason than to hook the audience in for the remaining hour and forty-five minutes.
So I'm giving the movie a thumbs up, yes, but I've never been obsessed with Transformers. Even when I was in the prime target demographic for Transformers (tee em) toys some ahem hem years ago, I was never, shall we say, aware of any canon or continuity in their backstories. To me, they were just toys that changed from one thing into another, more of a puzzle for me to figure out rather than miniature mechwarriors with motivations. That being said, niggling problems such as Optimus Prime not being the same color that he was in 1983 are of no importance to me and I will leave those particular incongruities to be torn to shreds by ravenous internet hyenas.
Anyhow, seeing that Transformers is most definitely a summer blockbuster, if you're considering seeing it, definitely consider actually seeing it in a theater rather than renting it. The marketing is probably geared young (I myself have made sounds for two books in support of the movie), so as a heads up, if you have kids, as some of my newer readers do, and are wondering how hard the 13 in PG-13 is on this one, I can say that it's pretty hard unless of course you won't mind having a few conversations that you might not be prepared for and it could be too scary for any pre-teens and younger.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The New (Old) Deck
It's the same as the last one, but the materials aren't rotting away. We went with the composite wood so there's very little maintainence to be done besides general cleaning. It went up so fast that we just have the pictures of the finished product! The grill is a commercial series CharBroil with a side burner. We had the natural gas conversion kit installed, too, so no propane.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
8 Things About Me
First, my apologies to Jen for forgetting to check out what she was talking about with this. Second, I never do these but I'm a sucker for the ladies. Luv ya, babes.
The rules: Each player lists 8 facts or habits about themselves; the rules of the game are to be posted first; at the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and goes to their blogs to leave a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged.
1. There is not a single kind of music to which I will not listen: black metal, avant-garde electronic, bluegrass, jazz, pop, I'll listen to anything. If you can't respect something that's good even if you don't like it, your not thinking clearly enough.
2. As an extension of number one, a few of my favorite performers are The Innocence Mission, Rush, They Might Be Giants, Sonny Rollins, and The Stanley Brothers.
3. I will always play video games. I will always be play games that I find interesting and entertaining. I will never again be able to play them as much as I did when I was younger, but I think their potential to teach us something about the world around us is only now beginning to be tapped.
4. I am a complete nerd. My cat is named Sid, partly after the SID6581 which is the sound chip from the Commodore 64, my first love in the world of computer music. SID stands for Sound Interface Device.
5. I just fixed a stuck left Shift key on my keyboard. It was really annoying me.
6. I love standing next to the ocean during a storm. The obvious exceptions to this apply.
7. I really like bicycling. I ride to work when I can. It saves me money and doesn't waste our natural resources.
8. I like you. If you're reading this, chances are high that we've been friends at some point during my short life. Thanks for being my friend.
Für Alise (next) :)
The rules: Each player lists 8 facts or habits about themselves; the rules of the game are to be posted first; at the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and goes to their blogs to leave a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged.
1. There is not a single kind of music to which I will not listen: black metal, avant-garde electronic, bluegrass, jazz, pop, I'll listen to anything. If you can't respect something that's good even if you don't like it, your not thinking clearly enough.
2. As an extension of number one, a few of my favorite performers are The Innocence Mission, Rush, They Might Be Giants, Sonny Rollins, and The Stanley Brothers.
3. I will always play video games. I will always be play games that I find interesting and entertaining. I will never again be able to play them as much as I did when I was younger, but I think their potential to teach us something about the world around us is only now beginning to be tapped.
4. I am a complete nerd. My cat is named Sid, partly after the SID6581 which is the sound chip from the Commodore 64, my first love in the world of computer music. SID stands for Sound Interface Device.
5. I just fixed a stuck left Shift key on my keyboard. It was really annoying me.
6. I love standing next to the ocean during a storm. The obvious exceptions to this apply.
7. I really like bicycling. I ride to work when I can. It saves me money and doesn't waste our natural resources.
8. I like you. If you're reading this, chances are high that we've been friends at some point during my short life. Thanks for being my friend.
Für Alise (next) :)
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Tumblin' Tumbleweeds
I've waited too long to make this next post most of the five of you who stop by here already know the outcome of my previous setup. Anyway, nothing happened. Nobody ever stopped by. No flaming bags of poo on my porch. Nothing. Amy even called them back to ask what was going on. Apparently, the inspector only works Tuesdays and Thursdays or something, but three of those have come and gone since I got the note.
We did, however, inspect the bushes around both alleys near our property a little closer and found that the bushes around our neighbor's property definitely need to be trimmed. More than likely, some of their overgrowth was probably mistaken as ours. Our properties are the only two on a right triangle that is created by those alleys I mentioned before. Now imagine the property line dividing our land from the neighbor's is about two thirds of the distance away from the ninety degree angle and ours is the smaller area of the two parallelograms now created. The other end would of that line would come in contact with the hypotenuse somewhere in between its two endpoints closer to the base of the triangle which would then explain why our neighbors have land that is on all three sides of the triangle. In other words, we don't own the entire length of property on our side of the alley and we think that the inspector probably just eyeballed the overgrown bushes on that side and assumed that we owned everything that he saw.
If this goes any further, and I'm now assuming that it probably won't, I will simply unholster our closing documents that spell out exactly where our property begins and ends.
We did, however, inspect the bushes around both alleys near our property a little closer and found that the bushes around our neighbor's property definitely need to be trimmed. More than likely, some of their overgrowth was probably mistaken as ours. Our properties are the only two on a right triangle that is created by those alleys I mentioned before. Now imagine the property line dividing our land from the neighbor's is about two thirds of the distance away from the ninety degree angle and ours is the smaller area of the two parallelograms now created. The other end would of that line would come in contact with the hypotenuse somewhere in between its two endpoints closer to the base of the triangle which would then explain why our neighbors have land that is on all three sides of the triangle. In other words, we don't own the entire length of property on our side of the alley and we think that the inspector probably just eyeballed the overgrown bushes on that side and assumed that we owned everything that he saw.
If this goes any further, and I'm now assuming that it probably won't, I will simply unholster our closing documents that spell out exactly where our property begins and ends.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Final Notice!
I got home from work today to find a photocopied piece of paper containing a generic notice taped to my front door from my friendly department of code enforcement. The language is exactly as follows: "PLEASE CUT BACK ALL TREES AND BUSHES THAT OVERHANG SIDEWALKS AND ALLEYS THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION VILLAGE OF MORTON GROVE".
Before anyone mentions it, no, there was no punctuation in the message.
So, I called the phone number that was printed on the message and surprisingly someone answered the phone. I was sure that I would end up leaving a message as it was only about 5:15pm because what self-respecting government employee is still working at that hour? I told the gentleman my name and address and then attempted to explain my confusion at the note. Basically, I tried to explain that a quick glance around my property along the sidewalks and alley revealed no overtly obvious issues. Before I could complete my thought, the gentleman replied that an inspector must have been around and noticed a problem. I replied that I would be happy to comply and correct whatever the problem was but that I would need the inspector, who I had to assume was not the person with whom I was speaking as I was given no names or titles, to be more specific as to what the problem was.
With that, the person on the phone got a little irritated. I'm not exactly sure why, but he raised his voice a little and began to say that whatever is overhanging a sidewalk of alley should cut down, more than likely in an attempt to make me understand that the onus was on me to decipher exactly what the problem was. I did not say it, but I wondered if they really expected me to cut things in my yard down at random until they were satisfied. Instead I replied, "Look, I'm not trying to argue with you here. I will be happy to do whatever needs to be done, but I need to be told exactly what the problem is."
At that point he took down my name and address (probably so that I can be easily harassed by the police) and said that he'd send the inspector back out tomorrow. Hopefully, the inspector will leave some kind of note and not just knock on the door hoping someone will be home. I'm really curious to see where this goes and just a little perturbed that my city can't be more professional about how they interact with their citizens in terms of legal matters that don't involve the police. There was no signature or date from the person who left the warning and it was not on any kind of official form or stationary. In a strange, unjustified way, I feel a little invaded. It's as if they are free to show up and tape any message that might strike their fancy to my door: "You must cease and desist from wearing any t-shirt with 8-bit video gaming character icons on it." Then they could punch me in the gut, tape a "Kick Me" sign to my back, yell "Nerd!", and run away.
Before anyone mentions it, no, there was no punctuation in the message.
So, I called the phone number that was printed on the message and surprisingly someone answered the phone. I was sure that I would end up leaving a message as it was only about 5:15pm because what self-respecting government employee is still working at that hour? I told the gentleman my name and address and then attempted to explain my confusion at the note. Basically, I tried to explain that a quick glance around my property along the sidewalks and alley revealed no overtly obvious issues. Before I could complete my thought, the gentleman replied that an inspector must have been around and noticed a problem. I replied that I would be happy to comply and correct whatever the problem was but that I would need the inspector, who I had to assume was not the person with whom I was speaking as I was given no names or titles, to be more specific as to what the problem was.
With that, the person on the phone got a little irritated. I'm not exactly sure why, but he raised his voice a little and began to say that whatever is overhanging a sidewalk of alley should cut down, more than likely in an attempt to make me understand that the onus was on me to decipher exactly what the problem was. I did not say it, but I wondered if they really expected me to cut things in my yard down at random until they were satisfied. Instead I replied, "Look, I'm not trying to argue with you here. I will be happy to do whatever needs to be done, but I need to be told exactly what the problem is."
At that point he took down my name and address (probably so that I can be easily harassed by the police) and said that he'd send the inspector back out tomorrow. Hopefully, the inspector will leave some kind of note and not just knock on the door hoping someone will be home. I'm really curious to see where this goes and just a little perturbed that my city can't be more professional about how they interact with their citizens in terms of legal matters that don't involve the police. There was no signature or date from the person who left the warning and it was not on any kind of official form or stationary. In a strange, unjustified way, I feel a little invaded. It's as if they are free to show up and tape any message that might strike their fancy to my door: "You must cease and desist from wearing any t-shirt with 8-bit video gaming character icons on it." Then they could punch me in the gut, tape a "Kick Me" sign to my back, yell "Nerd!", and run away.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
MGC 2007, Milwaukee
Last weekend, Amy had a class in Milwaukee so I went with her. While she was in class on Saturday, I headed out to the Midwest Gaming Classic. I think I had more fun last year, but it probably has to do with the fact that I was by myself this year. It's always more fun to play with someone. Although, I did get a couple of high scores that lasted for a while, one on a fast Ms. Pac-Man machine and the other on a Star Wars cabinet. There weren't as many old arcade games as there were last year and it seemed like there was at least one pinball machine vendor missing as the gaming section of the main hall had a good portion of the inside row empty. All in all, though, I stayed for about five hours and had a good time.
The rest of the weekend was spent just hanging out in downtown Milwaukee, checking out a few restaurants and taking in some of the sites. Sunday morning, we ate breakfast outside in the warm sunshine which was wonderful. I hate being cooped up in a dark office all week, but it's the price I pay for a relatively entertaining job. For now at least, anyway.
The rest of the weekend was spent just hanging out in downtown Milwaukee, checking out a few restaurants and taking in some of the sites. Sunday morning, we ate breakfast outside in the warm sunshine which was wonderful. I hate being cooped up in a dark office all week, but it's the price I pay for a relatively entertaining job. For now at least, anyway.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
A Sad Occassion
Amy's grandfather passed away on Saturday, May 26th. We will both miss him. Amy always told me that I would have liked him before he had his stroke in '93 even more than in the last few years of his life. I heard many stories over that following week that confirmed her assertion.
We stayed out in farm country with her grandmother that week. It was a sad occasion, but it also provided some opportunities for quiet reflection that I think really to heal both of us. Before the parades of visitors to the house would begin, we would get up early in the morning and sit out on the porch swing in our pajamas, something we really can't do in the Chicago area, to drink our coffee and talk. We did some simple yard work and picked the first few ripened strawberries from her grandmother's garden.
Glenn, you will be missed.
We stayed out in farm country with her grandmother that week. It was a sad occasion, but it also provided some opportunities for quiet reflection that I think really to heal both of us. Before the parades of visitors to the house would begin, we would get up early in the morning and sit out on the porch swing in our pajamas, something we really can't do in the Chicago area, to drink our coffee and talk. We did some simple yard work and picked the first few ripened strawberries from her grandmother's garden.
Glenn, you will be missed.
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