Johnny & Kirsten's Birthday Party

Johnny and Mitch rocking out on Guitar Hero.

Papa seems to be enjoying himself.

Lighting candles on each bug cakelet.

So did they plan their hair to match?

Grandma and Kirsten

iPhone

06/29/2007 - Well I'm in line for the iPhone. About 70 people in front of me and about 20 behind. We've been told that we shouldn't have a problem getting one so that's great. It's actually a nice day to wait out. Got a nice chair and wireless. Unfortunatly only about a 10% battery charge.

So you wanna talk to a live person ay?

Have you ever sat on hold or tried to navigate a complicated phone system when all you want to do is get a person. I've been through some systems that are so complicated and the option I need isn't there that I get kicked out. Well here is a website that lists the customer service number, offers a cheat code to get a live person, and gives you the opportunity to grade the company on their service.

http://gethuman.com/

Let us know if you try it.

Interesting article on how illegal immigration came to be...

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20070507-chinese-exclusion-act-california-chester-a-arthur-immigration-san-francisco-earthquake-of-1906-paper-sons.shtml

I bet I know this kid's father, friend, or relative...

While driving home tonight I was listening to NPR. Not an unusual situation. On "The World" they featured a kid from Novosibirsk, Russia that creates 80's-ish pop electronica songs. Also not an unusual topic for NPR. The crazy part is that a LARGE majority of our Russians at work are physicists or summer kids (kids of the physicists at work) from Novosibirsk. This kid's father is a physicists at one of the local universities in Novosibirsk. I bet someone I know knows this kid personally or at least his father.

With that said, I'm a sucker for 80's electronica. Some of my favorite all time bands include Depeche Mode and New Order. This kid's music was an instant hit with me. Check out his MySpace page.

http://myspace.com/romanrevutsky

Next

Ok this one is a bit easier for me to write about. I went to see this movie just to kill some time before Spiderman 3. I really hadn't heard much about the film with the exception of seeing a relatively bad 33% on rotten tomatoes and one commercial. But it was playing and it was that or sitting in Starbucks.

I'm actually really glad that I decided on this over tasty drinks. The movie is about a man who can see two minutes into his own future. Once he looks ahead he can decide to change it. Where it gets tricky is that he can then wait a split second and look ahead again and see if that change was a wise move and change it again. He can keep doing it until he gets what he's trying to do right. The movie revolves around a girl (Jessica Biehl) who he sees months before he actually meets her. He proceeds to wait in the same dinner every day at the same time that was on his watch until he meets her. She's both a love interest and a catalyst for the plot (and she's not hard on the eyes :). There also is an FBI agent played by Julianne Moore who is trying to track him down because terrorists have smuggled a nuke into Los Angeles and they need to track it down before it goes off. Because of the FBI's interest in him the terrorists want to kill him just in case he can do what they think he can. He doesn't want to be found by either because if he helps the FBI he'll be a slave to them forever. If the terrorists find him...well he'd be dead and that's not good.

The real interesting aspect of the movie is where he uses his powers to plan out how to get out of situations he gets into. He can see where bullets are coming from so he can dodge them. He can search an entire building in a blink by viewing each potential outcome of walking down each hallway. It's really a nice trick and I would love to see it expanded on.

Unfortunately there are some weaknesses in the script most particularly in the ending. It's certainly not a bad ending but it's kind of a cliffhanger for a sequel which probably won't happen (The movie has only made 10 million so far). The critics really didn't like it, of course they didn't like his last movie National Treasure either and I really liked that one. I don't know I'd recommend it for viewing in the theater but it's definitely one to see on DVD.

3 stars (out of 5)

Spiderman 3

This was an odd one for me. I am a registered geek who loves all of the things that make up this movie however I found myself underwhelmed by it. It seemed that the film tried to hard to be everything to everyone. Trying to shoehorn in 3 villains that could easily each carry a movie can really backfire. Look at how Batman and Robin worked out. And these are three of the more interesting Spiderman villains. From what they had set up in the first two films they were obligated to do the Goblin Jr. storyline. It was expected. And sandman is a natural choice for a movie watching public that loves their special effects. Plus it doesn't hurt that he had a decent story. And the alien suit/venom storyline is one of the better arcs in the comic books. Although the way that it ended up Venom, one of Spiderman's most iconic foes, is almost a footnote to the story. However I really liked the narrative arc that they constructed to tie them all together. The characters have no real connection in the actual comics but here they have a very clear link between them. It was an artful piece of writing.

The black suit should have been one of the most impressive parts of the film. It should have made Spiderman stronger, faster and much more vicious. But the film series has already tried to portray him as incredibly strong and fast so the benefit of the suit really wasn't clear. Also a small nitpick but the suit should grow on and off of him not be a simple piece of clothing that can be tossed in a box. The way it was handled with Venom is much closer to the actual feel of the suit. Also he had to have known what the suit was since he took the sample to Doctor Conners. You'd think he wouldn't act so surprised later on. The suit's effect on his personality was quite amusing though. I liked how they combed his hair slightly differently and suddenly he was evil-emo Peter. Funny.

I think my biggest problem with the movie came from the Mary Jane/Peter storyline. It was incredibly goofy at times and included so many twists and turns that really didn't make allot of sense at times. Especially the entire break up storyline and the love triangle. It just didn't seem to work with the characters as they have been established. Peter being entranced by his fame really didn't work for me either. It seemed like a regression to the time before Uncle Ben died where his fame was all that mattered to him. It felt like a betrayal of the character. Every time that the movie would switch to their story it lost a bit more momentum.

It also included 3 musical numbers and dance productions. Not that these weren't entertaining (esp. the bar one) but they felt out of place. The movie had allot of scenes where you could tell that Sam Rami was stretching his old Evil Dead silliness genes. In another movie I would have been reveling in the silliness but in this one it made it feel uneven.

I also thought that the acting by Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst was a bit weak. There have been some murmurs that they are bored of the characters and want to move on to other rolls. I would almost welcome another actors take on the characters if they decide to continue (which they will). The supporting cast was really quite amazing. Bruce Campbell has an amazing scene and was one of the highlights of the film. Topher Grace continues to grow past his That 70s show past and into one of our better actors. And the entire Daily Bugle staff was great.

OK so after all the bad things I said about the movie I still really recommend seeing it. It was massively entertaining with really good action sequences and quite a few funny scenes. It just could have been so much more.

3 stars (out of five)

More Cap'n Crunch Than You Expected

From the May 2007 Saveur comes this great tidbit: the full name of Cap'n Crunch! His proper name is Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch. The Horatio makes him sound British, which makes sense since his outfit looks like an English Navy get up (or something Napoleon would have worn). And the Magellan gives him an air of exploration. The Crunch is straight out of Dickens. He may be Capt. H.M. Crunch aboard ship, but he'll always be Cap'n of breakfast to me.

http://www.megnut.com/2007/04/capn-crunchs-first-name-revealed

I-Dressup

Ok girls. I know we are all grown, but don't you miss dress up? I know I do and since I can't actually wear Gucci's Spring line 2007 I can at least play with it online.

I have added the link under "web games to waste time with".