Frontlaven

The Descendants (Drama 2011)

2012-02-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

Yeah I dunno why this movie got a few terrific reviews because it really wasn't all that. It wasn't a bad movie just nothing special. It did have one thing though; ugly actors. Besides Clooney who just looked flustered in every single shot, all of the kids and their friends were pretty damn ugly. Maybe they chose these peeps to make it more 'real' or something but yeah that was one very noticeable staffing move.

The overall plot of the movie was OK. It showed how Clooney's character developed and grew to get along with his kids but yeah it was a slow drama that really wasn't impressive. Key word here is slow...gotta be in the right mood to watch it.
Rating - C

Dark Rising by Greig Beck (Book 2011)

2012-01-28T14:27:00.000-08:00

This was another great write by Greig Beck. The first book by this author was Beneath the Dark Ice which was a damn good read. This one had the same main character so although it was not directly related to the book, it was a continuation of one soldier's adventures.

In comparison to the first, the story in this book concentrated on a scientific anomaly of a black hole as opposed to ancient, lost history which the first book was all about. I believe I liked the first one better, just because of the plot, but the action and general writing were just as good in this book. Read the first; if you like it you should like this one as well.
Rating - High

The Rift Walker by Susan & Clay Griffith (Vampire Empire, Book 2) (Book 2011)

2012-01-21T21:17:00.000-08:00

So this is the second book in the series, continuing after the end of The Grayfriar. Although it wasn't as exciting as the first, the story and characters were still good enough to make it worthwhile. Note that political finagling replaces action sequences in this book, so that may be why is seemed a bit slower. I still wasn't able to put it down after I got a few chapters in so the writing style is still the same and easily readable. Got high hopes for the 3rd book.
Rating - High

Real Steel (Action 2011)

2012-01-16T21:37:00.001-08:00

So this movie didn't totally suck but it did suck a good amount. It was a childish movie where when you have adults try to act around a plot like this, it tends to be very fake and lame.

This was a waste of Hugh Jackman's talents. On top of that Dakota Goyo is an ugly kid. He was such a whiny bitch in this film that whenever he said "please" and tried to be all doe-eyed you really wanted to just punch him in the face. Yeah Hollywood likes better looking kid-actors...where did they find this piece of shit?

To sum it up this movie should've had The Rock in it because it was that type of film.
Rating - D

Moneyball (Sports Drama 2011)

2012-01-14T20:55:00.000-08:00

Well there is a reason why I don't watch sport movies all too often and it's because they usually suck and because I don't care for sports. The previews made this movie out too look like something inspirational but it was very boring and wasn't balanced.

I suppose Brad Pitt did an OK job, but Jonah Hill didn't need to act at all. He just needed to stand there with a blank look on his face and memorize some lines. The movie was about how a manager decided to use some sort of new mathematic and economic model to hire, fire, and play players. It was a totally different method that was looked down upon in the beginning but eventually it supposedly changed the game.

Again, boring concept and boring story. All this movie did was show that it would be hard to build a real team with any synergy if players get traded and fired all of the time. Pretty heartless...maybe that is why the sport of baseball sucks.
Rating - D

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Drama 2011)

2012-01-13T23:24:00.001-08:00

This was a damn good movie. Very slow like most other spy type of films but yeah very good quality stuff here.

I haven't watched too many movies as slow as this one but it never got boring and it never had too many characters even though it did come close at times. It was about an ex high-up intelligence director who gets canned but then gets re-hired back by the govt to find a mole in the intelligence service back in the cold war days. Kinda plain Jane plot but for some reason I found it very fascinating.

I do think this is because of the writing and acting. All of the actors were very convincing and I mean very. Gary Oldman is quite good. Can't believe he was Dracula aye? I know a lot of people can't stand hella slow dramas but I gotta vote this one up. You have to be in the mood of course.
Rating - A

50/50 (Drama 2011)

2012-01-11T20:09:00.000-08:00

Hey what do you know, this movie was actually pretty damn good. This was probably the first time I’ve seen Seth Rogan play a character who wasn’t totally over the top. He actually seemed like a real person for once, not just a walking set of funny comments.

The story is about a young guy who has been diagnosed with cancer. Yeah bum story but they did a good job with it. It follows him around as he deals with own internal drama mixed in with various relationships he has with Rogan’s character, his GF, therapist, and parents. It was a nice and simple movie where the characters seemed to have real chemistry for once. Some parts were sad, but it wasn't overly dramatic at all.
Rating - A

Selection Event by Wayne Wightman (Book 2011

2012-01-11T19:34:00.000-08:00

So this book was a bucket of suck. I don't like reading anything about religion and the later half of this book was all about getting in little pokes at Christianity and how some of them are hella fanatical and crazy. Although I would agree with the main character and the author, I sure as hell don't want to waste my time reading about it.

The book's description toted it as being a post-apoc survival story, but only around 10% was really about any type of survival. Other other portions were split among one character who was riding motorcycles from the west to east coast with no apparent purpose at all and the other section was written from the point of view of a dog in the story. I found that concept interesting but it didn't seem to play any real role in the story. So if you're looking for a post-apoc book, this is not a good one.
Rating - Low

War Horse (Drama 2011)

2012-01-10T20:01:00.000-08:00

Man, talk about corny. This movie was so artificial, it was very hard to take it even mildly seriously. So many scenes were setup oh so perfectly to try to get some emotional rise out of you. It was seriously scene after scene after scene.

The main actor played a whiny pussy. He was such an annoying character that you wanted to just watch the horse standing there some more. The film tried to have epic scores cover up all of the fake scenes and the lack of real drama so it was very loud and in your face.

Obviously I didn't like the movie because it didn't feel like one. Many scenes seriously felt like they were created "for" pre-existing music, not the other way around.
Rating - D

The Sentinel by Jeremy Bishop (Book 2011)

2012-01-07T18:53:00.001-08:00

This one was a fun book. It's about a group of whalers and anti-whalers who get stuck up in the North Arctic and accidentally open up a crypt with a group of (undead) Draugar. I've killed enough of these things in Skyrim to know exactly what they are. Fun times. They are kinda undead which makes the subplot more interesting. Doesn't make it scientific or anything but it does change it from an average zombie novel of sorts.

The plot was fast, full of action, and had a pretty strong feminine protagonist. Short read but overall a good book.
Rating - High

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Drama 2008)

2012-01-07T18:40:00.000-08:00

The movie was just an average one. It was about a little kid whose father was a German upper in control of a concentration camp. This kid befriended another kid inside the camp and that's about it. The whole point of this film hinged on its ending which was kinda nutty but the rest of the movie was blah in terms of the drama itself. The main kid is kinda an idiot though...just saying. I don't think even someone as young as him could be that foolish but who knows.
Rating - C

United States of the Dead (White Flag Of The Dead) by Joseph Talluto (Book 2011)

2012-01-03T18:13:00.000-08:00

This last book of the series seemed rushed. I think I cleared it in half-a-day of casual reading. Good thing is that the whole story is finished. Bad thing is that it ended much worse than the series first started.

I noticed in this one how the main character, John Talon, was sorta an unrealistic idealist wandering around telling people about how he was going to setup a new government with new rules and such. I found one particular scene compelling because he was seriously telling some guy how one day he would have to abide by new laws. Did the character and author forget that this is still a zombie apoc setting? Yes we all know that John is quite the warrior but he was getting a little ahead of himself.

That leads me to another comment and that is how in all of these books, the main character and his friends are close to being immortal, capable of handling anything and getting out of any rut. Very odd since even a seasoned survivor would not be able to be on their A-game all the time.

So yeah this series ended without a bang. Sure it was much better than Kim Paffenroth's series, but it didn't hold a candle to J. L. Bourne's works. Having a hero is a good thing, but making him superhuman is going over the realistic line. This applies to the plot too. It takes one heck of an idealist to want to trek across America to retrieve the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence when you're running from zombies on a daily basis.
Rating - Mid

Skyrim (RPG PC Game 2011)

2012-01-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

After 80+ hours of gameplay I went ahead and finished off all of the primary quests for the main storyline. Not too bad for an ending but yeah there is still a bunch of stuff that can be done.

As with all of the Elder Scroll games, this one was an improvement over that of Oblivion. Mainly, I didn't have to hack the leveling system as the mobs in this game always were good to go in the difficulty arena.

Visual, physics, music, and everything in between were spot on. There were a few bugs were I clipped through the world, couldn't get past an invisible barrier, etc but all in all it was a nice experience.

They should have a way to easily respec your character though. I had to use various console commands to respec and even then, sometimes it didn't work properly.

At its core the game is the same as all of the others though. You have a quest to go get something, you talk to a guy who will only help you if you go into a dungeon and get an object or kill a person. After you complete that, then you are given the location of another dungeon to get the original item. Sometimes there are various levels of this and that can get a bit annoying.

So yeah the game was fun; I think I'm burned out for a while though. Need to rest my eyes and take a longish nap.
Rating - High

Empire of the Gods by David Stag (Book 2011)

2011-12-30T23:38:00.000-08:00

Transparency: I was emailed a copy of this (very long) book to read and review so here is an unbiased report.

To start out, the author’s writing style is very detailed and articulate. It can get a little too wordy at times, but there is no loss for descriptive measure. As the story progresses, a lot of the writing diverges off into philosophical and moral inner-monologs of main character, Linus. This assists with making the subject-matter concepts more interesting and intelligent, but it does detract away from story progression.

In all honestly, plot does not seem all that important in this book. Things happen to carry Linus to different locations and meet different people, but that’s about it. A lot of the book is about what Linus is thinking and how or why he does not agree with what is going on. So a lot of it is about analysis and not about action or drama.

Character development for Linus is terrific since the story revolves around him and his experiences & thoughts, but any other development that occurs with other characters becomes irrelevant as the setting of the story abruptly changes too frequently: 3 major times by my count. Each time this occurs, Linus is shoved into a new environment with a whole new group of characters and it seems a tad odd that the previous personnel are eliminated as if they were old candy wrappers. This causes a non-fluidic change in story atmosphere that seems a bit artificial. This is where improvement can be made in terms of writing an actual story.

Because of the fact that most books I read are plot-driven, this one was quite a change. It was intelligently written and makes you think, but it was definitely not an “exciting page-turner”, although I doubt the author meant it to be like that. I would recommend this book to those who want to experience good writing but are not looking for a particularly thrilling story.

I do appreciate David Stag’s efforts and encourage him to write more. He really is a good writer…much better than a lot of other authors I’ve read in the past. There is room for improvement though as the ending was a bit too underwhelming and “Pleasantville-ish”.
Rating - Mid

Warrior (Action Drama 2011)

2011-12-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

Just finished this movie a few minutes ago. Not too bad, just like a modern Rocky but with better music. One of the mains, Tom Hardy, is a friggin' beast. He got some very intimidating traps, just like those roided out WWE wrestlers.

But yeah, the movie was nice and exciting. It never got slow and was kept up a good pace. Nick Nolte actually did a really good job being a recovering alcoholic although I doubt he'll get any props for it. And of course the music was very inspirational. Good evening watch.
Rating - B

The Help (Drama 2011)

2011-12-24T16:24:00.001-08:00

Yeah so this was a pretty solid movie. Lots of drama back in the 60s...I wonder if housewives back then were really that caddy. So the story followed around these maids down in the South as they faced segregation and other racially non-kosher actions by the white peeps back then. Odd how much has changed in the 50 sum years since those days.

But yeah the drama was real and the acting was good (for some of the characters), but the main character of Emma Stone was kinda sub-par in my opinion. She seemed fake and non-convincing. Be forewarned that there were a few scenes of some female emoting going on. Yeah I think you have to be a girl to feel anything with these scenes; I find them uncomfortable and lasting a few minutes too long...

Overall it was a good, solid movie with a great story.
Rating - A

Crysis 2 (FPS PC Game 2011)

2011-12-24T16:04:00.000-08:00

Gosh it's been close to a year or so since the last time I played a FPS game. I kinda gave up on PC gaming for a while there since there weren't many games out there and having a dedicated desktop machine seemed like a waste. But good thing is that I build an eGPU rig and now I can still have my laptop and game at the same time. In a while I'll post a review of that setup, but for now off to this game.

Crysis 2's visuals were better than that of Crysis and Crysis Warhead. It did support DX11 but damn did my video card not like that one bit. I'm sure if you had a badass SLI box, everything would be A-OK but yeah I could not play on Ultra when everything was maxed. There was also a large texture file that could be applied for more detail and that was a nice addition.

So for this game they took out the "strength" mode for the armor and added some weird alien bonuses. Besides that the game was just like the other two. I don't know why but I just don't find fighting aliens fun. It's just like Halo where the mobs are these humanoid alien type beings that are overdrawn. Crysis 2 had mobs just like these except they were glowing red instead of glowing purple. I'm sure my dislike stems from the fact that finding the head for a head shot is not intuitive enough.

Gameplay was just like any other EA game + FPS...the story was fair but forgettable. It was nice for a one-time thing but I'll probably never play the game again...good thing I got it for a small $10 sum. Yeah I've decided that a game has to be under $10 for me to purchase it unless it is so sick that I have to play it immediately. These days you can't resell games anymore so that totally put a dent in how I buy this stuff.
Rating - Mid

Contagion (Drama Thriller 2011)

2011-12-17T18:41:00.001-08:00

This movie had a lot of potential. It was really good at the beginning when the outbreak first started but then near the end it got kinda boring. Maybe this was because I was expecting a total breakdown in the system and a post-apoc world to take its place, but sadly they found a vaccine to the disease.

I think the main kudos to this film was how it demonstrated pretty accurately how governments and the CDC would try to "contain" information about any outbreak that were to happen. That and how people would start freaking out and start breaking laws and such to survive. It's always nice to have a few guns around just for this...

The whole ending had to do with finding a vaccine. I dunno how all that science and testing works but I would think that it would be more difficult to pull off than it was in this film. Either way, freaky plot...but I think it would be way worse in real life. There is a very thin line that keeps people from taking what they want from others or doing what they want when there is little to no rule of law.
Rating - B

Cowboys & Aliens (Action 2011)

2011-12-17T18:13:00.000-08:00

Well this movie wasn't too bad. It had an OK story with enough action to keep it interesting. Harrison Ford made a nice appearance. Haven't seen him in any movies in a long time so that was a good change. All his character did in this one was scowl though; that sorta got old. Daniel Craig played a silent cowboy so there was very little talking coming out of him.

The plot was different...aliens attacking a small area of land in the West while looking for gold. After abducting some Indians and townsfolk, people started to gather up and go hunting for their peeps. So yeah, not a terrible watch but a little slow at times.
Rating - C

Star Wars: Crosscurrent by Paul Kemp (2011 Book)

2011-12-04T19:35:00.000-08:00

This book wasn't half bad. The beginning was slow as all hell, but at around the 70% mark, all I wanted to do was finish it because the story drew me in.

This book is the first part of a pseudo-new series so there aren't any other books that are required in order to understand what is going on. The second book, Riptide, was just released a while ago so I'll be sure to put it on my list.

The story was split up into 2 sections, the past where a Sith cruiser and a stowaway Jedi are battling it out, and the present where another Jedi is trying to get to some mysterious beacon on a frozen moon. The stories collide when the 5000 year old Sith ship has a freak hyperspace jump and warps through time to the present when drama ensues.

The action was pretty good as was the story after it picked up. The likeable characters all survived so the next book should be a nice ol' adventure with the crew. Good times.
Rating - High

Conan the Barbarian (Fantasy Action 2011)

2011-12-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Man, where is Arnold when you need him. This movie was so crappy when you directly compare it with Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer. Even with the new visuals that can be accomplished with today's CG technology, it still doesn't hold a candle to a better written and directed movie. And yes I just made the statement that old school Conan had a better story...yeah this one was that bad.

I don't even know why they chose to remake this with such an asstacular screenplay other than to hopefully try to make money. The plot did not flow at all it was straight out of a Sci-Fi special. Stephen Lang from Avatar was in it..."I'll get you your legs back". And Rachel Nichols was not too shabby for the main chick. Her IMDB account says that she graduated with a Math and Econ major from Columbia? No shit...she can do Calculus and Linear Algebra and Differential Equations? Fucking amazing. The main guy, Jason Momoa, is Drogo from Game of Thrones so that just showed that he can't really act, but I'm sure he'd be a cool guy to hang out with. Oh yeah...that's something to mention...there was tons of overacting in this film. Lots of grunting, barring of teeth, and scowling. So bad...
Rating - D

Bulgarian Milled SLR-95 AK-47 Rifle (Arsenal)

2011-12-02T20:55:00.001-08:00

So I acquired this rifle late last summer at a local gun show. I was looking for a VZ-58 but surprisingly enough all they had were WASRs, a shit ton of SKSs, 2 overpriced MAK-90s, and this beauty. The price was good so I went ahead and nabbed it. Of course my intention was to convert it to a normal AK, but after I got all the parts, selling it became a more profitable option.

So let's get to the nitty gritty. This gun was brought into the country through Arsenal back in the mid 90s in a thumbhole stock format. It has a milled receiver and a Styer chrome-lined barrel. It had 2 possible additions: a muzzle brake and/or a side mount for optics. Mine only had the muzzle brake. Compared to my old 1960 Polish, for a milled rifle, the SLR-95 felt substantially lighter. Fit and finish were also on a much higher scale than that of the CAI Polish. 30-round steel mags fit very well and had next to no wobble. The safety that annoyed the fuck out me on the Polish locked in perfectly on the SLR. The only physical negative I saw was that the front sight was slightly canted. Not as bad as the polish but still canted.

The whole purpose of getting this rifle was to, of course, pay a little less while maybe being able to put in some elbow grease to turn the rifle into a regular-looking AK with a pistol grip. Doing the math it should've come out a little bit cheaper than your run-of-the-mill stamped SGL Arsenal. What is discovered was that for parts, yes, but for time and effort it didn't seem worth it for me personally.

So first off you have to know that most milled AKs are supposed to have 2 tangs on the rear: one on the top and one on the bottom. These tangs are thinner and a lot less sturdy than the single tang used on stamped AKMs. Because of its configuration with a thumbhole stock, the SLR was made with only 1 upper tang and no bottom one. People have solved this problem by purchasing a lower tang through K-var or on the secondary market like Gunbroker. To install you have to either drill & rivet or weld it onto the receiver.

So you have 4 options for a buttstock:

Get a buttstock for a milled receiver and only screw in the top tang without a reinforcing bottom tang. This is the cheapest method but it is not as secure and there is a chance that the buttstock can come out of the half-an-inch hole and maybe even break or bend the top tang.
Get a buttstock for a milled receiver and also get and install the lower tang. This one is doable but you have to have the tools and/or skills.
Cut off the top tang and attach an Ace Receiver block and then put on one of their buttstocks. This process will bubba the rifle and it is quite expensive for anything made by Ace.
Purchase a custom buttstock from Ironwood Designs. I went with #4.

So here are some pics of what comes with the Ironwood set. I refinished the wood so it looks all nice and shiny. They essentially made a custom stock with a hole drilled through the middle so a long bolt could be connected to a nut at the end. The nut stays inside of the receiver and is tightened from the wood end. This way it gives the stock enough stability with only the top tang, but yeah it's definitely a custom solution vs that of a regular, 2-tang milled AK.

The bottom handguard that came with the set didn't fit into the front trunnion so that was very annoying. I'm not sure if the lower was measured for some other obscure AK model, but all I know is that the rectangular cutout was much too large for the rectangular hole in the front trunnion. 20min with a Dremel would've solved that problem but I really didn't want to go through the hassle.

Pros

Great quality
Cheaper than other milled AKs
Can get very good deals if you look hard enough
Considered one of the more accurate AKs.

Cons

Rifle + Costs to make it a PG with a correct buttstock >= cost of a current-production Arsenal AK
Non-standard configuration with the rear tangs
Muzzle break pinned on
Front sight block also non-standard
Tapco 30-round polymer magazines will not fit (much too tight; would have to remove material from the magazines in order to get a good fit. I had the same problem with my Russian SKS)

Don't get me wrong, the rifle was a sweet AK. But for me personally, it was a much greater hassle to get the rifle to look like how is should with a pistol grip, wood furniture, threaded front sight block, and a bayonet lug. If you have the patience, tools, and ability then it's a great project gun. It shot great, had a very smooth action, crisp trigger, and it never had any jams with cheap Wolf ammo.

Another Earth (Drama 2011)

2011-11-29T22:10:00.000-08:00

This movie was hella boring. It tried to be all artsy and slow such but really it was just a crappy movie. Story goes like this. HS chick gets drunk, drives and kills a University professor's wife and son. She goes to jail for x number of years and gets out. Finds the professor, acts like a worker for cleaning service to gain entrance into his house, goes back and cleans some more, eventually fucks him, then tells him that she was the person who was the drunk that wiped out his family. WTF. Of course you saw this plot coming from a mile away but really...WTF.

The ending had something to do with forgiveness and redemption but really all I could think was that she boinked him...super messed up. The chick can't act either; needs a haircut as well.
Rating - D

The Greyfriar by Susan & Clay Griffith (Vampire Empire, Book 1) (Book 2010)

2011-11-26T23:28:00.000-08:00

I didn't think too much of this book when I started reading it but by the end I was pretty hooked into the plot. The story takes place in an alternative historical setting where vampires have taken over most lands of the north...so Europe, the US, Japan, etc. The atmosphere is very steampunk with airships, guns, and swords. Late 1800s is the ballpark era.

On some levels it feels like a teen chick story because of the romance involved but then the fight scenes and drama are more graphic and mature so I'm not sure where it truly lies. All I know is that the story and characters are interesting enough and I'll probably continue one with the next book.
Rating - High

Waiting for 'Superman' (Documentary 2010)

2011-11-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

So this movie was kinda interesting although it was highly skewed towards one side. Essentially it goes into how our public school system is hosed and how we have many bad teachers employed because they can't be fired because of unions.

Lots of different forum postings and teachers I've spoken to have given other viewpoints but yeah like politics, there is no real solution because there is too much red tape for things to be done.

All I know is that I was shuffled through many public and private schools in my day and I really didn't notice that much of a difference. You got some good teachers, a few bad ones, but most are just average. In class you had some smart students, a bunch of average ones, and a whole shitload of crappy ones. Just as long as you don't live in the ghetto, I think any student would be OK if they tried and didn't get preggers.
Rating - B

Green Lantern (Comic Action 2011)

2011-11-26T23:09:00.000-08:00

Ryan Reynolds should stick with comedies. He doesn't quite cut it with action movies at all. Yeah this movie was more blah than anything else. I wasn't really a fan of the Green Lantern in comic books so that might've had something to do with it.

Acting wasn't good at all, action was the same old stuff, and the villain was too CG. Give it a few days and I'll forget ever seeing this one.
Rating - D

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Action Drama 2011)

2011-11-26T23:00:00.001-08:00

So the final Potter movie was finally watched by yours truly. I think "anticlimactic" would be a good description. The whole series was a nice ride, and although this last one did have a lot of action, it didn't feel as extraordinary as it could've been.

Acting by all the primaries were all the same. It'll be funny to see if the red-headed kid will ever get anymore gigs right? But yeah the special effects were good, as expected, but the plot was hella rushed. It was action, action, action, ending. Hella fast with barely any real dialog. I barely remember reading this last book so it was all new to me but yeah it seemed way too fast and too much scrunched together. Oh well. OK ending to a long series but it didn't go out with a pimp bang as LOTR did.
Rating - B

The Mechanic (Action 2011)

2011-11-26T22:50:00.000-08:00

This was definitely not one of Statham's best moments. I'm sure it's because he had this loser of a co-pilot, Ben Foster, on screen with him. I don't like this guy's face...really plain and boring-looking. Dunno how this clown ever became an actor. But yeah this movie didn't have any cool Audi's like in the Transporter series so thus it kinda sucked. They replaced cool suits and cars with New Orleans and trucks. How about no.

Action was still OK but not as good as others. Can't really go recommending this one as it was highly forgetful.
Rating - C

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Action Drama 2011)

2011-11-26T22:40:00.000-08:00

This was a pretty good movie. Great intro to the whole series. James Franco was surprisingly good but the rest of the actors were unimpressive. Malfoy was in it so that was super annoying but at least he got his in the end. The regulations & science behind some of the decisions made by Franco's biotech company are questionable...I'm sure more approvals would realistically have to happen in order for various testing to occur on humans and such but yeah kinda scary if science labs can really produce crazy viruses and such. That's totally how zombies are gonna get created :-)
Rating - B

The Thing (Horror 1982)

2011-11-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

In general I rarely, if ever, watch old movies. Most of them usually suck and they seem oh so generic. But boy was I surprised when I finished watching this one. 1982 yo...I was a super small tyke back then.

So yeah this movie had Snake in it back when he was much younger. Don't know how to fully explain it but this was a different type of storytelling that was very good even though they didn't have any of the newfangled CG that films these days have. A lot of the alien scenes were pretty cool as well as I have no idea how they made stuff happen in terms of robotic animation. I'm sure they actually had artists make the "creatures" and also build the walking alien things. Probably took a bunch of skill back then. But yeah the special effects were awesome when you think about what year they made it in. Suspense, drama, and gore were all there as well. Nothing really bad about the film at all. Thoroughly entertaining. I watched this cuz I saw that they were doing a remake and most reviewer said to just watch the original as the new one didn't really add anything.
Rating - B

Whiteout (Action Thriller 2009)

2011-11-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

You know this review almost didn't happen since I had totally forgot that I had watched this movie lol. Yeah not memorable at all. This is one of those that you watch and you promptly forget because it was sorta boring. Even though Kate Beckinsale was in it, it's hard to cancel out a bland plot. Nothing more to say about it...Antarctica>a murder>most people evaced>find the killer & solve the mystery.
Rating - D

Drive (Drama 2011)

2011-10-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

So this movie was kinda slow. It was actually very slow at the beginning but then some semblance of a story started shining through. I guess it was OK? as in it didn't suck, but when the movie ended there didn't seem to be much point to the time spent watching it. Carey Mulligan was a bonus though...not too shabby American accent. But yeah...I really didn't get the point to the whole thing.
Rating - C

Busy Bee

2011-10-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

So I haven't updated in a while because I don't seem to have time for anything I actually want to do anymore. Hopefully I can squeeze a movie in soon. In the mean time I have dumped Android and have gone over to the dark side again with the iPhone 4s. It's not too different from the iPhone 4 from what I can tell but a few annoyances are popping up, namely.

How the hell do you sync Chrome bookmarks to their Safari browser? Searches have proved nil in terms of real solutions
If you have location services on all day your battery will drain down to 50% within 10 hours. Not very impressive...
No way to FTP movies onto this thing...will have to use iTunes and I doubt it'll read a bunch of formats either.
Had to connect to my Google stuff via an Exchange connection...hopefully that's the right way to do it? Going it the Gmail way = no contacts.
Not a bunch of good, free apps.

So what is the good over that of an Android phone?

If I push a button or tap the screen, it'll work. No lag, no bullshit, it'll detect and work.
Screen is purdy.

So yeah I'll see how this purchase pans out. Sometimes some tools in your life just need to work.

Update: I did not touch my phone since it was at 50% at 10ish this evening. At midnight I turned it on and it was at 1% before it died. Also, the thing was hella hot on the back of the phone and through a Speck Candyshell case. Something is wrong and this link says it's not only me. Terrific.

Captain America: The First Avenger (Action 2011)

2011-10-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

This movie was a pretty fun one. It's probably on the same level as Thor, but not as good as Iron Man. The story, action, and witty lines done by Tommy Lee Jones were all up to par. I'm quite glad since there seems to have been a turnaround in the quality of comic book movies since the whole slew of horrible ones half-a-decade back. Yeah I'm looking at you Elektra and Daredevil.

But yeah this one is worth a watch...a good intro to the upcoming Avengers film.
Rating - B

Horrible Bosses (Comedy 2011)

2011-10-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

So yeah this movie was supposed to be funny, but it really wasn't. I did laugh maybe 3 times in total but the characters were way too stupid for the humor to come through. Every comedy has to have some semblance of a story and this one didn't have a speck of it. Big no from me.
Rating - D

Ironclad (Action 2011)

2011-10-02T22:06:00.001-07:00

Yeah there's no way around it; this movie sucked. The whole story was so dull and all of the dialog was pointless. There were only 2 attributes what weren't so bad. The first was the gore. You got to see everything from hands getting cut off to an unlucky extra getting essentially sliced in half, like the main baddie from Rob Roy. The second was an impassioned speech made by Paul Giamatti explaining his royal divine right. It's funny to think that this was the same guy who played that nerdy wine connoisseur in Sideways.
Rating - D

Finnish M39 Rifle (1944 VKT)

2011-09-24T17:16:00.001-07:00

So here it is, a Finnish M39. After researching around one day, I found a pic of this rifle and thought that it looked mighty handsome. I then noticed that the magazine area looked exactly like my old Mosins, so I investigated further. Turns out that Finland used to be part of Russia before the Bolsheviks took over, and after they did, the country declared independence and confiscated all weapons in state armories located on their land. Most of the rifles were Mosins so they started working on improving them. There were other Finnish rifles that still looked like the regular M91/30s, but the M39 was the last iteration of those improvements.

As you can see the main difference is the wood near the handguard as well as the front sight post. The front sight is great on this rifle, even better than a more modern AK. It has 2 screws on each side of the sight. If you want to move the windage to one direction, all you need to do is unscrew it a bit on one end and then screw the other end tighter. They seem to hold pretty well as well so no apparent need for loctite.

The whole wood stock has actually been redone. The upper handguard is totally different as it is made up of a top wood portion with 2 metal bands that are screwed in. The main bulk of the stock is of much better quality and the grip area has an early 'pistol grip' mold as opposed to the straight stock of a Mosin.

What the Finns did was keep the receiver, magazine well, buttplate, and trigger assembly. Everything else they replaced such as: all the wood, front and rear sight, barrel, and bands. Finnish barrels are known to be very accurate and I can certainly attest to this fact. The rifle has lug for a knife-looking bayonet but supposedly it is hard to find a real bayo for this rifle. There are reproductions though so watch out.

So yeah I bought this rifle on a whim. If I would've thought more about all the reasons I personally sold off all my other Mosin-Nagants, I would've convinced myself to not purchase this, but the price was good and pictures were great.

Pros

The Finns made the trigger a 2-stage one like a modern Glock. This definitely makes shooting accurately much easier; it has a very clean break.
The rifle is definitely more accurate than my old M38 and 91/30.
The front-sight is very easy to adjust.
The overall sight picture is better than a Mosin.
It looks great!

Cons

The rifle is still heavy as fuck. Just around 10lbs and yeah it just sucks if you want to shoot accurately but are either standing or are on a knee. If you are shooting at a range with a benchrest then yeah this would be a great target rifle.
The Finns were unable to do anything to improve the action of the bolt. You still have to slap it hard like any other Mosin; remains lightyears away from the smoothness of a Mauser.

In a one-liner fashion, if you're even remotely looking at getting a Mosin-Nagant for a reason different from just putting rounds down range, you should really just look into a Finn M39. Paying $240-$350 as opposed to a $90 Nagant is totally worth the price difference in my opinion. There are just so many small issues with the M91/30 that end up being very annoying and you'll probably end up selling it anyway. There is always a chance for a historical find as well. My Finn was made on a hex receiver and it was marked with a R for Remington. Very rare even in the M91/30 world.

America The Dead (White Flag of the Dead Series) by Joseph Talluto (Book 2011)

2011-09-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

And the series marches on. I think he will have a 4th book coming out soon so hopefully I won't have to wait too long to continue with the story. This 3rd book picked up with John Talon as he set out on a new mission to save America from a new, evil antagonist. I can't say that I enjoy having this new character around though. Sure it does give purpose to the story but something about it rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps it's because he is so blatantly bad and a rapist to boot.

This book seemed to be not as exciting as the other two, especially the first book. I think things always get a bit boring when zombie apoc survivors settle down, stop running, and try to build a community. All that jazz is a little too mundane for an avid zombie reader like myself.

So yeah the writing style and story was good, but a bit bland. It also seemed short as well, as I cleared it in under 2 days with some light reading. Hopefully more action happens in the next few books.
Rating - Mid

The Company Men (Drama 2010)

2011-09-10T21:16:00.001-07:00

I liked this movie. It was an accurate depiction of what can happen when one loses their job and is subsequently unemployed afterwards. Yeah talking to people who have never truly been unemployed can be one of the most annoying things to go through. They just don't know what the fuck you're talking about can cannot relate at all. Anyone who has been unemployed for any long period of time should know what it feels like: it's something that seriously eats at your soul while you sit there scraping by for any hint of a job, whatever the wage/salary.

But yeah this movie was about a few guys who gave their all for a company that ended up fucking them over in the end. Ben Affleck's character I couldn't give two shits about even though he was the primary because seriously...who buys a Porsche Boxster? If you're going to get a Porsche to be a DB, get a 911 like a real man. Anyway Affleck's character was obviously not very wise when it came to money. He bought a house that he could totally not afford with his salary and then he didn't have any real equity in it because why? I'm sorry if you make $120K + commission...you should be able to put in some equity on a house right? Yeah so he loses his job, then his house, then he has to move back in with his folks. All this happens in a matter of months. This guy was a fool with his money so it's hard to feel sorry for him.

As for the other 2 main characters, they were more well off so it wasn't as bad, but yeah it was pretty depressing seeing them go through demeaning interviews and moping around after being canned. I think if someone made a real documentary of this phenomenon in America, it would be a much better movie. But unfortunately this is all we got in the realm of cinema.

In looking at the core of it, being unemployed and either bombing or not getting any interviews makes one feel like a loser...a total loser. You keep thinking back to your old jobs and how you thought, and probably were, useful and important in some way. But after you apply to the black hole known as careers@company.com, it starts eating at you after the first 2 weeks and it just gets worse as your savings dwindle.

The end of this film was hopeful but yeah that was about it. It was overall kinda depressing but it did have some good parts/lessons.
Rating - B

Dying to Live: Last Rites by Kim Paffenroth (Book 2011)

2011-09-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

So thankfully this was the last book of the series. When you look at it as just a story, then it isn't all that bad, but when you look at it as a zombie apoc book then yeah it's all full of shit.

The story in this book follows around the main zombie characters who have maintained some semblance of their intelligence. They meet up with many others who are not mindless, and that throws the whole "world" into a loop. Either way the author does a good job telling the story from the zombies' point of view so that's good, but yeah it's hard to not look at this as a zombie apoc book and the last part of a series. Overall the whole series is not worth reading, but as a standalone book was fair.
Rating - Mid

Thor (Action 2011)

2011-08-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

This comic book adventure wasn't half bad. One good thing they did was that they kept a lot of the action is Asgard and not on crappy Earth. I hate it when a movie base its plot on Earth when it's supposed to be a Sci-fi-like movie just to save money. The most memorable film that did this was Star Trek IV. So this film wins points by not screwing with the trailer to trick the viewer.

Anyway, the main character, Chris Hemsworth, seemed like a jolly guy. It's good to see that him being an ass at the beginning was really just acting. His attraction towards Portman did seem a bit fake though. Not a lot of chemistry there from what I could see but Portman did try to make it work. The rest of the movie was enjoyable to watch...nice summer flick.
Rating - B

Your Highness (Comedy 2011)

2011-08-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Oh my...I'm hard pressed to think of another movie that I've seen that can even slightly resemble this one. This movie was pretty dumb but oh my...it did have a good number of highly crude one-liners that almost made me piss myself.

Yeah this was one of those films that was so dumb and foolish that you may have thought it might be associated with the Wayans Bros. I only kept watching because I wanted to see if they could top the next level of low-brow humor that the previous scene showed. Because yeah everything really sucked about it. Story, plot, acting, environmental special effects, etc. But hey it did make me laugh right?
Rating - C

Water for Elephants (Romantic Drama 2011)

2011-08-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

You know surprisingly this movie wasn't half-bad. I mean I still don't think Pattinson can act worth a damn, but the storytelling was pretty good. The main actor that was more-so impressive was Christoph Waltz. He usually plays a bad guy in most films, so it was only fitting that he was the main ass in this one.

The rest of the movie was your average romance flick. Some parts were more convincing than others, but it wasn't too Notebooky and the end didn't have the same sap.
Rating - B

Dying to Live: Life Sentence by Kim Paffenroth (Book 2008)

2011-08-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

Ok this series just went and took a shit in the woods. I have no desire to read about thinking zombies, none whatsoever. I thought this series was supposed to be just like all the others...surviving in a zombie-infested world. Who voted for the story to tangent off into a la la land of zombies who actually think and are not only out for blood and brains?

Yeah fuck a whole bunch of this...I finished this one and unfortauntely I already bought the 3rd book before I knew about this change. What a load of horse shit.
Rating - Low

Super 8 (Adventure Drama 2011)

2011-08-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

So this movie was OK. I don't remember if I ever did watch ET so I can't compare it to that even though everyone who talks about this film say it's much like it.

The story felt like a "coming of age" film. The kids were all immature and such in the beginning but a few of them had to start maturing pretty quickly as the movie went on. The plot was kinda simple though...I'm sure that was intentionally done to insure that it would remain understandable to the youngins. I did notice that the music was really good at the last scene so I'm guessing Spielberg had something to do with that.

So yeah...the story was OK, the monster was not too impressive, and some of the younger actors like the main fat kid and the primary chick were pretty good.
Rating - B

Hanna (Action 2011)

2011-08-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

Now this movie was much better than the last one. Think The Bourne Identity in female form. The main chick actress, Saoirse Ronan, did a good and convincing job as a sheltered assassin. Her first kill after getting captured was nuts. But yeah the movie was very fast paced and action-filled. A good investment of a Saturday nite.
Rating - B

Source Code (Action 2011)

2011-08-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

This movie was OK. Some parts were more exciting than others but overall a decent watch. The story kinda didn't make sense as in "how" the scientists were able to make the system that the whole plot took place in. I found that unexplained hole to be one of the only downsides of the story. Everything else was your average, run of the mill action movie.
Rating - C

Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth (Book 2010)

2011-08-07T16:57:00.001-07:00

So this book is the first in a 3-part series. It was one of the main zombie books listed on Amazon so I thought I would give it a try. The beginning was OK but then after the main character got to an encampment the rest of the plot went stagnant.

This book was just a little too slow. The writing was very descriptive so that was a plus but there wasn't enough action that I'm more accustomed to. I already bought the other 2 books when I bought this one so I'll finish up the series but this first one didn't win any real points.
Rating - Mid

Paul (Comedy 2011)

2011-08-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, it has been a while since I laughed this hard. Super funny movie. Yeah the trailers for this movie about says it all. A pair of British comic nerds run into this alien and they travel around in an RV trying to get the alien, Paul, back to his ship.

Paul is just like a normal smart-ass guy and the comedy just ebbs out from there. Yeah it was crude and slapstick humor but damn funny.
Rating - A

Stake Land (Action Drama 2010)

2011-08-07T15:16:00.001-07:00

I only saw the trailer for this one and it got me kinda excited. Unfortunately the ending was such a let down that I can't give it a better score.

The movie follows around this kid and a guy in a world where vampires have kinda taken over and have run amok. Note that these vamps are not smart, organized, or wear expensive Victorian-era clothes...they are much like zombies except faster & stronger with personalities of a wild animal.

Anyway, the plot is simple. This guy and this kid are vampire hunters of sorts who are trying to get up to Canada where it is supposedly safe. Towns are either dead or fortified with human inhabitants. Other areas are controlled by zealous religious groups or criminal gangs.

One thing the film did well in was setting up the ambiance and environment. It really did feel like a post-apoc setting all dark and dangerous. Most films that don't have a big budget usually fuck this part up. But they couldn't just leave it like that because the ending really sucked. I won't spoil it but it really was a crappy ending to a film.
Rating - C

Newfangled DisplayPort

2011-08-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

So yeah I'm a big fan of a 1400x900 resolution on a 19" LCD. There is straight up no other resolution/size that is optimal for my eyes. I've tried bigger but it just isn't the same when you have to move your whole head to see everything at a decent DPI on a huge-ass screen. Anyhoo...my LCD is old school so it only has a DVI and Analog connector in the back: No HDMI or DP. So with the advent of newer laptops, most only have an HDMI or DP connector...they totally bypassed DVI probably because they consider it old technology. Oh well.

Fast forward to the dilemma I was facing a while ago. I essentially wanted to hook up a Lenovo T410 laptop with a DP out to my DVI LCD and I went through like 3 "adapters" from Ebay that looked similar to this.
In a nutshell if you see a block unit like above don't count on it working. I did manage to get a Dell-branded accessory part for around $7 that worked perfectly: Model 023-NVR. Other manufacturers also sell similar devices that have a cord then a connector on each end for around $20 and others claim that they work. Just FYI if you're looking for the same type of adapter; don't waste your time with the cheap-ass $2 block ones.

Z1N1: The Zombie Pandemic: 2012 Was Just the Beginning by Mitchell Layne Cook (Book 2010)

2011-08-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

Yeah so this book wasn't really good at all. The action was bland, the characters were dull, and it overall was just boring. The author decided to split the story up into 2 parts with 2 groups of people. I thought that it would somehow add to the story or bring something together in the end, but when the last e-page of the book was turned, I found no eureka.

Yeah it wasn't horrible as in the author does know how to spell and to create sentences but the story was really really boring.
Rating - Low

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (Comedy 2011)

2011-07-28T22:06:00.000-07:00

I'll save you some minutes of your life. This movie sucked ass...totally a bore. It should never have been created.
Rating - F

Biohazard by Tim Curran (Books 2011)

2011-07-24T16:38:00.001-07:00

I thought I would stray away from the zombie genre and get to some other post-apoc fiction. This one was a random book I picked out that had some good ratings, but other than that, I knew nothing of the author or his previous works.

In a nutshell this book wasn't for me and I'd be hard pressed to find others who genuinely liked it. The plot was average, but the author spent so much time describing in detail how deformed various people were with their pustules bursting with green/black fluid and bloody mucus leaking out of every hole... Very descriptive, but it took up way too much space. I'm all for gore and such, but when you use it in every other sentence, it numbs you out right quick.

But as the story dragged on, this normal post-apoc plot went renegade and popped in some supernatural stuff. This ruined it for me. Post-apoc stories are supposed to be realistic, not spiritual, unless this was stated beforehand which it wasn't. So yeah I couldn't wait to be done with this book. It was pretty boring, broke the laws of current science, and was overall without substance.
Rating - Low

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Action 2011)

2011-07-24T16:24:00.001-07:00

So the grapevine said that the movie sucked...I would disagree. This Transformers movie was just like the other 2 which I liked. It had cars, action, explosions, and more action. What were the naysayers wanting?

As any movie series drags on, I do think that none of them will ever reach the pinnacle that the first one did. I think this is because the 1st of a series always has good character-building as opposed to later films that assume that the audience already knows all of the characters and heads straight-on into the plot.

For this film they introduced a new Autobot: Sentinel Prime. I think his sub-story could've been expanded on 10 fold. But instead the action was more important and they glossed over everything relating to the character's past. See the thing is I think if they actually went into the backstories a bit more, this movie could've been something much greater than just an action flick. Either way it was worth seeing but know what your expectations are.
Rating - B

X-Men: First Class (Action 2011)

2011-07-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

Wow I wasn't expecting this movie to be as good as it was but damn...it's nice to be surprised every few months. This movie was probably the best X-Men movie yet.

It actually had a story believe it or not. The action was impressive, of course, but the rest of what makes a movie good was all integrated inside of this one. You got the beans of Xavier and Magneto before they became the heads of their two factions and you got to see the development of Mystique and how she turned. After watching the film I had to look up a bunch of characters since I was not familiar with a bunch of 'em but yeah. It seems as though they created a new timeline with these characters as many of them had stories that were not in line with the comics. Either way, they did a good job.
Rating - A

Living With the Dead: Year One by Joshua Guess (Books 2011)

2011-07-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

First I'll give some props to the group of writers who probably worked tirelessly to bring this book to fruition. Any reader can totally tell that a bunch of effort was put into it, but unfortunately as a book I didn't find it fully engaging. For this writer, the blog format just doesn't work. The emotional effects of reading action real-time is the same like in a movie. You become entranced in what is happening as you don't know if someone is going to get ambushed by zombies or whatnot. But in a blog format you know that the character is sitting there writing so he's good to go in that respect. I guess the point is that there is a stark difference between talking about events using the past tense and talking about them using the present tense. It is just not that exciting.

This book was actually very long. It took me a good number of weeks to get through the whole thing. I was casually reading off and on but it still was long. That's a very good thing; you get your money's worth via your Kindle. You got to know some primary characters pretty well by the time you get to the end of the book so the empathy thing is there but yeah the action and story did not blow my socks off.

I have a few complaints but these all are personal ones. Others may find my points irrelevant but that's OK. First off the characters use a blog, cell phones, and laptops to update their life after the fall of civilization. A lot of their reasoning is that the smart people at Google found a way to essentially hack into the whole of the Internet to keep billions of computers and servers up and functioning. Umm no. Even if they did have some excellent hackers there is still no way you can keep up such a vast network remotely. Too many things are dependent on having people on-site IT-wise even if they had a fully virtualized system. I'm mainly referring to the local ISPs and their network. The second thing is the cellular network and power. Same rules apply here as well. To keep electricity flowing and to keep the cell network up it takes too many resources that again, need to be real people doing the work. I'm sure that if you could control a robot body that then it could be possible but we are currently nowhere near that level of technology.

So yeah those were my complaints. There were other small things that annoyed me but for the most part it was a good read and worth the money. I just find the main framework of the characters' communication and power network flawed because it just wouldn't happen that way.
Rating - Mid

The Adjustment Bureau (Sci-Fi Drama 2011)

2011-07-04T18:09:00.001-07:00

This movie was a bit different from the norm. It was actually not bad though. It had a Dark City feel to it without having it be that grey. The whole plot actually had a pretty positive streak to it. The premise did have a slight religious purpose to it but thankfully it was one in a way that had zero to do with religion. Props to that technique. Either way decent movie even though it's forgettable.
Rating - B

Priest (Fantasy Action 2011)

2011-06-26T12:29:00.001-07:00

This movie was based on a graphic novel and that fact indeed shows as there is a superficial story with close to zero character development. Paul Bettany tends to have a lot of these roles. The movie Legion comes to mind.

So yeah you have this priest who goes out of a mega-city (Very Judge Dredd-like) and bumps into Vampires who are supposed to be all dead or in "reservations". He investigates more and finds out that a new vamp army is headed to the cities and goes on a hunt to stop the baddies.

The action was OK at some parts but again there was a crappy story so it kinda didn't matter much. The film seemed to concentrate around about 7 fight scenes that had a bunch of special effects and CG. The story was just filler.
Rating - D

Captivate Official Froyo 2.2 Upgrade Method

2011-06-12T00:24:00.001-07:00

So for one reason or another I can't upgrade to the Official AT&T Froyo using Kies Mini from their main site here. Perhaps it's because I have Win7 x64 or maybe because Samsung sucks some nuts. Either way in lieu of this deficiency, I was able to get the official 2.2 update from the instructions written here. In a nutshell you download the actual 184MB update file and download a different version of Odin.

Use Odin one-click to get phone back to stock
Ensure that all drivers are A-OK with connecting the phone to the puter in USB debugging mode
Turn off phone and restart computer.
On the computer get the Odin3 v1.0 up
Extract the Update ZIP and put the .tar file on the PDF area on Odin.
Put together the Captivate with the battery and cover, hold down both volume keys, then plug the USB into the captivate (The USB cord is already supposed to be connected to the computer).
Odin should detect the phone under a COM3 or COM7 or some other sort of COM port. When you see yellow push that Start button then you're off to the races.

Now I'll be selling this piece of shit Captivate with its broken-ass GPS hardware. Good riddance.

Rango (Animated Adventure 2011)

2011-06-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

So this movie was a bit weird. All of the characters were animals and they were all drawn very oddly. I mean look at the poster of the main character...he just looks so damn bizarre. I forgot if he was a lizard or whatnot. There was an eagle and snake in the film who were both drawn better, but yeah for the rest of the characters it was an odd ride.

The story in this one was fair but nothing too interesting. I honestly wasn't impressed much. The animation and music and such were OK but I didn't give a rat's ass about anything going on in the story. It had everything you'd expect of an animated adventure type of story but it was overall very blah. Have you seen Madagascar? If so you'll leave this one with the same feeling you left after watching that one.
Rating - C

True Grit (Western Drama 2010)

2011-06-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

I generally hate anything that the Cohen Brothers release because their movies are so slow, sub-par, and generally very boring. Yeah I'm referring to this pile of horse shit. Anyway, good thing for them, westerns are always pretty slow so if they wanted to put anything artsy into it, it might just work.

This movie wasn't too bad. It wasn't anything amazing but a good number of lines did make me laugh and the main chick was hella annoying which means that she was an OK actress. The story was fair for a western movie. It had a very direct plot with a discernible purpose so that is always a plus. Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon were both pretty good as well. Bridges sure can mumble... But yeah nothing super special about the film but if you like westerns you'll probably like this one. If you don't, be ready for a slow movie.
Rating - B

Taking It Back: Zombie Survival Series Book 2 by Joseph Talluto (Book 2011)

2011-06-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

This book was a continuation of the story from the first. The style and plot were exactly the same which bodes for a novel of this type. It did seem a bit short though, as I was able to clear the book in one evening. Good thing is that there will be a 3rd book coming soon so I can't wait to read that one.

In terms of realism I noticed that the main character keeps on ditching his kid with a babysitter and telling his GF that he has to go off and adventure some more. In the real world I don't think any GF/wife would let their guy go off an adventure unless it had a a direct, immediate benefit. Either that or the GF/wife would want to come along and help. It all depends on personalities of course, but the majority of females I know would definitely not be OK with being left behind.

So the story in this book filled in a few questions that lingered for the main protagonist. At the same time he got to expand to different towns and interact with more people. I believe I mentioned this before in the review of Mr. Talluto's first book, but generally the more people you have, the more drama will come. I'm talking about civil disputes and arguments. That is what would realistically happen but the plot is still convincing even though the author did not go into this at all; good thing too because who wants to listen to a bunch of political bickering?

As one may be able to assess, my opinion on this book and Joseph Talluto's previous novel are both top notch. Good characters, enough action, and an overall pleasant zombie reading experience. Till #3.
Rating - High

Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik (Book 2011)

2011-06-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

So as other reviewers have stated this was probably the worst book of the series. Even though it started out strong, it is now dragging on in a way that makes the reader very sleepy.

So the main characters are now essentially exiled from England and the rest of their military friends. They were sent to Australia because that is where the convicts from the British Isles went during that period of time. This does not bode well for the series. What makes a story strong has to do a lot with characters' interactions with others. So now since there are no other real strong characters I don't know what Novik can do with the rest of the series.

The plot in this one still had other dragons and characters and such, but by the end of the book everyone else was gone so thus it leaves nothing to be desired in terms of reading the next one. But yeah this book was very slow and boring. The exciting parts weren't all that either because there was not a blatant distinction between right/wrong good/bad. The ending was weird in that the characters were placed in an odd situation where they didn't know if they should obey orders or do what is "right". Anyway as a standalone book it sucked. I think Novak should write the characters back into a plot over in England or just stop writing because the road that Temeraire and Laurence is on doesn't have much brick left.
Rating - Low

Kung Fu Panda 2 (Animated Action 2011)

2011-05-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

So one odd thing about this movie was that I totally thought it was the 3rd one, not the second. I think they had some short film that I saw before but now I totally forgot about it. Either way though...this movie was not too bad.

The story has a new villain as it delves into the past of Po, the panda. It went at the speed of an average animated flick. Lots of fighting scenes, simple dialog, and a bunch of visuals. If you thought the first film was entertaining then this one will fall right in line.
Rating - B

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Action 2011)

2011-05-28T22:32:00.001-07:00

The first few of these movies were entertaining but now it's getting kinda ridiculous. Captain Jack Sparrow is at it again as he searches for the Fountain of Youth in this latest summer blockbuster. It really shouldn't be that popular though as it really wasn't good.

As compared to the first and second films, they all had different actors in it to make it a bit more diversified. This movie had Penélope Cruz as a sidekick and lemme tell ya...she isn't much of a Robin to Batman.

Yeah I really didn't like it at all. I thought it was boring and was too much of me waiting for some witty remark to come from Johnny Depp. There were a few OK one-liners but that was about it. Not worth the time or money.
Rating - C

Vanishing on 7th Street (Thriller 2010)

2011-05-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

Well is seems as though Anakin Skywalker sucks in other movies as well. This proves it; Hayden Christensen should never be given the privilege of being on screen again...he just doesn't deserve it.

This movie was a steaming pile of shit. I don't know how much of a story can be told from only one premise being that of ""Stay in the light". There really was no plot. It just followed around a handful of people as they tried to not get nabbed away by the darkness. None of the questions raised in the story were ever explained. The ending was also just as ambiguous. I personally think it was a complete waste of time. I can't see how anyone's opinion can be different.
Rating - D

SSD + Images = No

2011-05-24T21:26:00.000-07:00

So today I tried to take an image of a regular, mechanical HDD and then re-image it onto an SSD. After many failed attempts I found a few postings about how the there is some weird thing about partitions being not aligned which would cause some MBR errors. What the fuck is this? Either way the main error code was: A disk read error occurred, Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart So note to self: don't try to put images onto an SSD cuz there will be some issues. I'm sure there would be less problems if both the regular HDD and SSD were the exact same size, then the imaging software would not have to place it onto a larger SSD drive but still I think you'd run into the same types of problems. Just do a fresh install and it'll save you half-a-day of work.

Retirementology by Gregory Salsbury (Book 2010)

2011-05-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

So I got this book free through the Kindle store a while back. I've been plodding through it slowly but yeah it essentially talks about what everyone knows: We're fucked.

By this they say the same old story. Keep on investing and putting moneys into your 401K. Compound interest = everything. They even gloss over the housing bubble bursting, people not saving enough of their income, people living outside their means, etc. but shit...none of this really matters because of the global financial situation.

Check it out. Many of us live within our means...saving a bunch of cash that you really don't need while trying to get taxed the least as possible. I keep a bunch of money in an ING Money Market account because I hella don't trust the stock market and I'd rather get a measly 1% than lose any of it. In the past, whenever I put cash into my RothIRA, that shit plummeted and I lost a bunch of its initial value. 10 years later the price has still not recovered and I'm still in the red. Everything that is supposed to make the value go up such as dividends and splits never materialized. And yes my portfolio is highly diversified in multiple mutual funds. These days I would much rather keep my money in a low risk place until stuff starts picking up...but when will that happen? I have no clue.

But yeah it kinda irked me how the author was talking shit about people who hide their money under the mattress. Although the actual act is stupid, the concept is not. The author goes off by saying that investing and getting an 8+% return in 30 years is way to go because compound interest will make that value go higher and higher but yeah...never in my investing lifetime have I seen an 8% return on shit. It plain doesn't exist even though this guy believes it to. To make matters worse, if it did increase at that rate after WWII and into the 60s and 70s and such...the US economy is in much dire straights than it was back then which means that we have more debt, more inflation, and less cost of living increases. There is not that much space for us to make a profit in at all. Other than Google, Apple, and all the oil giants, what companies are actually profitable?

So yeah this book is kinda outdated because I really don't think the old method of investments + time = a good return. Maybe I'm just dumb but I'd rather be dumb with some money rather than "savvy" with no money. Just ask all those old peeps who lost 40-60% of their 401K value with the housing bubble burst.
Rating - Low

TrendMicro OfficeScan Fails Again

2011-05-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

So today yet another virus got through our endpoint defenses. It wasn't too bad but it did have a few extra annoyances that I wasn't expecting.

Symptoms

Regular popup and app running on task bar masking itself as an AV product
Everything under C drive hidden or otherwise blank
Desktop blank unable to right-click
Start menu partially blank. Directories are there but no programs at the end of the tree
Task manager disabled under CTRL+ALT+DEL

Solutions

Virus is located under c:\documents and settings\all users\application data\ Get rid of the executable and kill it from the registry startup.
Get a console up and type in: attrib -h *.* /S /D This will get rid of the hidden attribute for all files that are not system files or otherwise special.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ Explorer (DWORD // NoViewContextMenu) Value of 0 for Disable HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\ Explorer (DWORD // NoViewContextMenu) Value of 0 for Disable
Go to Documents & Settings>User name>Local Settings>Temp>smtmp There you should find the missing shortcuts. I actually deleted this beforehand so I had to restore from a 3rd party backup.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ System (DWORD // DisableTaskMgr) Value of 0 for Disable

All these solutions were found by scouring Google, so I take no credit for it, but in the end it all worked.

Go Tirerack!

2011-05-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Tirerack has a shipping warehouse 12 minutes East of Reno? I didn't know that until I ordered some tires then their customer service department called me asking if I wanted to pick the tires up for cheaper. It totally saved me the $42.14 that it would've cost for shipping. Yes I did have to pay NV sales tax but that that only went up to $30.40.

The OEM tires on Mr. Fit (Rachel VI) only lasted 27.4k miles before the fronts were right on the wear marker. Rears had .5mm to 1mm more. The Fit had super weird dimensions of 185/55R-16s of which there are 3 or 4 tires in existence so thus not many good ones to choose from. That and the OEMs had a pretty low tread life rating. Thus I went with some 560AA Yokohamas; not bad for $100 tires.

So the total cost breakdown was:

205/50R-16 Yokohama AVID ENVigor (H&V)

$400 Tires 4x

$4 NV Tire Fee

$30.40 NV Tax

---------

$434.40 Total

Picked up so no shipping

Installation at Mr Hubcap and Wheel

$15 Installation 4x

$2.50 TPMS Valve Stems 4x

$3 Disposal Fee 4x

---------

$82.00 Total

---------

$516.40 Full Total

This price was much better than anything Les Schwab, Discount Tires, Costco, or Tires Plus could come up with with the same quality of tire being sold. There were some quotes that were cheaper but those were with some shit brand of tires with a 300-400 tread rating. I'm quite happy with my research abilities. With only a small investment of time you can totally get the best deal with tires that you actually want.

Rio (Animated Adventure 2011)

2011-05-15T16:22:00.001-07:00

This was a pretty entertaining animated movie. The voice work was actually quite good and I laughed a reasonable amount of times. I don't dig the musical songs as much as I did when I was a youngin' but good thing is that those pass fairly quickly.

Story was simple and straightforward, animation was good, and it's a pretty decent flick for the kids.

Rating - B

The Lost Bladesman (Foreign Chinese Action 2011)

2011-05-15T16:17:00.001-07:00

Yeah this movie should be renamed to "Your Lost Evening" because that's what it stole from me. This movie was oh so slow with a bunch of talking and it kept on going and going... For these foreign flicks they have to have a bunch of action happening or else the audience gets bored. I didn't even have subtitles with this one so it was a lot of guessing that had to go on.

Overall it was definitely one of the lower films on the scale.

Rating - D

Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck (Book 2010)

2011-05-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

Now this book totally surprised the hell out of me. I really wasn't expecting this to be that good but it really was. If Hollywood wants an idea for a movie this book should be highly recommended.

Yeah the story started out pretty simple but then it got more exciting and fascinating as the characters went deeper into Antarctica. There is this whole historical, Atlantean element to the plot which made it a bunch more interesting. All the while the action and suspense was terrific as well. This was a damn good story and in a book that makes all the difference.

Rating - High

New Zed Order: Survive By Todd Sprague (Book 2011)

2011-04-30T22:50:00.001-07:00

This story revolved around a guy and his very large extended family hunkering down instead of traveling around like most protagonists in zombie books. Even though I suppose this works from the plot perspective, I felt that way too many things were just "too convenient". The way they got their guns, supplies, food, and other necessities was just plain too easy. Yes there was enough action to keep things realistic but it really...I'm sure it would be much harder to find resources and people with usable skills.

One annoying thing about the story was that too many paragraphs ended with the main character and his wife talking. She would say stuff about her not wanting him to leave the compound to risk his life for the group and him saying that he had to do it. I swear I read such a statement no less than 5 times.

The author did throw a few wrenches into the average zombie story. The first was some secret paramilitary organization up to no good, the whole last few chapters was odd and not explained fully, and the whole "ghost" thing with the brother-in-law stood out as well. Hopefully the next book does not take a sharp turn towards fantasy-land...

Overall it was OK. I'll be reading the next book so it kept me interested, but yeah the author still needs a bit of work.

Rating - Mid

The Eagle (War Action 2011)

2011-04-30T22:33:00.001-07:00

This movie was fair. It was much better than many of the other stories that have been made revolving around the 9th Legion. The battle at the beginning of the movie was actually pretty good. Not big-budget like Gladiator but still not too bad.

The main bulk of the film wasn't too exciting. Just a lot of traveling and some bickering dialog here and there. The movie is only worth it for the beginning and the end...everything else was just filler.

Rating - C

The Rite (Thriller 2011)

2011-04-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

This movie will be forgotten in about a week's time as it wasn't really good. Anthony Hopkins did what he could but he wasn't the main character so yeah...

What you see in the trailer is exactly what you get in the film from the plot standpoint. The ending is also what you would expect. The only thing that stood out was the make-up at certain scenes. Crazy how you can make a person look possessed by adding a bunch of black veins and such.

Rating - C

Skyline (Sci-Fi Action 2010)

2011-04-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

First off, could they have picked an uglier-looking main character? I mean look at Eric Balfour with his elongated face and just plain foul-looking mug.

So yeah all the rumors were 100% true. This was a shit movie...no ways around it. All of the characters were horrible and well hated, and I mean all of them. Girls and guys alike were all overacting, had horrible lines, and were excessively unattractive. The plot never explained anything about the invading aliens and the end was just plain stupid. It was one of those movies were I sat there in disbelief that they actually made this film; it was that bad.

No use on wasting time or money. Why? Because the plot goes like this. Ugly characters arrive in LA. The following morning aliens attack and start stealing bodies and brains. The main characters try to escape but are holed up in a condo. Aliens continue to attack and many characters are either killed or captured. The main dude's brain is taken and put into a husk. His eyes glow orange instead of blue hinting that he is in control of the husk. End titles. Such bullshit.

Rating - F

The Horde (Foreign French Horror 2009)

2011-04-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

So I have to admit that when I watched this, there were no English subtitles so it was all French...a language that I understand all of 2 words. I really don't think knowing the dialog would've helped though.

The movie wasn't very good. It was about a group of cops going into a building to get at some baddies. A shootout commences and then zombies start randomly attacking. They make it to the roof where they see the city all up in flames cuz of the turmoil. They then band together to try to escape.

For a zombie flick it was a bit weak. All the characters were exaggerated. The black guys were huge and crazy, the female cop was very strong-willed, and another cop was all goody goody nuts as well. To put it lightly, all the characters blew ass and I didn't care if any of them survived. The zombies were the fast type that and had pretty good hand-eye coordination. But yeah as a film, it's worth skipping...the end was lame too.

Rating - D

A Dog Named Slugger by Leigh Brill (2010 Book)

2011-04-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

So this was one of those free books that came around for the Kindle. I'd have to say that it was fairly educational in terms of how a disabled person gets a service dog. Crazy to think how well behaved these dogs can be trained to be.

Overall it was a good read. The author went into detail from the beginning to the eventual end. I'm sure you can predict what an ending entails; pretty sad.

But yeah for a freebie, it's definitely worth a read, especially if you like dogs.

Rating - High

Legion (Action 2010)

2011-04-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

Geez, not good at all. Yeah from the previews you might've guessed that this movie would be a flop, and that it was. The story was very bland, the characters were pretty uninteresting, and everything else about this movie sucked.

The only good thing was that there was one scene where the main character, Michael, battled another angel with actual wings. Usually in all movies involving angels, they always find a way to remove the wings so that the scene becomes cheaper to produce.

Rating - D

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived by Paul S. Kemp (Book 2011)

2011-04-09T20:52:00.001-07:00

As a precursor to the actual game coming out, this book does a splendid job of setting the mood of the time frame for SWTOR. The book has 2 running storylines. The first is of Darth Malgus and his activities after his sacking of Coruscant, and the second is about a female jedi named Aryn, who is out to kill Malgus because of his transgressions.

The characters and story were both very well written and developed. I totally felt like I was back "in" the world of Star Wars, just like playing KOTOR. It was a complete story from start to finish and I'm very impressed with this author. I'll definitely be looking into his other works to see if they can reach the same high standards that this book has set.

Rating - High

Battle: Los Angeles (War Drama 2011)

2011-04-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

So this movie was OK...not the greatest but not the worst either. The whole thing seemed to be a very long recruitment ad for the Marines though, if that is even believable.

Yeah throughout the whole film the characters were really an afterthought as everything concentrated around peeps shooting aliens or being shot by aliens. There were so many artificial scenes where people would be "tough" or "sentimental" or "courageous". It's kinda like watching a movie on TV but before you knew it they weirdly shoved God into the mix and then you find out that you just got duped into watching part of a religious flick. I'm all for the military and war and such, but this movie really should've been on a recruitment website and not an actual movie because it really wasn't one.

Special effects were good, the military stuff like a bunch of helicopters in formation was nice, and some musical inserts were OK as well. Acting was blah, the main character played by Aaron Eckhart was a bad pick as a primary, and the rest of the peeps I don't even remember.

Rating - C

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Fantasy 2010)

2011-04-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

This was a pretty good Potter movie. It totally felt like you were ditched in the middle though. I think they should've just made the film into a single, 4-5 hour extraviganza instead of splitting the last book into 2 movies.

Yeah because of the splitting it's hard to rate it because it really did feel unfinished. It has been a few days and all I remember are just a few key scene sequences here and there. I barely even remember all of the characters because it has been so long since I've read the books or seen the other movies.

Either way acting and special effects were good. Music at key moments were excellent as well. One more to go.

Rating - B

The Green Hornet (Action 2011)

2011-04-03T22:06:00.001-07:00

Man this movie was straight up, fucking rediculous. It was so so so so bad I can't even articulate it enough. Everything in it was God-awful...such an abomination to films in general.

So yeah, story was ass, the main villan was a joke, Jay Chou can't speak English, and all of the car and fight scenes were just so bad.
Rating - F

The Infection by Craig DiLouie (Book 2011)

2011-04-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

So this book was definitely not as good as others I've read. I'm still trying to pinpoint the actual cause, but I have a feeling that it was because the story didn't flow too well.

The book starts out fine, having a regular guy being dumped into a world where people start screaming, losin' it, then coming back. Soon afterwards he meets up with a group of survivors and they start their journey out of the city. This is all good and dandy, but 2 issues arose that made the reading all the more cumbersome.

The first is the fact that the story kept on jumping around from the main plot to the background story of a specific character. It totally ruined the flow, as every time I had to readjust myself to the location and perspective of another character. I know that other authors have done this and it has worked well, but for this story, it just didn't seem right.

The second might be a spoiler of sorts, but I don't care. Instead of having just zombies, you also have these alien-mutated creatures that are out to get the humans. This ruined it for me. I like zombies and only zombies...if I wanted a Sci-Fi book I would've bought one with spaceships and such. I think if the author would've integrated the source of these alien creatures, the story might've made more sense, but it didn't. Instead all we get is: humans get infected and start screaming, then they "die and come back as zombies, then alien creatures start appearing and using humans as gestation nests, then titan-sized aliens appear.

One additional thing that bothered me was that in one scene it said something about a character flicking off the safety on a Glock. Glocks don't have a physical safety; I knew that back in Jr. HS and I didn't know shit about guns back then. So obviously the writer is not a gun person; fair enough, but hell...why couldn't he just ask someone or do a bit of research himself? If I was going to write a book and put an object that I didn't know anything about in it, I think I would have the sense to ask someone about it so I wouldn't look like a fool.

Obviously I am not recommending this book to anyone. In the writing world you get one chance and Craig DiLouie blew it.
Rating - Low

Shaolin (Foreign Chinese Action 2011)

2011-03-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

This movie was OK. A little melodramatic at times but overall it was good. The story was about a warlord in China, after the 1911 Revolution, who underwent a change of heart after his daughter got killed because of his greed and ambition. As the title states, he becomes a Shaolin monk and with their help fights off another warlord and pretty much saves the day while becoming a martyr.

That's the whole story in a nutshell but just picture it taking close to 3 hours to tell. Everything was good...no real big mistakes anywhere and overall good acting from a solid list of good Chinese actors.

Rating - B

Hereafter (Drama 2010)

2011-03-24T08:10:00.001-07:00

This movie was OK but it's quite forgettable as well. Matt Damon plays this dude who can talk to dead peeps and convey messages while his brother is some loser trying to pawn him off at every turn. There are 2 other parallel stories going on in the plot but you really don't care about either of 'em.

The main thing killing this film is the inconsistent nature of the 2 other stories. Because they were either boring or annoying, I couldn't find time to care about their plights. So with all the scene jumping that was going on, I was only interested in 1/3 of the film.
Rating - C

Sacrifice (Foreign Chinese Drama 2010)

2011-03-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Gosh, talk about a slow movie. Yeah this one almost put me to sleep. There was so much damn talking and of course when there are no subtitles and my very limited Chinese is making my brain work in overdrive, it does not bode too well in the long run.

The film was about a small time doctor who saves the last child of a very large and powerful family. He raises the kid as his own and inserts him into the presence of the now-King who was responsibile for the genocide of the kid's family.

So much talking...I can't even think about any other part of this film because that's all I could picture. For an Asian flick, it was OK but just boring. The fight scene at the end wasn't even all that either. Unless you are into old Chinese stories made into movies, it isn't worth watching.
Rating - C

TRON: Legacy (Sci-Fi Action 2010)

2011-03-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

So yeah...Tron. It's funny actually. The name of the film is Tron but the character of Tron was barely in it...that and he didn't even say much.

The movie was a flop. It was exciting in the beginning but then towards the latter 90% of the film it was slow-moving and didn't do enough to build up a story. I swear I could storyboard the whole movie in 10 index cards because nothing really happened. The visuals were OK and all but they were only covering up for a lacking plot.

I really didn't like the face of the main character, played by some unknown by the name of Garrett Hedlund. I mean his face really really annoyed the fuck out of me. For a guy he wasn't even good looking so I kept thinking to myself, who was responsible for the awful casting?

Anyway, the movie wasn't boring as I kept watching to see when it would pick up or when the story would get better, but it never did. It wasn't until the end when I discovered that the movie was over that nothing would help it attain any reasonable standing.
Rating - D

Restrepo (War Documentary 2010)

2011-03-14T09:22:00.001-07:00

This movie was OK. It followed around a bunch of soldiers tasked with manning an outpost in the Korengal Valley within Afghanistan. The whole film jumped between video footage and personal interviews. Although this style is not inherently wrong, I believe documentaries turn out better if they are guided through with a narrator.

To put it all out there, I've seen much better documentaries. I mean you got to give these soldiers a bunch of kudos for being camped out in the middle of nowhere for so long, fighting for your lives everyday; so like most, we feel for them and don't want to bag on the movie. But it really could've been better had the film been organized and directed in a different manner.

One depressing aspect to the movie was that I remember watching the news and seeing a report on how the US was pulling out of the valley after using a ton of resources, man-hours, ordinance, and lives to secure the location in the first place. It's hard not to view this as anything but ill-planning and a total waste.
Rating - C

Sanctum (Adventure 2011)

2011-03-13T22:42:00.001-07:00

Oh God this movie was so fucking bad. From the first few sentences that came out of the characters' mouths, it totally seemed like a very B-movie that never made it to DVD. Yeah the acting was that bad and the lines were even worse. The story had so many eccentric characters and overacting that it seemed like everyone was in some HS drama class trying to kiss ass. On top of this, the main characters were Australian so if you add that into an underwater environment, what you get is muffled speech that was very hard to understand.

So let me ruin some of this for you. From the trailer you probably know that these peeps go diving into some underwater cave system and then get trapped when the cave floods and some large rock blocks the entrance. The only way to escape is to follow the cave out to the sea. Many peeps die along the way. So the whole "thriller" aspect to the plot was all about these guys running out of air and their light going out. They didn't seem to have a problem with hydration or food which was very peculiar. Anyway...since all I wanted was for all of the characters to die, I didn't get any suspenseful feel from any of this at all.

Quite honestly the only thing I really wanted to happen was for all of the dead people to come back as zombies...now that would've been one hell of a ride. Picture all of the dumbfuck characters in a cave, using a re-breathers and scuba diving, and being all up in a panic because their undead friends were chasing after him...yeah that would've been a much better plot than the trash I was fed. I can't say it enough...highly unrecommended!
Rating - F

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Fantasy Adventure 2010)

2011-03-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

This movie wasn't horrid but it wasn't very good either. There was not as much action as there were in the first 2 movies and it had a lot of talking without enough explanation. Other than that it was a regular Narnia movie. The main characters' cousin was super annoying. He had a weird thing going on with his nose that made you want to just punch it.

Anyway the movie is worth a watch just so that you can finish off the series but other than that, don't be expecting much.
Rating - C

The Fighter (Drama 2010)

2011-03-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

Well this movie was good, but I don't think it was as good as everyone made it out to be. The story and all was interesting and it flowed well, but that was about it. It wasn't solid like Inception or something.

Probably the thing that post peeps would attest to would be the acting skills of Christian Bale. Insane I tell ya. It's hard to envision him as Bruce Wayne in Dark Knight vs. the crack-addict that he was in this film. At the end of the movie you get to see a snippet of the real character of Dicky Eklund and yeah...Bale was almost identical in terms of talking style and movements.

All of the other characters did good jobs but nothing more than what one would already expect from Mark Wahlberg and Amy Adams. It woulda sucked being in the main character's family. So many trashy sisters and a ghetto mom...fun.
Rating -B

Season of the Witch (Fantasy Action 2011)

2011-03-12T11:51:00.001-08:00

Seeing Nicolas Cage do a medieval fantasy film is just weird. It doesn't suit him one bit. Yeah as expected this movie sucked. The beginning of the film was straight out of Soldier with Kurt Russell and the rest of it reminded me of a movie called Black Death which I reviewed a few months back.

So yeah there was nothing redeeming about this one. Acting was labored, action was blah, special effects were about a C, and yeah then the movie ended and nobody cared about the result.

Rating - D

Springfield Armory XD 9mm Pistol

2011-02-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

So after selling off the Polish, I ended up getting this handgun. Ironically this was the first handgun I ever purchased, but at the time I thought I wanted a rifle. Lesson to be learned; if you don't have a really good reason to sell something off, don't panic sell because of a thoughtless decision.

Anyway, one thing I never really pondered until reading a bunch of zombie books was that you always need a backup gun and a nice 9mm does the job well. I had bounced between getting a 3rd Gen Glock 17 or an XD, but after going back and forth 20-sum-odd times at Cabelas, I decided on the XD because it just felt better in my hand. Cabelas is usually a more expensive place to shop but they had a deal where if you signed up for their credit card, you could get $100 off of a $500 purchase. So guess what was a bit over $500...

One unanticipated benefit was that Springfield Armory (SA) had a free 2 magazine give-away a few weeks after I made my purchase. Luckily for me, my receipt date fit right into the beginning of the qualifying timeframe. I've never heard of Glock doing a promotion of that kind, but then again, you can buy Korean surplus Glock mags for pretty cheap.

So let's get back to the pistol. I picked a 9mm because I'm a cheap bastard and it's the cheapest mainstream round that is not a .22LR. I picked the XD because it felt good in the hand, it had both a chamber indicator and striker indicator that could by touched and verified with a quick feel, and because SA has a lifetime warranty if anything ever goes wrong. I had wanted to get the XD9m, but since I don't know what state I'll eventually end up in, I planned for the future and got the XD9 which has 10-round mags if/when the day comes. It will be a dumb decision if I remain where I'm current at, but oh well.

The thing with pistol shooting is that I find it a bit more challenging than rifle shooting. It's harder to keep the site picture steady, you need to breathe properly, and finally you have to try very hard not to jerk when you pull the trigger. I also discovered that, for me, if I cup the bottom of the grip with my left hand, I can keep the gun on-target much better and I also get better groups, as displayed in the picture below. Peeps on the Internet had made suggestions on how you want to have as much of the frame covered by your hands. That method did not work all that well for me as seen in my original groups from the pic above.

Either way, it's a good, reliable pistol and I don't see myself changing unless I end up camping out in a gun-friendly state and get to upgrade to a XD9m or if I somehow discover that I shoot better groups with a G17.

Pros

Grip feels better (To me)
Cheap ammo
Physical indicators

Cons

I don't like the SA-patented grip safety
The XD9m exists to tease me

Tomorrow, When the War Began (Foreign Australian Action Drama 2010)

2011-02-13T14:14:00.000-08:00

Yeah I think there is a reason why not many movies come out of Australia. This story is based off of some book that is very reminiscent of Red Dawn. Essentially you have a group of kids going into a guerrilla war after some invading army comes in an takes over their town.

What makes this movie suck are the characters, dialog, and acting. Everything sucked from almost everyone. The main chick, Caitlin Stasey, is the only one who can kind of act. Nobody else can do anything.

Many times it seemed like this was some lame B-movies that go straight to video. It really is sub-par. But ironically enough, they are supposedly in development with a part 2 and part 3, just like LOTR...this will be a hoot.

Rating - D

Faster (Action 2010)

2011-02-13T13:54:00.001-08:00

So The Rock finally got a part that did not involve little kids in some Disney movie. This action flick was OK...it's good to see bad guys get what's comin'..but the story was way too predictable. Probably within in the first 15 min you knew the whole story. Very simple plot and it has most certainly been done before.

I can't say that Dwayne Johnson did much acting because he didn't. Look at the picture from the poster to the left. That is the exact same expression that he had throughout the whole film. The other characters were very forgettable.

So yeah that is what this movie was all about...payback and nothing else. No acting, no story, no real special effects...nothing. It's good background noise but that's about it.
Rating - C

Monsters (Drama 2010)

2011-02-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Total false advertising here. This movie sucked and it barely had any monsters in it at all. This film was all about the interactions between this annoying photographer and this short-haired blonde chick. Note that they are married in real life. The guy looks like he's on meth so I dunno how that happened.

Either way the movie started out OK as in the first 5 min it looked like it might be good. But soon afterwards we were stuck in this grueling story of these 2 peeps trying to make it back to the US from Mexico while the top-half of Mexico was some quarantined zone because these huge Octopus-looking aliens crashed and started reproducing.

The only 2 main characters in the whole film were idiots-literally...one was a rich chick who wore these nasty-looking UGG-like boots and the other was a dude who was obsessed with taking pictures. It was hard watching these ignorant Americans trudge through the forest because we all know that in real life they would've been shot or abandoned.

Yeah there was nothing good about the movie. The story was boring, I couldn't root for any of the characters, and the special effects were few and far between. No.

Rating - D

Gunnar PPK Digital Optiks (Random Products)

2011-02-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

So during my wanderings through the interwebs I discovered that there were these special glasses from a company called Gunnar that were touted to reduce eyestrain and glare when using a computer and staring at a monitor all day.

I bought the version called PPK because of the measurements. I noticed that if you get glasses that are not wide enough for your face, it makes wearing them very uncomfortable. Although the overall width was correct, the nose area is also an important measurement. These had a length of 20mm whereas my most comfy sunglasses are 17mm. They were still wearable but it just didn't fit all that well. So yeah I would recommend trying on different glasses at some store to see what your measurements are.

I'm sure you're wanting to know if the glasses themselves even worked. Yes and no. The stock glasses have a yellow tint to them so that took some time to get used to. The lenses are also a little bit magnified as well so when you look at something on the screen you actually zoom into it a bit. I used them for a week at work and although the pair did seem to help with eye dryness, it didn't assist with eye fatigue as it was still there.

One additional reason I got these was because I read on their website that you could get prescription lenses ordered. I called the only local dealer in Reno and asked if they could pull it off. They said yes so I gave them the glasses and had prescription lenses ordered. Unfortunately this plan didn't fully work out the way it was supposed to. The store called me back asking all sorts of questions pertaining to plastic vs polycarbonate, tinted vs none, or anti-glare vs none. All of this was confusing because I was under the impression that the lenses were supposed to be "Gunnar" ones which would already have all of these features; you're not really supposed to have a choice. Long story short I had to cancel my order because the lenses supposedly would've cost around $200 which was more than double the price of the glasses themselves; and this was with insurance too!

I also emailed Gunnar asking if I could directly get prescription lenses through them. They sent me an order form that seemed to be created by a 7 year old as it left a bunch of unanswered questions about payment, shipping, etc. I emailed and called them inquiring as to how the form was to be filled out but they never returned any of my attempts at contact. So yeah this company can go to hell.

All in all my whole experience with this company and getting prescription lenses left me with a very bad taste. If they ever get a competitor I'll definitely go that route. I'll also know for future reference that nose measurements are very important.