Entertainment
Movie: Role Models (Review)
Role Models is a good example of what a true comedy movie needs to be: Funny. I’m not exactly sure where this genre has been hiding the last year or so, but there has been an evil being trying to masquerade as one. It’s about time that Comedy return to slay the dull and Role Models is just the one to do it.
The plot of Role Models involves two friends, Danny (Paul Rudd) and Wheeler (Seann William Scott). Danny’s girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) breaks up with him, the guys break some laws and are assigned to community service. Their punishment was to take part in a mentoring program lead by Gayle Sweeny (Jane Lynch), ex crack addict and quite frankly pretty insane. Danny gets paired up with a role-playing knight of LAIRE named Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and Wheeler gets the joy of hanging out with the foul mouthed 10-year old nightmare that is Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson).
This movie comes off as a simply fun movie. The characters are well written and there is enough of a consistency of humorous parts that the movie never seems to settle down. Development of the character relationships flowed smoothly, without ever missing a beat that this movie is supposed to be funny (a rare thing lately). A good combination of banter between the characters lead this to it’s success, and a few shoots of Scott getting hit in the nuts didn’t hurt.
Though fairly new to the stage, Thompson and Mintz-Plasse (yes, he was McLovin’!) did a fantastic job and if nothing else may have even cast a shadow on the veteran acting skills of Scott, Raul and Lynch combined. I can only look forward to seeing some more greatness out of these two.
Overall, I was really impressed with this movie. Being that comedies are by far my favorite genre out there, it’s nice to see that there are actually still some people working in Hollywood that are willing to put some effort into making one solid movie instead of trying to squish it together with another one (ie romantic-comedy) to get a bigger audience. If you build it well, they will come. And did I mention they dressed up as KISS?
Final Score: 9/10 ‘Almost as good as seeing her whispering eye’.
Movie: Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Review)
Steve Carr’s Paul Blart: Mall Cop, starring King of Queens Kevin James and hottie Jayma Mays, comes off as a pretty funny movie in the trailer. Fair warning, it’s not.
The whole idea of this movie is that an overweight failure of a security guard is caught up in an organized crime in the mall and has to stop it on his own. Throw in a crush on a kiosk worker and low blood sugar and you have yourself a movie. Unfortunately, they forgot to include good writing with this story line, which leaves the movie with a hollow half-assed feel to it.
The acting itself really wasn’t that bad, but the characters just didn’t have enough substance to carry the movie. If they weren’t going to give us a hardcore decent fulfilling plot, at least give us some character background or slapstick humor. Given that these are the top two factors needed for a successful movie of these genre, it’s fair to say that the mark was missed on this feature.
All in all, Mall cop seems to fall short of being a comedy as I only found myself with one chuckle the entire course of the movie (which was also in the trailer, go figure). The only real entertaining thing that I found was that on an episode of King of Queens Kevin James was forced to shave his mustache because his wife said he “Looked like a motorcycle cop”. Oh how things repeat themselves.
Final score: 3/10 ‘Buy this from the dollar bin when it shows up at the dirt mall’.
Problogger: The Book (Review)
Recently while browsing my local Chapters book store I came across a small soft cover book, among all the ‘big bad books’ on programming, with a strangely familiar name:”ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
For those of you who are unaware, Problogger is one of the leading (if not the leading) blogs about blogging tips. The site is maintained by Darren Rowse, who is likely one of the best educated people on what needs to be done to get a blog off the ground and keep it there. With he updates daily, you can bet I’ve been a subscriber to his RSS for some time.
In this book, Darren (and co-writer Chris Garrett) go through the process of explaining how to set up a blog and make it work. They do a great job of setting forth introductory steps of choosing a topic (Niche), available platforms and how to write to your audience. Some of the more in depth topics that they go into are different kinds of advertising, networking and community building.
Though short (210 pages I believe) they pack it full of tons of information in an easy to read tone. I throughly enjoyed it and recommend it anybody looking to start out blogging, or even those just looking to do it better.
Movie: Street Kings (Review)
I went into this movie not actually knowing what movie it was, which is the best state ti be in for movie watching imo. It wasn’t until about 20 minutes into the movie that I realized ‘hey I think I saw a trailer for this’. Quick summary is saying that Tom (Reeves) is a detective who is top dog and kills people. He then gets caught in a weave of corrupted cops and scandals.
The plot annoyed me for the only reason that I went most of the movie feeling as though I was watching a sequel. There was a gap between the first scene and the second (which started the chain of events) that was so poorly and briefly explained that I had to pause it and think/make up what ‘might’ be the reason for this (that and to get banana bread). If there is going to be a linear plot, the inciting force has to be explained well. Aside from the initial gap, the rest of the movie had a decent flow to it.
I can’t say anything about the selection of actors, Reeves played his part well: Dumb and simple. With a supporting cast of Whitaker, Cedric the Entertainer, Mohr and Nolasco (Go Sucre!) it was well cast.
The only thing I would have liked to see is a little more character development. They noted on the fact that Tom was drinking a lot, but it had no significance to the plot. The same goes for his romance, no significance. If you’re going to try giving a character a life, give him a reason to have it or avoid it all together and throw in some more explosions.
Overall it wasn’t all bad for a movie about cops.
Final Score: 6/10
Movie: Twilight (Review)
Movie: Twilight
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Thriller
To start off, I was going into this movie with big expectations since 2008 seems to be the year of the vampire. I wouldn’t consider this a good representation though.
A quick summary: Girl (Bella) moves to new town and becomes the new girl in high school. New Girl falls in love with outsider kid (Edward Collins) who is a vampire.New Girl and Vampire have strange relationship, girl almost gets killed by evil vampire. End.
The nitty-gritty that bothers me of this movie is not only the inconsistency within itself, but the fact that the attributes of these vampires seem to be lacking towards those that we commonly know. For example, these vampires do not sleep at all (aka no coffins). I can live with this I suppose, it doesn’t effect the plot. However, they also are able to survive sunlight. In fact, not only does it not harm them at all it makes them shiny. Worse off, the Collins’ family states they only drink animal blood and it is left at that. Well there goes the entire vampire aspect of these people.
The plot itself that annoys me is that for the first hour and twenty minutes of this movie you could replace the ‘vampire’ factor of Edward (the male love interest) with just a pale emo kid and it wouldn’t change the plot at all. There is no real vampire-human obstacles that they’re overcoming here, just a lot of him saying “I don’t know if I resist myself”. *yawn* Now at this 1h20m point, it does a complete 360 degree turn here and suddenly they’re being chased by an evil vampire (who was awkwardly placed in the story might I add) and they’re trying to kill Bella. So it was 1h20m of high school emo garbage then the final 30 minutes is a horribly cliche fight scene.
As an added bonus to this pathetic attempt of a movie, Edward is able to read minds. He can’t, however, read the mind of Bella. He also often refers to her as ‘the one’ or similar there of because she has a different scent from the rest of the humans. It might just be me, but I’m pretty sure I already saw this before…Oh yeah, on True Blood. Suki (the female on True Blood) has the different scent and she can read minds. She is also in love with a vampire named Bill. It looks to me like somebody stole somebody else’s idea and just mixed it up. I think I like True Blood better.
Final Summation: Avoid this movie, watch True Blood on HBO instead. If you don’t have HBO, run over your face with a lawn mower, it’s still more entertaining than this movie.
Score: 4/10
What’s your best customer service story?
Everybody has their ups and downs with customer service, usually down. But how about those times where you get off the phone and think “Wow, that rep was freaking awesome”. Given that I work in a call center, I usually try to leave the customers thinking that as much as possible. But when the shoe is on the other foot, it rarely happens. What is the best customer service that you’ve received? Here’s my latest.
On my way home from work, I had to catch a cab so went to the bank to get some money from the ATM so I can pay him: It was rejected because “Couldn’t process. Contact Service”. Twice. Turns out I had just enough on me to pay the taxi fare ($0.26 cent tip!). Then it was rejected at Wendy’s. When I came home, I decided to give them a call and find out what was going on with my card.
I called up my bank, expecting to have to go through a million automated messages and never get to anybody to help me out. I put in my card number, it told me it couldn’t be processed and the next thing I knew Michelle was on the line. Michelle was awesome. It was 9pm and she sounded like she had just woken up. I asked her what’s going on, and she said my card was put into ‘deposit only’ because fraud thinks that one of the places I used it at might have duplicated it. It’s not likely, but whatever. I just have to go into a bank and change my PIN on Wed (my next day off). That whole conversation took 5 minutes, tops.
She then asked me if I had the funds to last me until Wednesday, I said I’d just use my VISA the next two days if needed, I should have enough change kicking around for coffee. We then talked about coffee and debating the whole ‘quantity VS quality’ between Tim Hortons and Starbucks. Needless to say, on Wednesday I guess I have to go buy a “signature hazelnut hot chocolate with a double shot of espresso”. I never was very good at debating with females. But it was a great conversation, and is awesome to see a place with real people on the other end of the line. TD, you’re cool. Michelle, you’re fantastic, thanks for the chat.
Post your best customer service story below, the one I think is the best will win $1 via paypal in 2 weeks from today. Cheers!
Make some wings, then learn to fly
Ever wanted wings? I know I have. But the true question is: Feathered wings or Dragon wings?
Well now you don’t have to choose, you can make both for just a few bucks.
Head on over to the great How to make a pair of Angel Wings by T0BY @ Instructables . These are very well done and use real feathers. On top of that, they are able to open and look very real (I suppose being real feathers does technically make them real, huh?) This is definitely the coolest way to go if you want any sort of feathered wings, store bought suck.
or
Check out the awesome How to Make Moving Dragon Wings video by gryphern @ YouTube. These are very cool, especially with the material they used. The fact that they also are able to be expanded on will makes these that much more realistic. Not to mention, these are made tough as nails. Heck, they may even be able to survive trying to fly off the top of a building: But you won’t.
Now that you have your wings, how to do fly? “The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Vampire Game
Vampire game
One of the only shojou manga I have ever read. Started reading not knowing it was shojou since I tend to keep away from them as they are targeted towards a female audience. Since it is a story mainly targeted at females, it has some story elements that I didn’t really like sometimes even though the overall story was really good.
Vampire Game is about the reincarnation of Vampire king, Duzell, who died 100 years ago in a fight with King Phelios who defeated him using a powerful spell that sacrifices the caster. Duzell vows to reincarnate after 100 years to get revenge and destroy the reincarnation of Phelios. Fast forward to the present: The descendants of King Phelios are all fighting for the throne, like you’d expect from any royal family. Princess Ishtar, the main character of the story, is 15 years old and currently first in line to the throne. She is a willful and troublesome princess, always causing trouble for her head bodyguard Darres. She escapes the palace one day as usual causing trouble only to happen upon the reincarnated Vampire King Duzell, who is in the body of a cat. She adopts the cat and promises to help him find the reincarnation of her ancestor Phelios so he can kill him. Through out the 15 volumes they set out to find who in the royal family is the reincarnation of King Phelios; all the while trying to stay ahead of power hungry royals aiming for the throne and Ishtar’s head. Full of political intrigue, Vampire game is a an excellent manga with lots of twits and turns to keep any reader entertained till the very end.
Pizza Vending Machine!
Are you sick of eating the same crap out of vending machines? Does your cafeteria have…less then appetizing menus? You need to install a Wonder Pizza vending machine!
This first-of-it’s-kind machine will serve you 9″ pizzas in 2 minutes flat. Is that amazing? You betcha! Not only am I going to file it as a suggestion at my place of employment, I might have installed in my apartment (seriously I will, don’t question me)!
Check out the video here, it’ll make you hungry or you’re money back.
Seto no Hanayome
Seto no Hanayome – The Inland Sea Bride
Nagasumi Michishio, a young middle school student on a trip to visit his grandmother at the beach with his family, is drowning only to be saved by a mermaid. As if almost drowning wasn’t enough of a hassle, according to mermaid law if a person sees mermaids true for they must both be executed. Luckily for Nagasumi the mermaid who saved him, Sun Seto, has decided that in order to save both of them she wants to marry him. Sun’s father, the leader of a merman fish gang, is overly protective of his only daughter and He is constantly trying to kill Nagasumi so that he can “protect” his daughter.
Seto no Hanayome is a pretty good shounen Manga with a good mix of comedy and ecchi material to keep readers happy. There is even a pretty good anime adaption of the Manga that started in April of 2007. Seto no Hanayome is a good Manga that has a solid plot with great art.