3:10 to Yuma is a violent Elmore Leonard western, but unfortunately the setting was rather unimportant to the story. Russell Crowe flashed his trademark smirks, and Christian Bale flexed his trademark angst, in a decent, but relatively unremarkable story of redemption. If you’re hankering for a hunk’o’Western, this should do the trick.
Jet Cars Under the Stars
This wasn’t my first time seeing jet-powered drag racing, but the first since this blog started, so I feel compelled to share. High-end drag racing (jet, top-fuel) is a spectacle I think everyone should witness. It has the veneer of a competitive sport, but most people don’t really care who wins. It’s the violent, brutal, temper-tantrum throwing little brother of the bigger racing sports like F1 (the refined elder sibling), Rally (the insane middle child) and NASCAR (the challenged stepchild), and it needs to be seen in person, no television or movie screen or stereo system can do it justice.
New England Dragway in Epping, NH has a few jet events per year, my preference being “Jet Cars Under the Stars” because as my pictures hopefully show, the jets are much more entertaining in the dark. This years event was marred by poor weather, and a poorly managed delay, but at about 9:30pm, the festivities began. I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking here, and you can see more of them here.
52 Word Review: Superbad
Superbad, the newest Apatow -flavored flick, is yet another “high school is ending” teen comedy, but unlike too many of its predecessors, it’s hilarious. The humor actually masks the fact that it’s a well-written, well-paced story, so even if you’re too old to laugh at it, you’ll probably enjoy it.
New Toy Review: TeraStation Live
A few weeks ago I picked up 2 TB TeraStation Live, and so far I have to say I’m very happy with it. I got it for $800 from buy.com, which puts the whole device at about $400 over the price of it’s 4 500GB hard drives. I think that premium is well worth it.
It was very easy to set up, at least for someone with a base knowledge of setting up a file share. The administration is done via a slow, clunky, but straightforward and ultimately effective web UI. I have set up a few different shares with varying permissions, and haven’t had any problems so far. Among its nice/key features are the fact that it is virtually silent, has gigabit networking, and isn’t too big, about the size of a mini-tower PC.
52 Word Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The fifth Harry Potter book, more thriller than adventure, was the one that I think was ghostwritten, and the movie held true to the book, as usual. The three main actors weren’t nearly as horrible as they are in the previous movies, acting lessons finally? Effects: nice. Story: padding for the series.
Domain Ideas
I put “savage” into GoDaddy‘s search box, just to see what would come up, and while savage.com is obviously taken, it suggested some rather entertaining alternatives:
- WILDDRUNK.COM – Surprised this one isn’t taken by Girls Gone Wild.
- FERAL4U.COM – A site that matches wild animals with potential owners?
- HOTFERAL.COM – Which animals are trending in your area?
- UNCIVILIZEDLIVE.COM – Future site of the world’s largest rock-banging concert.
- WILDTHIN.COM – The latest diet fad, lose weight by eating berries, running from bears, and getting dysentery.
- BARBAROUSSTORE.COM – Because pirates and drug lords need pants too.
52 Word Review: Eagle versus Shark
I went to see Eagle vs. Shark because I think Jemaine Clement is one of those inherently funny people. If you agree, you will probably like it. Otherwise it’s an “offbeat” Napoleon-Dynamite-style romantic comedy from New Zealand. What it lacks in hobbits it makes up for in Awesome clothes and nunchucks.
Newport
In April we went a bit north, so this past weekend we decided to go a bit south. I hadn’t been to Newport for quite a while, probably 15 or 20 years, so it was mostly new again for me. As usual, we seemed to fit quite a bit of activity in, but it still felt like a vacation.
We stayed at a little B&B called Polly’s. It was more like staying with your grandmother than visiting a B&B, but it was decent. The breakfasts (yogurt parfait on Saturday and french toast on Sunday) were a little disappointing, but the place was clean and quiet and the backyard was very nice. Considering it was relatively cheap ($339 for the weekend) and we booked just a few weeks in advance, not bad.
Saturday night was a tasty meal at the Atlantic Beach Club, whose history (on the back of the menu) seems to basically be the fact that it gets destroyed in every major hurricane. Pumpkin-seed encrusted swordfish and filet mignon in Bearnaise sauce were excellent.
We decided to do the Cliff Walk on Saturday morning, originally intending to do the northern half and do the other half Sunday. However, we felt ambitious at the halfway point and did the whole thing in one shot. Little did we know that the southern half is mostly unpaved and more like rock hiking than walking.
It was very nice, very sunny, and very tiring, we estimated that round-trip it was about 8 miles. A tasty 7-cheese pizza from Grilled Pizza on Thames and some excellent gelato (Tiramasu for me, Oreo for her) from Cold Fusion gave us the energy to make it back to the car.
After a couple hours of rest, we were back in action, this time taking the last harbor cruise of the day. The narrator Phil was informative, especially when he announced “uhh, if you look to starboard you’ll see a sailboat sinking”.
We dined at Loca. When most places have 90 minute waits, you can’t expect much from a place with open tables, but it was acceptable. Steak stips with Gorgonzola were tasty, chipotle ribs made up in tenderness what they lacked in excitement.
Sunday we hit a couple of mansions. I remembered The Breakers a bit from my trip as a child, but it was good to see again, and it was also good that our 175-year-old tour guide lived till the end. We also saw Rosecliff, which isn’t as impressive, but was still nice. We spent a good part of the tour chuckling at the massive wedgie a fellow touree had.
Lunch was at Becky’s BBQ. The chicken and potato salad was good, the ribs and sauces were mediocre, and the pulled pork had the texture of paste, yuck. Luckily the wine we tasted at Newport Vineyards was mostly very nice, and we even brought a few bottles back. We capped the trip off with a trip down scenic Ocean Drive, and headed home.
52 Word Review: Transformers
Transformers was the coolest, silliest movie I’ve seen in a long time. There’s obviously some nostalgia at work here, but it’s a solid, loud, typically-Michael Bay action movie. If you played with the toys as a kid like I did, rest assured, Optimus Prime is still as cool as you remember.
The Mobile Revolution Begins! (and 3 years later the iPhone comes out)
I find the whole iPhone phenomenon interesting because people are seeing it as a technology advance when it’s really a textbook marketing/branding success (revolution?) in the making. Apple essentially tricked the entire media landscape into doing amazing PR, even “independent” sources like blogs and NPR.
Let’s be clear, the $500+ phone isn’t new. The phone with a google map that you can drag around with your finger isn’t new. Neither is one that can play gigs of mp3s, has a real address book, a real web browser, real email, etc. Having the option from a text message to reply or voice call the person back isn’t new. These things have existed for years, I know because I have it. Oh and mine lets you build/install apps, the sticking point many techies complain about for the iPhone, but very few of these apps have seen any success. It’s also available for any network, uses EVDO, has wi-fi and bluetooth, has handwriting recognition, serves as internet conduit, a real keyboard, etc. The reason nobody had to camp out for my phone, the reason I don’t pimp it to everyone I meet? It’s running a Microsoft OS, ho hum. So from a technology/feature standpoint, the iPhone is nothing new, but even well-informed tech people seem to have fallen for the slick ads, the expert PR “reviews”, and the general fanfare.
People are opining that this was Steve Jobs’/Apple’s greatest risk, which I disagree with, because they weren’t really taking a risk because they weren’t doing anything new. They’ve added that Apple shine to devices that have existed for years, that they’ve been able to watch people use, and they’ve fixed the mistakes. They’ve made the interface sexy with effects and constraints, a skill they’ve honed for even longer. They’ve used all their fanboys to turn a device into the Beatles.
I’ve done enough software to know how important (and potentially misleading, though that’s not the case here as far as I know) a well-executed interface is to adoption. I once co-wrote a CMS that was effectively ignored by everyone but its authors, but then I spent a day adding some logos, gradients, and javascript UI effects, and people were immediately scheduling meetings with me just to get a peek at it. Where Jobs & Co. deserve credit is that all of the “news” coverage their product is getting is lauding a revolution, instead of saying “Apple’s new iPhone is almost as capable as a 3-year-old Windows Mobile phone, but they executed the interface much better.” For more information, see the next edition of most marketing/branding books.