Well, Let's see....

We finally ditched DISH Network.  Now we're on OTA channels (HD of course) and good old NetFlix!  Why'd we do this?

It just wasn't worth it anymore.  Sure the news channels would come in handy from time to time.  I will miss TCM and the occasional SciFi Channel show.

But honestly apart from those few things, it just wasn't worth the $50/mo. anymore.  Most of the channels no longer have any relevance to what they started off as.  Dish also screwed me when they moved HDNet Movies from the base HD-Pack to a new "tier" that cost twice as much.  No longer worth it.

I mean, look at some of the channels out there, and look at what's actually on them.  Crap like "Ice Road Truckers" on the History Channel, WRESTLING on the SciFi Channel, TLC is now the crappy makeover network, A&E? No longer Arts and Entertainment, Bravo? Used to be somewhat interesting.  Now I can't remember the last time I turned there.  Even AMC went downhill, first adding ads, then dropping letterboxing, now even they've got crappy "original series" on there.

And most of it is all re-runs of the same crappy shows.  I'll use Law and Order as an example.  TNT especially.  I just started calling it the "L&O" channel, because that's about all thats on there during prime-time anymore.  It's on USA, its on other channels.  Get it away from me!

So, much as I hate to admit it, the internet will have to provide me with my dose of BSG, SG-A, and a couple of others....

And now we've got two NetFlix accounts at 3 movies out a piece, and its still cheaper than the satellite.  That's about all we've got time for in a given week anyway, so I think its for the best.

Oh, and check out part II for the other time-eating device we've acquired.

Who was the idiot who came up with this idea?  If there's anything I hate more than talking on the phone, its trying to talk to a freakin machine.  "One. ONE!!! No. NO! Yes. YES. YES! GODAMMIT!"  I mean really.  These things don't work.  Just let me push the damn buttons.  Beep beep beep. There I'm done.  Why anyone would think people actually like these stupid systems over just giving a damn menu and letting me just get there just blows my mind.

Rant over.  Carry on.

Keith Moon or John Bonham?

And why?

Discuss.

I SAID DISCUSS!!!!

Technorati Tags: dead drummers, john bonham, keith moon, led zeppelin, the who

Well at least they're not going to tear the thing down.  Man that just ticks me off.  Forget about the whole Bell's incident.  Yeah we'll just screw 50 years of Tulsa's history and part of its identity in favor of a parking lot.  Man.  Funny though that they'd scrap $300 G's worth of work after the Bell's fiasco.  "But its about the money!" Yeah, right.  What's next, tear down the Pavilion, too?  I'm sure that'd be the last straw.

At least the armory will remain.  (See the link.)

I wish the US had the same, I dunno, attitude towards architectural history thats present in say Europe.  Around here anything that's a little old is looked upon as trash in need of destruction to be replaced by some crappy metal building, parking lot, or cookie-cutter franchise store. 

I think people are finally starting to realize that once these monuments are gone, they're never coming back.  Yes it costs more money to maintain and restore them, but dammit that's not the point.

Link: "Armory Restoration Costing More Money" - KOTV.com - The News On 6

And yeah, I haven't been posting.  Busybusybusy.


Technorati Tags: tulsa, national guard, armory, architecture, history, money

God is anyone else getting mildly (or grossly) annoyed by the next latest greatest fad in phishing e-mails?  The 'welcome to my site' ones that want you to click on some link to verify your signup info that you supposedly submitted?  Man, if I could find one of these boneheads and lock myself in a room with them....

...only one of us would be coming out, and you only get one guess as to who it is.  I'm getting dozens if not hundreds of these things, and I guess spamassassin isn't able to flag them... bah.

Hey, yeah I'm still here.  Remember back when I said I'd come into possession of some old papers and such?  Well, I've gone and started an entire project around some of them.  Enter: The Youth's Companion Project.

The Youth's Companion was a magazine that was published from the 1820's up through the 1920's.  I came into a few partial issues, and two complete ones.  Since they (should be) are in the public domain by now, and from what I have read the original archives no longer exist... this will be an attempt to recreate the archives.  Ambitious? I dunno. Depends on how much support I can get to carry the thing out.

So if you're interested in reading what kids of the 20's and before were reading instead of watching Pokemon and playing video games... check it out.  There's lots of cool and some just weird ads in there as well....  Like 'get your own steam engine!' and 'every boy should learn to shoot!'

And if you happen to have some issues of this lying around, and you can get them scanned in, send em my way... contact info is on the site.

The Youth's Companion

Technorati Tags: youths companion, vintage, history, project, public domain, advertising, literature

Woo! I was able to snag ripp.us from the drop list thanks to GoDaddy's backordering.

So what? Well, nothing really, just thought I'd brag about that for a sec.  So if you enter ripp.us into a browser you'll just get redirected back to here

Bruce Willis returns for the fourth installment of the Die Hard series! Rock!

Or Not.

Man what a let down.  Sure there's lots of hokey gunplay and explosion and dodging flying cars and completely outrageous situations... but its DIE HARD! The franchise invented this sort of film, and for that you have to give them a wide berth to continue this sort of thing...

...but at least act like it matters!  This movie is just, well, uninteresting on so many planes it isn't funny.  And that's the other knife to the gut for this film.  Unlike its predecessors, it just isn't funny.  The humor that is there is just lame and contrived.

The plot can be summarized like this:  A group of cyber terrorists led by a disgruntled ex-government agent cripples the network infrastructure of the US, and thereby cripples most of the country in an attempt to steal billions in electronic assets from the Treasury department.  Our hero, John McClane goes to arrest one of the unknowing accomplices in this global hack, and gets caught up in it all, eventually having to save his daughter from the terrorist leader.

And that's the real problem here.  The plot of the film has little if any personal connection to McClane.  In each of the previous three Die Hards there was an urgent and immediate personal threat to McClane or his family.  Yeah sure eventually his daughter is kidnapped and he has to rescue her, but you spend most of the film wondering WTF any of this has to do with him!!  Until finally she re-appears near the end.

Back to the humor.  Part of the charm of the Die Hard franchise is the wit and humor, most notably in parts one and three, which is sorely lacking here.  Not until near the end does it start to get remotely funny, but by that time you're just tired of watching.

And as for Willis, dude, could you at least pretend to be interested in this role?  I got the feeling he was just there to pay the rent on this one.  A flat performance would be an understatement.  And as for the wayward hacker Matt Farrell (Justin "I'm a Mac" Long) his shtick gets tired equally fast.

And as for the action that made Die Hard famous? Yeah its there, in droves.  Lots of gunplay and bullet-dodging, high-speed car vs. semi vs. delivery truck chases, a bit of helicopter crashing action.  But the death knell for the film comes as McClane jumps on the back of an impossibly maneuverable F-22, and jumps off just before it crashes.  That entire sequence was entirely over the top, even for Die Hard.

I wouldn't recommend dropping the coin to visit a theater for this one.  Save your pennies and go see Transformers or Harry Potter instead.  I was sorely disappointed, and hopefully they either retire the franchise after this or are able to resurrect its former glory!

Links: Live Free or Die Hard at IMDB.  Live Free or Die Hard at Amazon.com

Technorati Tags: live free or die hard, 2007, bruce willis, john mcclane, matt farrell, justin long, movie review