Rants

The Moth

Show number seven. Charlie-centric. Before I started rewatching the TDTVS episodes I would have told you that season 1 was my favorite, because it was new and it was interesting getting introduced to the characters. Now I’m not to sure, maybe because I already do know their back stories…

Ironman was waiting on the front steps today thanks to the UPS guy. I watched it tonight and it is just as good as I remembered. It is so good that I can overlook one of my pet peeves in action movies, the clich?d car wreck scene that destroys dozens of cars when just a few would get the point across. The one thing I couldn’t overlook is the hiring of an actor that was unsuited for the role or they changed the direction of the role and kept the same actor in the part (hey, maybe he was the producers brother-in-law or something.)

You are saying to yourself, I’ve seen that movie, the casting was spot on, what’s this guy talking about? There is this scene late in the movie where Obadiah Stane is berating this scientist guy because he has failed to recreate the mini “arc reactor” needed to power the Iron Monger suit. They shaved the head of the scientist guy in such a manner as to give him a typical male pattern baldness look. Was it in an effort to make him look more scientific? I’m surprised when this film was first released there weren’t members of the SPODAAAS (Society for the Prevention Of Discrimination Against Androgenic Alopecia Sufferers) protesting the not hiring of an actual bald actor to play this pivotal role.

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Red Envelope in the Mail

When we got home today and checked the mail there was a familiar red envelope in the box. Upon closer inspection it was a clever advert for the service. Inside were four cards, offering 1 month free trial to Netflix that you would hopefully pass out to your friends and when they signed up you would get a bonus movie shipped to you from your queue.

Sounds cool, but I won’t be passing any out and here is why, when you sign up you need a valid form of payment (most likely a credit card, but I’m sure direct debit from a checking account is an option) and this I understand, but the part I don’t like is that they will automatically start charging that card or whatever if you do not cancel before your month is up. I’m not stupid, I know why they are doing it that way, they are betting you won’t remember to cancel in time and they can charge your account. They are also betting you won’t even see it on your monthly bill and can probably get a couple months of money before you figure out what happened. That just smacks of sleazy.

How about playing fair and using the opt in policy, send a couple three emails after the three week time frame and ask if they would like to continue? We had just recently considered giving someone a gift of Netflix for Christmas, but decided against it for the same reason.

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Oh no! Commercials!

What makes Visa think that a skit that was funny once, maybe twice, on Saturday Night Live a couple of decades ago would make a good commercial spokesman?

I’m thinking that I need to start an auto insurance company because there sure are a lot of them in the business and they all seem to be advertising heavily.

I’m watching Season 5: Episode 1 of House on regular TV and I thinking there must be some correlation between House viewers and movie goers as we are just past halfway through and that was the 5th upcoming movie promo commercial.

For the record, I didn’t really enjoy the Victoria’s Secret commercial either.

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Too Much

Sorry I didn’t post anything last night, but I was too busy admiring myself in my new hat.

I made it 30 minutes into the season premier of The Sarah Conner Chronicles before giving up tonight. Credibility was stretched too far, snapped and I was returned to reality. I can bring myself to believe that killer robots have been sent back from the future to kill an individual that threatens them in the future, but I can not believe that that individual can be involved in an auto accident at 35 MPH while not wearing a seat belt, get out of the car and trot off down the street. Alright, maybe I could have gone for that, but not after they show a close up of his pant leg and it looks like a river of blood running down it, apparently caused by a compound fracture. Followed by that leg practically collapsing when he first puts his full weight on it, then 2 baby steps later he takes off running at 15 MPH.

That was just one of several things that made me wince. But if I remember correctly I may have had the same trouble when I first started watching this series last year. Maybe I just need to be in the mood?

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Pot Calling the Kettle Black

I don’t read People magazine or watch Entertainment Tonight, so I don’t know what the root of all this is. Neither am I sure if this particular story from this morning’s newspaper is being reported with breathless excitement or stunned amusement because I didn’t read it.

Headline:
Lindsay Lohan lashes out at father on blog.

Pull quote:
“If you have something to say to me, say it to my face — that’s what I have believed my whole life — don’t be a coward and say it to others first, let alone all the media in the world.”

WTF? Do you think Lindsay told that to dear ol’ dad before posting it on her blog?

1,000,000 Microseconds

I use AutoCAD at work and ever since they upgraded me to version 2007 a couple of months ago I routinely have to attempt starting it a half dozen times before it will load. I will invariably report that it can’t find a license sever. I hit ‘Cancel’ and instead of just shutting off it will pop up a ‘Warning’ box that informs me I’m not authorized to use that application. I have to hit an ‘OK’ button to clear the screen allowing me another attempt. I am not the only one either, every AutoCAD user has the same issue.

Turns out our licensing server resides not on a box in our computer room, but in one at our company HQ, 700 miles away in New Jersey, so AutoCAD wasn’t getting a response in a timely manner. To fix the problem and environment variable had to be added to everyone’s PC — FLEXLM_TIMEOUT=1000000.

I know the speed of light is fast, but apparently on our network it can’t routinely make a 1400 mile round trip in under a second.

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Bones

One of the TV shows in our Netflix rotation is Bones, it’s like the X-Files on valium. It’s got a handsome FBI agent, a pretty female doctor that have polar opposite personalities and they solve crimes, there is even some underlying sexual tension tossed in. But Bones involves bodies in various states of decomposition not UFOs and monsters. And it is more like the usual approved for the widest TV audience possible than the ground breaking series the X-Files was.

The one thing that always annoyed me about the show was the intro. As the theme music played (Massive Attack must have a deal with Fox) they showed a montage of the characters in scenes from the show as the actor’s names are flashed on the screen. Trouble was, they weren’t in sync, David Boreanaz’s name over the image of Emily Deschanel, etc. Annoying.

We received Disc 1 of Season 2 last week and I guess I wasn’t the only one who found that practice bothersome, the names and faces now lined up.

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