Category Archives: Journal

Default – Self reflection etc.

What is Happening…

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…to Television and Movies?…

Seriously think about it – Try this yourself right now, off the top of your head.  Try to name 5 good television shows that are on current network television.  And then, try to name 5 good movies that have come out in 2007.  Without doing hours of research, here is what i can come up with (even with some help from Vanbergs):

Movies:

  • 300
  • Transformers
  • Knocked Up

TV Shows:

  • The Shield
  • The Black Donnellys (Which, is cancelled)
  • The Office
  • Rescue Me (which is skating on very thin ice)

Now try the same exercise, exept with ‘bad’ movies or TV.  These lists of ‘bad’ items aren’t worth an unordered list, or even comma separation for that matter.  Movies:  Spider man 3 Die hard 4 I know who killed me Stomp the yard The simpsons Breach Oceans 13 Ghostrider Rush hour 3.  TV Shows:  24 house nip tuck so you think you can dance american idol anything on mtv prison break The bachelor Singing with the stars Really any reality tv show now that i think about it.

If my point is not already understood, it is that most current TV and Cinema are waste of time, film, money, and the electromagnetic spectrum in general.  Of course, these are MY opinions.  I’m sure plenty of people like watching “The Hills” or “My Sweet 16” on MTV – but, those shows ARE God-hideous in an un-debatable sense.  Additionally, I haven’t even seen all of the shows/movies I listed.  The reason is, mostly, you can tell what shit is without having to lean over and smell it.  I don’t need to see Die Hard 4 to know that it all but ruins the first three.

So now the question is “why?” – Why has it come to this torrid level of production?  The answer, i am confident, is Generation Y. I can’t blame the movie/TV companies because they are just giving the masses what they want. The masses, the “little brothers and sisters” of Generation X; have been spoiled and fed life with a silver spoon.  As best I can tell, this is probably due to the fact that the parents of Gen. Y have grown up much rougher.  I can understand that, the parents come up tough and fighting, so they want their kids to have it better than they did. I understand that completely, and I’m not criticizing it.  I’d want the same for my kids.  But, the spoiled nature of Gen. Y is breeding the forward thinking out of the equation.  Hence, people do not want to watch forwardly intelligent programming.  Instead, they want to see stupid attractive people doing stupid attractive things and then send their friends text messages about it.

It’s really too bad – I almost hardly watch television anymore.  And, in looking at my netflix queue almost half of it is filled with ‘older’ movies.  But, maybe I’m just officially ‘old’.  I’m sure my parents probably felt this same way when i started listening to Motley Crue and playing Nintendo.  Maybe they just need to make an “oldies” television and cinema network.

The Sopranos Series Finale

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I liked it.

I’ve watched every episode to date of this mobster drama – and i’ve been consistently happy with the show. The Sopranos is a consistent show – and it’s probably the 2nd best television show of all time. Shows like “24” have steep up/down times. High apexes of fantastic thrilling drama are fought by immediate downslopes of boredom and wrongdoing from a production standpoint. 24 is the greatest show ever, and its the worst thing on TV the next episode.

The Sopranos is not that way. It is consistently a fantastic show and never veers far from that mark.

Enough background.

Let me begin by saying that ANY way this series ended would have failed to meet expectations. It’s just impossible to conclude a series of this magnitude in a way that won’t disappoint somebody.

With that said, I like the series finale. I enjoyed this series finale and I enjoyed the way that concluded the series. I enjoyed everything about it. The setting, the feel, the anticipation, even the song. In my opinion, the series finale was a fantastic showing. I just signed offline because Vanbergs told me he purchased a bicycle.

In detail, here’s why I liked the series finale. Tony has been depressed and dealt with depression in his family for the entirety of the show. He fought with his wife, he dealt with problems his son had, and he dealt with all that in his role as ‘boss’ as well. It is not debatable: Tony Soprano had a dark life.

****Spoiliers****
The ending of the series did a fantastic job of bringing everything to a happier and optimistic end for Tony. The song, the entrance of his family members, with these things the viewers get a sense of happiness where all the bad and shitty things with the characters’ lives are behind them. Tony Soprano is a happy man at the end of the series. He’s getting along with his wife, the issues with his son are resolved, and he’s free to have this meal with his family without having to worry about his mob stresses now that Phil Leotardo had been taken care of.

Although the cinematography creates suspense for the viewer, there is care free bliss amongst the Soprano Family as they sit and enjoy their last meal together. Tony is the happiest he had ever been in the entire series at the moment he dies. His last vision is his daughter Meadow running into the restaurant. Just for a split second, the whole family is together. The last image Tony sees, the last thing he experiences is his entire family together. He hadn’t experienced that for a very long time – if at all in the entire series.

It was definitely his last moment. Even though it is not shown, Tony Soprano was murdered. There is absolutely nothing else that 5 solid seconds of black silence can signify. The music stops abruptly, and the series is concluded. (BTW: Journey was a fantastic choice). I’m actually glad that it ended the way it did… If they would have shown Tony getting killed, I am sure that I would have physically wept and possibly spun into a sobbing fetal position.

The Series finale did a fantastic job of doing all this without coming off as rushed or cheesy.

In my opinion, congratulations David Chase and HBO for a phenominal series, start to finish.

Some “Down” Time

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I haven’t worked since May 25th, and I don’t work again until June 6th. This has been something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. A real vacation. A few days off to start, a road/boat trip, and a couple more days off before venturing back to my professional life. Vacations are necessary to keep the working man/woman sane. To refresh the mind, body, and soul – and really just to get a break from the routine. This “vacation” is different though, it seems.

In past years I’ve had no problem laying on the couch for an entire day and doing absolutely nothing but movies/computers/video games. This time however, I can’t relax. Something is definitely wrong. For starters, I have woken up earlier over the past few days than I would on a normal work week (without setting the alarm, I may add). I have no explanation why it is so difficult for me to get up at 7 a.m. normally, but then wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6 a.m. when I’m supposed to be on vacation. It literally makes no sense.

That’s just the start though. Over the last couple days I’ve been extremely motivated to “do things”. I’ve done more work than I can probably even remember (u.l.):

  • Fixed the Garage door opener and bought another universal remote control.
  • Mowed ‘teh lawnz’
  • Swept the Garage
  • Washed my car (including the wheels… ung)
  • Vacuumed
  • Spent approx. 1 hour programming the remote mentioned in bullet #1 to finally open my effing garage
  • Locked myself out of my home. No, that is not a joke.
  • Windexed our glass coffee/end tables
  • Watched “Terminator 2”
  • Started growing a ‘beard’
  • Watched “Constantine”
  • etc.

I’m just a couple days in now – so I guess we’ll see what happens. I’m definitely making it a point to not work the whole vacation away. Overall though I am definitely enjoying the time thus far.

p.s. Terminator 2 is actually quite a profound movie upon re-watch. I hadn’t seen that movie in years – And was surprised at how much of a real concept it conveys. It’s not just an action movie, that is for sure. Miles Bennett Dyson

Payner Weekend

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May 18th, 19th, and 20th resulted in one of the finest weekends on record. Payner’s wedding weekend finally came and went, and in standard traditional Vanhood fashion- It was a fantastic weekend.

It was good to get out of town for awhile. I don’t get over on the east side of Michigan very often so it was good to venture out. Payner and Erin picked an awesome hotel for starters. We shut up and swam, we did a little drinky drink, and overall the hotel was a nice comfortable place to be. However, it really did reminded me of “Hotel Dusk”- Complete with Dunning.

For the actual Wedding things went very well also. It was nice to just be a part of a wedding and not have to worry about being the ‘groom’. Being a part of the wedding party was a first for me, and it was definitely an honor. Payner and Erin’s families are both really very nice. It was a comfortable and genuine Wedding, and I had a great time being a part of it. To recap: Riding in a stretch Ford Excursion limousine is never bad. Filling flasks before the Ceremony and emptying them immediately after is never bad. Kissing Payner in front of 250 people isn’t bad. Hands behind the back was bad. People who kick Vanbergs’ tripod are bad. Courtney the Driver is definitely not bad.

Then came the reception. When Vanhood mixes with open bars, planets align for interstellar epicness. Vanbergs invented the sparkling white russian. Enfuego started the Margarita trend. I took approximately 275 pictures. Vanlandw sang Def Leppard. Enfuego encored Livin’ on a Prayer. All present parties seriously danced the night away. Sharing 12 dollar cigars with Payner’s father was awesome, the drinks were awesome, the food was awesome, age differences are awesome, white balancing on russellteee is awesome, the reception was seriously just Vanhood.

The weekend was capped off with a breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant where they served a pretty decent brunch buffet. Kudos again to the Weber’s inn for seating all 14 of us in the ‘Bar’ which was not even open. lol.

Pictures can be found here.
As stated before – I took alot of pictures. So, alot of pictures are going to be online. However, I do not want to offend anyone in any way, so if any of these pictures are offensive or anything else for anybody please let me know. I will gladly remove pictures if people do not want them on the internets.

Congratulations to Payner and Erin. Best wishes to the both of you, and thanks for putting on a fantastic weekend.

New Digicam

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*EDIT* I’ve started an album here for posting some images taken with the new digi. *EDIT*

Below you will find a picture of the new picture creating device that I purchased yesterday:

New_Camera

I have been craving a new digicam for some time now… and have finally arrived at this wonderful piece of electronics – The Fuji S700 (AKA the S5700).

This camera was a perfect buy for me because it gives access to advanced features while not destroying your bank account as bad as a Canon or Nikon. Given the lighter price tag, i did alot of research on this device and found only overwhelmingly positive user reviews. My decision was further solidified by being able to take a detailed look at Mickeyvb’s S5600 (essentially same camera, but 5.1 megapix vs. 7.1). A digital SLR is just too much camera for me, and i’m not a serious enough photographer to really justify that purchase. Therefore, an advanced point/shooter is my niche.

After a good play session on the mickster’s camera, and one more internet cruise looking for any reason not to purchase this camera, I finalized my decision and immediately withdrew the correct sum of money. I purchased the camera (Meijer. lol?) , a decent case for it (Best Buy), and then iced the cake with a UV filter and a Polarizer filter (Ritz camera). Unfortunately they only carried the Polarizer filter in a 49 millimeter size, so i had to also purchase an adapter ring to go from 46mm to 49mm. No big deal though, it was only like 3 dollars.

I haven’t had too much time to explore this camera yet, but here are my current likes/dislikes based on early opinions.

Likes:

  • Quick power on/off times (1 second boot up/shut down)
  • 10x optical zoom
  • 7.1 megapixel vs 6.1 in the Canon PS
  • Plenty of manual play room (shutter, aperture, ISO, etc.)
  • Comfortable, ergonomically sound design
  • xD Memory (I already owned 1.5 gigs of xD memory)
  • Image stabilization
  • Large clear LCD display
  • Seemingly very good auto focus – even in macro/super macro mode. I’ve taken pictures up to approximately 1 inch from target
  • Intelligent flash – pops up if you need it, stays down if you dont
  • Upon close, detailed inspection.. it is NOT an Olympus D580

Dislikes:

  • Only allows for 4 second exposures. This was fairly disappointing since the s5600 (which the S700 replaces) allowed for 15 second exposures. I can’t imagine why they would drop that capability. But, i also can’t really envision any time where I would use more than a 4 second exposure anyway.
  • Batteries – Takes 4 AA’s and due to the placement i do not see it possible to use Lithium ion or other. Looks like i’m stuck with the energizer rechargables.
  • Lens size. It was not easy to find filters for a 46mm lens.
  • Zoom controls are a little touchy. But, i am hoping this breaks in with use.
  • The flash seems somewhat harsh. But, it does have shooting modes that try to compensate for that.

Overall, I am really warmed up to this camera and really looking forward to dig into its capabilities. The fact that this Camera comes in approximately 150 dollars cheaper than the comparable Canon Powershot-IS is legitimately unbelievable. But, I’m glad it does. Kudos to Fuji on this product. I am mos def a fan.

BRB, DVD

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Lately I’ve been experiencing various issues with my DVD rom drive. It wont be detected, it wont copy files, it wont read files, etc. Overall this has been pretty frustrating lately because i have had several important medias delivered by way of DVD. This has led to probably hours of struggling, and general cursing at this inanimate object. Then, for some reason – at 12.30 a.m. on Friday (technically Saturday) – I decided to finally BRB this drive, seen here:

Old DVD Drive

After BRBing this hidous piece of equipment (note, never buy “Liteon” product). I then set my task of making my external DVD RW/Cd RW drive work on my computer. First, a flashBack: for Christmas this past year, i purchased my father a nice new shiny DVD writer. A Pioneer, I believe… Part of that Christmas present to him meant that I got to take his old DVD RW drive, an external usb2 device, and claimed it as mine own. Now… finally… 5 months later… I tried hooking it up.

With the ease of installation and configuration on Ubuntu 7.04, i figured this to be a plug and play operation. Pretty much Neg. This external drive did not even get detected. I went at it pretty hard for about an hour, and finally gave up. I had surrendered all hope and succumbed to the fact that i would just buy a new DVD drive, an INTERNAL DVD drive. Then, at that exact moment, the fires that forged mickeyvb churned with a breath of fresh oxygen and took over my being. I began dismantling the external DVD drive. I detached cables. I took out about a dozen screws. I cracked and pryed the plastic shell. Pieces and parts flew. And after about 20 minutes of sodomizing this external drive, i was left with an internal drive (right) and some trash (left):

New DVD Drive

That shell looks alot worse in person, and there are many more parts to it not shown. After all this was said and done, this drive fit perfectly and worked perfectly like any other INTERNAL drive. It was a fantastic moral victory, and so i am no longer in need of any DVD drive. Although this one only writes at 8x – it will do. 🙂 Now i can concentrate on the AVIC D3 and a new Digicam.

In closing, here is a picture of my gato – she pawed at screws and sniffed things. Obviously trying to help me in my endeavors, but not possessing any opposable digits, she failed to provide any adequate assistance.
Kitter Wompus