In case you were wondering.
WordPress 1.0
I haven’t updated this site in years. Up until now I’ve used an older version of MovableType, from back when it was still all free, and had liked it better than WordPress because it was much more customizable and fit my style better (more programmer style). Now, I just want it to work, rather than fiddle with it all the time, so I’m switching to WordPress.
For now I’m trying out the Responsive theme courtesy of Cyberchimps, which is supposed to be mobile friendly as well as customizable. So far so good.
It’s unlikely that I’ll still post here much, but might as well get up to date a little. 🙂
Posted in Life
Deja Vu
Deja vu was the first movie we saw today. After watching it I thought it was a fairly good movie. After watching The Fountain it was even better. I like time traveling stories, which is a bonus. Denzel Washington is certainly a good actor, which helped the movie. The story was surprisingly coherent for a time travel movie – most of them have not just bad science, but also an inconsistent story that just leaves you confused. In this case I’m not entirely sure the story was consistent, but it was good enough to hang together without being distracting, and the science was at least believable (as much as anything involving time travel can be).
Being a Jerry Bruckheimer film there was plenty of action and exploding, which I of course enjoy. I’m not sure how Val Kilmer ended up looking so fat in this, but he did. His performance was fine though, so whatever.
Overall I would rate it 3.5 out of 5, I guess. It wasn’t a great movie, but it was slightly better than average.
Posted in Uncategorized
The Fountain
The Fountain is right up there with the worst movies I have ever seen. The description does not really match what the movie appeared to be, which makes me wonder if the movie was re-edited for some reason. The visuals are interesting, and the acting was certainly fine, but the story was not only boring and confusing, but depressing as well. I would highly recommend that nobody watches it if at all possible.
Since this was the second movie we saw today, we didn’t bother getting popcorn to go with it. I can’t decide if popcorn would have improved it or not. On the one hand popcorn is always good. On the other hand, its hard to eat popcorn to such a drab movie.
I would have to rate this movie 2 of 5 stars. It only moves up from 1 star because of the visuals. If they were in a movie that made any sense at all then they’d be good.
Posted in Movies
Friday At Ruby’s
Well we went to Ruby Tuesday’s again tonight. It is one of our most frequented dining establishments. The food is usually pretty good, and we both like the salad bar. They changed the menu recently, and have even more burgers than before. There are still only a couple that I would actually get, but between those and the “Tuesday’s Tenders” there is always something good to have.
Unfortunately, the service could be better. The one we went to tonight is usually better than some of the other ones (and almost anything beats the abysmal service at Applebee’s) but Friday is not the best time to go. This is the second time we’ve gone late on Friday and gotten worse service than usual.
It started off well when we were seated, and nobody showed up for a while to serve us. When Nicki finally showed up, we were ready to order dinner, rather than just drinks. That isn’t really that unusual, since we both know the menu well, and tend to know what we’re going to get by the time we sit down. In any case, we ordered drinks, which had to be repeated 3 times (difficult as it is to understand “diet coke”), and dinner. I got the Tenders entree (repeated twice), and added the salad bar (asked for by me, rather than offered by Nicki) and S got potato and salad. That turned out ok, but when my dinner came it was the appetizer not the dinner, so I had no fries or coleslaw. I really don’t care about the slaw, certainly, but I wanted my fries. The runner that brought the food said she’d go back and get fries and slaw, and came back a minute later with the slaw, and said the fries would be out soon. About half way through the meal Nicki finally showed up again and asked how our dinner was. We went through what had happened with my lack of fries, and she seemed confused, and checked the bill (which she already was dropping off at our table) and noted that she ordered the right thing, and would find my fries. She came back with them a few minutes later, so at least I got all my food.
S had put my coleslaw on the plate her potato came on, and I had shoved my empty plate over so I could eat my plate of belated fries, and Nicki came by and took the potato/slaw plate, and left my empty dinner plate. We both just started laughing. She took the food we hadn’t gotten to yet, but left the empty plate? Whatever, I didn’t want it anyway! She snagged the check on the way by and when she dropped it off again, I managed to catch her long enough to ask for a refill on my soda. Which she brought, but didn’t ask if S wanted hers filled or not either, even though it was empty before mine.
In the end things worked out ok, but no thanks to our server. I suppose if we want good serves, we should go somewhere like Ruth’s instead.
Posted in Food
Books
I was sending a list of sci-fi and fantasy books that I have read to someone, and thought I’d dump it here as well. It’s by no means everything I’ve ready, but some of the big series.
Dragon Prince
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0886774500
The Star Scroll
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0886773490
Sun-Runner’s Fire
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0886774039
Other things that may be good:
All the Ender books, including the newest:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312857586
Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time (as we were talking about).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/408712
Everything in the Belgariad and Malloreon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/28896JPBM3K8S
Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth, which are pretty heavy, but good:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/408716
The main Dragonlance books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/3GKV809NNU2I8
The various Dark Elf books by R.A. Salvatore are good, but violent:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/1HDA8ZQ5CY8NN
The “Honorverse” books by David Weber are really good, but a bit
heavy on the made-up-science:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/11FKI8TAGWYHS
Everything on this list is really good. It includes Asimov’s
Foundation books, and Arthur C Clarke’s Rama books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/37ZKU1XR1898B
The Order War, by L. E. Modesitt Jr are good, but very repetitive
after the first 5 or 6. The back-story does build with each book, but
its the same plot again and again. If you like the plot, that’s fine,
there’s 13 of them to read. If not, you’ll never read more than one.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/22XHK89AUQ7R7/
Anne Mccaffry’s Dragonriders of Pern books are good reasonably light
fantasy:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/191IODV23QVIX
Someone may like George Martin’s “A song of ice and fire” although I
couldn’t get into them at all:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/15583
Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I could never get into
these either, but they’re supposed to be good:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0440238609
That’s more than a start. It’s what, 100 books? 🙂 If you buy
anything, I’d definitely try to get everything in a series at the
same time. At least within each set. For instance, the Belgariad is 5
books, and the Malloreon is another 5 books. The Dragonlance books
are a half dozen trilogies (and a couple pairs), etc. There’s
nothing I hate more than reading a book or two in a series and not
being able to get the rest. Or worse, reading something in the middle
of a series.
Oh, another place you may point people who have a computer at home:
http://www.baen.com/library
This is a free library of books ( some of which I listed above ) that
can be read online or downloaded to read later. The Belisarius series
has several books included there, by David Drake and Eric Flint.
They’re pretty good, easy reads, but quite violent. It’s a (very)
alternative history of Roman times. Book six is due out soon.
Posted in Life
Big Date
We went to Mohegan Sun to see Richard Jeni perform, which was a really good show. We’ve seen him on TV a few times and liked him, and since he was going to be nearby we decided to go.
We went to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse for dinner beforehand. Neither of us had gone before, but it was supposed to be really good steak, and as long as we were having an occasion, we decided to go. The fact that I have a $50 gift card didn’t hurt, it paid for almost half the meal! It was certainly very good steak, and the service was great as well. We’ll probably go back again, when we’re feeling up for sometthing relatively fancy. If you’re just trying to get steak, Outback is almost as good. The portions are smaller, but it costs about 1/3 as much, so it is hard to complain.
On the way back from the concert, at about 2am, we ran out of gas, so we were stuck on the side of the road. We almost made it! It was about 3 minutes from the house, and we had just driven past a gas station that was still open, but thought we’d make it home ok and be able to get gas in the morning. I guess not. The gas light turns on for a reason I guess. 🙂 S’s parents had a full portable can of gas that they brought and we were back home not too much later, with no harm done, so that was fine. We were sitting there maybe 5 minutes when a police car pulled up to see if we were ok. It’s nice to know they’re out and around at night, rather than hanging out at the station. I don’t think Dunkin’ Donuts is open all night here, so they have to do something.
Overall it was a good night. Good food, a show, and quality time watching people at the casino. It’s amazing how many people go through there, and how much money. We watched someone drop at least $300 at roulette just while we were watching. Weirdos. Although we’re thinking about saving up for a big night of throwing money away at some point too. We might actually spend more than $10!
Posted in Events
New Blog Host
Well I switched hosting services for my blog. With all the blogging I do it is important to have a host you like, and I really was unimpressed with who we were using before. It was nice when it was a small company, but then it was bought by a bigger company and the service isn’t so great any more. I’m trying Dreamhost now and am hoping it will be better.
Other than that, there isn’t much new. I’m off of school for the summer, and will be back again at the end of September. So far I’ve kept my 4.0 average, so I’m happy. Classes will start to get a little more challenging now, but I’m not too worried.
I also applied for a new job at work, but won’t hear until the end of August if I got it or not. The people deciding are going on vacation then have a few other interviews to do when they are all back, so it’s a slow process.
That’s all for now.
Posted in Life
Quiz of the day
 |
You scored as Natural Causes. Your death will be by natural causes, though not by any diseaese, because that is another option on this test. You will probably just silently pass away in the night from old age, and people you love won’t realize until the next morning, when you are all purple and cold and icky.
How Will You Die?? |
Posted in Life