I will be the first to admit that I am an Apple fanboy. I have had multiple sips of the Apple Kool-Aid and worship at the altar of Steve Jobs. I own a Macbook Pro, I have bought four iPods, (due to theft and water damage). The only reason I don’t have an iPhone is because I don’t have the money and The Record does not pay enough to cover the bill, much less the phone.
Even with all that. Even with me treating my Apple products like they were my own children, there is one thing I just cannot get that excited about — the iPad.
First and foremost it is that name. iPad. The name sounds like it should come in regular and heavy flow. I get that Apple has this need to put “i” in front of all their products now, but was Pad really the best word for this product? What about iTablet? That is just as effective and it doesn’t make the product sound like a high tech tampon.
Feminine hygiene products aside, it is the product itself that confuses me. What is its purpose? The iPad is just an iPhone minus the phone and a MacBook minus the processing speed and ability to multitask. I have a laptop and, assuming I had an iPhone, it would seem that I have everything the iPad had to offer.
Part of the problem I have with this new iProduct is that this is essentially Apple’s response to Amazon’s Kindle. I would buy a
Kindle before I bought this because the Kindle uses e-paper and the iPad does not. E-paper does not use a backlight to light the screen and that makes it easier to read for long periods of time. As a copy editor, my job is to make sure every article for the paper is in the proper style. This requires me to be in front of a computer monitor for hours on end on Tuesday. More often than not, I got home with a throbbing headache because of this (and a lack of food).
There is nothing I like more than in the summer time, sitting in a chair on the porch and reading. I would and could never use the iPad for this. I would have to take a break every now and then which, when you are really into a book, is not something you want to do.
I do see the functionality of the iPad. It would work well for small business owners (maybe even some big business owners) who are out selling products. What to see what we have in stock? Pull out the iPad and show them. Why lug around a five-pound laptop when the iPad weights less than two?
Another issue I have with this is that there is no support for Flash (a player which most online videos are coded in). This means sites like Hulu are not accessible from the iPad.
So why would they limit content like this? The answer lies in the biggest “i” in the Apple arsenal — iTunes. Why provide free content when you can direct people to your own video content and get them to pay for it?
Of corse they do have an application for Netflix, so I could access my Watch Instantly Queue from the iPad.
So Steve Jobs put out one less than stellar product. I mean even Pixar, the kings of animated movies, has “Cars” on their resume.
It is still a good movie — it just falls below the high expectations. So it is with the iPad. I cannot deny that it is a cool product. If I had the disposable income I might have one.
As it stands now, I am unemployed and I do not have a rich uncle who is on his deathbed so I will be sans-iPad. Sorry Stevie, this is one Apple product that I cannot stand behind.
Of course, if you were to send me one, I could be persuaded to think otherwise.
One of the joys in my life is going to the movies. I don’t drink that often and I don’t do drugs so my only real escape is that dark theater. There was a time a few years ago when I would have never ventured into a theater alone. It just seemed sad to be there by yourself. Now things have changed. Most of my friends have moved back home or are off doing other things not in Buffalo. Even the few people I still talk to in this town are usually too busy to go to a movie.
Now I do not mind going to a movie alone. It completely changed the experience. I am they type of guy that likes to stay through the credits. I like to be the guy there when the lights come back up and the usher comes in to clean up. Some part of me feels obligated to stay because for some reason I feel the need to support everyone who made the movie. Somehow staying there and just looking at all the names fulfills that need. When I go with other people I do not do that. I am not staying that I want to stay, it is that I choose not to make a big deal of it.
The credits are not the only thing that changes. The entire feeling of the movie-going experience changes as well. It is just you. No friends, no family, no girlfriend/boyfriend. Just you and the movie. Even with other people in the theater, you can feel totally alone. And sometimes that is just what the doctor ordered.
I still love going to see movies with others, don’t get me wrong. There is just something nice about the solidarity of seeing a movie alone that is nice once and a while.
Last week was one hell of a week for me. Nothing, and I mean nothing, I did went right. I left 90 percent of my assignments at my apartment, I left a presentation I had to do at home and had to race back to get it, it rained as I biked home that day, and I was so overwhelmed, I submitted an assignment that was not finished just because I did not have the time to finish it. 
All this is great background for what I did that Friday. I went to a movie. I have not been to the theater since December 2009 when I saw “Avatar.” I have just been so busy that I have not had the time. Well, I made time. I was in for a cheesy movie so “Clash Of The Titans” was the best option.
Sam Wothington stars as Peruses, a demigod who has grown up believing he was human. He soon finds himself caught in a war between gods and man. Zeus (Liem Neeson) is not happy that the humans he created have stopped worshiping the gods.
The gods need the prayers of man to survive just like humans need the gods protection to survive. Zeus enlists the help of his brother Hades (Ralph Finnes) and his pet, The Krackken, to force the humans back into the arms of their gods.
Peruses discovers his birthright and goes on a quest to save humanity from the piety gods.
I wrote a few months back about this movie. I said that because of my history with the subject matter, I was either going to love or hate this movie. Well, to be honest, it was just so-so. The movie felt kind of rushed. There was no time to care about any of the characters that went with Peruses on his mission. I was disappointed by much of the movie. The subject matter had so much they could have pulled from and they squandered it.
One thing, probably the only thing, I loved about the movie was Pegasus. This is a big deal because they completely screwed up his character. First a couple of things; Pegasus was born from the neck of Medusa, he is the last of his kind (winged horse) and he is white. The movie version has him just being there, as one of a group of winged horses and he is black. 
Yet, the flying scenes are amazing and made up for it. This is going to sound geeky, but it is exactly what I would have though a flying horse would look and fly like. As geeky as it is to love that a horse runs as he flies, I absolutely loved it and it almost made it worth the $8.
So I did not love this movie like I thought I would. I did not hate it and that is a good thing. One more thought, if you see this movie, do no go to the 3D version. I saw it in 2D because I have heard horrible things about the 3D (that and the theater did not offer it).
7 out of 10
Rated PG-13 for fantasy action violence, some frightening images and brief sensuality
106 min
Well day 40 is here.
Starting tomorrow I do not have to do this every day. I’d be lying if I said I was going to miss it. I am not. It was a HUGE pain in my ass most days. It would get to be late afternoon and suddenly the thought would hit me, “Crap, I need to do one of my stupid posts for today. This was a really dumb idea.” So I would sit at my computer and throw 200 plus words on the screen and call it done.
That is not to say I have not enjoyed it…most of the time. The days where I forgot about it until later tended to be really bad writing. The ones I put thought into you can tell. Those were a joy to write. My week of Whedon was fun, but I felt myself getting redundant in the end and none of the posts did justice to the material.
I was actually surprised at how introspective I got at times. I figured it would just be me talking about random stuff, I did not expect some of those posts to end up like they did.
So where do I go from here? I really don’t know. I will keep writing about the normal stuff, movies and TV, but I might branch off into more op-ed pieces too. After all it is a blog and it can be whatever I want it to be.
So here is to the future of this little experiment in futility!
Stay with me here because this is going to be an odd transition into the post for today (only one left) but it is going somewhere. Trust me.
I was watching “Survivor” today and as usual there was an immunity challenge. These challenges fall into a few categories, 1) athletic, 2) puzzle, 3) endurance, 4) a combination of the first three. The challenge in question was a classic combination of puzzle and athletic. They had to run to gather puzzle pieces and then put them together.
All that got me thinking about a little site called Sporcle. It is a site I visit on daily basis (sometimes more). For those who don’t know, Sporcle is a quiz site. They have a bunch of quizzes that fall into many categories.
It is awesome. It is fast becoming an addiction of mine. I go on everyday and attempt (with some success) all the quizzes I can. Each day they post about 4-5 new quizzes and if there is one the piques my interest, I will give it a go.
The site is actually becoming pretty popular. I have heard it mentioned a few times among friends or on television.
There is something there for everyone. Go try it.
If you have not seen the movie “Up In The Air” do not read any further. 
I rewatched the movie recently and something struck me about the ending. It is very open ended. Ryan (George Clooney) is standing in an airport looking up at the departures and arrivals board. There are so many ways to read into what happens next. 1) Ryan goes back to work firing people, 2) Ryan takes Natalie’s (Anna Kendrick) advice and uses his miles and just picks a destination.
Depending on your view on the world (optimist or pessimist) it ends differently. I think it really depends on your mood at the time. In the summer when I first saw it, I was in a great mood. I had just seen a really good movie, I had gotten into Grad School and camp was going really well. I saw that ending as Ryan just picks a place and goes. His life was so secluded that he is ready to make a change. He could be going home to get to know his family or he could be going some place to make a new life.
Now I am over worked and a bit stressed out (though I have been told I hide it well) and I am not in the same mood as I was in the summer. Today my ending changed. He was going back to work. He chose to keep living his life and not making any connections.
I am sure that when I watch it again, that could change again. It is all open to interpretation and those are the endings I truly love.
