Dreamer - live 1974

Supertramp is my favorite band of all time. Others come close, but Rick Davies, Roger Hodgson and the boys take the cake.

Check out this video of “Dreamer” from 1974. And it’s Live!

That Whirly gets a heck of a workout in this tune…

Awesome.

The Avenue Forsyth

So The Avenue Forsyth is this cool new shopping area that just opened half way between work and home. The big deal, at least for me, is the new AMC theater complex.

Jennie and I went on a date night last Friday, and found 3 especially cool things:

#1 - The coolest watch ever…

It’s by NIXON, and retails for $355.00.

So I won’t be getting that. Ever.

# 2 - A store called “Relax The Back” - completely dedicated to your back. Massage chairs, posture chairs, mattresses and pillows, massagers - you name it.

So we “unwound” in the big vibrating massage chairs until the sales guy started hounding us…

And # 3 - the AMC Theaters. They are incredible. INCREDIBLE!! Best movie experience of my life. And it’s just down the road…

Check out this part of the press release:

“AMC Avenue Forsyth 12 is the first all-digital theater in the area and has Sony 4K digital cinema projectors that create images with more than four times the resolution of HDTV. Two auditoriums have screens that are more than three stories high and 50 feet wide.

The complex will have 12 auditoriums with more than 2,200 seats that feature “rocking” backs and lifting cupholder armrests. The auditoriums also will have stadium seating with 18-inch risers and 48-inch row spacing for unobstructed views.”

WOW! The quality of the picture and audio, size of the screen and comfort of the chairs is second to none.

Bring on the gift certificates!!!

…

Let Loose on the Town

BEWARE: Do not let parents of babies and/or preschoolers out for a night on their own, minus children.

Here’s why…

Yeah, I make an ugly woman.

Thanks for babysitting, Papa and Yaya!

…

Advertiser runs out of ideas…

Hmmmmmm. Ok, saw this today at the movie theater.

Two posters for upcoming movies, side by side.

Different studios
Different actors
Different, umm, species

But apparently the same advertising agency. That has obviously run out of ideas…

I honestly thought this was one large ad for the same movie. Nope.

I thought just the writers were on strike…

What’s the next movie YOU’re going to see?

…

Movie Rentals on all your gadgets and HD TV (thanks Apple!)

So I’m a big Apple freak. I love my Mac Book Pro, iPhone, Air Port Extreme, still have my old iPod, love their software, yada yada yada. 

Long story short. Apple announced today that you can now RENT movies via iTunes. You know how you can rent a handful of movies through your cable or satellite? Yeah, well raise that handful to THOUSANDS of movies. And you can watch them within a minute of purchase. And you can swap them over to your iPod or iPhone to go. Check it out… 

Introducing iTunes Movie Rentals
Available today with the free download of iTunes 7.6, iTunes Movie Rentals allows customers to rent movies for as little as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV. Featuring movies from all the major movie studios—20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema—iTunes Movie Rentals is expected to offer more than 1,000 movie titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles featuring stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. Movies can be rented directly from a widescreen TV using Apple TV. 

 

AND with Apple TV you can do all THIS stuff on your High Def TV:

 Apple announces new software for Apple TV; lowers price to $229
Available as a free automatic download later this month, the new software announced today lets movie fans rent movies on the iTunes Store directly from their widescreen TV. With iTunes Movie Rentals and Apple TV—and with no computer required—customers can effortlessly rent movies just by clicking a button on their remote. By the end of February, they’ll be able to choose from a catalog of more than 1,000 titles, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. DVD-quality iTunes Movie Rentals cost just $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases. High-definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99.  

 

Man, I hope you realize how cool that is! I mean, that is a HUGE step towards the way we will rent and watch movies in the future.  

Have YOU sold your Blockbuster stock yet?  

 

Great Gift for the Music Lover

Well, we finished disc 2 of 4 of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers DVDs. The first 2 are the FOUR hour movie (documentary), and it is fantastic. Watching these guy rise from their humble club days in Gainesville, FL to one of the greatest Rock & Roll bands is really cool.

And you’ve got to see the part about how the Traveling Wilburys came to be - I mean Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Jeff Lynn, all together by a strange set of coincidences. UNREAL!

Anyhoo, disc 3 is a full live concert, and disc 4 an audio disc of some new and some re-vamped audio.

This DVD is AWESOME, and a great gift for the music lover in your family (This Christmas, that was me!).

Who’s the music lover in YOUR family?

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers night, part 1

So my brother-in-law Michael Olson is down for the weekend, playing with us at North Point and doing a show in Canton on Saturday night.

Our family drew names for Christmas, and he drew mine. He got me the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers movie “Runnin’ Down A Dream”. So tonight we’re watching it.

Well, it’s FOUR hours long, so we’ll give the first hour a go and wee where we land…

I AM LEGEND owes me $1.86!

First of all, I’m normally not so long winded about a movie.  But after seeing the SPECTACULAR trailers for I Am Legend, I wanted desperately to LOVE it.   

And I didn’t.   

And what makes me upset is that I COULD have loved it, if only the film makers went the extra mile.  And they didn’t.  They left out a quarter of the movie. So here are some comments.  If you’ve seen the movie, please weigh in…  

Spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen Will Smith’s new movie “I Am Legend” yet, well maybe you did but you just don’t know it - you may have sneezed or blinked your eyes, in which case you missed most of the movie. 

Here’s my basic take on the movie: Good first draft -  now go back, develop some plot lines and character development, add some back story for certain characters, and give us a better ending. 

And by doing that, you’ll make this movie a realistic length of 120-130 minutes, instead of its’ measly 100 minutes.  In fact, here’s a picture of Will Smith looking for the rest of the movie….   

 

And so, since all criticism should be constructive, let’s start with what was good: 

 - Will Smith’s acting.  He’s come a long way since The Fresh Prince…

 - Will Smith’s abs.  Very impressive.  I’m actually jealous.  I could have those too, but I love Twizzlers too much…

 - The Manhattan wasteland.  I don’t know what they did to make that, but between blocking off real streets and CG, it’s impressive.

 - All the cool stuff he does during the day (golf balls off the aircraft carrier, hunting with an assault rifle, driving a freshly washed and waxed Mustang GT ) 

 - The lack of chronology.  Having the cause of the crisis as a series of flashbacks actually worked for me. Surprisingly.  

Now here’s what needed some work: 

 - The creatures.  Why go all CG?  Why not humans with lots of makeup like other great zombie movies of late? (28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, for example).  They are, after all, REAL people affected by a virus, not space aliens!

  - Hinted plots not fully developed or explained.  There are several to choose from:

1. Show us more back-story on the initial spread of the virus, and the “zombie” transformation process. 

2. How does 40 year old Army dude (Smith) become the hope for mankind, getting on the cover of Time (posted on his fridge) and his family gets the royal treatment.  What about the CDC?  Other global organizations?  Why him? 

3. How could he NOT smell the zombies in the blackened building?  Would the whole place, especially their “lair” not WREAK of B.O.? 

4. Show us more of his mental breakdown BEFORE he gets caught in the trap. ‘Cause ain’t nobody THAT stupid! 

5. Show us LOTS of his mental breakdown AFTER the dog Sam dies.  And I mean a long, slow degradation of his mind once Sam is gone (since the dog was the only thing keeping him teetering on the edge of sanity.) 

6. I don’t believe that Anna and the mute kid saved him from the zombies. Uh-uh, no way Jose.  Give us something SLIGHTLY believable. 

7. Were Anna and the kid staying at the Ritz Carlton getting facials and manicures for 3 years?  ’Cause it looked like it!  Fresh clothes, amply fed, and apparently a car that FLOATS ON WATER TO GET TO MANHATTAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

C’mon - we’re not idiots, and not making Anna and the kid look like they’ve been through the wringer trying to stay alive is nonsense, and we’re too smart for it!  Are the zombies only in Manhattan, while middle America is full of flowing gas pumps and a cornucopia of nature’s freshest foods?   

8. How did Anna and the kid get out?  ’Cause they were in a basement with 50 zombies.  Sure, Will told them to wait until daylight, at which point they would have come out into the STILL-DARKENED BASEMENT WITH 50 ZOMBIES!!!!  It could have been the Summer Solstice, and it still would have been a darkened basement with, oh, say, 50 ZOMBIES!  (The key word here is basement, as in “no daylight”….  Cool, thanks for tracking with me.) 

9. And finally, after their car floated BACK OVER the Hudson River, Anna and the kid were tooling on a Sunday drive through Vermont looking at the leaves, when what should they stumble upon?  A giant wall, right in the middle of nowhere.  With 2 guards.  Anyone care a guess as to how a giant wall ended up surrounding M. Night Shymalan’s “The Village”?  Yeah, I can’t figure it out either. 

So, since I believe they left out at least 25% of what the movie SHOULD have been, I feel I am entitled to receive a refund of $1.86 (we saw the $7.50 matinee).  If you saw it in the evening, obviously you are entitled to more…  

And if you think of what the movie has grossed since its release?  Domestic Total as of Jan. 1, 2008: $205,090,000.   

Take a look at that number! They owe us all $51,272,500! 

OK, I’m done.  Did YOU see it? What did you think? 

Santa brought an iPhone!

Yes, I wanted an iPhone. Can you blame me?

So all I asked for Christmas was money so I could pool it all together, add it to some I’d been saving, and get an iPhone - maybe.

I wasn’t sure.

I had to talk to talk to an AT&T rep to see if I could adjust my plan, especially the data stuff. Turns out that in the wake of people texting me, I was racking up $15 - 20 worth of INCOMING texts!

I was paying for people who were too lazy to pick up the phone and call me (y’know, the thing a PHONE was MADE for!). At $0.15 per incoming text, we were racking up nearly $20 in incoming texts. And since that wasn’t going to change any time soon, I realized I could pay the same amount and take advantage of the features of the iPhone.

Pretty good logic, eh?

So save up your Christmas money, analyze your incoming texts, and enjoy your new iPhone too!

Michael Olson, Michael W. Smith and The Burbs

So we arrived at Ashley & Michael Olson’s today (Ashley’s my sister, and Mom & Dad are down from Canada). By the way, you’re gonna want to lick over to Michael’s site (new under Sites Galore!!)

And Ashley got Michael a Tom Hanks collection for Christmas, including the movie “The Burbs” (which I LOVE !!!!!)

So Michael plays drums for Michael W. Smith. Most of you know that. But here’s something I didn’t know…

Michael (W. Smith) has an annual “The Burbs” party!! People dress up as their favorite character and they watch the movie o a big screen on the front lawn. AHHH! Olson’s got to get me in next year!! He’s gonna go as Rumsfeld, and I’ve got to find a pair of liederhosen!!

What character would YOU go as?

Christmas Movie List

So Jennie & I just saw I Am Legend (we’ll dissect that later, ’cause I’ve got opinions!), but in searching for movie times, www.Moviefone.com had a list of top 25 Christmas movies of all time.

It’s a little controversial, since they included movies that I don’t think are official “Christmas” movies (see #21 ), but we can discuss…

Here they are in descending order (to add suspense, y’know…)

25. Polar Express (I think this should be higher!)
24. We’re No Angels (nope, I haven’t heard of it either…)
23. The Muppet Christmas Carol
22. Joyeux Noel (another one from the land of obscurity)
21. Gremlins (??? What the heck???) 
20. The Santa Clause (ok, back on track…) 
19. Bad Santa (a little something for the grown-ups)
18. The Dead (???? I mean ?!?!?)
17. The Shop Around The Corner (J-J-J-immy Shtewart) 
16. Die Hard (SWEET! Out of the blue, but se-weet! Yippie-ki-yay!)
15. Love Actually (yeah, missed that one…)
14. The Bishop’s Wife (Carey Grant or Denzel Washington - who would you choose?) 
13. The Nightmare Before Christmas (I wanted to see this, but haven’t - yet!)
12. Holiday Inn (the movie that brought us White Christmas!! Why isn’t this higher?)
11. A Christmas Carol (1951) (yep, classic) 
10. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (WHY ISN’T THIS #1???? It’s the gift that keeps on giving, Clark!)
09. Babes In Toyland (Laurel & Hardy, kids!)
08. Home Alone (isn’t Macauly in jail or something?) 
07. Christmas In Connecticut (ummm, no.)
06. Elf (candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup)
05. White Christmas (need we say more?) 
04. Scrooged (I LOVE this movie!! And the classic 80’s soundtrack? Excellent!)
03. Miracle on 34th Street (personally,I likes the one on 35th street better)
02. It’s A Wonderful Life (yeah, I can buy that one)

and the top Christmas movies is:

01. A Christmas Story (you’re gonna shoot your eye out!) 

Well, what do you think? Do you agree with their list?

Where’s your favorite rank? My faves are #10, 4 and 6)