Archive for January, 2005

Gosh. I didn’t realize it had been four days since I last posted. That was, not until I spoke with my parents tonight and my mom pointed it out.

On Wednesday, with minimal trouble, I got my DSL up and working. What an awesome thing, not to have dial up anymore. It is fast, and not too expensive, and already on a client conversation came in handy just like I picture I would need it. You can’t put a price on being able to talk out a design online with a client without having the time to meet with them. You can make live changes and talk them through and get feedback immediately.

We did a date night Friday night, going out to Bob Evans with some gift cards that Kerri got us after our closing. I never thought that Bob Evans was really up class food or anything, but last night we both had pretty bad meals. I got an omelet thatwasn’t really mixed together, more like ingredients laying on an egg pattie, and Sarah had this really wimpy sandwich thatwould have only filled up a child of 4. But I posted those photos tonight.

Also we rented a couple of videos. We are still trying to figure out where is the best place to rent. The Hollywood here is much more expensive then the one by our old place just three miles up the road, go figure.

So we did Family Video and opened up an account at that location. We have an account at a different location, and I had kind of forgot how good their deals are. They have old movies for either $1 or 2 for a $1, depending on the age of the movie, and new rentals are $2.50, which is pretty cheap.

Plus by opening an account everything is half off for 15 days, and we get a free rental coupon for filling out a five question survey. Plus, everyone is friendly, instead of being indifferent and corporate like “We don’t need your business, we are already awesome because we are Blockbuster.”

On Friday the new DSL also came in handy as we don’t have an internet connection yet at work, and I really needed to do some website testing. So I worked from home on Friday and it went really well. On my lunch I went out and checked out a comic book store just south of us that I had been to once before. But now it is a ton closer, just off 135 and County Line, so I thought I would pop in and then add that to the comic section. So there is that too.

I keep adding to this list. In the design section I added information I had to look up about fonts, their extensions, and their uses this weekend.

I swear I am not trying to make up for three days off. Ok maybe just a little.

So I also posted my reviews on those two movies we saw Friday night and Manchurian Candidate that we watched Saturday night in the tub in the bathroom. Enjoy.

Sections Updated: Movies E-G, Movies M-O, Movies U-W, Photo Diary, Comics, Design

This movie must have come out at a funny time. A year after the 9/11 attacks, this is a movie all about terrorist attacks.

Arnold stars as a fireman who has just lost his wife and child to a Columbian terrorist attack. Driven over the edge, he starts
to research how to get into the country and kill those who have taken his loved ones. He miraculously makes it into the guerilla run country and then penetrates the fortress of the terrorist where not even the USA could find him.

In the end of the movie he ends up back in America, trying to stop a bomb. There is a twist and he finds out who the real terrorist mastermind is.

There are a lot of parts I find hard to believe in this movie, and there is some under acting by Arnold. It may be an action film, but you never really feel the loss of his family. Plus the very ending, the villain survives this amazing explosion that would be totally impossible.

The cool thing about this movie is that Arnold doesn’t kill reams of people like a Conan movie or something, actually they are very few. It is a solid action movie and if you are just amazed at how massive Arnold is, then I would check this out. It isn’t particularly violent so for those of you who are put off by the R rating, that won’t be a problem. But don’t come looking for this movie to do anything more then take 2 hours of your life to relax and tune everything else out for some German flavored do-gooding.

Starring John Leguizamo and Peter Sarsgaad, yeah I have never heard of the second guy either, this movie revolves around Money, plain and simple. John is a drug lord in the Bronx who tries to get into big business with a Wall Street Jockey, investing in property developments.

This movie was not at all what I was expecting. The movie centered a lot around territory and respect, and less around what should have been the main story, John getting taken for a ride and scammed out of almost two million dollars.

It does point out a good lesson though, as John got more involved with the new people he thought were his friends, he had less time and cared for less those who had supported him and had his back all along. Then when the time came, a line was drawn in the sand and some stayed and some left all over money and its pursuit.

I think that you kind of have to like John Leguizamo. So if you like his movies, this should be up your alley. But is really heavy on the language, and does get to be a little long. But like I said, it has some good lessons on how money can destroy your life, and how you can never escape your past and the things you did.

It’s a girlie movie, but it had Kirsten Dunst, who can be aggressive than giglish and it also had some of the filmography effects that are used in the popular CSI shows which made the fact that it was about tennis a little more interesting.

Paul Bettany is the male lead, star from Russell Crowe movies “Beautiful Mind” and “Master and Commander”, and is funny as much as the next English guy who uses all of their unusual slang, like “Bugga” or “Wanka”. He does a nice job in the lead role though and carries this movie enough. He really does show what the reaction is from the media to go from being unknown to being the underdog that does all the way to the top. He also does a really nice job of giving you a view into a competitors mind and all of the things they do to keep themselves in a game. All of the self massaging and self doubts that swirl around in an athlete’s head.

Paul falls in love with Kirsten, and in the beginning she is hot stuff and he is not quite. By the end, the tables have turned, and that makes loving each other complicated. But they work it out and have babies. Yeah tennis.

If you like the slow more shots, and the intertwining of objects in the scene shots that are similar to CSI then check this movie out. If you like British comedy like Monty Python, well this isn’t the same but is entertaining for British demeanor and language, then this might be worthwhile. But if you think that no amount of dramatization could make tennis interesting, then you might pass because especially near the end, there are some longer scenes of tennis that you really have to like the sport a little to care. Which I happen to like the sport quite a bit, so that wasn’t a quandary for me eh?

This movie was not what I expected at all, and boy was it weird at times.

Starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight, this is the movie that makes all of your wildest fears come true, the idea of a president that is bought and controlled by a special interest.

This movie is very trippy to follow, and violent at times. The first half of the movie is told is flashback to an opening scene in the Gulf War that goes horribly wrong. Denzel Washington starts to think that what he knows to be true isn’t, and he sets out to find out the truth before it is too late. It leads him right to the White House where the vice president on the Democratic tickets is being controlled by a group called Manchurian Global.

In the end, the movie works out to be pretty interesting. I was put off at first because even some of the footage looked a little futuristic, like the nomination celebration settings, and the live feeds of the presidents talking. Plus there are as always, a ton of close ups of Denzel’s face either breathing hard and sweating, biting his lip, or any of his other “troubled” quirks that he brings out for a movie like this.

If you like Denzel, even though this isn’t really his typical take charge kind of role, it is still solid acting and you may like it. If you like a different movie that you may not figure out right away, but gradually unravels, you may like this movie. But, if you don’t like psychedelic scenes with covert operating tables and sinister things happening to soldiers, you may want to pass.

Overall an interesting remake of a movie I would almost be curious to see the original with Frank Sinatra.

Even though we live ten minutes closer to the Movies 8 in Greenwood, we still weren’t able to make it on time to a showing of Shark Tale. Instead, we saw The Forgotten with Julianne Moore. Weird movie.

Sections Updated: Movies E-G

Only one more day until DSL!

We are going to a movie tonight, so it will be a short one. I got some time to read my Flash book that I got at work, way back in like May. But I have been so busy that I haven’t had time. Today I made time. I decided to type up something that I learned.

Sections Updated: Flash

That is what I also did not know until today. A pin script really is nothing more than a marker to come back to.

When you are writing actionscript, you may want to come back to a certain frame during development. All you need to do is;

1. Click in the frame.

2. Open your actionscript panel. Window > Actions.

3. Click the pushpin icon at the bottom.

You will notice an additional tab appear at the bottom of the actionscript development window. You can click on any one of these tabs at any time and jump back to that frame that you want to work on again. In case you forget where that pin script is located, the tag will display the name of the layer, and the frame number like the following;

Layer 1:1.

So in summary, pin scripts are like markers during your actionscript development between frames so that you can keep your place. Tune in for more this week on things I have read specifically about Actionscript 2.0 and Flash MX 2004.