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I had the great opportunity to see Prince Caspian, on opening night. My entire family is seeing it on Sunday, whilst I’m at work. So, the wife allowed me to stay out late and see it at the first chance. I ended up going alone. I’m a bit unique when watching movies, so it’s no loss to me to attend the theater alone.

I am a huge fan of The Chronicles of Narnia. Next to The Lord of The Rings, the Narnia series is one of the best set of stories in the English language. Yes I know, there are so many, and I’m sure I’d agree with your favorites too. I read them as a child, multiple times. I’ve even read them to my daughter. Well, actually I read the first two, then she started reading them to me. We have only one left to be complete. Next I’ll set my sights on my boys.

I enjoyed the film, as a stand alone project. It was entertaining and was somewhat how I imagined many important parts from the book. Unfortunately, there were a few issues I didn’t like and I think they detract from the message of the book.

This book is important because it sets the stage for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It demonstrates that the people of Narnia, and the surrounding countries, are quick to forget the truth of their ancestry and their beginnings.

I didn’t quite like Peter’s scuffle in the Underground Station. He was clearly fighting for trivial reasons and I wouldn’t expect that from High King Peter, the Magnificent. Additionally, Peter’s role would have been to lead the leaders, and Caspian did not take as much issue with Peter’s decisions in the book. Caspian would have been properly obedient to Peter.

The last problem I had was with Susan’s infatuation with Caspian, or was it the other way around? There’s no way a proper Queen of Narnia would have kissed a man whom was not her husband, especially in public. The liberalization of these issues cheapen the story and Lewis work on the whole.

Oh yeah, and Prince Caspian sure seemed to whine a lot. Peter communicated his intentions, and Caspian didn’t take issue like a noble, he whined about it. He sounded like it hurt his feelings that Peter didn’t consult him first. Just silly.

However, other than these few problems, I still loved the film and am proud to have spent my voting dollars on its opening weekend.

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This summer has a huge list of great potential blockbuster films being released. I’m curious about some, and down right excited about others. Here’s the list, in order of release date…

• Iron Man
• Speed Racer
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• The Dark Night
• Kung Fu Panda
• Hancock
• Get Smart
• WALL-E
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
• The Clone Wars

OK, so the last one isn’t a theater release. But, it must be on there! Any continuation of the Star Wars saga must always be included.

Now, some of these you might have skipped, and that is your right. I, however, am very excited about each of these.

If I remember, I’ll try to review each of them, as I see them.

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As you’ve read here before, I am a huge fan of cutting edge television technology. More specifically, we Tivo, Netflix, and some times even torrent programming. Early on, after we got the Tivo, we tried Amazon’s Unbox service. Not bad, but they had a tiny selection. Since our Tivo is not an HD unit, we quickly looked at other choices.

Then we got Netflix. Sweet! I love Netflix. At first I used it almost entirely to watch the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica. I found BSG at the beginning of season 3, and wanted desperately to watch all the earlier stuff. However, with me only benefiting, I saw the wife loosing interest quick if I didn’t sweeten the deal. So, every so often I’d include some kid’s movie that we missed in the theater. Then we went from one-at-a-time to two-at-a-time. That really helped. I tried hard to make sure that I had one and she had one with each turnover. Once we found House, about the same time I caught up on all the BSG episodes, she really started enjoying Netflix. I knew she had accepted it when she would navigate through the queue and prioritize the upcoming movies for herself.

Somewhere in there we got our HDTV. That really was a massive step us for us, as it pertains to entertaining ourselves. We upgraded to HD cable just after that and have really enjoyed our network programming in HD and even the occasional cable show, like Discovery’s Planet Earth. Then the Xbox Marketplace started adding movies we actually wanted to watch, and our HD movie watching experience began. What fun that has been. Now, I won’t even consider renting a movie that doesn’t have an HD option.

Then, for the few of my Twitter and Pownce friends, you saw me mention last week that I gave an already cancelled Sci-Fi program a shot; Firefly. Holy cow! How did I miss this one?

I quickly found a way to get the entire season, plus extras, and started watching it. However this one proved to be a little challenge. It also gave me the chance to try out my new set up. Just last month, I reinstalled OSX on our extra Mac Mini and hooked it up to the HDTV, via the DVI. I stripped off all the applications that would be unnecessary and simplified the extras I knew I would need. This system would become my very own, more powerful Apple TV. No hacking required for web browsing and access to things like Divx/Xvid support, alternative media viewing with VLC, and more freedom with my iTunes media. It took less than 30 minutes to get all the correct codecs installed and to set up my dock just right. I have a bluetooth mouse, for navigating, but no extra wireless keyboard. Now if only I could figure out a way to navigate the OS, simply, with the Apple remote. I digress. Firefly…

So, I had set this up a few weeks back and hadn’t really had a chance to give it a try. With my newfound interest in Firefly, I decided that it was ready. The weakest link was the audio quality. For now, all I have is a simple 1/8″ to RCA cable. This is plugged into the audio out of the Mac Mini and into our audio system, stereo only. For now it will have to do. (There’s a chance I may have a used Logitech USB audio interface coming my way. It has optical input/output and some other nice features.)

I have stored the entire season of Firefly on my primary computer’s external hard drive. They are wrapped in an AVI container in a nice Xvid format. With the right codecs installed, these files should play just fine in Front Row. For some reason they don’t. No problem, that’s where VLC arrives to save the day. Yes, yes, I could try and troubleshoot the first problem, but I just didn’t have the energy. Someday, I’ll figure it out. This time, I just wanted to watch Firefly.

Quickly using the mouse, I opened up the first episode of Firefly, over the network, in VLC and hit the full screen button. It started just fine. Now in all it’s compressed/HD glory I sat back and enjoyed Firefly for the first time. Additionally, to my satisfaction, the fancy little Apple remote works just fine controlling the playback in VLC. Mmmmm, technoligic.

I’ve also watched a few of the iTS purchased episodes of The Office, which play quite nicely. Now all I have to do is try out renting a movie through iTunes, to see how easy that works.

I’m ready for DVD’s to go away, and have no plans on playing around with HD-DVDs or Blueray-discs. I’m going to skip them all together.

Here’s a lesson for all those greedy, communists running the huge media companies. I’ll buy it or rent it, if you offer it through one of the dependable, high quality alternatives. But, if I want to watch it, and you’re stuck in 1990, then expect me to get the content I want, where I can. I’ll pay for it, if you let me.

Then, recently I bought a PSP, (the special edition Darth Vader one!). I thought that I’d give the little thing a try for playing some games. It came with Star Wars Battlefront II and I got SOCOM II to go with it. Without reviewing each game here, I enjoy them both and am glad to have them. One thing holding me up has been that I failed to get a Memory Stick. So, I couldn’t save any of my games or update the software when the Skype addition came out last week.

That just would not do! I found a sweet deal at Circuit City’s website for a 2gig Memory Stick Duo Pro ($30) and then shot over to my closest one to pick it up. Yes! I’m in business now!

The next day was my first chance to try and load up a movie. I loaded up ffmpegX and re-encoded the Firefly AVI’s into the perfect PSP format; mpeg-4. ffmpegX actually has the perfect settings built in as an option. No messing around. Even cooler, that sweet open-source app names your new movie following the PSP’s lame naming convention. It’s hard to find the right movie file, but I don’t care. I can now watch movies on my PSP!

The very next change I had, I watched the second episode of Firefly, on the PSP. Awesome!

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I want you all to know that I am in fact a geek. If thus far you had not figured that out, that should clear it up.

Last night, while couch bound from being sick with the flu, I played Halo 3 for the first time on my Xbox 360. I should tell you that I’ve never played any of the Halo series of video games. Quite often, I find that the most popular games are not too interesting to me. So I generally pass on the hot titles.

I rented it from Hollywood Video and popped it in with less than an hour available to play. That was a mistake.

I love this game!

It’s not overly complex, yet requires good concentration and a willingness to take “risks”. I didn’t play very much, or get very far, but what I did experience was great. I can see myself getting this game, and probably the earlier versions too.

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photo by Thomas Hawk

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You know what they say about opinions, right? Well, mine are strong and I want to share them. I really enjoy blogging and I’d like to continue my growth with the medium so I’m thinking about launching a news oriented online magazine. What do you think? I think something that focuses on the top news stories and current events, with a little commentary might be good. However, trying to cover the world or our country might be biting off more than I can chew. So, once we get moved, I think I’ll try to use this as an opportunity to learn more about the Pacific Northwest.

Most of the opinion blogs, especially the politically oriented kind, tend to be one-sided. And, well, that would be my tendency too, but that’s been done already. Whether you like them or not, those programs with two talking heads, like Hannity & Colmes, really do have strong viewership. There’s no reason why I couldn’t strive to put together a balanced team of contributors.

I went ahead and purchased, NorthwestFreePress.com, in the anticipation that I may do this. So, are you in the Pacific Northwest? Are you interested in joining a team of diverse thinkers who want to chew up and spit out their opinions on everything that’s current? Comment away, or email me. (See the sidebar for my email.)

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Jeff Jarvis, at BuzzMachine, wrote a good post today.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m pretty conservative, politically. In fact, I’m more conservative than most of the main stream Republicans. I’m not going to bullet point list out my views on the issues, I just wanted to get that clear.

So, now, let me point out that my party seems to be running in fear of the internet. I read and follow many political and technology oriented blogs. Others too, but those are pertinent to this post.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve read and heard lately that demonstrated how each of the top liberal candidates for president are using the internet and its tools to communicate with supporters, potential voters, and the media. Yes, the Edwards camp had their fiasco with their bloggers early on, but at least they had bloggers on staff who were doing something! Does McCain have any staff bloggers? Guliani? Romney?

In fact, I think Ron Paul is the only one who knows that the internet isn’t just for porn addicts and 14 year old pimple faced nerds.

Ron Paul has a Facebook page. Ron Paul sat down, townhall style, at the Googleplex recently. Ron Paul is posting YouTube video on his presidential campaign page. I like Ron Paul.

I can’t say that I agree with each of Ron Paul’s opinions. However, he is taking a stand on some of the important ones. And to top it off, Ron Paul has created a mighty stir with the techo-leftists of Silicon Valley. And since, they’re the ones developing most of the internet, that may come back to be a blessing no one saw coming.

So, GOP, “Why are you afraid of the internet?”

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This was a no brainer, but must be blogged.

Congratulations Jordin!

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I am admitting it publicly. I watch American Idol. Tonight, not only did I watch, but I voted. I voted for the first time. I wish I had voted weeks ago, because maybe Phil Stacey would have survived longer. Hindsight, blah, blah.

So here we are, the final two sang tonight and I was blown away with Jordin Sparks’ performance. Don’t get me wrong, Blake Lewis is great. He is definately an awesome performer. I am entertained by him.

However, Jordin can sing. There’s no way around it, she rocks! Now, I’ve heard it said many times that she’s so young. Some of my own family have sniveled it one too many times, “she’s just so immature.”

I don’t care! She’s clearly got a decent home life and upbringing. Hey, her parents are still married and she isn’t trying to succeed with the use of her body. She’s already got more class than most of the “more mature” recently voted off idols.

So, back to the voting. I voted, for Jordin. Not just once, but almost 50 times. My cellphone actually almost lost power by the time I was done. Of course about 1 in 3 calls doesn’t connect. Too many teenage girls voting. So I placed more calls than I can count.

What does this say about me? Comment below. Of course, I just don’t care, but I’ll let you share your opinion

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One of the best movies I have seen in my entire life. I wrote that within moments of the credits rolling.

Last night, we rented Stranger Than Fiction. During the film, I couldn’t help but say to myself over and over again, “This is a great film.” There was no unnecessary sex, viloence, swearing, or filth. There WAS, a nice clean simple story of a man discovering that he was missing something and he wanted more.

I’m no movie critic. But I do love a good moving picture. The wife and I have spent years building our movie library and when I say, “this one’s worth buying,” I mean it’s a good one. Let me tell you, this one’s worth buying.

Will Ferrell stars as Harold Crick, a slightly OCD IRS agent who counts everything. Maggie Gyllenhaal co-stars as Ana Pascal, the free spirit bakery owner who steals Harold’s heart. Who would have thought that a tatooed anti-government bakery owner would fall in love with an OCD IRS agent?

I will tell you that last night I told the wife that I saw a little of us in Harold and Ana. If you didn’t know yet, I’ll tell you a secret. I’m a little OCD. Additionally, the wife is a semi-free spirit, <whisper>and she has a tatoo.</whisper>

Anyway, go rent and/or download Stranger than Fiction. (legitamately: iTunes, XBLM, Amazon Unbox) or (illegitamately: Torrent/Xvid)

You’ll thank me.

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Hey, I’ve been less than pleased with my design lately. I’ve loved the darker colors, and the Mt. Whitney photo at the top, but over all it has been a difficult theme to work with.

So I’ve been shopping around for a new one. One that doesn’t require a whole lot of customization to look clean. So, I’ve settled with this one. I hope you like it.

I’ve also added the ever cool WordPress Widgets to my sidebar. Don’t know what that is? Then you would want me to explain.

I’ll do a little here and there, over time. But for the most part, this is the new look. I think it is easier to read now, don’t you?

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As I write this, I’m on “hold” with my new internet provider, Time Warner Cable. Yee-haw! No I didn’t make this switch on purpose. We were with Adelphia, and their executive management sucked, so they were bought out by Time Warner. Yee-haw!

If Adelphia sucked, Time Warner might as well be the product of communism. This is because their product and service is not fit for a free-market system. The Power of You. Yee-haw!

Let me help you get the big picture…

• We get television content via DirecTV. Great! We love them!
• We get our phone service via Vonage. Until recently, great. It’s awesome to pay $25 a month to be able to call anyone from here to the French Alps.
• We get our internet from Adelphia Time Warner Cable. They suck.

We’d prefer DSL, but the fascist telephone companies won’t sell DSL without a basic phone package. Well we don’t want that becuase your phone packages are for Nazis! So we’re stuck with either paying with our firstborn for internet via satellite, or Cable. So now, when all the pimple-faces get home from learning about how to feel better about themselves, they jump on the net to update their MySpace pages. Awwww! This makes our internet connection turn into that old 3Com 9600 baud modem I had in college. Awwww! Yee-haw! (I’m working on my attitude.)

So now it’s like 45 minutes later, and I’m still getting that looped message, “We appreciate your service. Be sure, we’ll answer your call as soon as possible.” I’m telling you, if they went home for the day, I’m going to go crazy.

To top it off, we recently switched from NexTel to T-Mobile. Nextel was amazing until Sprint turned them into some sort of fat lounge singer. So I decided I wanted a Blackberry, not one of those massive belt weights, but the sleek new Pearl. Awesome. When I went-a-lookin’, all I could find was T-Mobile offering them, so I got one. No problem, I actually got a great deal through Amazon, we only paid $50, after the rebates. Deanna got a smooth looking pink RAZR.

We liked the switch over, we kept our numbers, and were up and running in just a few hours. I love my Blackberry Pearl. But…with T-Mobile, I can’t get even one bar in our house. If I leave the phone by the window, after a few hours I can find that it connected and downloaded stuff and my Voice Mail numbers.

No biggy right? Wrong! When the ‘net is down, I must go outside to sit on hold. At least I’m outside.

Awwww! Yee-haw!

Why am I doing all of this? Well, when Time Warner thought they could do it better, they screwed up our Vonage. So now every call sounds like I’m on a 30 year old pay phone in East LA. Static from hell. Additionally, Deanna must power down and then power up all of our modems, routers, switches, etc once a day in order to get the ‘net to work.

It’s now an hour, and their offices are closed for the day. Letter bomb?

I’ll post this later. When the internet works again. Maybe I’ll just go down to my local coffee shop for the free wireless.

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