The Raging Tech

Hot Date: Olive Garden and Baby Mama

Last night I had a hot date with my girl. I showed up at her place and I was dressed up to try and look good for her, but it was pretty irrelevant next to the sight I saw when she opened the front door. She was gorgeous! She wore this little black dress she has borrowed from a friend. It’s a little low cut but tasteful, straps, bows, etc. and an open back. She had her hair down but back, and she was glittery (she calls it shimmer). She was also wearing fish nets and combat boots. Yeah, that’s my girl! Be jealous.

We drove out of town, because our small mountain town doesn’t have too many good restaurants, and went to an Olive Garden, which happens to be one of our favorite restaurants. The breadsticks were delicious as usual. I had the potato and sausage soup, which was delicious but I burnt my tongue - my own fault. She had salad. She ordered the Tour of Italy (basically three entrees: lasagna, chicken parmigiana, and fettuccine alfredo) and I had the Steak Gorgonzola over fettuccine alfredo. We followed that up with dessert (and more than half our food in boxes) - tiramisou for me and a black tie chocolate mousse cake for her.

The waiter came by with the check and said “Oh, by the way, don’t tell anyone, but dessert is on me.” That must have been about $12 worth of free dessert he just gave us. Overall, our dining experience was awesome. The waiter gave us excellent service, and I spent the money I would have spent on dessert on his tip.

We left Olive Garden (or the “OG” as I refer to it) and went to Books-a-Million to window shop. Kylara picked up some bargain bin books, and I picked up Cracking the GMAT (2008 with DVD) to help me study and pass the GMAT sometime soon. I think I’m going to have to use my Economic Stimulus Payment to cover the test cost - it’s about $250 to take it, and I don’t intend to have to take it more than once.

We finished up our evening away by seeing “Baby Mama” - the new movie with Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Dax Shepherd, Steve Martin, Sigourney Weaver, and Greg Kinnear - where Tina Fey needs someone to be a surrogate mother, so she hires lower-class white-trash Amy Poehler’s character to do the job. There are some other plot twists that weren’t mentioned in the trailers, but certainly make it slightly more interesting than it looked in commercials. I enjoyed the movie and laughed a lot - but if you’re on the fence about seeing it in theaters or waiting to rent the DVD - wait to rent it.

Well, I Was Going to Rent Juno

I thought the trailers for “Juno” made it look pretty good, but then I read this post over at Cracked.com, and while hilarious, makes me think I might not enjoy it. (Warning, some adult language on that linked site)

Indie films are often pretty enjoyable productions, and can even be thought-provoking works of art. And then some of them can be pretentious crap. I think I’m still going to rent “Juno” via my Netflix queue, but I may not put a rush on seeing it right away.

Anyone who’s seen it, let me know in the comments what you thought of it.

iMovie Festival 2008

Last night I attended the first annual iMovie Festival at the university at which I am employed. It’s not the first ever held, just the first one here. I have to say, it was pretty enjoyable.

I was expecting a series of more and more horrible films, and maybe a few shining-star examples that would probably win it all. Instead, I found a quirky set of five films that all had to include the phrase “over at the UC” (short for University Center) and at least one Apple product.

The first film was about a couple of guys hanging out and deciding to go get some food, then go up to a cliff to hang out and talk about serious life-goal type stuff. And of course, some kids are rolling along, and one guy is driving  while texting and he ends up hitting them. It was all very dramatic.

The second film was about “Urban Parkour” - although I suspect either these guys were very bad at it, or just mocking it. It wasn’t quite clear enough to be “laughed with” instead of “laughed at.” There was also a lot of really annoying slow-motion and bad techno music behind it.

The third film was called “Mozzerella Mahem,” about an undercover sting operation to bust an illegal cocaine-disguised-as-cheese ring based out of a pizza parlor. The cop is of course, discovered, and when the dealers try to run away, he busts out into an overly-elaborate action movie fight scene. Which, I might add, was really bad, but really funny.

The fourth film was by the campus Apple student rep, who did a film about possible meanings for the letters “UC” - it was okay. Some of the parts of this film were funny, at least. It was mostly just him looking into his iSight camera on his Mac and talking. The black & white filter and stylings were nice. Not terribly impressed though. I give him points for creativity.

The fifth and final film was probably saved for last on purpose. It was pretty awesome for what it was. The production value was nice for their budget and equipment. It was kind of a “Deadman’s Curve” meets “The Ring” meets every other film where they use that ghostly black-hair-over-the-face girl that crawls around really fast in stop-motion. But still, the makers of this film did a really good job.

And rightly so, because they won this competition and an iPod Touch - while the runner-up got an iPod Nano and the rest of the competitors got Shuffles.

Make it Stop. Seriously.

According to io9.com, Hollywood is out to take a dump on another of my favorite childhood memories. This time, their target is Bill and Ted.

The remake dares to take out and modify some of the most key components of the original films, such as the phone booth (being replaced with something “a little more funky”) and more up-to-date pop-culture references such as Bill and Ted being worried about missing upcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight.

Also, there is rumor that their band will not be called Wyld Stallyns (another key component they shouldn’t have messed with) but rather something like Atomic Gorillaz.

My Thoughts on Blue-Ray and the PS3 So Far

As I’ve written before, I recently purchased a Sony Playstation 3 with my income tax refund. I must say, it’s completely awesome. It’s everything I expected it to be, and I only wish there were more hours of the day for me to play with it.

I purchased several downloadable games including PAIN, Everyday Shooter (most mellow Asteroids-like game ever), Rampage, and Stardust HD. I also bought Call of Duty 4 from the store but haven’t had a chance to play much through the single-player. Multiplayer is a lot of fun though!

My PS3 has been my initiation into the Blu-Ray world. Since watching Spiderman 3 (the movie that came in the package when I bought the console), I’ve watched “Die Hard” and “War” in Blu-Ray, and the quality is just outstanding. The features are neat, but not necessarily show-stoppers.

They certainly aren’t worth $30 a movie, which is what most places are charging. So that’s why I was thrilled to learn that NetFlix offers Blu-Ray movies, and it doesn’t increase the cost of your subscription. I upgraded my account last week, and now I can have 4 of any combination of DVD and Blu-Ray discs out at a time.

I’m also thinking about opening up a basic GameFly account so I can rent PS3 games on the cheap.  They seem to have the latest stuff, and I’m excited about renting Gran Tourismo 5 - so I think when I get paid on Monday I’m going to start an account with them.

Like Johnny Cash, All Black

This past week of my life went by pretty slowly, and enjoyably. The university I work for (and several of my friends still attend) was on Spring Break last week. I still had to work, but it was considerably easier with the students gone. It really felt like I was on my own Spring Break, but still had to work during the day.

A quick recap: Friday a week ago, I went to Greensboro and stayed at the Embassy Suites hotel where I participated in free drinks at Happy Hour, swam in a pool & soaked in a hot tub, and had free breakfast the next morning.

Tuesday, I went to Asheville with friends and we did some mall shopping and ate at the Olive Garden (or The OG, as I like to call it).

Wednesday I went back to Asheville for my friend Daniel’s birthday, and we ate at Wild Wings and then went to the Asheville Pizza & Brewery (which also plays films) and watched Sweeny Todd.

Thursday, Marq, Melissa and I went to get our ears pierced (along with Ruff, who didn’t get them done), then ate at the Chinese buffet.

Friday was our usual hi-jinx: Huddle House and Game Night at Marq and Melissa’s house.

Saturday, I took Kylara to Waynesville where we took in some sights - including the Mast General Store. They have a HUGE selection of candy, including a sugar-free selection of goodies for diabetics like me. I got some sugar free buttons, chocolate-covered raisins, gummy bears, and some other fun stuff. All included, we bought about 3 pounds of candy. I also got some huckleberry jelly and some vidalia onion ranch dressing. We ate lunch at a dive called Clyde’s. I had a barbecue sandwich (Western North Carolina style, non-vinegar-based) and some fries and ordered a side of hushpuppies. It was all so delicious, I’m pretty sure I’ll eat there again.

Sunday was a lazy, restful day. I hung around the house after I woke up, and Kylara came over and watched TV with me. I made plans with Aron for dinner and hanging out, so he came over and I made Manwiches. We watched The Faculty on television (which has some hilarious editing for TV censorship) and then put in my DVD of The Island. My roommates also returned from their various trips home for Spring Break, so it became a full house again.

Now it’s Monday and I’m back at work. Life is pretty good. Check out “All Black” by Good Charlotte. I like that song.

The Raging Tech on Vantage Point

Last night some friends and I took opportunity to go to the local theatre and see the film Vantage Point, a film told in five perspectives about the supposed attempted assassination of the President of the United States of America while at a summit in Spain. The film stars Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, Matthew Fox, William Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver.

Quaid plays a Secret Service agent who was previously wounded protecting the President and returns to active duty for the summit. Matthew Fox (the actor who plays Jack on ABC’s hit show LOST) plays one of his team members.  Whitaker plays a tourist with a video camera who might have caught something useful on tape. Hurt plays the president (irony noted), and Weaver plays a news team control room operator, directing a news broadcast about the summit.

Overall, the idea for piecing together this film is not entirely original, but at least it’s a nice break from the normal. The action, even in our low-budget theatre, was pretty intensely portrayed. One of the car chase scenes in particular made me cringe. The plot was nice, and the twist wasn’t over-the-top. I still stand by my opinion that they could have used some of that blockbuster action budget and paid the writers for better dialog and not just the unique presentation of the story. Overall, an enjoyable film even with the ridiculous parts.