CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States
There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .
POLARITY 231
this entry brought to you by sleater-kinney, "step aside"
THE GOOD
Mission: Impossible I remember when Mission: Impossible first came out, Siskel and Ebert criticized it for being a confusing mess that was impossible to understand. They said that after that segment aired, fans of the movie wrote in saying that they were wrong and the movie could be understood after a few viewings; one fan even wrote a detailed, multi-page outline explaining the plot-- they didn't even understand the explanation! While I think they were exaggerating about that story, Mission: Impossible is in fact so horrendously convulated that there were points where I had no idea what was going on. On occasion the plot would turn back around and explain some earlier plot point that made no sense at the time, and I couldn't help but think, well, thank you for explaining that, but why did you have to go about it in the way that you did in the first place? Another, less frustrating problem with the movie, despite being called Mission: Impossible, the mission itself is over in the first reel-- the rest of the movie is about a Ethan Hunt being double crossed and trying to clear his name, and part of the source material's charm is lost here because of it-- since the movie really isn't about the mission itself, it seems weird to call it "Mission: Impossible". Still, despite this, the movie is a pretty fun ride once the movie settles down on convulation and focuses on action-espionage; the much-parodied break into CIA headquarters is non-sensical yet heart-pounding, and once the mole is revealed the movie kicks into high gear with some memorable action scenes. Good, but not great.
Mission: Impossible 2 There was a point in Mission Impossible 2 where I was positive I was going to give it a "bad". Ethan Hunt must convince an expert jewel thief to join him on a new mission, and once he tells her what's up, she says that she'll join, only if he can catch her after a ridiculously superfluous and idiotic car chase, complete with John Woo's patented slow motion and a soundtrack with an angelic female opera voice to give the scene dramatic ambience-- except it's completely redudant and unneccesary here, as if Woo thought the opening airplane crash followed with Tom Cruise rock climbing wasn't action-packed enough. But then a funny thing happened: the movie got head-spinningly fun. Yes, the plot, which was better than the first, might I add, had holes-- seriously, if one more character pulls off a mask to reveal they're actually somebody else, I'm going to scream. And yes, Ethan turned from a secret operative with a lot on his mind, constantly aware of the danger around him in the first movie to a cocky, grinning playboy in this, which robs him of being any different than James Bond. And yes, John Woo can't resist using all of his staples here, so much so that you can check them off a list as the movie progresses: slow mo even during non-action scenes, double-fisted pistols, a strafing slide from behind cover with guns blazing, and of course doves. But the point is the action scenes here are amongst the most exhilerating ever filmed, and the motorcycle duel at the end of the movie is, well, fucking awesome. It's the epitome of overindulgent action films, but it still ends up being remarkably fun.
My new 80 Gig Ipod I've already got three Ipods laying around and none of them work; they were given to me second hand, so I didn't spend any money on them, but after using them for a short period of time and having them die on me, I knew exactly what I was missing, and I've been covetting one for a while. After I realized our bills were fine (and we haven't had to borrow money from a cash advance in months!) I thought, you know, just go ahead and buy it. Spend a whole paycheck on it and never look back. Otherwise you're never going to do it. So that's exactly what I did. I went out and spent 377 dollars (350 plus tax) on a brand spanking new Ipod Video. I couldn't care less about the video functionality-- the box has a picture of Pirates of the Carribbean, like I could give a shit about watching a giant summer blockbuster on such a tiny screen-- and while I will eventually get around to uploading some videos on it just for the novelty, I haven't even bothered trying to do that in the two weeks that I've had it. The reason I got the Video, though, was because of its whopping 80 gig harddrive. I have got a lot of music-- hundreds of physical CDs, and hundreds of albums in MP3 format, and it's nice knowing I'll be able to fit however many thousands of songs I own onto one machine. It really is wonderful that, no matter where I am, I can play anything I own-- so far I've only loaded it with 3,000 songs, which is just the tip of the iceburg, but already I tap the "random" button and hear classics I have been neglecting because I've been trying to focus on new music lately, as well as forgotten treasures of CDs that I like just fine but rarely get around to listening to. Or better still, in the middle of a random shuffle, hearing a forgotten song and saying, you know, I'd really like to listen to that album right now-- boom, there it is, the whole album in its entirety. The Ipod really is a wonderful-- nay, life changing machine, and the idea that anyone would settle for a Nano, which has a mere 4 gigs (which amounts to about 600 songs) is hilarious.
Playboy Magazine When I was last actually updating the site, I had mentioned that I had no idea where in the world to find Playboys, because even when I ducked into the local Barnes and Nobles, I was surprised that not even they had any. The thing is, I'm 28 years old, and the last time I had any Playboys, when I was in junior high, I had no interest in the articles-- pretty much I only wanted to see naked boobies. But Playboy has been known for the fact that it's an interesting read, so now that I'm an adult and can appreciate that kind of thing, I really wanted to get my hands on one to see what it's like-- so I got a subscription. Just as promised, Playboy ends up being a much better read than it is a girlie magazine-- there was a fascinating fiction piece about a man in rehab slowly going insane that I couldn't stop reading, and some really fun non-fiction short essays on love and breaking up in time for Valentine's Day that I especially enjoyed reading, as well as the to-be-expected politics and an in-depth look at the life cycle of sperm. I am quite happy to say that I love my subscription to Playboy and can't wait for more.
Being paid weekly When I first got this job, I was disappointed because it was a pay cut-- I make over a dollar and a half less at Fry's than I did at MCI, and I thought it would make a real difference. Except that at Fry's, I get paid weekly, and somehow, this is so much more money than I had at MCI, I basically haven't had to worry about anything since I got hired. As soon as the account even starts to get low, boom, another check comes in-- and since Michelle gets paid weekly too, whatever we spent the previous week instantly gets replaced basically as soon as the account starts to get low. It really is super nice basically never having to worry about money. I can't do anything insane like go on a shopping spree, but it allows for something like blowing one week's check on an Ipod, or randomly blowing thirty bucks for a trip to the movies. And I'm being paid less than I was before!
THE BAD
Problems with the Ipod I came home with my Ipod and a fresh copy of Windows XP, and expected to have music on my machine the next day. Not so much. Music downloaded, I opened up Itunes-- the files wouldn't upload. "Cannot find the required file" said the error message. The required file? What the hell did that mean? I spent all morning in the troubleshooting section of apple.com, looking up and trying different solutions, all with no luck. That morning I called up Apple tech support the minute they opened. After playing the songs in Itunes to show her the files weren't the problem she said that there was a problem with the machine and to return it. Two hours later, I was there when the door opened at CompUSA, the store that I'd bought my Ipod from, which is a full 15 minutes away, and after another trip home-- no luck. Another call to Apple, at which time the techie insisted that it was a problem with the file, even though Itunes could play them. She said to watch which song it tried to upload right before it gave the error, and to delete that. The problem was that it gave me the error for every single song. I decided to see what it would do if I tried to upload just one song-- it got about three fourths of the way through, then said cannot find the file. This meant that it must be our USB port-- if it was on the harddrive, and the Apple was connected but somehow it wasn't going from A to B, it must be a USB port. The problem now was that the USB drive, which I thought would be a fairly common peripheral sold at the local Radio Shack, wasn't as common as I'd figured. So it meant another trip to CompUSA. Once home and after some frustrating tinkering (for some reason, the last expansion slot open on my mom's computer was welded shut, so we had to literally bash the thing in to get access to the port), finally, finally, after a total of 5 days with a useless piece of metal and plastic taunting me with its wonder, I got files on it.
Mislabeled MP3s So I've got the task of trying to get all of my music on my Ipod, and since I have literally hundreds of CDs, getting music to my computer is much quicker by simply downloading it, rather than ripping them. I can get a CD ripped to my computer in 10 minutes at minimum, and this is when everything goes smoothly, which it usually doesn't-- there's always one song that takes freakishly long to rip. So in a half hour I can get 3 CDs ripped at the most. Downloading, on the other hand, I can typically get 6 or 7 done in a half hour, sometimes up to 14, if I've got extremely fast connections. So I've been trying to download as much as I can. The problem with this, however, is that many people do not label their CDs properly. Album titles will sometimes be unlabeled, sometimes songs are out of order (sometimes they're not numbered at all), and sometimes there's no information in any of the fields, forcing me to play the songs and guess. I spend way too much time going through files and making sure everything's at least got song titles, track numbers, or album titles. This also does nothing to mention the assholes who inexplicably ripped their music at the highest possible quality-- I like fidelity, I would say, more than the next guy, but I also don't need a 12 track album to clock in at 300 megs.
The women in Playboy Women tend to give men ugly looks when we say "I read it for the articles", as if no man in the entire world would rather read thought-provoking articles than look at dull, air-brushed pictures of boring, vanilla women with fake boobs. Listen, in the days of the Internet and free pornography, not to mention webcams of smoking hot hipster/punk/indie girls which are a million times more awesome than whatever plastic Playmate of the month, if that's all this magazine had, it would've been defunct a decade ago. Because in my first two issues, I honestly couldn't find a single thing worth mentioning about any of the naked women in either of them. Which really annoys me, actually, because a friend of mine had given me a stack of Playboys from the 1970's, where the women were more often than not, gorgeous. Nowadays-- who likes women that look like this? I mean, honestly? They're so bland and air brushed they all look exactly the same.
The price of Penthouse magazine After being fully satisfied with my subscription to Playboy, I decided to try out my luck with Penthouse. I wasn't going to subscribe-- for one, my wife won't let me, saying that it's too explicit to just have around the house when we have a growing daughter. Hey, that's fine, it's not like I want it for porn-- we have gigs and gigs of porn on the PC, so that's fine. I finally found a bookstore that sells a copy (it's a Borders located right next to CompUSA, in fact), I go in to purchase a copy-- only to be astounded by a 8.99 cover price. 10 frigging bucks? If I'm going to spend 10 frigging dollars on a magazine with naked women, I'd just buy a porno movie! Why the hell would I spend 10 frigging dollars on Penthouse magazine, for Chris'sakes?
Tower Records going bankrupt It really is a sad sign for music when a record music giant like Tower goes out of business and closes all of its stores, discounting its CDs to dirt-low prices-- and still unable to get rid of all of its stock. I have fond memories of Tower. I used to live in Sacramento, the city where Tower started, and the third-ever Tower was across the street from Sears, where I used to work, and I spent hours in there browsing through their music. I probably spent even more time in the Tower Books next door, however, chatting with all the artsy people that hung out there, and I don't imagine they kept that open with the main company going under. This makes me sad.
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with love from CRS @ 10:02 AM
1 Comments:
Yeah, there's nothing like dropping $18.99 for a cd at Tower.
I know you've got the whole sentimental attachment to the place, but I didn't shed any tears when they closed.
