Poseidon Movie

Took the family to see Poseidon yesterday. I liked the movie a lot. It keeps you at the edge of your seat the whole time (especially when you have plans to go on a cruise in November). I always have liked Kurt Russell as an actor. In his younger years he seemed to get a lot of retard roles, but lately they have all been pretty serious ones. I guess that has something to do with the fact that he seems to get more serious looking as he ages???

Anyway, I was told that this movie is a remake of an earlier movie Gene Hackman starred in. I suppose I will look it up and rent/buy it if I can find it. I liked the movie enough to do that.

that is all

movie rental

I use to use netficks (earlier post), but had to get rid of it because my wife and I kept forgetting to return the movies. We are considering trying it again, because movie rental on pay-per-view is too easy and we are really racking up the charges.

This time I am determined to remember to mail the movies back.

Maybe if I just threw the TV out the window, we would not have to worry about it anymore at all....

ab scissors

This is the headline for the Ab-Scissors:

"Cut the fat and sculpt your abs all in just four minutes a day with the revolutionary new Body by Jake Ab Scissor - the only serious piece of home exercise equipment specifically designed to target and isolate your abdominal muscles!

The Ab Scissor is the fun and easy way to cut the fat and sculpt your abs! This machine puts your body in the perfect anatomical position to automatically firm and flatten your stomach in no time!

You just jump on and go for a ride!

The secret is the Ab Scissor's patented Scissor Action, based on our unique Gravitational Linkage System - a biomechanical breakthrough that creates the perfect synchronized abdominal motion, leveraging your own body weight to deliver five levels of ab-sculpting resistance... And the upright hand grips that put you in the optimal position to engage the abs for a deeper, more effective abdominal contraction.

Together, these two breakthroughs give you a sleek, sexy waistline, faster than you ever thought possible!

With our Gravitational Linkage System, the arms, seat and footrest all move independently, yet they're precisely synchronized to deliver pure muscle isolation for maximum results!"

They make it sound like a roller-coaster ride or something. Once again, my desire to acquire the highly-admired "6-pack abs" look has drawn me to look into buying another funny looking machine.

chrysler pacifica

i want a chrysler pacifica. these suckers are nice (check out the video on chryslers website) i like the pacifica not only because of how it looks, but it is all wheel drive and has the autostick feature- in other words my wife can drive it like an automatic but i can shift it like a standard if i want to. this auto is so great that there are forums all over the net dedicated to it. (my favorite one is here) when i was younger i always wanted a nissan 300zx- now that i am old and fixin to die (32) i lean more toward vehicles with some class (this ones got torque and class).

take it or leave it

jc pennies

is it just me or is jc pennies going downhill? it use to be a great place to buy cloths, but lately i can't seem to find anything. the service seems to be getting worse as well. it's turned into a "get it yourself" place to shop. it is cheaper than dillards, but dillards waits on you hand and foot. even the lighting is better at dillards- walking into jc pennies is like walking into a cave! and it is not just the one here in hot springs, the one in bossier city is the same way, so i figured if 2 different stores in 2 different states are run the same way, it must be all of them.

jc pennies used to have really good suit coats and pants for cheap- they are still cheap, but they never have my size. or i will finally find a suit coat in my size but there won't be any pants to match.

oh well. just felt like a good gripe

take it or leave it

solatube

another item on my wishlist- the solatube. i need one for my bedroom in my mobile home. i suppose it would work in a mobile home. i like natural light. my bedroom windows are on the north facing wall and there are trees that block the little light that there is.

all of the bulbs in my house are those natural compact fluorescents. they are more like daylight. incandescent bulbs give off an ugly yellow light, not to mention they are highly inefficient as compared to cf. a 9 watt cf gives off as much light as a 60 watt regular bulb and they last 5-7 years!

if i had the money i would put a solatube in every room and closet in my house. my roof would look like it had the chicken pox with all of those little domes poking out.

take it or leave it

dimentia

i have dimentia. well, maybe. i came across a website about dimentia and the definition for this disease describes me to the letter.

"Dementia (from Latin de- "apart, away," + mens (genitive mentis) "mind") is progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Particularly affected areas may be memory, attention, language and problem solving, although particularly in the later stages of the condition, affected persons may be disoriented in time (not knowing what day, week, month or year it is), place (not knowing where they are) and person (not knowing who they are)."

ok, so even though it describes me pretty good i probably don't have it. but if i am this bad off at 32, i hate to think what i will be like @ 50.

take it or leave it

e harmoney

the world has changed drastically in only the past 10 or 15 years. i remember when just having an email address impressed people. now, almost everyone has 2 or 3 or more email addresses. i remember when buying a computer was something you had to put a lot of thought into. now you can grab one for $300 at wal-mart when you go to pick up some toilet paper. high-speed internet was anything above 14.4kbps, and yahoo was some corny austrailian guy.

today, advances in technology have changed even the way we look for companionship. i don't personally know any couples who met this way, or at least if they did they did not tell me. i suspect that soon, this form of dating and match-making will be the norm, unless i am dense and it already is. and why souldn't it be the norm? we do practically everything else over the internet now. why should dating be any different?

in a fast paced society like we live in, it seems almost practical not to waste time trying to find someone the old way. we don't have to leave the house to do our banking anymore, why should we have to leave the house to find the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with?

take it or leave it

dvd100a

i want one of these. it's an automatic dvd duplicator. i could burn 100 movies in no time. why would i want to do that? i don't know. it sure would look nice in my office though. i know just where i would put it too.

here are the specs:
A standalone CD/DVD automated copier allows you the freedom to stack in up to 100 of your favorite CDs or DVDs and walk away, let the DVD100A do the rest. Completely standalone, it will copy up to 100 discs or more while you work on other daily tasks. Batch mode operation allows you to stack multiple DVD jobs of various quantities and walk away.

Batch Mode Yes
DVD Recording Speeds 4X
DVDs Per Hour 4+
DVD Formats Supported DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Recording Speeds CD: 24X
CDs Per Hour 18+
CD Formats Supported CD Extra, CD-ROM Mode 1 & 2 CD-DA, CD-ROM/XA Video CD, Game CD Mix Mode, HFS CD Bridge, Multi-session, Photo CD
Write Methods Disc at Once, Track at Once
Targets 1
Input/Output 100/110
Dimensions 12"x 16"x16"
Weight 25 pounds
Electrical Specifications 110/240 Switchable 50-60Hz
Certifications CE, UL, FCC
TELEX DVD100A

i have placed this booty kicker in my wishlist.

take it or leave it

cable vs dsl

there is a lot of information mixed in with misinformation on the net about which is the better service- cable or dsl high speed internet. when i worked as a high speed data technician for a local cable company, i ran into a lot of "experts" that had their say in the matter- and each one had a different story.

my thoughts are as follows:

"the fact of the matter is that there are too many variables that determine how reliable and fast your service will be to simply say dsl is better than cable, or the other way around."

CNET has what seems to be the most accurate review of both services. (read all about it here)

the thing i hate to hear more than anything is "cable is faster than dsl" or "dsl is faster than cable". that is such a vague statement, and the people who make it probably don't even know what speed they signed up for. when i would show up to have a look at someones service, sometimes i would ask what speed they signed up for. 9 times out of 10 the answer was "the $19 one", or "the $34" one.

if you sign up for 1Mbps down 256Kbps up, it does not matter whether you have cable or dsl- your speed should be close to what you signed up for under normal circumstances. if you signed up for a 1Mbps service and your speed tests are only showing 300Kbps, that does not mean that dsl is faster than cable- it means that for whatever reason, bad modem, bad cable run or something wrong between you and the cable companies head-end, you cannot get the performance you signed up for. the same goes with the dsl providers.

i have had cable and i have had dsl. both services have always given me the speed i signed up for. i currently have cable- dsl is not available in my area. my last cable company had an internet only service, which i thought was great because i like satellite tv better than cable tv (i got free cable internet and cable tv because i worked for the cable company- i still had dish network though).

where i am now i would prefer to have dsl because the cable company here does not offer an internet only service- you have to have cable tv too. but since dsl is not available here, i had to go with the cable company and forget about satellite tv (gotta have my broadband).

on the other hand, if i signed up for dsl here i would have to get their phone service too, and i use vonage and have no use for their phone service. so either way, i am not really getting what i want. if the cable company had an internet only service, i would have that and dish network. if dsl was available in my area and had an internet only setup, i would go with that. if they both were available and both offered and internet only service, i would go with the one that was the cheapest!

take it or leave it

cheep tickets

before i tell you the story about our never-ending endeavor to book and actually go on a cruise, let me tell you that priceline is the best place to find the best deals on cruises i think. i titled this post cheep tickets because our never-ending endeavor to book and actually go on a cruise was too long.

my wife and i have been trying to go on a cruise since we got married.

initially, we were going to go on a cruise for our honeymoon. we planned it all out, and eventually had to scratch the idea because we simply couldn't afford it at the time. it was very disappointing, but our honeymoon in eureka springs, arkansas was still very memoriable.

so 3 years later, we finally booked our caribbean cruise scheduled for november of last year. it was going to leave out of new orleans. we couldn't wait to go. it was the almost all we talked about for months.

well, we all know what happened to new orleans at the end of august of 2005- katrina wiped out new orleans 2 measely months before our cruise was scheduled for. don't get me wrong, the devistation caused by katrina far outweighs the importance of our cruise- but it was still very disappointing.

so we get an email from carnival, stating that the cruise ship will leave from galveston, texas instead, and that it was our option to cancel and get our money back or get on in galveston at a slightly later date. of course we wanted to go on this cruise, so we decided to go at the later date and leave out of galveston. we even made plans to stop in houston, tx overnight to stay at my wifes grandfathers house, and leave the next morning to get on the ship.

so all was fine and dandy, and then we get another email from carnival. it said that the cruise ship that was going to leave from galveston is now being used to house hurricane victims, and the cruise had been canceled. wouldn't you know it?

so, we have been invited to go on another cruise with some friends this november (2006). man i hope it works out this time.

take it or leave it