31May2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
I was walking along Peachtree a while back and saw it was standing room only at Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles. I did some investigation and found the wikipedia article on chicken and waffles. It occurred to me that this would be a prime dish for Waffle House to serve up. True, it’s generally fried chicken, which WH doesn’t do, but it can be done with grilled chicken and gravy. How about it, WH team? You’re famous for experimentation and shifting the menu around. Give it a shot!
30May2011
Posted by Brent under: movies.
My sons told me I should watch a short (26 half-hour episodes) anime called Cowboy Bebop. It’s set in the future when mankind has moved off earth to Mars and the asteroids. It follows the adventures of the spaceship Bebop and it bounty hunter crew. They do a great job of weaving the world design, backstories, characters, voice work and artwork. Oh, yes, the opening credits and music that are worthy of a James Bond movie. It’s one of the rare times that everything works, and definitely work a look. Be sure to view the episodes in order, as they build on each other. Note: there are violent scenes in here, so it’s not suitable for pre-teens.
10April2011
Posted by Brent under: Nothing Special.
The other day at Home Depot I bought my annual copy of Fine Woodworking (Hey, I can dream, can’t I?) and found inside a blow-in postcard that proclaimed that this was “The Last In-Book Request Card” sometimes called a “Reader Response Card.” You remember those? In the industry they were called “Bingo Cards.” For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, an advertiser in a magazine would pay a few dollars extra to be assigned a number on that card for that issue. The ad would be amended to say “Circle number 47 on the reader response card for more information” or shoehorned into the smaller ads as just “Card #82.” The cards were called Bingo Cards because they had a large matrix of numbers on one side, one per advertiser. We, the readers, could circle up to about 20 of the numbers that corresponded to the ads we were interested in and mail the card back to the magazine’s fulfillment house. We’d then receive further product information or a catalog from the advertiser by return post. I remember as a kid filling these things out from magazines like Popular Electronics. Now it appears that those days are rapidly fading. Now we’re directed to each advertiser’s website, or to the FineWoodworking.com/Marketplace url. Another form of print advertising thus yields to the immediacy of the web. What will I do with this last card? I’m tempted to circle my maximum allotment of numbers and mail it in as a last hurrah. But instead I’m going try to keep this issue with the card as a memento of days gone by, when we eagerly awaited the postman’s rounds bringing us word from the outside world.
3March2011
Posted by Brent under: movies.
I admit it, I love good animation. I guess growing up in the Disney haydays with old Loony Tunes on Saturday morning did something to ingrain it into me. The same genetic material got passed down to my sons as well. Recently they got me watching a short anime series called Darker Than Black. This is just a ‘thumbs-up’ note to recommend it. It’s a multi-layered plot, that keeps its secrets close to its chest. Some of the pieces to the puzzle you won’t get until the last couple of episodes. It’s also nicely packaged: each small story arc spans two episodes, or about 45 minutes of watching time. It’s doesn’t fall easily into standard Anime genres like Mech, steampunk, supernatural, martial arts, etc. It’s closer to superheros, perhaps along the lines of a dark X-men saga. Anyway, I don’t want to give away any of the plot, so I’ll stop here. Enjoy.
27February2011
Posted by Brent under: movies.
I’ll have to give Caleb credit for this one. We were scrolling through the new Netflix streaming releases the other night. I’ve seldom seen such a collection of one- and two-star movies, especially in the ‘Comedy’ genre. Caleb’s suggestion was simple: why isn’t there a setting in Netflix that says ‘Don’t waste my time by suggesting movies to me that you think I’d rate below two stars’? Ta-Da! That’d vastly upgrade my Netflix experience, and they don’t even have to us a million dollars. Heck, Caleb and I would probably settle for half that.
27February2011
Posted by Brent under: movies.
I have an Amazon Prime account, which costs $79 per year and gives free 2nd-day shipping. They gave it to me a year ago, and I renewed last month. I figure it pays for itself by my not adding another book to my order from my wishlist to get over the $25 threshold for free shipping. Anyway, this week Amazon turned on unlimited video streaming to all Amazon Prime members. This is what follows:
I configured my Roku box, which we usually view Netflix on, to do Amazon. Relatively painless configuration. The catalog’s a bit thin, with 5,000 titles, as opposed to several times that many from Netflix. I watched some Charade and some Doctor Who. All went well. One can browse by Top Movies, Top TV, Recent Movies, Recent TV, Movie Genres, and TV Genres. For Sci-Fi, they had some season 1 Doctor Who (the REAL season 1: 1965) and a more recent favorite: Farscape. The streaming went well. There are some things Amazon needs to add to get closer to the Netflix experience, such as a queue of programs you’re interested in that you can come back to watch later. A list of ‘recently viewed’ movies for those that you started watching but were interrupted before you finished watching.
All in all, a good start, but they need to add both titles and user experience elements before it’s a serious Netflix contender.