17 Going On Big 17

So, I saw a commercial last night for the new movie starring Matthew Perry and Zac Effron called 17 Again. In the movie, Matthew Perry gets to be a teenager again. I think I liked this movie concept better when it was called 13 Going on 30, which I liked better when it was called 18 Again!, Dream a Little Dream, Big and Freaky Friday. Seriously, Hollywood? Rehashing crap makes it crap twice over.

Du-Not

My Mom wanted to go to Bakers Square for dinner the other night. The only problem is they've gone bankrupt and our local one was changed into a Dupar's. So now, instead of getting a good meal for a decent price, you can get an okay meal for a ridiculous price. My Patty Melt sandwich cost $11. Good luck with that expansion focus in this economy, Du-Par's.

TLC

I think TLC now stands for Ten Little Children - the required number of kids you have to have in order to get your own TV show on the network. A list of current / recent shows on TLC reveals:

Jon & Kate Plus 8
18 Kids and Counting
Kids by the Dozen
Table for 12

I have to admit I am a fan of Jon & Kate mostly because it's the first show I saw like this, and because of the personalities. But at this point, I'm kind of thinking TLC is running out of ideas. Much like ABC's "brilliant" idea to air a game show 3 nights a week, I'm thinking TLC is just saturating their own market.

At any rate, I'm going to talk it over with my fiancee and see if she wants to crank out 13 kids. Then we can just sit back, get paid to make a TV show and collect royalties for our income.

Amazon MP3

With over 8,000 songs on my iTunes, it goes without saying I'm a fan of music. I've bought quite a few cool things from the iTunes music store over the years, but now I'm discovering the benefits of the Amazon MP3 store. The two main things I like about it are:

1. No DRM (Digital Rights Management). Whenever I download stuff from iTunes, I keep a separate playlist of things that have the DRM on them. I burn those tracks to a CD, then reimport them so I can listen to them on any computer, any device. When you download from Amazon, you just get a plain, simple MP3. No restrictions.

2. Cheap prices. When the latest U2 album was released, it was available on Amazon for $3.99. Way cheaper than Best Buy, Target or iTunes. Most songs are priced at $0.99, but some of their songs are also priced at $0.79 and $0.89. When they were released, the new Chris Cornell and Snow Patrol albums were around the $3.99 price, too.

The one thing that's a minor annoyance is the song downloads as a .amz file, for which you have to download a program (only once) to open. Then you can manually add the songs to your iTunes or set the preference to import it automatically (but have your music in two different folders, which would drive me nuts). Aside from the stuff that's exclusive to iTunes, I'd say Amazon's selection of MP3s is pretty equal. Give it a whirl, yo.

IMAX

So, fiancee and I suffered through Watchmen over the weekend in IMAX. The funniest thing to me, though, was the pre-show commercials that touted the IMAX and its superiority. CRYSTAL CLEAR PICTURE! PERFECT SOUND! THE MOVIE VIEWING EXPERIENCE!

Except when the movie started, the sound was off by about a half a second throughout the entire movie.

FAILMAX!

The Future is Wild

I recently finished watching a documentary series called The Future is Wild. It takes a look at what life on Earth would be like in 5 million years, 100 million years and 200 million years. And let me tell you, since you're not going to be around to see it for yourself, you might as well watch the DVDs to get a look into our future. It is indeed wild!

Basically, a lot of bad shit happens in the future including mass extinctions, the polar ice caps melting, volcanos erupting and all of the continents coming back together to form one super-continent. It's kind of a fun look at what would happen far off in Earth's future and you can tell the scientists and animators had some fun thinking about all of these things.

I think my favorite future animal is either the Flish or the Swampus. Check out the "photos" for why these guys so are badass:




Man, I'm gonna miss not being in here in 200 million years. :(

And On Rhythm Guitar...

To add to my weird dream of last week, I recently dreamt that I was asked to play guitar with the band Live. I told them I didn't know how to play and they told me not to worry, that my guitar wouldn't actually be plugged in. I just had to walk around the stage and ham it up for the crowd. I felt relieved that all of my years of air guitar practice would finally pay off and I nailed the performances. The crowd loved me and I never had to play a note.

Friday Night Plans - The Machine Girl

Tonight, my exciting plans involve watching The Machine Girl. I know next to nothing about the movie, but I'm going to go ahead and say it totally should have won the Best Picture Oscar. Come on - this movie is about a Japanese girl who gets her arm replaced with a gaitling gun out for revenge on the Yakuza. Move over, Slumdog!

Ever since my fiancee went out of town for a few weeks, I've bumped up all of the "Chris" movies on my Netflix queue, so I've been watching a lot of comic book, kung fu and zombie movies. Ah, if only someone would make a movie about a comic book hero with kung fu powers who has to save mankind from a zombie apocalypse. I'd give my left nut* to see that movie.

* - Not really, but I would be really, really excited.

Bahamaish

So, fiancee and I have been looking for what we want to wear for our wedding. Since it's in September and we want casual, we've kind of decided on something in the Tommy Bahama vein for myself. The problem is, I will feel like an asshole if I spend $118 on a shirt.

Wait. I know what you're gonna say - it's my wedding and I should splurge. But I promise you, I will feel like an asshole if I spend $118 on a shirt. I have price points set in my life and this more than doubles what any rationale man being should spend a shirt.

So - do any of you know of any Tommy Bahama-ish type places where I can get a nice linen shirt for far less than $100?

Top 30

Top 30 Most Played songs on my iTunes:

1. Burned - Better Than Ezra
2. No Way Back - Foo Fighters
3. Because the Night - 10,000 Maniacs
4. Thrash Unreal - Against Me!
5. Special - BTE
6. Sincerely, Me (live) - BTE
7. Hysteria - Muse
8. Highway to Hell - AC/DC
9. Breathless - BTE
10. Trust - Dakona
11. Pour Some Sugar on Me - Def Leppard
12. #1 Crush - Garbage
13. I'm Going to Wait - Lyle Lovett*
14. Nothin' But a Good Time - Poison
15. Original Fire - Audioslave
16. Break On Through (To the Other Side) - The Doors
17. Can't Relate - The Exies
18. Just Around the Corner - Low Stars
19. I'm Not Okay - My Chemical Romance*
20. Hands Open - Snow Patrol
21. You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
22. Walk Away - Athenaeum
23. Diamonds on the Inside - Ben Harper**
24. Recognize - BTE
25. Oh, Corrina - BTE
26. Tiny Dancer - Elton John
27. The Pretender - Foo Fighters
28. Welcome to the Jungle - Guns N' Roses
29. 20th Century Fox Fanfare - John Williams
30. Rockstar - Nickelback

* - I can't confirm this, but I'm going to guess I'm the only person in America to have both My Chemical Romance and Lyle Lovett in their Top 30.

** - This probably shouldn't be up there. I mean, it's a good song, but I think my fiancee has been listening to this song a lot on my computer for potential use as a wedding song.