Shane Life

Alli and I watched the awful Chiefs game (why did it have to go into overtime?) and afterward, we wanted something that would be a little better, so we checked out Joe Wright’s Atonement with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.

We got there about 20 minutes early and we were sitting there, tucking into our soda and popcorn and I had just dropped a text to my cousin Char, letting him know we were getting ready to see the flick he’d mentioned to us. He responded with a very funny note and Alli was texting him back. All the while, the stupid Blistex commercial is running on the screen in between synergistic advertisements for American Gladiators (YES!) and Chimp Eden (sad, but meh).

All of a sudden, a 40-something spinster behind us leans forward and proceeds to tell Alli that “her phone is glaring right in her face.” Alli kindly apologizes and turns the phone away. No more than 10 seconds elapse with Alli turning her phone away from the woman when she gets up, comes down to our row and starts popping off to Alli about how insensitive she is and how she is rude and she is going to go report her to the AMC police.

Keep in mind that the full house lights are still on and the previews have not even started, nor have we been warned by the Kung Fu Panda to turn down our cell phone ringers.

So the AMC police come in (and by “AMC police”, I mean a 18-year-old manager-type kid) and looks at us, laughs and walks away. By this point, the lady has lost her seat behind us to someone else and she comes rolling back in and says (get this), “Thanks for being so INCONSIDERATE.”

Then, not having the courage to face us (I yelled, ‘HEY!’ to her when she said that), she scurries off to her seat. I was ready to have a verbal war with the spinster right there in Theater 12 of the Olathe AMC. Alli and I were so baffled by the gall of this lady that we were almost left speechless. She left with her other spinster friend about halfway through the movie. Apparently, it wasn’t up to her standards.

I imagine she was merely trying to get a free ticket out of AMC somehow and went to complain to the AMC police again.

The movie itself was beautifully shot, but kind of depressing. I’m not a huge fan of Keira Knightley’s. I always think her accent sounds a little fake. I don’t know if I’d rush out to see it, but it was pretty good. No Juno, but decent.

(via Daring Fireball)

The RIAA is the most evil organization perhaps in the history of the world. The Washington Post is reporting that the RIAA has filed a lawsuit against a man in Scottsdale, Arizona who had 2,000 songs on his personal computer.

Here’s the kicker…IT WAS LEGALLY PURCHASED MUSIC THAT HE MERELY COPIED TO HIS OWN COMPUTER. The RIAA must be stopped. If they could devote the same amount of energy they spend on tracking down these digital thieves to tracking down Osama bin Laden, don’t you think we’d be in better shape? I imagine that the unlimited resources of the RIAA could be put to really good use.

Stealing music is bad, m’kay? But let’s get serious for a second…does the industry really think that copying music to your computer is illegal? If there’s no intent to distribute, I don’t see where the issue is.

The government stepped in when baseball needed help with steroids (although they were about 3 years two late). Maybe someone in the government can lay the smackdown on the amazingly frivolous nature of these lawsuits.

Oh wait…the RIAA sends millions and millions of dollars to Washington every year to make sure that Congress passes legislation that protects corporations, not artists. So that won’t work.

I’ve had the good fortune of 3 separate birthday celebrations this year, one with Alli’s family on the day before my birthday, one with just Alli on Friday, then the final one with my family on Saturday.

Each birthday celebration involved me picking the food (2 times out of 3: barbecue) and picking the movie.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Last Saturday, we ventured out into the cold Iowa weather to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Of all the “holiday” movies that are released, this was one that I was really looking forward to. I liked the previous movie a lot. It was very Dan Brown meets Indiana Jones…how can you go wrong with that?

Look, it’s not going to win any awards, but it was a lot of fun. Lots of action and a decent (albeit unrealistic) story. If you can suspend belief a little (think Transformers), you’ll enjoy this movie.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd is one of the most well-reviewed films of the year. That should have been my first clue. A couple years back, I went picked a well-reviewed movie (Sideways) for my birthday and it sucked.

Sweeney Todd benefits from Johnny Depp, who is one of the best actors around. But the story is just so dark and evil and it’s so drearily filmed by crazy Tim Burton that it can’t recover. Oftentimes something as dark as this movie is balanced by humor or at least some sort of redeeming ending. Not so much here.

Now, I’ve never seen the staged musical. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I have absolutely no desire to do so. I might suggest this to people who like Tim Burton, but for those of you who look for at least something positive in your movie-going experience, I’d steer clear of Sweeney Todd.

Juno

Finally a movie both well-reviewed and good. Juno is the latest film by Jason Reitman, director Ivan Reitman’s son and the director of the very underrated tobacco company satire, Thank You for Smoking.

The independent film centers around the title character, played beautifully by Ellen Page, a 16-year-old high school girl who gets pregnant by her best friend who is played by George Michael Bluth himself, Michael Cera.

The dialogue is witty and sharp, written smartly by newcomer Diablo Cody. Ellen Page shines in this movie, but is surrounded by a lot of terrific supporting players like Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner as the to-be adoptive parents of Juno’s unborn child and J.K. Simmons and Alison Janney as Juno’s dad and stepmom.

Of all the movies I saw for my birthday, Juno was by far the best. It was heartfelt in the same way as last year’s indie darling, Little Miss Sunshine, but it was funnier. I found myself laughing aloud on more than one occasion during the movie. Even stuck in the 2nd row of the theater, it was a joy to watch.

Tonight, we’re going to check out Atonement. I’ll let you know what I think.

In 2006, I read 25 books. In 2007, I didn’t read nearly as many. I’m going to try and read at least 25 in 2008 and here’s a list of what I’m going to start with. Some of these I got for Christmas, some are ones I’ve had for ages that I’ve intended to read for a while, but never got around to them. I need to finish Kevin’s book soon, so that will be my first one. It’ll be followed (in no particular order) by:

1. Wild at Heart by John Eldridge
2. Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins
3. A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
4. Spunk & Bite by Arthur Plotnik
5. Lucky Dog by Mark Barrowcliffe
6. Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
7. The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
8. Become a Better You by Joel Osteen
9. The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
10. The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
11. Plum Island by Nelson DeMille
12. Marley & Me by John Grogan
13. Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

Obviously, to get to 25 books, I need a lot more books. Leave your suggestions in the comments.

With the ongoing writer’s strike, it won’t be difficult to find time to read since, outside of American Gladiators, I don’t have a ton of shows to watch outside of Iron Chef America and the standard Bravo reality fare.

I’m sure that will be good for me. Less TV usually is.

This crap has to stop now.

I know that there’s not a lot of fairness in Hollywood. Actors who were blessed with good genes are paid millions of dollars to read other people’s written words, directed by someone else (I’m over-simplifying here and in no way to I feel this way about all actors).

Anyway, the argument that the WGA (Writer’s Guild of America) is having with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) basically boils down to 3 things:

1. Money for DVD residuals
2. Money for internet distribution
3. Money for reality TV and animation

The writers are asking for more money and the producers (who basically represent the studios and the networks) don’t want to give it. Now, I imagine that the writers are pretty justified in what they are asking for.

Just when I thought that scripted television was making a move on reality TV, this had to happen. It couldn’t happen at a worse time. Studios only need an excuse to run more Who Wants to Be Smarter than a Survivor Bachelor? There are certain reality TV shows I’ll watch, mostly Bravo TV shows and the occasional trivia contest and American Idol.

As popular as those shows are, I really wish that there were more good scripted TV shows. I was very pleased to discover The Big Bang Theory this year, but it was unfortunately one of the first ones affected by the strike.

Movie studios prepared for the strike by getting as many in the can as they could and then spacing out their releases. TV studios don’t have that luxury and we’ll start to see how horrible TV is without writers after the first of the year. The only consolation is that they’ve filmed a half-season of Lost so we’ll at least have one night to look forward to during the week.

The real losers here are two parties:

1. The low-level crew members like grips, lighting technicians, electricians and PAs. These folks are not a part of the striking union, but are killed because their shows and stuff have shut down production. Doesn’t seem real fair.
2. Discerning TV watchers. Most of America won’t care because we’ll gladly watch the mindless reality drivel that the networks will force-feed us, but there are some people who prefer scripted, thought out television with real (not manufactured, editing room) stories.

I hope the strike ends soon, but there is not a lot of hope for that right now. I’ve heard rumors that the networks have already written off pilot season and even are prepared to write off the fall. The last time the writers struck, it lasted 22 months. That’s when reality TV was born. I hope that we don’t debase ourselves even further.

Appetizer
Name 2 things you would like to accomplish in 2008.
Let’s see…I’m going to try and read 25 books again (more on that later). And lose 50 pounds.

Soup
With which cartoon character do you share personality traits?
Dilbert? Truthfully, I always considered myself like Hobbes, Calvin’s intelligent, eloquent, make-believe tiger.

Salad
What time of day (or night) were you born?
10:10 AM on December 23

Main Course
Tell us something special about your hometown.
I was born in Independence, but I would consider Overland Park my hometown. I went to high school with former reality TV star Dan Renzi. It is also home to the 3rd largest mobile phone company in the United States.

Dessert
If you could receive a letter from anyone in the world, who would you want to get one from?
This is a tough one. My wife is an obvious one. My non-sentimental living choice would be to receive a letter from Malcolm Gladwell or Nick Hornby. Those dudes can write. If it were someone no longer living, it would likely be Shakespeare or my paternal grandfather.

No day is so bad it can’t be fixed with a nap.

- Carrie Snow

Not a bad way to look at the day.

I’ve been pondering purchasing a MacBook for quite a while now. It always has seemed like a no-brainer to me: I love Macs, I love portability. The MacBook is both a Mac and portable.

I’ve put it off for a while for several reasons…

1. Not a huge need
2. I have a work laptop
3. Concern about the newer keyboards
4. My desire to have a completely full machine, regardless of its intended use
5. Money

There’s still no huge need and I still have the work laptop. However, it’s a Dell and as free as it is, my computer has more problems than any computer rightly should (as I write this, I’m considering having our IT department wipe the hard drive for the 3rd time).

After spending some time with the new keyboards, I’ve found them completely awesome. I don’t know why I would have expected anything different from Cupertino. They are very nice…responsive and extremely elegantly designed.

As far as #4 goes…I’ll be frank. I’m a total geek. I want latest and greatest stuff across the board. My original desire for this computer was something to kick around with. I want to be able to easily move around my house not using my work laptop to blog, check e-mail, write that ever-elusive novel, etc. I’ve decided that after the Macworld Expo in January that I would just take whatever they are offering at the time in my price range. Now, after looking at all the rumors, it appears that Apple may be poised to release a NAND-flash hard-drive based compact notebook. It would be light, extremely portable, but it might not have an optical drive. One of the reasons I want a new laptop is that I want to be able to easily watch movies on trips. That might pose a problem.

Then there’s the question of which version to get. Really, that question boils down to issue #5. As much as I’d like the black one, it makes a lot more sense to stick with the mid-range white one so I can still get a SuperDrive.

This decision is very trying to my patience. Now that I’ve made the decision to get one, I can’t wait to get it. Uncle Steve Jobs’ Macworld Expo keynote on January 15 cannot get here soon enough.

Do you think I should wait?

It’s back to the old grind today.

Since I used up all my vacation galavanting around Italy and France this summer with my lovely wife, I am working this week.

It should be a relatively slow week. We closed out a couple huge projects last week and I’m getting ready to ramp up some new ones for Q1.

I got some great presents for my birthday and Christmas from my whole fam. Lots of fun books and DVDs, gift cards, clothes…all good times. I’ve been wanting to get a MacBook for a while now and am now chomping at the bit since I have some money burning a hole in my pocket, but after running down to the Apple Store on the Plaza today, I’ve decided to wait until after MacWorld in January before I purchase anything…that way I’ll be in on the latest and greatest.

Did you get anything fun for Christmas?