The weekend…

Steve… Update your blog. You’re way behind 😉

I have been using the Video portion of my iPod Video (30gig) and the battery life does seem to be pretty much as advertised. I watched some of the DL.TV CES coverage (about 15 minutes shy of two hours worth) and I still had a reasonable amount of battery life left that I used to listen to the latest episode of tWiT with a reasonable amount of battery to spare. I finally did plug it in, but, I could have probably listened to audio for the rest of the day, but, have some video I want to watch later so I plugged it in. Not bad! The 60gig is supposed to have even better battery life for video, but, I like the slimness of the 30gig. By the time this one does (or my wife wants it, or…) they will have a new one out with a better screen and much better battery life. I can live with two hours (especially if I have a charger both at home and at work).

I started listening to the audiobook of The Google Story. It is interesting so far although I am only about 45 minutes into it. I will post more detailed opinions when I finish it, probably. I finished the 2001: A Space Odyssey audiobook and would highly recommend listening or reading it if you enjoy the movie — it gives very interesting details that you just can’t put into a movie. Explains a lot of things.

I went and saw Hostel on Friday. It was good. Probably not worthy of the “ultra scary” hype it is getting, but, most movies don’t live up to their hype. If you are a fan of the genre you will probably enjoy it. They don’t shy away from, umm, pretty much anything. If you are easily offended, scared, or grossed out this is not the movie for you. No happy puppies running through the park in this one.

On Sunday we went to see Munich. It was very well done and has a very interesting story. It is long (2:44), but, I felt the story justified the length. To tell the story in 90 minutes wouldn’t do it justice. It isn’t a happy go lucky, fun film. Probably not quite to the level of a Schindler’s List, but, a good film.

Wolf Creek and NYC Ballet

I watched the movie Wolf Creek. It is getting some press because it is supposed to be “uber-violent”. It was a decent horror film, but, felt a little thin and ended pretty abruptly. The actual violent parts don’t really make up that much of the pretty short movie. It is supposed to be based on a true story, but, since there aren’t a lot of facts actually known (or so I gather) it is kind interesting where they embellish and where they just leave the story incomplete. Overall, if you are a fan of the genre go see it (or wait for video, or just go see Hostel or Saw or Saw II instead). I found it to be decent, but, not the uber-violent film it is being sold as.

I also watched the video American Pie: Band Camp. It was, umm, right about as good as you would expect the forth movie in the series, this time released directly to video. If you are into this kind of thing you will probably enjoy it. Very sophomoric with a few laughs. Maybe not quite as bad as I expected.

For our 9th anniversary Deb and I went to the New York City Ballet. Deb is a big fan of ballet so it seemed like a good choice. The evening was a set of five unrelated pieces…

The orchestra (which varied in size from piece to piece) was very good. The dancers seemed skilled to my untrained eye — sometimes I felt there was some intended symmetry missing, but, they aren’t robots… I really enjoyed two of the pieces, Liturgy and (especially) Fearful Symmetries, but, the other three I wasn’t quite as enamored with. Overall, it was fun and it left me with a better understanding of which ballets I might enjoy in the future (and which ones I might want to avoid) — well, that probably isn’t entirely true, because, I wouldn’t know how to tell one from another unless I was watching them, but, Deb probably knows which ones I would like better and maybe she could pick them 🙂

Long Weekend…

We had a nice long weekend… I took off Friday and we had Monday off of work to celebrate the new year. All in all it was mostly just a relaxing weekend. We ventured out to see Memoirs of a Geisha (well, we went to see Munich, but, it was really crowded so we decided to see Memoirs instead). Memoirs was very good. On Monday we ventured up to West New York, NJ (a city across the river from Manhattan on the Jersey side) and had a nice lunch at P.F. Chang’s. After lunch we drove around and explored the area a little bit. During lunch it started raining so we mostly explored from within the car.

Other than this stuff, we mostly stayed in. We watched some West Wing (season 5). We watched the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose (which I had seen but Deb hadn’t). It is a very interesting movie, Deb enjoyed it.

I saw another trailer for Hostel. I hope it lives up to the hype — it looks really good to me (and Deb told me what I already knew — she has NO interest in seeing it 😉 ).

We are going to the New York City Ballet on Wednesday night for our ninth anniversary, something Deb has wanted to do since she heard we were moving to the NYC area. Should be interesting.

I’m still batting around getting a Sony PSP, primarily to play the Prince of Persia game. Haven’t decided yet. I am on the last boss battle with Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones on the Xbox. I know how to complete it now, maybe I will complete it tonight.

That’s about it…

Cold Brewing

I am a fanatical soda lover, always have been, but, with my new healthier living I have been trying to drink more water. For at least 10 years I have pretty much only drank sugar free soda, but, water is still better for you. I never got into coffee (which is probably all for the best). I like tea, but, for much of the year I really am not interested in hot drinks.

A few months ago I discovered you could cold brew tea. I take a bag of tea, one of my favorites is Tazo Sweet Cinnamon Spice, and put it in a bottle (generally 16 or 20 ounces) of cold water and let it steep for 5 or 10 minutes. You can speed it up by shaking. If you are so inclined you can add a packet or two of Splenda (or your favorite sweetener). The result is very tasty! There is such a huge variety of flavors that it never grows old.

POP: Two Thrones

I am finishing up The Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones for the Xbox… I am something like 90% or better through the game. Of the games of its kind (puzzler-platformer-sword fighter) it is probably the cream of the crop. I love these kind of games and this is probably my favorite (although I need to go back and play Prince of Persia: Sands of Time again). I have enjoyed all of the Prince of Persia games since the very first one (in DOS) — well, I never played Prince of Persia 3D, but, nobody else did, either. Price of Persia: The Warrior Within got some negative press, but, I enjoyed it a lot. The thing I both liked and disliked about The Warrior Within was that you replayed many parts of the game several times, primarily in different “times” (past and future) — it was a somewhat less linear game. I always felt like I knew where to go next in The Two Thrones. If you were stuck you could (pretty much) just look around and determine what needed to be done next. This isn’t to say the puzzles were easy, the game IS quite challenging in many parts, but, if you can learn the controls the game is lots of fun and quite rewarding. My only two complains are somewhat small… (1) The save points are really inconsistently spaced. Sometimes they are practically right on top of each other and at other times the save points are quite distance. Some of the most challenging parts of the game have save points they are really far apart so if you die repeatedly (in the hard parts) you have to play them over and over (even if you get past the hard part and then die) – doh! (2) The game has boss battles and I hate boss battles. These strategy of completing boss battles generally has nothing to do with the strategy of playing the game in general. As far as I can tell they are just thrown in to weed out the lesser players or push the plot? I have no idea. I can generally ride smoothly through games until I hit boss battles then I just end up getting frustrated and hoping there is a invincibility-cheat (which there is NOT in this game). Oh well, after tons of tries and reading strategy guides I can get by them, but, for me, they subtract from the fun of the game. I am sure there are lots of people who completely disagree with me about boss battles.

Not much else is going on… I am listening to the Narnia Chronicles books in unabridged audiobook format. I am almost finished with Prince Caspian and am really enjoying them. I am also listening to Wicked, which is pretty interesting.