Bryce's Birthday

I just got back from a nice big lunch as Ben & Clovy hosted Bryce's 3rd Birthday party @ Century Diner Buffet. Since it was a large group, we had the private room to ourselves, which allowed the kids to run around and the adults to take lots of digital pictures. Here's my collection:


I took some generic Century Buffet shots because I didn't get a chance to last time when I did my full review. The rest are party pictures. Be sure to click on the slideshow to access the Picasa Web album as I have written comments for individual photos.

A Great Wall

Story: 6
Action: 4
Acting: 6
FX: 1
Durability: 5

Auntie Janice passed along this DVD to my family after hearing about our last trip to China. A Great Wall is an old movie from 1986 about a computer programmer (yeah they had those back then), Leo Fang who quits his job because they promoted a less experienced colleague based on race. With the time off, he decides to take his family to visit his sister in Beijing. With the two families living together for an extended period of time, there were a lot of comedic scenes and misunderstandings depicting the melding of the 2 cultures. What amplified the humor even more was watching the movie in this day and age because of the additional layer of how far we've gone in 22 years. Short shorts and funny 80's hair always make for a good laugh. I say that knowing that in 2028, we'll look back at 2008 and laugh.

It was a good family movie that we all related to, although the cultural differences were much more extreme in 1986. I felt the story was building up to something very interesting, but ended abruptly without a strong resolution. The acting was OK. The action consisted some well-shot ping pong matches. There were no special effects.

DVDeals 3/16 - 3/22

DVD Tuesday
This week's highlight is I Am Legend. For the regular edition, there's no contest. Circuit City has it for $13.99. They also have the special edition for $21.99. Best Buy has it for $22.99, but in an exclusive steel box (limited to 15 per store). I'm definitely going for the special edition with this movie. The "making of" and commentary should be very interesting. I'd also like to find out more about the acting of Abbey, the German Shepherd.

Circuit City Deals
- i, Robot for $4.99
- Men in Black for $4.99
- Patriot for $3.99
- Die Hard for $3.99
- Die Hard 2 for $3.99
- X-Men for $3.99
- X2 for $3.99
- XXX for $3.99
- Contract Killer for $3.99

$400 Monitors Through the Ages

This afternoon's project was swapping computer accessories between my room and the basement of my parents' house. I recently purchased a 24" Samsung LCD for my primary desktop system. I found this Online for about $400. When I think back to all of the monitors I've used through the years, I realized that I've always spent $400 on them.

MAG 17" CRT (1994 - 1998)
I had this one for most of my college years. It's hard to believe, but this was the best model at the time. I researched only the 17" models because there was a huge price jump at 19", the next size up. The 17" monitors were also sufficient for my 3-D and multimedia work. We often needed the 1280x1024 resolution for application interfaces, but the animations and interactive projects often had final dimensions of 720x480 or lower. This was one of the most durable monitors I've owned. After college, it was moved to my dad's office where it served another 5 or 6 years.

CTX 21" Flat CRT (1998 - 2008)
As systems and graphics cards got more powerful for the consumer, I had to upgrade to a larger monitor. With the rise of the Internet, it also became more common to have multiple windows open. A 1600x1200 resolution made multitasking more efficient. Th hi-res was also useful for my new duties... hi-res still graphics, photos, long pages of code, etc. The flat CRT also made a difference because there was no distortion. My research actually led me to a Sony model, but further searching revealed that CTX made one of the same specs as Sony for much less and it also had an integrated 4-port USB hub.

Samsung LCD (2008)
The CTX didn't actually die out yet, but it was starting to get blurry at 1600x1200 and the Samsung 24" was on sale for a limited time. Many time when I research monitors and LCD TVs, it leads me to Samsung. The best LCD monitors are probably the Dell Ultrasharp and Apple, but those are both very overpriced. The Samsungs have pretty good quality. I've been using a 17" one at work for about 3 years now. I needed a 24" model because I couldn't go lower than 1600x1200 if it was to replace the CTX 21" CRT. The new one goes up to 1920x1200. The wide format allows me to have 2 browser windows side-by-side + a side bar for my messenger applications. It also looks great for those 16:9 movies.

Note: Although I removed the CTX from my main system, it's not ready for the trash bin quite yet. I moved it to the basement system and have it set at 1280x1024, a resolution where the text is still readable.

SFIV: Li vs Viper

Another Street Fighter IV video has ben released. It's likely an alternate intro. video. This time it's Chun Li vs C.Viper in the middle of a Chinese parade. The video styles are somewhat consistent. There are still inks splashes like in the Ryu vs. Ken video, but more vibrant colors are used.


There are updated video all over YouTube now. Sagat and Balrog (M.Bison in Japan) have been confirmed as they can be found fighting Zangief in some gameplay videos. It looks like they made Sagat smaller than Zangief this time around.

DVDeals 3/9 - 3/15

New Releases
It must be geek week with Stargate: Ark of Truth, Hitman (Unrated) and Tin Man all coming out this DVD Tuesday. Ark of Truth is cheapest at Amazon... $16.99 ($1 lower than everywhere else & no tax). For Hitman, Buy.com is the place to go for the regular edition. For the 2-disc special edition, check out Amazon. Go to Best Buy or Amazon. if you're looking for Tin Man. They have it at $15.99.

Circuit City Deals
Beowulf - $13.99 (a rare low price for the 2nd week of release)
Shrek - $8.99
Shrek 2 - $8.99
Man on Fire - $6.99
John Q - $6.99
Speed - $6.99
Top Gun (Special) - $6.99
Spawn - $6.99
Blade - $6.99
Legend of the Red Dragon - $6.99
Team America - $6.99
South Park Movie - $6.99
Stargate SG-1 (Season 1-10) - $19.99 each

Grendel (Sci-Fi Original)

Warning: This post is a spoiler if you plan to watch this movie.

Story: 5
Action: 3
Acting: 3
FX: 3
Durability: 1

I was flipping through the channels and landed on Sci-Fi, thinking this was the Beowulf & Grendel movie from 2005. It was actually a new movie from 2007 made for the Sci-Fi channel. It's a completely different interpretation of the original. There are more characters and it doesn't follow the sequence of the original. It starts out the same way with Grendel terrorizing the Danes, but the battle at Heorot with Grendel was a loss. Grendel was instead defeated in a second battle in the forest. Instead of a hand-to-hand fight, Beowulf defeats Grendel with an exploding crossbow (in other words, a rocket launcher) that stuns him. Then he charged forward with his sword to finish the job. Unferth in this version was Hrothgar's son and not as cowardly as he was supposed to be. He died heroically against Grendel's mother. There was no Wiglaf. Instead, Beowulf had an apprentice, Fin.

Grendel was a poorly integrated CG character that looked like a large gorilla with decorative tentacles sticking out. His mother looked like the Manbat from the Batman comics. Animation on both characters was stiff. The battle scenes consisted of a series of cuts between one of the monsters making a move and a live action actor swinging a weapon. There was no moving around. It looked like one of those RPG games where the player characters step up, swinging a weapon then step back and let the monster take a hack.

So far, so bad and the acting couldn't save this movie either. Emotions were over-emphasized rather than built-up. I guess bad acting works great with bad fx. And durability? Well, Beowulf running around with a rocket launcher doesn't do it for me. Watching this once was enough!

This is already the 4th Beowulf post, but it's just a coincidence. I'm not a huge fanatic. I just liked the 3-D animated movie.

MetroCard Fare Hike

I'll be entertaining a lot of out-of-town family members this Spring and Summer, so much of our NYC adventures will have to be well planned. Part of that will deal with which MetroCards to buy. Here are my tips for the recent fare hike:

Unlimited Cards
The "fun pass" @ $7.50 is really not that fun anymore unless you ride 4x within a day. The 7-day pass is $25 (must use 13x per week) and the 30-day is now $81 (must use 41x per month). There's also a new 14-day pass for $47 (must use 24x in 2 weeks). The monthly pass still has the best bang for buck, but 41 uses in a month is pretty high. If you're a regular commuter and you work the full month, that's about 20 rides ($40). If you take one day off and don't go out on weekends, then you'll lose out. The other 2 are even worse. If you buy the 7-day pass, 10 uses for the work week amounts to $20. You have to ride 3 more times for it to be worth the money. For regular commuters, the monthly is the only way to go unless you have a long vacation coming up. The 7-day pass is good for tourists who plan to stay in NYC for a week or so. You'll surely get 13 uses out of it.

Pay-Per-Rides
The base fare remains at $2, but the discount was reduced from 20% to 15%. So if you buy a $10 card, you no longer get the free ride. Instead, you get a $1.50 bonus... an odd balance that forces you to refill the card. A $20 card has a $3 bonus... a free ride + an odd $1 balance. If you don't want to deal with the hassle of refilling cards and dealing with odd balances, then it's best to just spend $40 to get a $6 (3-ride) bonus. This is the card for you if you only use the subway once in a while. Another option is to buy cards from a store or street vendor for $17.39 (10 rides) or $52.17 (30 rides).

DVDeals 3/2 - 3/8

Circuit City Deals
Ong Bak - $5.99
i, Robot - $5.99
Matrix - $5.99
Terminator - $5.99
Die Hard - $5.99
Harold & Kumar - $5.99
Romeo Must Die - $4.99

Best Buy Deals
Blade - $4.99
Bloodsport - $4.99
Space Balls - $4.99

Beowulf: Director's Cut DVD

Story: 7
Action: 8
Acting: 8
FX: 8
Durability: 8
Special Features: 5

The recent, fully animated version of Beowulf was an interesting interpretation of the original. All of the major events happened in sequence, but the characters were connected differently. The original epic poem was more about symbolism and allegory than relation of the characters to each other. In the movie, Hrothgar is connected to Grendel and his mother. Beowulf is connected to the dragon. The dragon is connected to Grendel's mother. Beowulf is connect to Wealthow. All of those relationships were a little strange and some a bit of a stretch, but it goes along with the theme of the "cycle of kings."

The 3-D modeling and animation were both well executed. Beowulf, Unferth, Wiglaf and Grendel's mother were some of the best human 3-D models I've ever seen. The motion was also accurate. They motion captured everything, including the horses!

I was a little disappointed with the special features on this disc. For a movie that was so well-crafted, one would expect a full 2nd disc of features. And there was no commentary track, something I was looking forward to. Usually movies like this have at least 2 commentaries... one for the actors and one for the directors & fx people.

Related: Mr. Hobbs' Beowulf, Official Site