Clerks 2 - Interspecies Fun for the Whole Family

Well, went to watch Clerks II last night and I have not laughed that hard at so many dick and fart jokes in a loooong time. To me Kevin Smith has nailed much of the original "mystique" behind the first movie. Its still got the crass humor(love the "Silence of The Lambs" bit), the long orations by the main charicters on life, sex and what ever else comes to mind at the time. Some may whine that it gets sappy but I'd tell those people to cram it! To me the most unexpected treat of the whole movie was Rosario Dawson's performance, I know that she is a good actor but her part made the whole flick more enjoyable and added a good bit to the movie as well. In the end the movie pretty much leaves you feeling satisfied but as always maybe wanting to see Randall and Dante again(And of course Jay and Slient Bob). In the end Kevin Smith makes his point, which I don't want to spoil(GO SEE THE MOVIE NOW!) in that he gets it across pretty clearly. In the end, this one goes into the collection with all the other View Askew flics(except for Jersey Girl which I have still not mustered up enough courage to watch) and as one of my favorites. Thanks Kevin Smith for the movie and thanks Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, and Jason Mewes for the performances.

Ft Worth - Sundance Square

Well, I took the train over to Ft Worth yesterday just to have a look around downtown. Thought I would spend some time in a place called the Flying Saucer which claimed to have close to 100 beers on tap from around the world. I got tired of counting around seventy something on the taps behind the bar. Sundance Square is a section of downtown Ft Worth that has been spruced up by some of the rich benefactors that wanted to see some city life spring up. So far, its seems to have worked. There were lots of people out on the street walking around in all age groups. Teenagers, Older Couples, Families, all out for a night on the town. It impressed me to see so many people out and about in Ft Worth. I had not ever seen a crowd like that in an Urban setting in a long time back where I grew up and have seen nothing like that in downtown Dallas. There were police patrolling the street on foot, which I still don't think I have seen a beat cop in Dallas since I have been here. Lots of restaurants both chain and non chain, fancy and not so fancy. You still got the feeling that most of the people did not live in this area and had come to make it a night on the town but still it was refreshing to see that the developers had invested in revitalizing a downtown instead of some ugly strip mall or a big mega mall instead. I shall be back soon to sample some more of Flying Saucer's brew and to explore some of Sundance Square.

Pics

Well, here are a couple of shots of the view from the new place. Still need a better camera that what I got to get some better shots of the downtown skyline. Nighttime pictures do not come out all that well.

@#$%^& DVD Wrapping!

I had forgotten why I had not gone and bought any DVDs in awhile. Now I remember! The damn wrapping they put these things in takes longer to open up than it takes to watch some of the moves that are in the package! Christ on a Pogo stick they make it hard. Hey, movie executive @$$hats, if you stopped treating your normal customers like criminals and maybe allowed us to donwload moves and maybe even burn them to DVDs, maybe people would go back to buying your stuff. I already buy stuff of of iTunes, if I could buy a movie in 720p or 1080i off of iTunes and maybe watch on my home system plus on my Laptop while traveling, that would be nice. I hate having to shuffle through close to 200+ DVDs to find my movie. Get with the program and offer us Digital Content that is OURS TO KEEP!

Akimbo Review

Well I have been promising this for awhile now, and I figured it was about time to go ahead and do it. I picked up this set top box form a company called Akimbo awhile back. The whol premise behind it is that they have farious selections of shows and you pick which ones you want, you can even schedule them from the web. After that the box uses you home internet connection and downloads the show to the set top box. They also have a component that you can use with a Windows Media PC also.

First blush after I opened the box and set it up was pretty good. The standard 9.99 pre month cost for all the basic offerings did not seem tod bad. There is quite a bit of free content such as video blogs and local talent plus videos, movie clips for upcoming attractions, and some odd comedy stuff as well. To get anything that you would normally recognize off of TV such as Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and Cartoon Network, you have to pay extra. What grips me is the model is not consistant. For Cratoon Network you pay a fee per month and get all the shows they have out there on Akimbo. Some of the other channels make you pay per freekin' show! That is my main annoyance.

Second look and it still seems pretty good. You won't want to use this as your primary means of watching TV. To me Akimbo is like having Pay-Per-View with a bunch more choices and odd content also with your normal TV. I'm paying all told about 25 per month with a couple of channels and of course all the free stuff. The set top box works pretty good, though I have had to reset it once since the video was kinda laggy but after that it worked fine. Did I also mention that there is a ton of Pr0n on there as well!(gotta pay for it). To me since I refuse to pay for cable going screw you rate for TV and Internet, this plus my over the air digital receiver plus Netflix gives me all the viweing pleasure I need and for less than what I was paying for before. I hate not having a choice plus I always like to be on the bleeding edge if I can.

In the end, Akimo is not for everyone especially a TV junkie(you know who you are;). In the end though, I f you know where to look and like out of the ordinary TV and weird conent to go along with your normal stuff, Akimbo is a good choice. Its a higher level of choice.