Category Archives: Uncategorized

Green Lantern

I saw Green Lantern today. I have been looking forward to this movie for a few months because the special effects looked cool and because I knew next to nothing about Green Lantern. It was an opportunity to see a popular super hero movie with a super hero I knew just two things about:

1. The guy’s power came from the ring.

2. There might be more than one guy with a ring.

From that perspective, my feeling on the movie is the following.

It was fun to be able to treat Green Lantern as a brand new hero to me (even though he was not a new hero to most other people). With that it was also fun to see the hero’s back story for the first time.

Unfortunately my own excitement to see a cool new super hero was completely overshadowed by a predictable and boring script. I say boring not because of the hero’s story, but because it was so formulaic. I felt like I knew every scene before it happened. Also, I hadn’t realized that I was going to a 3D show. Suffice it to say that because of those 3D glasses you have to wear, the whole movie seemed “gloomy” and dark and I actually found the 3D stuff distracting.

Much of Hollywood seems to feed into this type of execution. I hope it doesn’t last. If you’re going to do a super hero movie, perhaps setting Christopher Nolan’s Batman films as “the bar” would be a good place to start.

Proactive Versus Reactive

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs

This quote that I read from this blog entry really got me to thinking.

So many products are built this way. Ask people what they want, build it, and then give it to them months or years later. Times change, however. In today’s world so much can change in a year.

“Pioneering” is a completely different mindset. People that see a future clearly and are able to deliver that will either win or lose. If you lose, you’re out of business. But isn’t that a risk everyone with an idea and passion should take? If I have an idea and I think it’s great and I execute on the idea and then nobody else likes it as I envisioned, doesn’t that make me wrong? I’m saying that’s a good thing. I should learn from that and move on.

Some just aren’t willing to assume that risk and are happy to deliver things that are already outdated when they’re released. Others wrongly assume the risk, because they’re just too stubborn to see certain things. Then there are those who take calculated risks and have tremendous vision. Those are the people that change the world.

Verizon's New Droid Ad

I think Verizon is misguided in its approach to the Droid ad campaign. Their latest one, shown here, seems to paint a made-up picture of the iPhone and then compare the Droid to that picture. But to anyone who has ever used an iPhone, the ad makes absolutely no sense.

I can’t help but notice how Verizon is not going head-to-head with feature and / or usability comparisons.

A Really Cool Ninja DVD Set

America’s original ninja Stephen K. Hayes just re-released his very first video as a new 2-DVD set and it’s on sale for $29.95! 50% off! He covers a ton of ninja training in this set, and it’s great to see him just after returning from his years in Japan with the Grandmaster Hatsumi Sensei.

Ninja Night Warriors Preview (Requires Adobe Flash)



Buy now!

Effortless Victory over Larger Attackers

Ninja Master An-shu Stephen K. Hayes has put a 3-DVD set on sale to celebrate his 60th birthday: Effortless Victory over Larger Attackers for $29.95. This is normally $89.95. I highly recommend this for those who are looking to avoid violence and gain a basic understanding of evading assaults from dangerous attackers.

The sale ends on Saturday – two days from now.

Chase Sends us WaMu Customers ATM Cards?

As most people know, one of the results of the current economic crisis is the fact that Chase is now the owner of Washington Mutual, where all of my banking is done. 

Today I get a brand new ATM card in the mail.

You read that correctly: An ATM card. Not a debit card with a MasterCard or Visa logo, but a card that can only be used at ATM machines.

That struck me as a very interesting way for a financial institution to spend money these days. Does anybody reading this have a card that ONLY works in an ATM machine? How much do you think it would have cost Chase to send out debit cards that can be used at millions and millions of ATMs, restaurants, and stores all over the world?

Marco Pierre White's "The Chopping Block"

I’ve been a big fan of Gordon Ramsay’s U.S. and U.K. television shows “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Kitchen Nightmares”, so I was naturally curious to see the show of the man who apparently once trained Gordon, Marco Pierre White. I had never heard of Marco before seeing the promos for “The Chopping Block”, which I found interesting because through Gordon’s shows, Top Chef, and various other cooking shows on cable I’d heard about quite a few popular chefs.

The Chopping Block is one of the most boring shows I’ve seen in years. Not only does Marco have absolutely no personality at all, but the show is filled with people who have a clearly-apparent lack of skill. I don’t really care about any of them. That’s not Marco’s issue (unless you break it down to the fact that it’s HIS show), but it seems that the editors would have done a much better job to get the audience to give a damn about SOMEBODY on the show.

My point is that Marco Pierre White may just be the classic example of a teacher who has been completely overshadowed by his students. He seems to regret his decision to retire and is now attempting to jump back in at the top by capitalizing on the success of Gordon Ramsay and Mario Batali. Whether that’s true or not, Marco seems like a man who is desperately grasping at straws to regain a name for himself and become relevant in the restaurant business again. Based on “The Chopping Block”, it doesn’t appear that will happen any time soon. Let’s see what happens over the next year or two. One thing is certain: he’ll have to do a lot more than he’s doing on “The Chopping Block”.

I remember reading a quote where Marco said Gordon Ramsay’s motivation was money. While Ramsay’s restaurants are expensive, all one has to do is eat there to realize that while money may be a motivation, it certainly is no stronger than his motivation for absolutely incredible food.

Fox News is the Anus of Current Events "Reporting"

At about 5:00 this evening I made a post on Twitter:

“Find myself anxious to tune in to Fox News to see the inevitable idiocy that will ensue after Obama’s speech.”

I was only able to watch maybe 20 minutes or so before giving up. Here are just a handful of lies, spins, and idiotic comments that I saw in just that short time.

“Do you find his explanation that he went to this church 20 years and didn’t know this was going on or being said?” -Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity either didn’t listen to or read Obama’s speech from this morning (Tuesday, March 18th, 2008), or he did and is doing what he always does – lying and just reporting whatever he wants to report instead of what actually happened. This fool just disgusts me.

“Seemed like a politician trying to rescue his career here today.” -Sean Hannity

Hmm. Unless I’m mistaken, Obama is in the lead (by three figures) in delegates for the democratic nomination. What was there to be rescued? 

“A president who isn’t willing to be ruthless at the crucial moment is a terrible president.” -Dick Morris (former Clinton advisor)

Ruthless is defined as follows: “Having or showing no pity or compassion for others.” The president of the United States should have and show no pity or compassion for others? That sounds much closer to a dictatorship than a democracy, and it sure as hell doesn’t sound like the United States of America to me.

Sean Hannity: “Michigan and Florida apparently not going to have a re-do.”

Dick Morris: “Michigan not?”

Sean Hannity: “Well, it’s looking more and more likely that they’re not going to have one.”

Do people actually buy-in to Sean Hannity? A guy that represents his opinion as fact, and re-phrases things to mean something completely different only when someone presses him?

Frank Luntz: “When [Obama] equates his own grandmother with his pastor, it’s very powerful, and I don’t think it was done quite well.”

Anybody who actually heard, saw, or read the speech knows quite well that’s not what he did. And, by the way, Frank Luntz is just a moron. Watch the video about him from Penn & Teller on YouTube.

All of this is just as I predicted in my Twitter post before I started to watch Fox News tonight: Idiocy. But what I didn’t expect was that it would be so downright disgusting. But that’s probably just because I haven’t watched Fox News in quite a while, not because it was any different tonight.

I refuse to watch any more of this sensationalist crap.