Movie Review: The Open Road

Jeff Bridges, Justin Timberlake, Mary Steenburgen and a slight role of Ted Danson and Lyle Lovett. Yes, Lyle Lovett plays the role of a bartender. Seriously why is he in this movie? He reminds of Kramer from Seinfeld but with a southern drawl.

Timberlake plays a minor leaguer who must deliver his estranged father/former MLB All Star player (Bridges) across the country to visit his mother (Steinburgen). The movie has good timing but it drops off about 70 percent of the way into the flick. They decide their rental vehicle of choice for a cross-country drive is a H2 Hummer, well done!! It certainly is realistic, they stop at 2 or 3 gas stations on their trek.

They don't describe what position Timberlake plays in A or AA or AAA baseball, but I am betting he would of been a second baseman or short stop.

Rating: 7.8/10.0

Hybrid Failure #1: Initial Acceleration

So one of the failures of the p-hybrid in my opinion deals with Initial Acceleration.

Acceleration, the change of velocity over time.

But with our former 07' p-hybrid, low to no initial velocity over time can equal to a non-responsive motion.

Example 1.

You are waiting to make a left hand turn on a two lane road. Traffic is constant, but after waiting for several minutes, you decide you have enough time to hammer on the gas to turn left before another vehicle comes barreling down the road. Ah, here is the problem, when you hit the gas pedal the car moves forward slowly, as if the engine stalls, then the engine get's the clue that you have hit the pedal the car rev's up and then goes. But the critical part of the problem is the time period between the initial gas pedal initiation for about a couple of seconds. This problem on the 2007 p-hybrid was one of the reasons why it was traded in.

What they did to fix the problem on new models?

The designers have created a "power mode". The Power mode has a greater gas-pedal sensitivity for enhanced acceleration. This is great news, but was this not thought about when you sold the first and second generation vehicles? You would believe that acceleration would be the main component of designing a vehicle. Not to bag on the car company, but this was a serious non-recall issue I found that was not-acceptable.

M

NBC is lost on hockey

Yesterday afternoon, I turned on NBC and caught an Olympic Special on the 'Miracle on Ice'. With this being the 30th anniversary, a special hosted by Al Michaels was done pretty good. I anticipated that the upcoming USA Canada hockey game would be on shortly. Boy was I wrong, NBC in their great wisdom, decided to push the hockey game to MSNBC. If you are a reader of the blog, you would realize we do not have cable anymore. Watching MSNBC would be impossible.

So after watching several episodes of 'Lost' on Netflix, I turned it to NBC. They were broadcasting a bobsled team going down the track but it was interrupted by Bob Costas who said that the final minute of the hockey game is upcoming. The minute of hockey showed the USA hold onto a 5-3 win over team Canada. This was the first time USA has beaten Canada in olympic hockey, ever! But as with most americans, it wasn't even seen. NBC decided to have 15 minutes of post-game coverage dedicated to NBC after only showing a minute of the game. Seriously NBC? I know it is all about money, but come on! You have a sweet deal with the NHL to show their games for free basically and then the one game most hockey fans on both side of the border want to watch, you ignore us!

I was enjoying the Olympics a lot this year, but this has totally ruined my attitude towards it. I can understand not showing USA vs. Sweden or Finland but Canada? Seriously, Sidney Crosby's Canada? And your not showing the game?

So NBC can stick to their plans of Ice Dancing, Bobsledding, and misc. non-mission critical sports while they flush hockey down their proverbial toilet. I am pretty much done with it and won't surprising get to watch the USA play unless they reach a metal round on NBC. Outside of that, Olympics and NBC...get 'Lost'.

Valentine's Day!

Our Valentine's Day Weekend was pretty low key.

We started with our Friday by shopping at Aldi. This is a value-priced European style grocery store. We managed to buy 25 products for 40 bucks, not too shabby. We made that up with some expensive vegetables and other products at Whole Foods afterward. It is our estimate if we bought our Aldi items at Whole Foods, it would of totaled over 100. Savings: these guys..


Saturday we bought 3 powerball tickets, to find out not even 1 number matched. Bummer!


Sunday, H made a feast!

On the blue plate: Figs with Goat Cheese and Candied Walnuts.
Below: Filet Mignon (Aldi) with Cheesy (added) Spinach (Frozen) with Garlic Mash Potatoes(fresh).


What does this all mean? Well one, we are stuffed. Two: some major working out will take place this week.

Being away from the gym for a whole week due to these stitches in my face is not very fun. At least tomorrow morning they will be pulled out and I will be able to get back on some machines. I think I will wait a few weeks before I attempt at any basketball in the future!


M

A Olympic Update

There has been a lot of news around here lately.

1. The olympics has just started.

Two comments so far...

Bob Costas and Matt Lauer: Both try to be 'too cute' with their one liners. Some of their commentary is a bit demeaning. Seriously need to run down a small country that has 1 to 3 athletes? Germany has won the most metals in the last 3 winter olympics. Maybe the USA will give them a run for their Dunkel. Iran and North Korea came in, and did not receive much applause. Well done audience. Find it interesting Iran and Israel were in line with Ireland in between. I wonder how Ireland fared as the peacemakers when they were lined up? Did the Irish break out the whiskey and figure out some peaceful resolve?

2. I was given an accidental elbow to the forehead in basketball. Stitches were required, looking forward to them being removed. Hopefully, everything heals correctly with minimal scar action.

3. The Prius was traded in for a Highlander. This happened for several reasons, not due to the recalls recently which we were not totally effected. There were reasons that we can go into more detail that are a direct mechanical review. The prius and it's under 100 hp was mechanically solid, but over time the battery became less efficient, the windows could not stay defrosted consistently, the lack of acceleration when you need to 'gun' the pedal was displeasing, braking in the 2007 was not very good when needed on the highway due to congestion, and the increasing noise that came from the engine/regenerating after the car turns off.

Best Super Bowl Commercials of First Half

1. Late Night; Oprah, David Letterman and and Jay Leno on a couch watching the game together. I love it.

See it here!!

2. Betty White playing football for Snickers

3. Dodge Charger, Be A Man, last domain.

4. Dove Soap, Becoming a Man

M

Pittsburg Pistons?

Are you kidding me?

I know things are bad in the D, but come on.

Movie Review: Angels and Demons

Hmm...under normal circumstances, this movie would be pretty solid.

But knowing what the actual book was, it is kinda sad. Seriously, did the screenwriter read the book then forget how it happened? I am not a scholar of the written word by any means but come on. This guy totally took the book and flushed it into the proverbial toilet.
David Koepp & Akiva Goldsman (the screenwriters), dudes what happened?
Did all the copies of the book instantaneous combusted into tiny shreds of paper and the local Barnes and Nobel was closed indefinitely?

Outside of the popularity of DaVinci Code, how did this earn 480 million dollars worldwide?

You could say this was as big of a sequel let down as Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World. Both the Lost World and Angels and Demons were decent books, how can movie creators trash these books then cash in on them?

Between my negative mumbling and H's yelling at the TV for how wrong portions of the movie went, it was quite the heap.
And Ewan McGregor's role not believable: you shall be known as the dude who was a Jedi.

Well done.

Awesomely Terrible Score: 5.4/10.0




M

Now Showing...

Thanks to Netflix Mailbox:

Now tonight's movie: Angels and Demons.

I read the book maybe 3 or 4 years ago, maybe longer. Now H just read it last week.
According to the spin, the movie is totally lame and doesn't hold a candle to the book.

In any event, Tom Hanks will be sporting a hellish terrible haircut.

Score.

Now to a great Tom Hanks Haircut Montage: (I think he looks like our Labradoodle in that Survivor-Grateful Dead look)

M

Movie Review: Monsters Inc.

Finally watched that movie (or at least the entire flick at once)...which made me wonder. Why did it take 8 years to actually watch this movie? Well it seemed to fall through the cracks from busy college days. But when I looked up when Monsters Inc. was released to theaters, I saw the issue. Nov 2, 2001, why that date is significant? Well I can't recall seeing many movies especially after the terror attacks of 9/11. Anyway, I wonder what other movies did I miss? Certainly not the Lord of the Rings trilogy!

We watched a sub-definition version via Netflix Online via the XBox360 (ah, how watching movies is so easy). Billy Crystal and John Goodman actually sounded like their characters, a little guy and a big guy. As we watched, they had several things in the movie: One, a toy of Nemo from Finding Nemo made an appearance. This is of note, as Finding Nemo was released after Monsters Inc. But the great Toy Story tie-in was in the ending credits, the Dinosaur is in a out-take.

Finally, the character Roz, made us think it reminded us of someone or thing we have seen....after much thinking....it matches the Grandma from the Dinosaurs television show! Those glasses are something else.Totally Awesome: 9.3/10.0

Movie Review: Keeping Mum

Keeping Mum (2005):

Somehow we have been watching some foreign comedies, and they are not that bad! The movie was crafted smartly with a pretty good cast. I am not sure if it gave everyone a great feeling when you finished but it was certainly better than turning it off half way in (cough..cough..Max Payne). Rowan Atkinson (also known as Mr. Bean); plays serious but has some Bean like mannerisms. Patrick Swayze plays the role of the womanizing golf pro, sounds like recent headline gossip news. Overall; it was good. Not Great, but pretty solid.

Rating: 7.8/10.0