Analog-Theater 2.0

I came across this article about a month ago and I forgot to post it.  Better late than never.

If you want to get people to kick the game addiction, why have them log into the game to get help?  Also, if you are addicted to the game and you don’t want to quit, would you bother with in game therapy?  What happens if the therapists get addicted themselves?

Well now, I was going to sit down and type up a fantastic post about some really amazing things, but then I decided to sit down and talk about two other issues.

As a lot of you, our reader, know, I tend to read a lot of Science Fiction, some fantasy, a little bit of historical fiction,  some actual history, and just about everything else that takes my fancy.  From all this reading the one thing I have to say is “Welcome to the Future”, we are living in it now.

First off, a lot of novels I have read keep talking about the wonders of Pre-packaged food, self heating packets, and self cooling drinks.  Well, I know I saw a patent a few years back on a self cooling soft drink can, but the can would cost $2.50 to produce and would have had serious disposal issues.  As for the self heating food packets…can anyone say MRE?  Yes, we had those in the Army.  But as for the wonders of Pre-packaged food, well I thought that was going to remain securely in the realms of science fiction until well after my time on this world ended, at least until a few recent trips down the frozen food isle.

If at anytime in the near future you have a few dollars, and about 40 minutes to kill, you have to try these. Bertolli make these oven bake dinners for two that really are outstanding.  Now, in most of my books, the dinners could be made in minutes, and these too can be microwaved, I just haven’t tried it yet.  For any of you interested in actually trying these here is a link to $1.00 off coupon.  Now, the wonders don’t stop with just brand, Wegmans grocery for those you nearby has an amazing self rising pizza for only $3.99, and it is more then enough for just the two of us.

Enough about food, onward to technology.

As a lot of you know, I have finally broken down and gotten this crazy thing called an iPhone.  At first I wasn’t really that happy with it, and I am definitely not happy with at&t or however they capitalize these days.  But replacement is outstanding.  So, now let us get into the nuts and bolts of this little gadget.

First we have the Amazon Kindle for iPhone.   Before anyone says “whoooh, that screen won’t work to read a book from!”, you are wrong.   The screen is very readable, even for long periods, the text size can be adjusted, and if you actually own the Kindle, it will synchronize the last page read between devices.  Best of all there are also countless free books ranging from classics to recent novels with most of the of the rest costing around $7 or $8.00.

Next up are games.  The variety, quality, and price for these are simply put, unbelievable.  I have a few free ones, but also several that would the modern hand held consoles would be hard put to match.  My favorite one right now is called Tradewinds 2.

Email support on this device really is another well thought out feature.  It supports all the major email formats, and currently I’m using imap for both my gmail account and my other one.  This keeps everything happily in sync.

For the practical of you out there, USAA has one hell of an application that lets you see all of your accounts, pay your bill, deposit a check, trade stock, even request an insurance id card.  I tried that last one and open the email seconds later to see my insurance id card.

For the less practical of you, there is even a flash light app, another to annoy anyone under 20 which emits a loud sound that I can’t hear but which gives me an ear ache and annoys the dog and one of my coworkers.

Now to talk about the last two feature which are probably the most important and expected, music/video playback and the phone.  It does all of these except the phone part excellently.  Sound quality and volume on calls are perfect, but the touch screen gets in the way.

What that leaves us with is basically a portable music player, book, telephone, video player, gaming console, web browsing device, email appliance, photo viewer, and far more.

I stayed up until 6 this morning reading Titans of Chaos (The Chronicles of Chaos). It’s the third volume of the Chronicles of Chaos (which started with Orphans of Chaos and Fugitives of Chaos). Its a very interesting series about five orphans who are raised in a British boarding school. Over time they start to realize that they are not like normal children. In fact, they are being held hostage by the Greek gods. When they discover this, they decide to escape. The first book starts out a little slow with tons of flash backs, but after that it gets really interesting. John Wright gave the series a very entertaining first person narative. I highly recommend this series.

In other news, a South African teenage girl won the gold medal for an 800-meter dash at a world championship. However, there is now concern that she might not be female. To find out if she is the gender she claims to be there is an “extremely complex” process that requires a physical medical evaluation and reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, internal medicine specialist and gender expert. Why do you need five different expert opinions, especially a psychologist? Is being a woman a mental condition? You just need one of these experts to have her lift her skirt and you get your answer. If you want to read the whole story behind this controversy, you can read it here.

I saw G.I.Joe over the weekend.  I did not have high expectations for the movie once I realized that it was based off of the Sigma Six series, which was the least popular G.I.Joe series.  The concept of the accelerator suits did not help my desire to see the movie.  But Ray Park (Star Wars episode 1 and X-men)  was in it and I am slowly becoming a fan of his work. 

Ray Park played Snake Eyes and pulled it off pretty well.  But it just left me with one question.  If you have a rubber face mask and you don’t speak, why do you need to mold lips on it?  He never opened his mouth, so the you have vestigial lips on a mask.

I’ve never been a fan of the Wayans brothers since they were always playing in stupid movies like Dance Flick, Norbit, and White Chicks.  But he was able to pull of an okay action hero. 

Aside from the accelator suits, the movie made it hard to suspend disbelief.  I recently watched a show about the SR-71 which reachs Mach 3.  The pilots have to wear presurized suits to deal with the high speeds and high altitude.  But Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) went in a night raven with no suit no training on that plane and reached Mach 6 while chasing an intercontinental ballistic missile in the upper atmosphere.

I heard some criticisms about Dennis Quaid’s performance of Hawk, but I did not notice anything exceptionally bad.  I didn’t notice anything exceptionally great either.

For those not familiar with the movie or the franchise, G.I.Joe: Rise of Cobra features the Joe, an elite international NATO task force (instead of the US military team they used to be), trying to stop James McCullen/Destro (Christopher Eccleston) who has an advanced weapon that he plans to use to take over the world.  The movie also shows the origin of Cobra Commander.

The story line was a little disappointing, the acting was average, and the special effects were actually pretty good.  I give this movie 50 bananas.

A sequel to G.I.Joe has been announced and they will start production soon (no firm dates have been set).  Most of the cast will be returning for the second movie.  No other details are available that I know of.

On a side note, Ray Park was signed on to play Iron Fist in a live action adaptation of a Marvel Comic series with the same name.  However, the movie has been in production limbo since 2001.  Earlier this year, Marvel exectutives has stated that are again hiring writers for this movie, as well as others. 

Other Upcoming films:
Opening this weekend is District 9, with Neill Blomkamp making his feature directorial debut.  In the movie alien refugees arrive on Earth and are put in a refugee camp a South Africa.  The movie stars Jason Cope, Robert Hobbs, and Sharlto Copley.

March 5, 2010 is the release of Tim Burton’s version of Alice In Wonderland starring Mia Wasikowska as a 17 year old Alice who stumbles upon Wonderland in the same manner she did 10 years before.  The movie also has Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Alan Rickman as the Caterpiller, and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen.

July 2, 2010 fills me with both fear and anticipation.  It is the release date of The Last Airbender which is written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan.  It is a live action movie based on the popular anime “Avatar, The Last Airbender”.  Starring Noah Ringer as Aang, the avatar.  M. Night Shyamalan has done some really good movies and some not so good movies, so I’m not sure what to expect with him.  Also, I have been disappointed with the Hollywood live action adapations of animes, so I don’t have high expectations for this.  But the trailer looks good.

Robert Rodriguez, the director of “Desperado” and “Sin City”, has an upcoming movie with a very interesting cast.  The movie “Machette” stars Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan, Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey and Cheech Marin. The movie is expected in theaters sometime in 2010.

As of 5 days from now, Analog-Theater will be 2 years old!  I know this because I just renewed the site:)

So, I have a lot to cover.

Yes, I’ve gotten married.

Yes, I bought an iPhone (crack phone)

But I’m going to cover more later.