Why Amazing Spider-man 2 failed

Talking to my friend BeLauriette earlier about all this amazingly painful "BvS Rants" that we stumbled upon yesterday got us to talking about comic book movies, reboots, and the myriad reasons why people think some of these movies succeeded or failed. And in the conversation we got to one of my favorite comic book characters Spider-man and the back story of how Spider-man went from just Spidey, to being Amazing. Let's be clear, I actually liked Amazing Spider-man 2. They got the characterizations of almost everyone used perfect, but it failed and it forced Sony to turn make a deal with Marvel to share the web head's rights but for a movie franchise that has made so many billions of dollars I think we all agree that Sony was forced into that decision. The question is why. And the answer is quite simple, impatience.

Spider-man 3 came out, and it was going to be Sam Raimi's last movie with the Spider-man cast. He had a good run, had a multi billion dollar franchise under his belt and COULD have rode off into the sunset not unlike Christopher Nolan when Dark Knight Rises rolled the closing credits. The problem is Raimi didn't want to leave, Spider-man was his baby and he wanted to stay on board. So he did the most petty thing in movie history, he killed off not only a good future villain, but the next potential franchise inn the same movie. I am a Spider-man fan with over 35+ years under my belt(yes I fully admit to owning Spidey PJ's and Underoos), I have seen MANY iterations of the wall crawler, his villains, and many art styles. I have seen him animated many different ways, Saw Tom Hammond don those awful tights, and even watched a few live performance versions of Spidey at the mall.

Spotify.com and why you should care

I don't know about you but I love music, I love to hear it, I love to chair dance to it, I love to make those awkward hand moves on certain songs when you just feel it. I tend to have a sound track running in my head as I get into various situations, I may not always remember the name of the group or the song but I will remember one of the two. If I don't I'll remember the movie or TV show I heard it on, usually thats enough to get it stuck in your head and drive you insane. Thanks to all of our digital devices we can stream music pretty much anywhere, thing is it's some "created by an arbitrary rating process" playlist that sometimes may hit the song you want but other times it just has you waiting for your favorite or hoping something new and hot comes on.

Spotify allows you to look up the group or the song(I had to use it for Brick's Dazz earlier because ahem too many things use Brick in the name) and as long as somebody has uploaded it on a playlist somewhere there you go. I'm not saying it's perfect, I'll critique the only semi annoying thing I noticed later on, but if all you can do is remember the song or the group and you want to see what other songs they may have that you missed there you have it. And while the occasional ad here and there on the free version may bother some, dude my first day using it I was in 80's and 90's hip hop heaven, a 30 second ad here and there while I'm playing every number 1 from high school pfft radio doesn't give it to you that good. Now yes some of the groups didn't have every song I wanted, but I can always go buy those cd's myself and ADD it to the collective(I need to add my desktop to spotify since that's where the majority of my music is) I mean how is a global music database supposed to work if we all don't contribute to it?

There is also a playlist feature where you can add songs to either windows media player(I'm on the Toshiba so I have yet to download anything else "news at 11" to if it will add to more than just WMP playlists) or create a spotify playlist within the application. You can also star songs to help rate them up, the "What's New" page also lets you see any new artists or album releases. If you use the ad version you will get a chance to browse albums(I checked out a few tracks on Pittbull's Planet Pittbull earlier and now I grooving to Jill Scott's new album) that pop up either on the bottom or the right side. Now I'm sure since there is some tracking going on they will know that so far I am a big Hip hop, reggae, funk and Neo Soul fan so what if you can push more of those songs my way I have no problem with it. I just started my first playlist today(I have WAAAAY more funk songs to look up than the ones I have added so far, ahem what Child of the Funk get over it) and whew can I say putting in Parliament or Funkadelic was like my Dad's old record collection all over again. I think I reached the end of the list but then again I was only skimming for my absolute favorites, unfortunately some of them were live versions and while lives are nice you don't always hear the lyrics clearly. Then I looked up Dazz, then grabbed songs from the Dazz band, and the Gap band. I'll share that playlist on FB later, Jill Scott's new one has me making a neo soul playlist so yeah gotta pick up that album sometime this week.

My new laptop

Today was the day: I had saved up my money, decided what I wanted, and had weighed the pro's and cons of each of my potential new "toys."  Obviously due to years of distinguished service I was strongly rooting for the Sony Vaio, I mean while my first desktop was an HP(that did it's best but as the saying goes you get what you pay for) it was a budget PC and didn't last long. Due as much to it needing constant upgrades as to one fateful Christmas holiday somebody breaking in to our apartment and stealing it and the Christmas presents. It was one of those walk in the door and instantly be struck dumb moments, nothing makes sense, it couldn't happen to you and yet it did. Unfortunately for the exact same features the Vaio cost 400 bucks more, which yes I'm a Sony fan, and yes I don't mind paying for what I want, I just don't want to get raked over the coals due to brand preference.

Hidden Treasures

In working with electronics every once in a while you find out something that completely changes your life that is a complete accident. One of those items is the Seagate Free Agent Goflex, now no it isn't the cheapest 1TB drive out there, and the drive itself isn't what is so awesome it's the base. See you can remove the base and get a standing Sata HD docking bay. Yes for 80 bucks(less if you are a reward zone member with points stored up) whether it be desktop or laptop if you have a sata drive that you aren't sure if there is data left over on you can just pop the top of the drive off from the bottom and boom the base is free to plop any sata drive on it you wish.

Now for those who don't speak geek Sata stands for Serial Ata or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment so if you have a computer that seems to be kaput but have access to another pc or laptop, and also just so happen to own a free agent go flex(with a base similar to the one up above) just patiently pull the base straight down and it should pop off. and look like so