Another lull

I could blame my lack of production blogwise on the heat, a heavy work load, even getting lost in the keys, it's no excuse though. Even with my new laptop unlike before when I would sit up and write until I fell asleep(or watch porn, it was a toss up  but writing usually got done too) I have not gotten myself fully back into that habit yet. It's sad but especially as of late I won't say I have commitment issues I will say my stick to  it tiveness is at an all time low.  I mean yes I have followed through on some things and yes, I am sure if I check I am well over 120 posts to this here blog. I also know that a good portion of those 120 posts came in may when I was a blogging fool(it happens when it happens), part of it inspired by the fact that thanks to that Tornado/severe thunderstorm that rolled through we had no power so the only thing I could do was blog to clear my head. No power meant no video games, no facebook, the barest of human interaction because in essence I was cut off from the digital world. 

Every little happenstance became a reason for me to write, cause for me to look back later and either laugh or shake my head. Hell I even have stopped writing my movie reviews(mainly because I am so far behind), I have seen Green Lantern, X-men:First class, Transformers, and Captain America now(I didn't get a chance to peep HP7 pt2 yet, but I will) done a few trailers posts for them, but as far as reviews go NADA. I actually have this long one written for X-men that I want to break up into a smaller piece but well at the moment my brain just isn't fitting the pieces together in a way that I'm liking.  While in the book I read a few weeks ago it mentions how "talking politics on a blog was a death knell", I happen to like talking about politics sometimes and personally the best thing about a blog or website that you produce the content for: You can do it your way. So yes my political views may scare some folks off but hey, if you disagree be brave enough to say it with your keyboard. I may moderate you out of here if you are off topic(my content is diverse enough that you could probably find SOMETHING that you can speak on without hijacking a post) too much but I'm not so heartless as to say "You disagree with me so you have to go".

The trailers for Captain America

Apollo 18

This seems to be a horror thriller based on "why we don't go back to the moon" when american astronauts for the Apollo 18 mission arrive they find the helmet of a russian cosmonaut and his tracks on the moons surface. The harrowing events that happen next are enough to keep all countries from coming back to the moon.

The Three Musketeers

Has it been 10 years already? It's seems like every 10 years there is a new 3 musketeers based movie. As usual young D'Artangan comes to Paris to join the musketeers following in the footstops while Malady Dewinter, King Buckingham of England, and Cardinal Richelieu plot to take over all of France from King Louis. It looks to be action packed along the lines of The Musketeer, but honestly I don't know if anything will be as fun as the early 90's version of The Three Musketeers. There may have been a high amount of cheese in that movie but it was still fun, and that cast was awesome, I'm sorry Tim Curry as the Cardinal was just great.

The new Sexy:Targus Miami Messenger CityGear Laptop Case

Targus CityGear Messenger Laptop Case

As I already posted I purchased a new laptop last weekend, a Toshiba Satellite, which was lovely, shiny and pretty. And while I did have a laptop before the old laptop was a 15.5" Acer Aspire which barely lasted me two years, well when I bought the Aspire I also bought a laptop case so that I could carry it around to various job sites and better handle my responsibilities. The problem is my Toshiba is a 17.3" laptop yup thats right a good 1.8" inches larger than my old laptop, so when I attempted to place my laptop in the case it wasn't happening. and it makes absolutely no sense to attempt to use a laptop case that won't fit your laptop. So needless to say I went shopping for a new one.

First things first it seems that 17.3 laptops don't get a lot of love in the case department, looking at Best Buy's site(I have a reward zone card because we tend to buy a lot of electronics as a company and hey why not get bonuses for it) MOST of the cases 17" and over(which is funny the largest screen size I have seen Best Buy sell is 17.3 thus why not just say 17.3", it's not like a 17" won't fit in there) were on the ugly side, not only that but they were pretty expensive. Looking at the site best buy offered 4 two of the messenger bag/briefcase style and two of the Backpack style, now to some who know me it would probably seem like a no brainer that I would go for the backpack, I used to gladly carry one for years. NO, I am trying to get away from that so no more backpacks yes I still love carry lots of things with me and tend to be "king of pockets" but I don't want to have a back pack on my back anymore. So in essence those were out.

Trailers for Transformers 3 take 2

Moneyball

This is the story of Billy Bean, the Oakland A's manager who started a new trend in baseball:look less for talent when you are acquiring players and more for tangibles. Those tangibles being Runs, on base percentage, hits, RBI's, etc. Brad Pitt plays Billy Bean and _ plays the architect of the Moneyball system.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Ethan Hunt has a new team and a new mission:figure out who framed the IMF for bombimg the Kremlin. Looks to be lots of car chases, suspense, action, and more Ethan hunt hanging from a line somewhere. You're mission, if you choose to accept it, is to hang on for the ride.

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.

The Motorola Backflip

As I noticed somebody hit my blog talking about Hammering their Backflip let me discuss some of my favorite "blackflip issues".

Backflip issue number one: Battery life, I don't know who or what sucks the power out of my backflip while it is in "sleep mode" in my holster not doing a damn thing, but as nice as the keyboard on this phone is, how pretty the screen is. Pulling out my phone after a 45 minute car ride and it's like half dead and I haven't used it to complete a call is a no no. And no it isn't a defective battery per se because this is a new battery I had my service provider send me one of those first when it initially reared it's ugly head.

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.