THOMnottom – Page 23 – Back and bloggier than ever

Cloverfield

In a word: INTENSE!

I could add a few other words, but I think I’ll stick with intense. Oh, and awesome – definitely awesome.

I’m not going to go into any details here, but Cloverfield was a great monster movie – that’s all you need to know. Wait, there’s one more thing you should know: if you saw the trailer and thought, “I hope this isn’t a movie shot in an amateur, handy-cam style following a group of people as they fight their way across Manhattan to save a friend during a monster attack, because that would suck”… DON’T SEE IT!

This movie is not for everyone. There are plenty of people who just aren’t up for it or aren’t interested in the style. But because of that, you’ll get moronic reviews like the one in the New York Times, which should have been titled “I Feel Superior For Not Liking This Movie”. I’ve got no problem with someone not enjoying Cloverfield, but don’t claim it’s because of poor execution on a bad idea. Just deal with the fact that you don’t like it.

Sorry, I’m just getting sick of the over analysis and polarization of movies these days. Just because you didn’t like a movie does not make it the worst film ever. Just because you saw a Korean monster movie that was released in the US less than a year before this began filming does not mean it’s just another American knock-off. Just because the entire film is not spelled out for you so that you can answer every question possible, including what the monster’s favorite color is, does not make this an abject failure. Just because you didn’t get into a movie concept like this does not mean it is strictly for teenagers and should be avoided by anyone over 30. And just because a lot of people enjoyed a movie that you didn’t does not make you superior.

I’m glad I got that off my chest. So to recap: Cloverfield was intense and awesome and you should absolutely enjoy it if the trailer looks like something you want to see. Personally I am now excited to go through all of the online viral stuff and then watch it again…

Alien baby attacks… news at 11

Ultrasounds aren’t always that cute when taken out of context. As far as I can tell from this one, we’re having an alien:

Alien baby in the womb

At least he has my eye sockets. The Woman says I have to stop making fun of the baby so much – especially once he or she is out in the world. We disagree on how important sarcasm is in a child’s upbringing – how else are they supposed to learn what a screwed up world they’re coming into?

But to remind me of the cuteness, I’ve also got this one above my desk at work:

He's already sucking his thumb!

Oh yeah, he’s already got the total thumb suck action going on – are fetuses eligible for Cute Overload or what?

In reality, these shots just don’t do the experience justice. Watching the little guy do somersaults when they first started was amazing. It brought the reality of the “this is a real, living being in her stomach” situation to us. He’s only the size of a lemon or orange or some other small fruit, but he’s so real and alive. Seriously, when they use the word “miracle”, they aren’t exaggerating.

I’m not going to post every ultrasound picture here, but if you’re interested in keeping up the rest are available over here.

30,000

I knew I was approaching the number, but it wasn’t until this morning that I realized I did hit the 30,000 track milestone on last.fm.

Now, why should you care? No reason, really, but I wanted to make sure that Chris saw this and was forced to acknowledge my greatness. Alright, in reality the milestone is simply an excuse to encourage any of you who listen to music regularly through the computer or on mp3 players to try out last.fm if you haven’t. It’s a stats geek dream. Honestly, it’s difficult for me to listen to music for more than 20 minutes without checking what my profile and my friends’ profiles look like.

I originally joined the site when it was just audioscrobbler – which is still the name of the technology behind it – but was never regular enough with it at work. For starters, I didn’t have my entire CD collection (or at least a majority of it) ripped and available. Which meant that I only listened to what I remembered to bring with me or whatever was available from my eMusic account. As a result, things like Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm got played way too much while Arcade Fire sat in my car. Once I started ripping certain CDs and storing them with my digital downloads, using the shuffle mode resulted in tons of Led Zeppelin, Yo La Tengo, and Pearl Jam interspersed with random tracks I got for free – not exactly a stellar listening experience. Then when I tried to play full albums, I’d end up with lots of dead time as I would be too busy to find another one to listen to after the first.

So, what changed?

For starters, ripping about three quarters of my CDs to an external hard drive and sorting them properly with my digital downloads. Now it’s not a matter of picking and choosing – everything is there. More recently, I decided to remove all of the samplers and freebie tracks I’ve gotten from eMusic. You might not think that makes a big difference, but it comes out to over 3000! No wonder it screwed up my shuffle mode! I’m still keeping them, but they’ve been moved outside of the “library” so that I can go through them at me leisure. Also, I switched to foobar2000, because Winamp took up so much memory it would interfere with my work after awhile (not to mention that the interface got too bloated with all of the online stuff I didn’t use).

Now I can sit back, put my collection on “Shuffle (Album)”, and enjoy lots of music without having to babysit the media player. And now, once again, I’m putting on my sad little face and asking for more online friends – because that’s how I measure success. Seriously, it’s very cool… and I’m lonely…

Let’s make a band… meme

Alright, I normally avoid the memes because they can really clutter this otherwise stellar blog… I mean, I’m normally too lazy or don’t like the answers I come up with. But this band one I saw over at Culture kills… was just too cool to pass up.

Let’s Make a Band:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
(you might have to click new random quotes at the bottom)

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

You then take the pic and add your band name
and the album title to it, then post your pic.

Alright, to be fair, I screwed up step 2 and accidentally grabbed the first quote. But anyway, combining this entry, this quote, and this photo I got:

Ingus Janevics - Makes You Feel Insecure
Ingus Janevics – Makes You Feel Insecure

I loved the band name and even the album name, but the photo was actually just too good for that cover. It needed something much… glitzier. So I did another one and got this entry, this quote, and this photo giving me a much better fake album:

wisdom poetry - least likely to offend
wisdom poetry – least likely to offend

Now if that doesn’t look like some totally gothy, overly-dramatic, emo crap, I don’t know what does – oh, and I’d totally buy it!

I could do these all day long.

Random phone call from a stranger

An unrecognized number popped up on my cell phone. Figuring it might be someone calling me from a different phone than usual, I picked it up.

Me: Hello?
Stranger: What’s up, bottom-feeder?
Me: (laughing) Not much, who’s this?
Stranger: Is this Ted?
Me: No, this is Thom.
Stranger: Uh, lemme see, XXX-XXX-6482?
Me: No, 8462.
Stranger: Oh, geez, sorry for calling you a bottom-feeder.
Me: No problem.
Stranger: Have a nice night.
Me: You, too.
The Woman: You see, answering strange phone calls can be fun.

Set your phasers on fun!

How lame was that? Well, this is a post for geeks, so deal with it. Wil Wheaton mentioned that he just wrapped up work on a project for Star Trek The Tour. I hadn’t heard about it before but, damn, if it doesn’t look geekily awesome.

A few years back I hit The Star Trek Experience in Vegas with a couple of friends. That was a lot of fun (especially thanks to the crazy Klingon in Quark’s), but this looks (sorry, I can’t avoid a pun hear) lightyears better! Seriously, it looks like it’ll have more than enough exhibits to satisfy the Trekkie in all of us.

They haven’t scheduled anything beyond the first city yet, but I’ll be all over those tickets the instant they announce dates for this area. Who’s in?

Baconier words have never been spoke

(thanks to Dooce)

Bacon makes it on my list of greatest foods on the planet. It’s somewhere between chocolate and Chick-fil-A. I always thought that ideally you could combine at least two of those foods to form some sort of uber-food. That’s why I was shaken to my very core when I walked into Whole Foods one day and discovered this candy bar awaiting me. Great googily moogily – it’s like the Holy Grail for my slow-working arteries. Unfortunately, the price tag precluded a tasting at that time and the bar has since disappeared; and even I find it a tad excessive to order a seven dollar piece of chocolate across the ‘net – no matter how much bacony goodness is involved.

But now it feels as though my desires are just being mocked outright, as someone “not a big fan of bacon” was able to partake. Where is the justice? That’s something I simply cannot wrap my head around. Even more confusing than someone paying $2000 to willfully see Hannah Montana live, how can you not LOVE bacon?!?!

Instead, I need to wait for some gourmet shop to start carrying the $2 sampler bars in the most crucial of flavors – bacon!

P.S. (If The Woman were not as health conscious as she is, perhaps a bacon subscription would make up for want of the forbidden bar…)

Wii would like to not be in pain

This morning I woke up with some major soreness around my right shoulder. I was trying to figure out what could be wrong – what heavy lifting or intense manual labor was I doing this weekend might have pulled a muscle. And then I remembered Saturday night. The Wii Golf wasn’t that intense, but the Wii Bowling probably did me in. Thankfully we didn’t play Wii Baseball, which could sideline me for weeks.

Yes, it is possible that I am out of shape…

The return of quality television

No, I’m not talking about the writers’ strike ending. After all, who needs sitcoms and other scripted crap when you have the return of the single greatest series in the history of television. I speak, of course, about AMERICAN FREAKIN’ GLADIATORS! If you’re not watching the premiere, what the hell is wrong with you?!?!

So far we’ve already had an injury to a contestant and a gladiator, two instances of Hulk saying “Dude”, a scary guy named Wolf, a body slam, and multiple offensive stereotypes. It’s fun for the whole family. And they have come up with the ultimate gladiator: HELLGA! Yes, that’s one of the female gladiators.

Without a doubt, it is just as much cheesy fun as the original. I can’t believe I’m not drinking right now…

You could say that Santa Fe was a success

It all starts as a little bump. Nothing more than a lima bean – but even smaller.

The Lima Bean

What is that even supposed to be? There’s a whole lot of stuff going on there – 171 beats per minute – but it really just looks like a blob. How do you even begin to think about it as something real. And then, only a few weeks later, it grows things like a head and feet and whatnot and suddenly you realize that you’re really going to have to name it and wipe its nose and change its diapers and drive it to friends’ houses and pay for college and explain to lots of teachers where its sarcasm came from.

The Little One

Oh, and you’ll also have to stop saying it. For the record I’ve been switching between he and she – mainly he in the old fashioned “gender neutral” sense.

The movement was just crazy. I expected a little wriggling or something – but the big thrusts and sudden jumps were almost unreal. He’s a powerful little guy.

Fetus Power!

I think he’s flashing gang signs or something. We’ll have to work on that.

I guess I should have something more profound to say, but I’m just wondering who in the world could possibly think that I should be in charge of another life? The Woman does – and her opinion matters more than mine.

So, let the countdown begin – one week left of the first trimester. How’s that for pressure?