Sunday, December 30, 2012

Book Review: Death Drop By Sean Allen


" "He's onto us, Admiral!" Shouted Otto. "No real runner would steal cargo and go off course in the middle of a run - they'd never run again, not to mention the bounty put on their heads by the ringers in Trillis - It's HIM!" Malo grunted his agreement and flexed his fists in anger"
NOTE: This review may contain SPOILERS.

Death Drop by Sean Allen. I got my copy of this book from a giveaway at Goodreads by the author. (almost a year ago now) As it was a giveaway I really wanted to like this book a lot, however, I think it is just OK. I still liked it some just not as much as I was hoping I'd like it. This is the first book in a series called The D-Evolution. I was aware of that when I entered the giveaway, I think the series is planned to be a trilogy. This book sets up the series very well, but I will probably pass on the other books in the series.

First off my big disappointment was with the story synopsis that is on the back of the book (and used at Goodreads for the book's entry) described a character named Desmara, which I thought would be the main character,  but she doesn't appear until a few pages before page 150. She is really just one of an ensemble cast, which I don't mind I just wish my expectations hadn't had been set so high, or that the synopsis had concentrated more on the bigger plot arc of the story. I really enjoyed her as a character and she was one of the few characters I could relate to. She is also the only human of the main characters. Her story which is included in the synopsis is more the "B plot" of the book. The "A plot" is something entirely different, but is the story arc for the entire series.

A second disappointment with this book was at 560 pages it took me a long while to get through it and it was a little difficult to follow. It also dragged for me for the first 100 pages or so waiting for Desmara to make her entrance and to get her into the main plot. In some ways she reminded me of the title character of Aeon Flux (the MTV Liquid Television cartoon series I have yet to watch the movie even though I have the DVD) and a little of Lara Croft. The pace picked up for me about half-way through the book, then dragged a little more but picked back up and then when the end came. I was torn between being excited about what would happen in the next book or two and being disappointed that the book ended with such a cliffhanger to set up the next book. It didn't help that while the book was dragging for me I put it down for over a month before picking it back up.

I also had difficulty picturing all the different characters because they were so non-human, I'm partly a visual person, and their descriptions were a bit confusing. I think if some of them were a little easier to picture I might have liked this a bit more. OK yes there are some character drawings on the website for the book series (http://www.devolutionnovels.com ), but to be honest at the time I didn't think the website would have as much info such as character images on it (it might not have at the time I first checked it out). I also had forgotten there was a website for it until I finished the book. So I had to rely on my own imagination, like readers used to have to do all the time, and many of the characters are completely different from what I had imagined.

The book started off with two characters that are sort of a George and Lenny from "Of Mice and Men" so I thought it would be more of a sci-fi buddy adventure story. I was wrong they are part of an underdog rebellion that is fighting to save the entire universe from a super powerful being (mostly spiritual not physical?) that is hell bent on being the supreme emperor of the universe by destroying, controlling and or enslaving every species and race in the universe, and will most likely succeed. So instead of a buddy story I got an intergalactic revolution story. Cue up the opening theme from Star Wars.

The bulk of the story involves the rebels, who have discovered a drug that makes beings immune to the psychic control of this would be universal emperor/demon, the problem is their resources are decreasing rapidly and their population dying off. Also the wanna-be uber emperor with his psychic powers usually knows about things way before they get anywhere near him, and he has some moles in the system that are trying to stop the flow of this drug for obvious reasons.

Oh and the main plot point with Desmara? She was a smuggler or as the book calls them "runners". Apparently in the universe of this book these runners compete against each other. So the more cargo you haul around and deliver to people the bigger and better your reputation. Desmara was the best in the business, although she hid her identity since she was a human, humans in this universe are thought to have been killed off by the super-uber emperor and thought to be extinct. If her humanness was discovered she would be killed. So her public persona was named "The Ghost" it was also believed that The Ghost was a male his specific species not known due to him not being seen. The fact that the Ghost was really a human female was inconceivable.

For more information on this book and The D-Evolution Series you can visit the website for it: http://www.devolutionnovels.com .

Death Drop by Sean Allen 2011 Vintage Six Media 560 pages. - **

Saturday, December 29, 2012

A Recent Read Number 18

" The Stranger chuckled, "My name is Applegate,but that's of no importance" he said. "What's important right now at the moment is that punk baseball team you've been rooting for all these years." "
NOTE: This review may contain SPOILERS.
Since my transition time between reading a book and finally getting around to reviewing it is super long and getting longer this will be the next to the last "A Recent Read" review. Future book reviews I will just use the book title. To date I've been reviewing the books in the order that I read them, but I need to crank out a super late review for a book I got from a giveaway and it is far from the "next" book in my recently read queue. On to this book's review.

The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant by Douglas Wallop

The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant was written in the mid 1950s when the New York Yankees were all but unstoppable and were the Kings of the baseball diamond. It was first published in 1954. The story is the typical "Faustian bargain" of making a deal with the devil. In this case middle-aged Joe Boyd a diehard Washington Senators fan is tired of seeing his beloved Senators in the basement during the pennant race. One summer evening he meets a Mr. Applegate (aka: the Devil) they talk baseball, The Senators. They agree the team needs a super slugger and a great fielder they end up making a deal that will get the Senators into the pennant race. Applegate turns frumpy middle-aged Joe Boyd into young studly Joe Hardy the super player that the Senators need to pull them from the division cellar and put them on top of those "Damn Yankees".

Yes this is the book that inspired the Broadway musical "Damn Yankees".  The musical keeps the basic gist of the story and leaves out a character or two. One of the characters left out of the musical that I enjoyed reading in the book was a pitcher for the Senators who begins to suspect the truth about young Joe Hardy and tries to expose Joe as a fraud of some kind but fails.

The musical also doesn't really tell you that Lola is not just one of Applegate's subordinates for the fun of it. She had also made a deal with him to get a man to truly fall in love with her.

In 1955 when the musical "Damn Yankees" opened on Broadway a special paper flyer/wrapper (with actress Gwen Verdon in a baseball jersey, stockings, high-heels and not much else) like a cigar band was placed on the book's dust jacket. I think these were only produced in May 1955 for the musical's opening (I haven't found any good specific reliable info on this rare gem). Due to the rarity of this advertisement on the dustcover, which in themselves are somewhat of a rarity now, the copies with it on the cover are very expensive. I would love to get a copy of it, but I don't think I ever will due to the price.

Some of the later printings of the book have updated the year the story takes place from 1958 to 1964.


The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant by Douglas Wallop 1954 W.W. Norton & Company Inc 250 pages. - *****

Friday, December 28, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon: Numba 20

"The Mood is right for a friendly chat to lead to romance."

Lucky Numbers  11, 14, 18, 25, 26, 41
(old one sided fortune)

*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 19

If I'm not Mayan I'm Dyin', OK maybe not but today is the day many people think the world is going to end because of a misinterpretation of an ancient Mayan Calendar. It is just the end of an era, not the World. 
OK so now here is today's "Fryday Fourtoon"

"Behind bad luck comes good luck."

Daily Numbers  1 6 9
Lotto Six #'s  9 21 38 6 44 18


*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 18

"You have an unusually magnetic personality."

Daily Numbers 3 3 9
Lotto Six #'s 76 9 59 20 23 26

*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only. 

Friday, December 07, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 17

"You have a quiet and unobtrusive nature."

Daily Numbers 3 3 6
Lotto Six #'s 11 7 6 15 39 9


*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only. 

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Getting a little bit of a handle on it


Finally I am sort of disciplining myself to blog some more. I am getting many of my "planned" ideas onto paper, or rather onto the computer screen. At least for my other two blogs as of late: CaptKirk42's Trading Card Blog and Curly W Cards. Here on this blog it is a little different matter but I am making some progress.

My posting queue for my regular trading card blog is filling up quite nicely. I have one post per day for the next few days more or less. Now I have to get off my duff and get some of my post drafts in here finished and put in the queue here.

My minimum post quota has been reached as I knew it would be about a week or two ago. Earlier this year I wasn't too sure about that.

Hmmm found this blog with this cartoon:
Yep that is me, except my 'puter is a laptop, but still the idea is there.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 16

"Patience is the best remedy for every trouble."


5 16 20 21 36 46
4 6 8
(yes this one only had the numbers not the titles telling what the numbers meant)


*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 15

"In god we trust; all others must pay cash."
(yes they had "god" in lower case)

Daily Numbers 9 1 8
Lotto Six #'s 16 29 10 7 13 4

Sorry this one is a little late for lunch so it will have to be the Dinner Fortune.
 
*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

2012 Self Appointed Posting Quota

Attack of the Post-It! Notes!
(image  from Deceptology.com I added the text.)

Way back a few years ago 2009 to be precise I posted about my self appointed posting quota for this blog. After my first year of blogging I decided that each year I would try to match the same number of posts which was 42, no not 42 it is 32. At the time of that post I only had 14 posts for 2009 and it was October I didn't think I would make the quota. Good thing I had a spurt of posts in November. It appears that my mini-reviews of the CSI series crossover event across all three shows helped some. The rest I think was the determination to succeed, which I apparently didn't have last year or the year before.

If you check on the right side-bar there and look at the blog archive you will see that for most years I matched or surpassed my 32 posts goal. 2010 and 2011 were down years, but I did post my bare bones very minimum of one post per month. I have been consistent with that since starting this blog back in February of 2006. I have not been that consistent with my other two blogs: Captkirk42's Trading Card Blog and Curly W Cards. I missed September for both of those blogs Curly W Cards I only started back in February so it isn't even a year old yet. Making the monthly one post quota is one of my things, even if I post at 11:59 PM on the 31st of a month (30th for those short months) I still try to make my quota. I think there may have been a time or two were I fidgeted things a little because technically I started on the last day of the month, but I finished posting whatever I was blogging on the first of the following month so I fudged the post time slightly. On my regular card blog I started a post in the last few minutes of September hoping that Blogger would time-stamp it for September, but it was posted as October **SIGH**. Hey I can claim I was on Pacific time. LOL.

This year I have 28 posts (29 as of this post) on the year so my goal of 32 posts is well within reach with a little more than a month to go. My Fryday Fourtoon posts help a bit when I remember to do them (or schedule enough of them in advance).

For those who are lazy and for myself to see it in a post in a neat row er column my yearly totals:

2006 - 32
2007 - 43
2008 - 36
2009 - 34
2010 - 18
2011 - 20
2012 - 29 (so far including this post)

Hmm that is only an average of 26 posts and some change. Need to improve that in the next few years hopefully. I need to at least have a yearly average of 32 posts. I could always be cheap and cheesy and post sexy pictures of celebs on a regular basis but the would make many new readers think my blog is sleazy. It would also attract more spam comments and I don't what that.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 14

"You are a bundle of energy, always on the go."

Daily Numbers 0 7 3
Lotto Six #'s 23 28 58 12 15 34



*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, November 02, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 13

"Friends long absent are coming back to you."

Daily Numbers 1 2 4
Lotto Six #'s 12 14 36 6 22 66


*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 12

You like participating in competitive sports.

Daily Numbers 1 8 7
Lotto Six #'s 28 43 6 1 19 17

*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

A Plumbing Problem Story


Recently I had a leaky bath faucet (tub/shower), I let it go for several days (steadily going nuts) and on a Friday evening finally called maintenance. They scheduled to fix it for the following Monday treating it as something that could wait (well yes and no). They asked me if I'd be home, and I thought they meant if I was going to be home for the evening or at worst during Saturday.

Since it was "late" Friday I thought they might come by on Saturday to do the work. I got up early, at the time I would get up for a workday, and waited and waited and waited. Then realized that they had meant they were coming on Monday a day I was working. **Heavy Sigh!**

Monday after coming home from work I noticed they had left a note, on the work order ticket receipt, telling me to empty the HALL closet so they could shut off the water to do the repair work, which even though it is across from the bathroom, has nothing to do with the bathroom stuff, has a bunch of shelves and has no access panel to switch off water. Then I figured (correctly) that they meant the BEDROOM Closet.

Well after four years of living in the same apartment I learned that the access panel in the bedroom wall behind the door (the wall directly behind the shower faucet), was NOT the one that accesses the controls for the water shutoff. No that panel OF COURSE is in the bedroom CLOSET. The far back wall (which is the same wall as the foot of the tub). That closet of course for the last four years has been totally cluttered to almost overflowing, if you count the laundry which gets cleared once a week. The entire closet had to be emptied before the maintenance guys could shut off the water to replace the washer or whatever part was causing the streaming leak.

That Monday evening it took me about an hour and a half, with a couple of rest breaks to empty everything and put it temporarily somewhere else in the apartment.

They came back on Tuesday and fixed the leak.

UPDATE:
I don't think too many people who commented read the entire post. As I said above the problem HAS BEEN FIXED. I live in an apartment so it was the apartment complex maintenance staff who fixed it. NO extra plumbing bills. That is one of the few advantages to renting.

I have closed this post to further comments because I have gotten tired of seeing them. No offense to any one in particular. I just find it odd that most of the comments seemed to be of concern and offering suggestions for help like it was something that was currently going on. I was mentioning something that had already been taken care of and had been corrected. Also most of the comments came 2 or more weeks after the original post the last one being over a month almost two.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Source Code: DVD Review

Colter Stevens: It's the same dream, but it's different!
Christina Warren: Deep. I hope it's different. I feel the same way.

Source Code (2011) PG-13
****
WARNING: This review might contain SPOILERS!

Source Code - When I first saw trailers for this film my first reaction was the plot was similar to the main plot device for the television show Seven Days, because of the time limit of how far back the "time traveler" goes, except it isn't quite the same thing. In the show it was the technology that limited the trips to only 7 days into the past, in this movie the main character goes back to earlier in the day but is limited to 8 minutes in the past due to the "source code" which is more like going into a Matrix of some kind than a time travel machine. I also saw similarities to the show Quantum Leap starring Scott Bakula who makes a vocal appearance in this film as the main character's father in a nod to Quantum Leap. The main character or at least his mind sort of "leaps" into another character via the technology of the "source code".

Bare with me here for a moment. The "technology" or science that allows for source code traveling is more sort of a biotechnology than mechanical technology. The basic gist is that after a person is clinically dead there is still some brain activity for approximately eight minutes after death. The source code technology allows someone to tap into or "leap" into that persons final memories and allows for them to "live in" that person's final moments of life. It also allows the "leaper" to go back multiple times. They don't state a specific number of leap attempts that can be made but they seem to indicate there are limits, due to the deterioration of the dead subjects brain activity.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens the protagonist a US Army helicopter pilot who last recalls being stationed in Afghanistan and the source code "leaper". He wakes up on a train as someone else, who he later learns is one of the victims on the train when it is blown up by a terrorist outside of Chicago and that it was believed to be just the beginning of a bigger terrifying plan. It was determined that the train had been bombed remotely by a former passenger on the train. Colter's mission is to find out who bombed the train and stop them before more bombs go off. Along the way he learns that he is in the body of a man named Sean Frentress and the woman who is sitting across from him is a friend of Sean's named Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan).

After the bomb goes off Colter finds himself in a dark chamber that slightly resembles a larger version of his copter's cockpit. He learns that the isolation chamber he is in is part of some military operation. He is told he is in a place called "belegerd castle" a part of some experiment called "The Source Code" by a female Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga). Goodwin briefs him on his mission to locate the bomb and try to determin who put it there. Just when he thinks he knows what is going on he is sent back onboard the train to relive "his" or rather Sean's last 8 minutes. Along the way Colter meets the creator of The Source Code Project a Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright).

Colter falls in love with Christina and then his main goal is to figure out how he can save her and the other passengers. Rutledge and Goodwin inform him that stopping the bombing is NOT his mission and that he needs to concentrate on finding the bomber. Of course he does manage to find a way to save the day and change the future a bit.

I really enjoyed this film. The time limit of the traveling reminded me as I said of Seven Days. Colter's waking in the body of someone else reminded me of Quantum Leap. There is even a slight nod to the show both in the casting of Scott Bakula as Colter's father and a scene with a mirror when Colter first learns he is in another body.
Both of the main actresses Monaghan and Farmiga are beautiful and give great performances. The interaction between Monaghan and Gyllenhaal was also very good. They have a great chemistry which shows and in the extras on the DVD is talked about by the actors and the director.

Directed by: Duncan Jones
Summit Entertainment
DVD Release Date: 26 July 2011
Region 1
1 Disc - 93 Minutes

Friday, October 12, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 11

"You are demonstrative with those you love."

Daily Numbers 2 3 4
Lotto Six #'s 92 5 27 22 7 65



*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only. 

Friday, September 28, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba 10

"Your present plans are going to succeed."

Lucky # 11 45 30 29 6 22
Learn Chinese: Four Pieces, Si-Pian


*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Golden Girls of Soccer!

TEAM USA WINS GOLD 2-1 vs Japan at 2012 London Olympics.

Oh come on you are all thinking it. Right?

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

OH Poo!

ACK!

I just now noticed that I had repeated a "Fryday Fourtoon" the exact same one complete with the same lottery numbers, when I did numba eight. I hadn't planned on posting any repeats at least not so early and not with the same lottery numbers if at all. I have gotten repeats of fortunes every once in a while, and there was even one time I got 3 copies of the same fortune in the same cookie and all three strips of paper had the same numbers on the back. That fortune will appear sometime later I'm not sure exactly when. I am trying to keep things random. I also missed this past Friday because I didn't have any ready in my posting queue (I also missed a post for my trading card blog for my Mascot Monday feature).

I wonder what other boneheaded things I've done with this blog.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba Nine


"You are always welcome in any gathering."


Daily Numbers: 3 0 2
Lotto Six #'s: 7 23 41 17 39 29



*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, July 06, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba Eight



"You will have a fine capacity for the enjoyment of life."



Daily Numbers 8 7 0
Lotto Six #'s 3 2 15 40 44 29



*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon Numba Seven


"If you continually give, you will continually have."

Daily Numbers: 502
Lotto Six #'s: 23 13 40 15 17 44




*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

DVD Update May 2012

MAY 2012

Just a quick one as it is almost the last hour of the month of May eek! and it has been ages since I've done one of these since it had been two or three months since I've gotten any new DVDs. So most of what I got as usual was from Columbia House DVD Club I won't go into detail of how much I got things for because I just want to make this one a quick one. Anyway here is what I got:

From COLUMBIA HOUSE:
NCIS: Eighth Season
NCIS: Los Angeles: The Second Season
Primeval: Volume 3
Logan's Run: The Complete Series
Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Season
S.W.A.T.: Firefight - Got to look for Season Two of the Original Series which is supposedly now out.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

From TARGET:
The Cat In The Hat (2003) Starring Mike Myers - Got it for $5bucks.

Now I can relax a little bit and log these DVDs into my collection. I also need to make an update for the books I got way back in February. I haven't gotten any new books since then, but have my sights set on a couple to get soon. I hate when I get so lazy I fall behind in things. UGH.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon: Numba Six

 FRYDAY FOURTOON

"If your desires are not extravagant, they will be granted."

Daily Numbers: 8 2 4 
Lotto Six #'s: 8 68 34 29 39 20 



*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon: Numba Five

 FRYDAY FOURTOON

"You will have a fine capacity for the enjoyment of life."

Daily Numbers: 8 7 0
Lotto Six #'s: 3 2 15 40 44 29



*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon: Numba Four

 FRYDAY FOURTOON

"Pray for what you want, but work for the things you need."




*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.










Saturday, March 17, 2012

The REAL Reason to get the SI Swimsuit Issue

Why get the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue? (OK so I'm a month late and a dollar short)

*2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
Kate Upton cover model
  • Nope its not the sexy models in skimpy bikinis even though there are plenty of them in here.
  • Nope its not the latest end of the season Football news, which seems to be missing.
  • Not even the spring training Baseball season ending injuries which again seems to be missing.
  • Nope it isn't March Madness. Besides that's college not pro sports although the fans act like they are. Why not start paying them? Not there? What you talkin' 'bout Willis?
It's the commercials er the ads.
Like this one for M&M's - 'Nuff said (er Hef Said)
BTW: The Jimmy Kimmel one? Scary.

*I got this issue from work. The guy who sorts the mail (well one of the two guys I guess) gave it to me. It was addressed to an employee that is no longer with the company. For obvious reasons I edited out the mailing address after scanning the cover.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon: Numba Thwee

 FRYDAY FOURTOON


"You will have many friends when you need them."

Daily Numbers: 2 4 1
Lotto Six #'s: 4 32 13 11 14 12





*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.





Sunday, March 11, 2012

Of Quarters and Vending Machines

A few weeks back (I wanted to mention it closer to when it happened but I was lazy with scanning of things) I went to get my usual Diet Dr. Pepper from the Pepsi machine in the break room/kitchenette at work. The thing costs $1.25 (down from several months and another vender back when it was $1.35). So I do my usual ritual of making sure the corners of the dollar are as unfolded as much as possible put it into the dollar feeder and then plunk my quarter into the coin slot. Well it did go plunk right into the coin return bin. The machine didn't take my quarter, so I put it in again. Plunk same thing it didn't like this quarter for some reason. I look at the quarter and don't see anything wrong with it just an ordinary quarter, so I fished out another quarter from my pocket and plunked that one in and the machine liked it fine and dandy and I finally got rewarded with my Diet Doctor Pepper. So the quarter?

This is it!
A nice 48 year old quarter from 1964 from before I was born. So why did the machine not like this quarter? Well it turns out that 1964 was the last year that the US Mint made quarters using approx. 90% Silver 10% Copper. Starting the next year 1965 they changed to 75% Copper and 25% Nickel. Modern vending machines are mostly calibrated to only accept the newer combination of metals. I didn't know that until searching on why my quarter wasn't accepted. I thought they just used weight/size to determine which coin, but apparently they have a tiny mineralagist in the machine with an electronic microscope testing the mineral integrity of each coin as it speeds down the slot.

I guess this is a good way to find older coins, or at least to test the age of the vending machine.


Friday, March 09, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon: Numba Two

FRYDAY FOURTOON

I've decided to try to make this a regular feature (or semi-regular). I won't scan each and every fortune, I just wanted to scan that first one with the spelling error cause it was fun. But I will post a random fortune from fortune cookies I've gotten over the last few take-outs or deliveries when I remember to save the fortune to be able to quote. So for this week the Fryday Fourtoon is:

"A smooth long journey!
Great Expectations!"




*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.




Thursday, March 01, 2012

DVD Update: Leap February 2012

FEBRUARY 2012

NO new DVDs this month. Also I didn't watch any. At the beginning of the month I didn't watch anything because I watched other stuff or didn't watch at all, then when I wanted to watch something... First the DVD rental from Netflix I wanted to watch didn't work in my regular player, but it seems to work in the computer DVD drive. Then I discovered that my regular player just doesn't want to function properly at all. The red stand-by light stays on, none of the buttons work on the remote or the machine, yet sometimes my TV screen shows the start-up splash screen for the player. Sometimes the red light turns to orange but not green UGH. Sigh it needs repair or replacing. I have another player that isn't hooked up that I haven't used in almost 4 years since I've been in my apartment. The reason is the little player I had been using was a brand that could be made region free (I temporarily forget what they call that DVD tricking) the one that is not hooked up doesn't do that trick.

Maybe it is time to get a new player that can be wired to be region free.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Fryday Fourtoon


Take a good look at that fortune from a real fortune cookie I had about a week ago. The fortune for the cookie shown still wrapped was something else ("A wise man knows everything, a shrewd one everybody"). In case your monitor is too small or you are looking at this on your iPhone the fortune reads:

"You will be showered with good luch."

Talk about your misfortunes or your misspelling. Um I think they meant to say "luck" or maybe forgot the "n" for "Lunch"? That cookie did follow a good portion of Hunan Chicken. So it was either good luck or good lunch, well dinner actually.





*Fortunes and Lottery Numbers just posted for entertainment purposes only.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Finally S.W.A.T. Season 2 DVD Coming


Just got word from tvshowsondvd website that the long awaited Final Season 2 of the television Action Cop show S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons And Tactics Team) will be coming to DVD on 22 May 2012. It is about frackin' time. It was way back in 2003 the year the S.W.A.T. movie starring Samuel L. Jackson and L.L. Cool J with Colin Farrell and Michelle Rodriguez was released and brought out on DVD that Season 1 of the show was released by Sony. Why they couldn't have released Season 2 shortly after I have no idea. Oh wait it was supposedly because there was little interest and sales for Season One weren't high enough. Season Two will be released by Shout! Factory the same folks who finally released the Max Headroom series on DVD. The SRP for this 6 disc season set is $44.99 which is pretty typical a bit high but worth it. I prefer to pay between $20 - $30 for television show seasons but I have gone as high as $45 from time to time. The Original show starred Steve Forrest as the leader of an L.A. based S.W.A.T. team. It also starred Robert Urich as the cocky ladies man. The series ran from 1975-76 so the look and feel of the show is a bit dated by the 2010's/20Teens standards.

UPDATE: tvshowsondvd now has a pic of the cover art.

Monday, February 06, 2012

Super Bowl 46

CONGRATULATIONS New York Giants!

SUPER BOWL XLVI (46) was an exciting game to watch, especially the final 5 minutes or so. The game was kept close through out. The game could have gone either way and both teams missed some scoring opportunities and dropped passes that would have been huge plays that would have led to a score.

As for the commercials. I think one of the best was the second Coca-Cola Polar Bears, where the one goes out of the cave to get a coke and has to run past and play football against the other bears on the frozen pond. The Matthew Broderick Honda commercial was OK for a nostalgic trip down Hollywood's Memory Lane but wasn't THAT exciting and didn't need the extra attention it got pre-game during the week. The sexy Fiat commercial was also pretty good, where the geeky guy with a cup of coffee sees a hot babe that turns out he's looking at the car and fantasizing about the babe. There were a few others that were pretty good, but those I think were the highlights.

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot to mention these two cool commercials:  The Elton John Pepsi commercial with him as King (or was it Queen?) where a girl sings R-E-S-P-E-C-T and asks for Pepsi for all and sends Elton into his Dungeon (as he had a previous character) and sitting in the cell is Flavor Flav. And one of the coolest M&Ms commercials with the candy characters they have ever had. A Brown shelled female M&M says that she hates when idiots think she is out of her shell, then the Red M&M guy sees her and says "Oh it's one of THESE Parties" and he rips off his shell.

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Book Update: January 2012 Books

JANUARY 2012 BOOKS

I got a large number of books this month so I will not post individual covers for all of them. I got 3 of them from the Quality Paperback Book Club, 1 from Goodreads in the first giveaway that I won (I have entered many giveaways there but this was the first time I won one, it helped that the author was giving away 25 copies) and the rest from Ebay.

HARDY BOYS MYSTERIES: 
Many know that the author of these books Franklin W. Dixon was actually a group of authors for the publishing company, but that is a story that has been told before by others and can easily be found by a web search.These first four books I got from one seller on Ebay for and average of $3.00 a piece (some auctions and some fixed price I think) they were ordered in December and I think originally shipped in late December/early January but the post office failed to leave one of those little "orange" pick up slips. Fortunately you can still pick up packages showing you valid photo ID to prove you are who you say you are and you are authorized to pick up mail for your address. I got it 10 days after they had originally tried to deliver it.

USPS "Orange" pick-up slip

Hardy Boys #1 The Tower Treasure
So since I'm trying to rebuild my collection from my childhood, or at least some of the highlights I got the hardback copies of these books. They are the 1960s or early to mid 1970s versions at the newest. I don't plan on getting any newer printings unless the original publication was later for those later numbers. Anyway the Series library numbers I got are 1, 4, 15, 16. These editions are numbered only on the spine, later editions put the number on the front cover. Later still they added a "flashlight" banner to the top of the front cover. I found an excellent identification website The Hardy Boys Unofficial Home Page that can help you determine which edition you may have. It might not be perfect but it helped me tons.  Anyway the titles of what I got:

Hardy Boys #16 A Figure in Hiding


With the exception of "number one" I had previously owned the others, I even had two different editions of number 16.




Next I had gotten three books from QPB:

Evidence of the Afterlife by Jeffrey Long, MD with Paul Perry
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer 

The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson - When I first saw this book in the catalog I thought I already had it because I have a hardback edition of another book titled Vikings by Magnus Magnusson that has a similar cover.


THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E

Next I am building a library of television-tie-in books from a TV series I barely saw as a kid. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which starred Robert Vaughn, David McCallum (who plays "Duckie" on NCIS), and Leo G. Carroll. The trick to this series is I also plan on getting the UK versions of some of the books which have a different numbering system and sadly didn't publish as many of them there. I am concentrating on getting the US editions first then perhaps as I can find them get the UK ones. There is an excellent website (from a guy in the UK that has a bunch of series listed on his home page) to see the covers of all these books The Man From UNCLE Books Gallery

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  (later printings listed it as #1 and titled "The Thousand Coffins Affair" this edition only has that title on the inside) by Michael Avallone
02 - The Doomsday Affair by Harry Whittington
03 - The Copenhagen Affair by John Oram
04 - The Dagger Affair by David McDaniel
05 - The Mad Scientist Affair by John T. Phillifent
06 - The Vampire Affair by David McDaniel
07 - The Radioactive Camel Affair by Peter Leslie
08 - The Monster Wheel Affair by David McDaniel
09 - The Diving Dames Affair by Peter Leslie

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Affair of the Goldrunners' Gold by Brandon Keith


The book I got as a freebie from the Goodreads giveaway by the author is a Sci-fi story Death Drop by Sean Allen. That is about all I know about it right now. I moved it to the top of my "to-be-read" list. When I am finished with it I will post a review there as soon as I can. Oh and it was signed "All my best" by the author..

 The last minute addition is just a small one, well a big one a big little one actually. Journey To The Center Of The Earth - The Fiery Foe by Paul S. Newman a "Big Little Book". When I was a kid my brother had a copy of this book. I'm not sure if he snagged it years ago upon move out of the family home or if my mom had put it into a giveaway box years later. I think it was the former. Anyway this copy I got from Ebay for $8 (the shipping was free) it is in very good condition but has that really musty old book smell. I might try that putting it in a plastic container with an unscented clothes dryer sheet to see if that trick works I don't want to try the kitty litter trick as I have no cats and would feel strange buying kitty litter. LOL.