DVDs From May

OK so I only got a couple (literally) DVDs in the merry merry month of May.

The Green Hornet

 I got The Green Hornet from Columbia House it was the "Director's Choice" for May I think (or was it for April)?

Bitch Slap (Unrated)

This second DVD (Bitch Slap) I got for some of the actors that are in this. Most of the main cast  members from the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess - Kevin Sorbo, Lucy Lawless, Michael Hurst, Renee O' Connor and Ted Raimi have supporting roles in this film. I think most of them are small cameos or supporting roles that many movie watchers consider "small roles" or "unimportant" roles. 

I just got some Doctor Who DVDs but those I'll mention for my June DVDs Update. Technically I ordered and paid for them in May (Monday 30 May) from Who North America. The post office attempted delivery on Thursday 02 June. Today (Saturday 04 June) I picked up the order. I also ordered some stuff from Columbia House again. A couple of those were pre-orders that are being released at the end of this month so those two might have to wait til my July Update.

DVD catchup (2011 DVDS)

Wow I thought I had mentioned something along these lines back in February or March but I haven't mentioned my recent DVDs from ANY of 2011. So here is what I have gotten up till April. I will try to update once a month unless I don't get any, then I occasionally slip up and forget the next month or two.

So here is the breakdown for February through April 2011.

FEBRUARY

 

Extreme Days

 

Evil Alien conquerors

 

Despicable Me

MARCH

 

Red

APRIL

 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 

 

Primeval: Volume Two

 

Resident Evil: Afterlife

 

Salt (Deluxe Unrated Edition)

That is about it for that. I will have at least one title for the May Edition in a few weeks.

A Recent Read Number 17

"Again Langdon forced himself to consider the implausible. If the Illuminati were still alive, and if they stole the anti-matter, what would be their intention? What would be their target?"

NOTE: This review may contain SPOILERS.

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. I'm getting to this review very late. I read this book around December '09 to January '10. After reading it I re-watched the movie adaption of The Da Vinci Code and watched the movie of this book (I will probably point out the differences as I go along). Chronologically this book was written before The Da Vinci Code but the movies were released in reverse order and the Da Vinci Code movie claims that adventure as the main character Robert Langdon's first mystery case. That forced the producers of the movie to act as if this adventure came later.

The mystery begins with the murder of a physicist working with anti-matter experiments at the CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire AKA: European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland home of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Left by the body is an ambigram (an artistic depiction of a word to make it read the same way from another angle usually upside down) depicting the word Illuminati. The main character Robert Langdon is brought in because he is an expert in symbology. An odd and grisly fact about the murder is one of the scientists eyes was removed. The reason is soon discovered a container holding a piece of anti-matter was stolen from a lab that had a sophisticated retina reading security system. The big problem is the anti-matter has to be contained in a certain way, without this containment it becomes a bomb with a set time to explode, unless it is returned to it's containment system. Only two people had access from the secure lab the murdered scientist and his partner/daughter. Of course Langdon falls in love with Vittoria Vetra.The movie version changes the murder victim to being an assistant of Vittoria The movie also changed some of the other character's personalities around, making one of the characters I didn't like in the book likable in the movie.

The main goal of this adventure is to get back the anti-matter before is explodes In the meantime the Pope has recently passed away and the Vatican is in the process of electing a new Pope. One big problem the main candidates for the Papacy turn up missing. It is made known that the Illuminati are indeed alive and are responsible for the disappearance of the main candidates. Soon they start showing up dead. Langdon now has to not only race against the clock to keep the bomb from exploding but he has to help find the missing cardinals before all of them end up dead.

Like The Da Vinci Code this book digs deep into Catholic traditions and culture. It also gives some very vivid descriptions of areas of Rome and the Vatican. As part of his investigation Langdon has to gain access to the Vatican's Library vaults to research the Illuminati and follow all the clues to finding the cardinals in time. As with the other book it has a nice fast pace to it and was difficult to put down. 

As I said I read this book before seeing the film version I am glad I did because it helped to understand somethings about the movie, but as I said they did make changes to some things. It is always interesting to see a film adaptation of a book you have read. There were a few scenes in the movie that were completely different from what I had envisioned while reading the book. I think a few of them could have been done the way I imagined, but one or two of them couldn't. The ones that I thought could have been done I was a little disappointed with how the movie handled them. Oh Well.

My review of The Da Vinci Code.

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown 2000 (2006) Pocket Books 710 pages. - ****

March Madness to April Fools.

I am preparing a book review of a book I read a little over a year ago. I am just squeezing this post in at the end of March. As I type this post it is approaching and passing Midnight on 31 March to 01 April, 2011. So although technically it is starting in March it is ending in April. I will still count it as a March entry and I think Blogger has it marked as March. (If not I can fudgit the posting time slightly and it I won't feel like I'm cheating too much.) OK so technically it was posted in April, but when I previewed it the post time said 11:59 on 31 March so I'm adjusting it to that.

Five Year Anniversary!

Hey you know what today is?

Yes that's right it is the 5th Anniversary of me starting this Blog. And there was much rejoicing. "yay!"

~Nuff Said!

I synced up this post with the time of my first original post...5:46 AM!
AM? 
AM?
AM I CRAZY?

Oh wait it was President's Day I was off of work for the holiday. Silly me.

December DVDs and a CD

I was going to post this back in December when I only had gotten 3 DVDs but I got 6 during the month. Some months I'd have many times that anyway First I had gotten my second DVD from the MLB Insiders Club. Plus a surprise. This one was not $10 as the first one was. I was sucker fished into a $30 ($29.98) "Major League Baseball: Memorable Moments". As with the previous DVD this one is a repackaged disc which of course No websites have good large scans of, not even the MLB Insiders Club Website shows any of the DVD covers. UGH.

Next my order from the Quality Paperback Book Club came through. I got a double dip of "Sex And The City 2" so I can compare the standard issue with the Target Exclusive version. Also so I could have a cover that has Kristin Davis and Kim Cattrall on the cover not just SJP (or actually a semi-look-a-like in wearing shades to cover the fact it's a stand in)

Then I got the Complete First Season of the 2009 "V" Reboot series. Now I can compare it to the original 1980s series.

Through Columbia House I got the Leonardo Dicaprio movie Inception.

The Movie version of the 1980s smash TV show The A-Team (2010) from Target. It was enjoyable, pretty good they didn't mess it up too much.

Also from Target I got "Family Guy: It's A Trap" the third Star Wars Movie Parody. They probably won't do parodies of the prequels.

In the music department I got a couple of CDs of Jen Chapin, Harry's Daughter her 2004 album "Linger". Proceeds of the album go to World Hunger Year (WHY) and her 2006 release "Ready". From the samples of her stuff I've heard online she is really folky, following pretty much in her dad's footsteps.

I also got Paula Cole "This Fire".

[I might get around to adding some cover images of these things sometime later, maybe maybe not]

FINALLY!

Hey they finally did it. Now Netflix accepts payments through Paypal. It's about Time!

I restarted my account, I had to build a new queue since my old one was older than 5 years old or so. Weird when they used to ask me to restart before they accepted Paypal they would let me use my old queue. Guess they finally deleted that since they are pushing their "View INSTANTLY" download service. I also had to fiddle a bit with the "renewing" to "delete" my old credit card info and be able to choose Paypal payments. Now I have switched to the 2 movies out service instead of the full 3 movies out. That was a bit over the top. This way I can still have one to view while the other is in transit. Now to fiddle with my old excel file (which I have actually updated to keep track of purchases somewhat) and get some of those obscure titles back on.

Ron Santo Cubs Legend and Fan Favorite Dead at Age 70

Ron Santo Banner from chicago.cubs.mlb.com

 

Sad News today. One of the Chicago Cubs Legendary and most loved by fans players passed way last night (Thursday 02 Dec). Ron Santo died of bladder cancer he was 70.

AP news story from msn.foxsports.com.

comics tracking.

I haven't seriously collected comics for many years. Probably not since the late 1980s. I've got many boxes filled with comics most of which I want to eventually sell, giveaway or possibly trade. Anyway like with some of my other hobbies I figured there was probably some sort of online "collection tracker" site. I was right.

The first place I checked out I had found from some chat forum that was the result of something I had been looking for or possibly a sidetracked idea from an Ebay search. Anyway I found comicspriceguide.com.

It looked great. You can search your collection and it also gives price info on your issues. Great right? I noticed you can sign up for free, but there is also a higher level pay membership. The difference? I found out after I signed up that the difference is the free membership only allows you to list 50 titles the paid membership gives you unlimited space of course. The paid membership is something like $45/year or some silliness that I think is too expensive. UGH that is like the book site Library Thing, which is why I use Good Reads.

OK so then I found another site that looks a bit more promising for us cheap guys.
stashmycomics.com is also a free to use site. It has some forums, and it also has a way to find out the prices of your comics but it is not as accessible as the comicpriceguide prices were. There the prices are shown in the list view of your books, at stashmycomics you have to click on to the specific issue to get a full detailed page with pricing info. I think I can live with that even though the site title makes me think I'm hiding my collection from my mom in the basement.

October End of Month plus DVDs

 Well here it is the end of October and I'm getting this post in barely. My post count for this year will be at an all-time blog year low. Shoot!

Speaking of All-Time... A few weeks ago I got a package from the MLB Insiders Club of which I'm a member (I also paid a little extra to be a "Life-Time" member to get all the cool stuff) . I've been getting some of the books that they offer. You know the "Greatest hits of the century" Time-Life type of books. Inside the package was not a book but a DVD.

According to the back cover the special is an hour long of Major League Baseball All Century Team. This DVD apparently was first produced about 10 years ago from some of the images and info on it I found about it on the internet (DVDprofiler has the older version listed, but this version isn't in their database yet). For $10 bucks I figured what the heck?

Before I move on to the other DVDs I got this month I'll put in my .02¢ worth about the show I directed that is now closed.

Yes that's right I directed a production of the Neil Simon Play "The Odd Couple" for the Sandy Spring Theatre Group. The story of how two recently divorced men learn to cope with each other and their opposing life habits. The old slob vs. neat-freak story. The show was well received and everyone I talked to who saw it really enjoyed it. Most thought I had cast the show very well. As with all community theatre productions I made do with what I could find, and I was very fortunate with the actors I cast. 'Nuff Said on that for now.

Moving On back to the recent DVDs I got. On Saturday 30 October I went to Target and bought along with some pairs of pants for work and some jeans the following two DVDs.

"Predators" the latest installment from the sci-fi franchise about alien sport hunters. As with the Predator vs. Alien DVDs I got this one sight unseen. I'm confident that I will like this film even if it is terrible. I like the series.

I also got another sight unseen movie, this one a chick flick. "Sex and the City 2" the second installment of the 30 now 40 something gals from the HBO hit series. I know this movie is probably not worth the salaries of the actresses in it, but what the heck I liked the show even though it's a chick series. Oh the version I got was the only version that I saw at Target the special 2 Disc Special Edition "Target Exclusive". Apparently the 2nd disc was made exclusively for Target yadda yadda. I'm guessing there is also a special "Walmart Exclusive" version that turns out to have the same special stuff.