I don’t expect even one single subscriber, but because it now takes about 3 minutes to set up, I went ahead and made this blog available on Kindle. Woo!
The page to order this for your Kindle is here.
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Just got a Zillow update in my email. The above is the decline in the value of our house in Florida since we sold it. Ouch! I’d hate to be the guy who bought it from us! It dropped another 8% just in the last 30 days according to Zillow, and the the chart doesn’t look like it has bottomed yet.
This disk had two episodes. The first was “Open Ocean”. In this episode the most striking and memorable bits were the huge shoals of small fish, especially as they became “bait balls” and were attacked by various predators. But the second episode, “The Deep”, was the one that got my attention this time around. I’d of course seen various documentaries about deep ocean life before, but it is always just amazing to see shows like this that show the almost completely alien seeming forms of life, especially in the deep sea, but not at the bottom. Bioluminescent creatures that glow and sparkle and often look like some sort of aquatic space ship. Others with strange and bizarre shapes. Just overall weirdness. But absolutely fascinating… and beautiful. Great stuff. So far I’m liking this series a lot. Disk three before too long I imagine. But something else will probably be next.
In any case, we went opening night to an IMAX theater, although it was one of these new “IMAX Lite” kinds of places rather than the full since museum size. In any case, I don’t have a huge amount to add over the many thousands of reviews that have been published over the last week or two. As a reboot it was pretty great. Out of all 11 Star Trek movies, I’d say it is definitely in the top 3 or 4 or so. It was a lot of fun. It did fan service in all the appropriate places (plus some). It was fast paced with things happening the whole time. It was hokey and campy like the original series in places. And it did the reboot itself in a fairly clean way. The weakest point though was actually the bits with Spock Prime. I mean, it was OK, and I know he is an old aged tired Spock, but he seemed to be dragging through it. Including just accepting as a given that the damage to the timeline was irreversible, and not seeming all that upset about it. In past time travel episodes, the people from the future have taken elaborate measures to restore the original time line. Of course, you can’t do that and still have a reboot. But it did stand out to me that while Spock Prime did mourn some events in the new timeline, he didn’t seem to mourn the destruction of the OLD timeline, and you would think he would. And of course there are tons of plot holes, and places where you think “well, why don’t they just X”. But hey, that is Star Trek for you. All in all, it was fun, it was good, it was a worthy reboot, and I’m ready to watch Number 12 on opening night as well. :-) Oh, and in a rare event for me, I’ve actually already seen it twice. A week after I saw it the first time, I saw it again with a bunch of people from work who were going. It was good the second time too.
Note: For those using the “View in iTunes” link, it often takes iTunes quite a few hours to show a new episode after the episode is posted here. So if you are looking for the podcast very soon after I post this, use one of the other methods to find the new episode. For those who are subscribed, your Podcast software should pick up the new episode next time it checks for new episodes on its own, or you can always force a refresh. For those using the XML feed directly, the new episode is now there.
Amy brought home a bright pink flyer from school Thursday saying that there is a diagnosed case of swine flu at her school. Joy. It seems it is one of the teachers. Of course, despite reports of a 4th death in the last 24 hours, the US death rate has been hovering at about 1 in 1000 for most of the last week. Which if I read Wikipedia correctly is about the average for an regular old fashioned influenza epidemic. But we still got the bright pink flyer reminding everybody that if their kid is sick they should KEEP THEM HOME. Which is of course what you are supposed to do ANYWAY. It isn’t swine flu specific. They did however add that if you DO send your kid to school, and they appear to be sick, they will call you to come get them ASAP. If Brandy’s car is totaled, perhaps we should get her this one?
A week ago Tuesday while Brandy and Amy were somewhere and the Nissan was parked nicely in the parking lot a teenage boy in his pickup truck with a damaged bumper tried to park next to it, and in the process wedged their damaged bumper in the Nissan’s wheel well. The kid did come into the place Brandy was and ask who owned the Nissan, which is good. Going back out, it became clear that the two cars were jammed together but nice. In the end they had to jack up Brandy’s car before the truck could pull away. But when all was said and done, there was the nice rip in the car that you see above. At some point, the boy’s mom showed up. According to Brandy, one of the first things out of her mouth to her son was “You have GOT to stop hitting things!” Soon after was “I told you to get that bumper fixed!” Insurance information was exchanged. Brandy got one estimate last week, and a second estimate this week. Problem. It is an old car with more than 200K miles on it. This is body work. Body work that requires replacing a large panel. The lower of the two estimates is close to the book value of the car. The other estimate is a decent bit more than the value of the car. The conversation with the insurance company will be tomorrow most likely. There is a good chance they will just call the car totaled. The car runs absolutely perfectly. But the stupid body damage is more than the value. This sucks. Just finished listening to David Plouffe speak. Interesting, but nothing new I hadn’t heard talked about before, including things he has said before, but also others analyzing the campaign. Kind of like watching C-Span, but in person. Good overview of an inside look at the Obama campaign though. Edit 20:41 UTC – This of course coming from someone who likes watching C-Span. :-) I have never met the General. I have however met two of his brothers. Of the two brothers I met, one seemed to have integrity… although he once told me a story that disturbed me involving him shooting a neighbor’s dog and seemingly enjoying it. The other brother, in the end, seemed to have few redeeming features and no moral compass I could recognize other than doing whatever it took to get ahead. I guess over time we’ll see how General McChrystal, who to me is the “third brother”, fares. Now, I know that it is not proper to judge someone by their family, but overall I can tell you that if the General is anything at all like his siblings, the thought of him in charge of anything strikes fear into my heart. The bits below from and old Esquire story don’t inspire any additional confidence. Acts of Conscience
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Sam and Ivan talk about:
