Ken Nelson

http://www.vlingo.com/apps/android

Short:  Pretty useful in quiet environments (out to eat, in office). Doesn’t handle background noise well when driving but can save pesky typing.

I recommend it.

Longer:

I use my Android phone to talk, text, e-mail, navigate, and search Google for information about something that has come up in a conversation.

Vlingo does a very good job replacing typing in Google searches.  It also handled navigation searches pretty well.

Vlingo does a fair job starting texts and getting the wording right. But not good enough that I would send a text it generates without checking it.

And I wouldn’t let Vlingo anywhere near my e-mail, which I need to be accurate, typo and wrong word free.

I like that it has a one button launch (on my phone the searched button pressed long will launch Vlingo).

Examples that worked for me in a nice quiet environment were:

Today’s weather

weather in new york city

text devin thursday 1pm

launch  angry birds

get directions to Rowdy’s Range

google images christina hendrickson

text paula "how is your trip to NYC going?”

My results varied in a car. In my truck it worked similarly. While riding in a smaller car, with more road noise, it would get it close, but usually miss a word.

All in all, I find it pretty useful and worth installing. I recommend it.

Super 8:  http://www.super8-movie.com/

Pretty good. Predictable, but in an okay way. Very good nostalgic effect if you grew up in the late 60’s and 70’s.  Those who gripe about the tribute to Spielberg’s work miss the point that the tribute IS the point.

Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_dark_of_the_moon/

Also, pretty good. Also, formula driven. But… special effects are terrific. And it is surprisingly funny.

Proof that crowds sometimes get it wrong.

Short: This movie sucked.

Long:

I went to this, with my wife, thinking it would be a tolerable chick flick, funny, and give me a chance to eat popcorn and chocolate almonds.  I never even thought to consider the rating, which I assumed was PG-13. Shame on me. It was a solid R, bordering on X.

I should have left 5 minutes in, but I stuck it out.

It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t enjoyable. I was glad when it was over.

Definitely one to skip.

Short: It may run Android but the lame BN App Store means it is not worth much now.

Longer:

The new Nook Color with firmware 1.2.0 runs Android 2.2 (Froyo). The one I bought from B&N didn’t have that firmware installed but it took me just a couple minutes in my NYC hotel room to update it.

Overall the Nook Color is a very good Android tablet for the money.  I occasionally had trouble with the keyboard responsiveness, but nothing onerous.

The real limit is that the B&N App Store for the Android Nook Color has just 185 apps in it. There is no Gmail app. There is no Maps App. No Amazon app (oops!).   It sort of reminds me of a Nokia Linux phone I had a few years back. Slick technology but worthless with the small number of apps available.  I know B&N is drooling over App Store money, and there is a place for a reviewed/tested App space in the Android market. But they better pick up the pace…

And I couldn’t find a way to side load. I’ll experiment more with that.

Basically, what I have now is something that will be nifty, but when….?

Short: Extremely comfortable.Stylish too.
http://www.clarksusa.com/eng/product/wave_terrain/82645

Longer:

I’ve just arrived in NYC for a weeks trip. We plan on lots of walking.

We went to Vegas a bit early on business, and I bought a pair of Clarks Wave Terrain shoes, and put them to use walking around the huge venues in Vegas.

They are VERY comfortable. Like walking on air.

On the flight to NYC today I actually forgot to slip them off til later in the flight.

If you walk or stand a lot, or if you have plantars fasciitis (like me), give them a try.

Update: First night in NYC… did big walk around Chelsea and then up to Rockefeller Plaza/Grand Central Station.  Feet feel great!

Summary:  A rehash for those of us who followed the financial crisis closely. But still, it was interesting, and once you understand the bias of the filmmaker, useful.

Available on Amazon Video.

Longer:

“Inside Job” purports to explain the financial crisis of 2008/2009.  And it does a fine job skewering credit default obligations, and the host of cronies that revolved in and out of government to make sure investment banks could sell these things.

What the filmmaker wants you to take away from his documentary is that we need more regulation.  So he had, for instance, Barney Frank, on advocating that.  He didn’t cover that Frank is one of the “cronies”.  And Carl Levin. And a host of other Democrat blow hards advocating regulation.

Not that this was a Democrat hit piece. Plenty of Democrats and their appointees were skewered.  Including Obama and his appointees.

And that plethora of targets is why more regulation makes no sense to me, based on the movies’ own evidence. So I want Alan Greenspan regulating the finances? How did that work?  Or Ben Bernake?  Tim Geithner?  Barney Frank? Or Robert Rubin? Or Hank Paulson?  The film presents NO reasonable way that the regulators won’t be corrupted from the start.

Inside Job identifies a host of crooks, financiers, politicians, economists that caused it. But gives the real cause a pass.  What is the real cause?  You.

Yes, you.  If you bought a house speculatively figuring you could flip it, or sell it. If you did so with no money down. With a subprime loan, assuming the house would rise, even if your income didn’t.  If you bought a house to gamble rather than to live in then you caused it.

At the root, all the CDO, tranche, reinsurance, blah blah blah, at the root it is all YOUR debt.

And if you didn’t add debt irresponsibly, did you hold your Senator or Representative accountable on Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac, or Community ReInvestment Act?  Did you vote for Barnie Frank?  Or Richard Markey?  Or Phil Gramm?

Did you support, basically, the entire system built up from the mid-70’s on that privatized gain while socializing risk?

Then YOU are the real problem.

The filmmaker skips that, instead showing home speculators as victims.

The movie is worth watching. But a thinking viewer will look past the red meat the documentary tosses out about some very bad, irresponsible people, and know that those people just were like many of us, only on a larger scale, later in the irresponsibility chain.

Summary:

Good flick. Tense. Violent. Really interesting cinematography.

Longer:

At its core, Hanna’s plot is pretty similar to any spy thriller. But that’s okay, the lack of plot dimension is made up for, in spades, by tense drama and unique, interesting photography.

At points the way the scene was being filmed grabbed me more than what was happening. Which is rare. The director showed us the story from every conceivable angle, which at some times was a bit disorienting, but added to the tension.

All in all, I liked the movie quite a bit. I recommend it.

It is PG-13 for violence and some sexual references.

I’m reading Atlas Shrugged. And I’m struggling.  It is a good book. I’m interested in the story, the characters, but…. but it may be the wrong time for me to read it.

It just seems too timely. A nation at a nadir.  Incompetence everywhere. The productive excoriated while being fed upon.  It just strikes a bit too close to home.  It is so timely it almost isn’t fiction.

I may finish it, or I may not.  I’ve no need to be reminded of what I can see every day.

Perhaps I’ll switch to a SciFi book where they’ve invented a nuclear battery so that you don’t have to fill your flyer up very often.  That would be entertaining.

Meanwhile…

Short:  Good but a bit longish. As you can see from the photo above,
              the photo-realism is very good.

Long:

Rango makes full advantage of the latest computer aided cartoon building. The detail and realism on the characters, props and scenes is astounding.

The story… well, not bad. It has funny, laugh out loud, moments. And as in any good cartoon there is a level of humor for adults that sails well over any kids present, and something more visually funny for the kids.

So, yes, I liked it. And you will like it if you see it.

But… It hovers perilously close to being something you wait and get at Redbox or Netflix later.  Especially if you are reluctant on $7.50 tickets + expensive snacks.

Short: Good flick. Tense and 90% Marine vs Alien combat.

Long:

This movie, at its core, is a tribute to the warrior ethos of sacrifice so that those back home can carry on.  As we drove home we lamented that there isn’t a similar movie with tribute to action in Fallujah, or any of the other major actions in the Afghanistan or Iraq.

After a short character development sequence, short as in 5 minutes, aliens land and Marines from Camp Pendelton are thrust straight from training into a Santa Monica hotspot.

Led by a Staff Sergeant Nantz, of the Sergeant Stryker variety Marines,  a fresh from OCS Lieutenant Martinez, and with a back story of distrust between one of the Marines and Nantz, they engage in near constant small force contact with aliens that they aren’t sure how to kill.

There is a larger story to their fight, but I’ll let you watch it to find that out.

The tactics are mostly sound. The weapons, and their use, authentic.  My compliments to Aaron Eckhardt, who plays SSG Nantz, for portraying an NCO I’d follow, and also for staying authentic to the tactics and weapons use.  His transition from M16A4 to Beretta M9 pistol, near the end of the show, was flawless. Clearly, he’d practiced.

This is a Sands of Iwo Jima type of movie. It is a tribute to the American soldier and airman.  I wish Hollywood would make more like it, only about our real wars. 

Playing Strong at 90

Summary: Excellent. Watch if you like music or guitars, or just like a good story

Longer:

This documentary, released in 2007, one year before Les Paul’s death shows his life in context of his chase for “sound”.  The chase started early, with him modifying his Mom’s radio and telephone and never stopped.

I love music. And I love guitars. And I love inventions. And Les Paul did all as good as anyone has done any one. But what I admired the most of his quest for sound was that he did it for his _audience_.  He constantly sought out new musical techniques and technologies not just to please himself but to make sound for others.

I have a Les Paul guitar (and a few other types too). And I have a couple multi-track recording devices. And, a complete multi-track setup on an iMac as well.    I take it for granted. He invented it and made AMAZING music with early primitive forms by combining a little bit of tech and a LOT of talent.

Watch it. Even if you have just a passing knowledge of guitars or music you’ll enjoy his story.

Available in DVD here:
http://www.lespaulfilm.com/

Or search Amazon Video, Hulu+ or Netflix.

Short: Uninspiring

Longer:

A predictable action flick that tries to be unpredictable but really isn’t.

Stories revolve around the clash between things like good and evil, right and wrong, desires and responsibilities, and strong and weak. So when a story has a good guy, and a bad guy, I like the good guy to be REALLY good, and the bad guy to be REALLY bad.

And I want the good guy to beat the bad guy not on luck, or mistakes from the bad guy, but by being BETTER.  And when the bad guy wins I want it to be because he was so unthinkably diabolical that victory was impossible.

Uknown’s main protagonist’s slow bumbling and idiocy in the first 20 minutes  lost my respect and frankly hoped they’d kill him off and find a decent hero for the rest of the movie. 

Alas, that wasn’t to be.

Anyway… decent PPV fodder, but not worth full price tickets and snacks at a theater.

Short:  Well written, enjoyable and interesting show.

Long:

Imagine the character precision of the Cohen brother’s remake of True Grit, only on your TV weekly.  That is Justified, a TV show that I’ve purchased Season 1 of via Amazon Video on my Roku box.

Justified airs on FX, but I’ve no idea what day or time. I watched it, commercial free, in HD clarity via my Roku box.  Quite nice.

It is called Justified because the main character, Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens, usually has a justified shooting each episode. Or two. Or three.

Police procedurals are common. But this one uses Kentucky, and its characters to good effect. The charismatic preacher is VERY charismatic.  The dumb Aryan Brotherhood goons are REALLY dumb and REALLY goonish.

I recommend it.

BTW: if you are a gun enthusiast it is refreshing to see the gun fighting and the gun talk be correct.

My Roku Box introduced me to Amazon Video, a service I didn’t know they provided.

Short… well done.

Long…

Picture quality, excellent. HD 1080i, no pops and clicks, flawless HD. Very nice.

Over the same internet connection I’ve had maybe one glitch in 10 hours or so of TV and 2 hours of the movie “The Town”.

Comparing that to Hulu Plus, where I’ve had to restart videos, lost connections many times, and even had the audio go out of sync with the lips,  Amazon quality is MUCH better.

Pricing… It is PPV. You can buy or rent.  I’m new to this, but the pricing seems reasonable and comparable, for instance to Dish PPV.  For some reason not all shows have the entire seasons available as a single purchase.  And, the discount for seasons isn’t dramatic.  .99 cents an episode, or $23.95 for 24 episode season. Thanks for the nickel!

Anyway… I like it A LOT.

It isn’t comprehensive, but between Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video I’m able to find pretty much what I was looking for.

By the 1st quarter….

Maybe I’m jaded… but this Super Bowl seemed boring. The Dorito commercials were pretty good.   The rest… ho hum. The game… ho hum.  My wife has already bailed on it.  And, with 11 minutes left, I think I’m not long for it either…

Did Christina Aguilera sing the WRONG words to the National Anthem? Yep.

As to the half-time show…. sucked. Terrible. Uninspiring. They seemed to be phoning it in.

I’d also add that I found a number of the commercials borderline inappropriate for kids.