gonkulair

jen and i went and saw “Pirates of the Carribean 2 - Dead Man’s Chest” this evening. it was alright, not as good as the first one, but still pretty good. a lot of the characters were back from the first one, and some new cg heavy characters took the spotlight as “bad guys”. if you enjoyed the first one you’ll likely enjoy this one, however, it’ll probably be just as good on dvd. if you’re going to go see it in the theater, maybe a matinee is a good idea

imdb - Pirates of the Carribean 2: Dead Man’s Chest 

so jen dragged me to see “The Devil Wears Prada” last night. there wasn’t really any dragging, i agreed to go. after all she went along with me to superman returns. gotta be a team player. turns out that this movie is really quite good. meryl streep did a wonderful job, and you really had to hate her at times. the movie also features adrien grenier, who plays “Vincent Chase” on HBO’s “Entourage” and anne hathaway from “The Princess Diaries” and “Brokeback Mountain”. the cool part about this movie is that they were filming it in new york while i was there. i just happened to be in the SOHO area and there were all these lighting and film trucks around and lit street scenes and such. seems funny now, but they told us it was “devil wears prada” then, and i recognized the title because jen read the book. anyhow, if you read the book, work in fashion or are a girl (or dating one) this is a good movie to see.

IMDB: “The Devil Wears Prada” (new window)

jen and i went and saw “superman returns” on thursday night. it was pretty good, but a little long. it probably should have spent more time in the editing room. It was still pretty cool.

What can I say, this thing was made for travellers of all sort. I got to watch My Name is Earl and Four Kings last night. Of course it wasn’t live, but it was in English AND good quality. If you don’t know what a SlingBox is, keep reading that’s the point of this post. Basically, the slingbox is a device that hooks up to your cable/satellite/Tivo device and broadcasts it to the application running on your PC. It works over a home network, the internet and even on smartphones with a decent data connection. The best part is, it allows you to control the device it’s watching via a remote. It’s also very easy to set up. They retail for about $250 at most major retailers, you know, like Best Buy. So I have one of these guys hooked up to my Cable Box, which is also a DVR (Digital VCR) and it allows me to watch my TV (including all my premium channels, video on demand and recorded TV). Basically, this thing lets me sit on my couch from my computer, anywhere in the world with an internet connection. The quality is great, and I can watch English speaking TV shows anywhere I go. For myself, and others that travel to non english speaking countries this is great. We watched the Grammy’s and saw our boys sweep them with 5 wins, this was pretty cool. The downside is that right now, there is no way to use my Apple Powerbook to watch the SlingBox, but they promise me it’s coming. I’ve even used my Pocket PC with the beta player to watch TV in bed without disturbing Jen. Now that’s progress.

For more info:

http://slingmedia.com/slingbox/

I’d love to let you demo it with mine, but I’m busy watching it…

Serenity [wikipedia][imdb] is the feature length movie that completes the SciFi series “Firefly”. This was a show that Fox mashed up by not only cutting it, but by also showing it completely out of order. The pilot is supposed to play first guys. Anyhow, the series is currently available on DVDs and the movie is currently playing in theatres. The movie is the subject here, and well, it’s awesome. If you’re a SciFi/Action/Space or Star Wars fan, there’s a real good chance you’ll like this movie. The visuals, sound and plot are near spotless. The cast is a very good fit and the whit flows quite fluidly throughout the movie. I went and saw this movie on my day off here in New York City. I know it may seem silly to see a movie when you’re in NYC, but it was raining and I haven’t gone to a movie in a long time, besides I really wanted to see this.

OK, it’s actually Josh, but “My Name is Earl” is a great sitcom that’s recently started on NBC. Here’s the official website My Name is Earl . This show is absolutely hilarious and was recommended to me by my friend Darby. On his recommendation, I sought out and acquired the show, and it is hilarious. It stars Jason Lee as a no good guy who had an epiphany listening to Carson Daly talk about Karma while (Earl) was in the hospital. He’s made a list of all the wrong he’s done in his life, and he’s bound to try and make good by taking care of the people he’s wronged. Jason Lee is a near perfect choice for the main character, as he’s believable as a dirtball, and has a lyrical delivery and attitude similar to that of a great comic. The show is sort of a mash up of “Joe Dirt” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I recommend this show to anyhone who enjoyed “Joe Dirt” or any of the Kevin Smith movies starring Jason Lee. The show is on Tuesdays at 9/8C on NBC. It’s also widely available via BitTorrent or Internet Newsgroups, which is the method I prefer as I can download the HDTV versions and take advantage of the enhanced picture quality and sound by using my computer to view.

I would rate these shows, but I’m not very critical and my rating would be skewed, we’d end up with a bunch of 9s and 10s. Feel free to post your rating and thoughts in the comments, for others to see. Also, if you’re having a problem figuring out how to get a hold of these shows, email me and I’ll try and hook you up with some help or files. email: joshkapellennet

Thanks Darby.

As anyone knows, humans like entertainment. We try to find it every day in one way or another. Some watch TV and movies, some play video games, some listen to music, some read and others find all sorts of ways to stay entertained. There are even some people who find it entertaining to read another persons random and somewhat monotonous postings on a blog. Well I enjoy all three of the specifically listed methods above. Some of them can be hard to manage on the road, but thanks to the internet and people taking risks posting them, I’m able to enjoy the things I would normally enjoy at home. I’m going to use this category to let you know the things that I’ve found to be actually entertaining, and how I come across them. Stay tuned…