Microsoft

I am trying to turn my laptop into a dual-boot. Keeping Ubuntu on one-side and installing Microsoft on the other. For all my love for Ubuntu - I have a laundry list of products that don't support using anything but Windows and thus - here I am.

I am, however, having problems installing Windows 7. I was warned that the 3-pack of installations that my father bought had buggy product keys and that I was going to have to call in order to have it fixed. I was not looking forward to this, but whatever. We use Windows 7 at school and I rather like it, so let's do this.

My phone call to Microsoft - with a VERY SPECIFIC problem - took me an hour and a half to finish. I say 'finish' not 'resolve' because... well, I'll get to that. In the course of this call:

1) I was transferred upwards of eight times. Three of those were not to other departments, but back to the main menu where I would have to start the entire process over.

2) I was accused, vehemently, of having them on speaker phone since they couldn't understand me. One lady even went so far as to circumspectly accuse me of lying to her when I maintained that I wasn't.

3) The man who finally took on the apparently gargantuan task of checking my product key comes back only to tell me that their system is down and can I call back in an hour. He later rescinded this and did some sort of magic - but seriously Microsoft? You don't inspire confidence in your product when I call into your own support center and the system is down. You should look into that.

4) I'm told that the product is out of warranty. Excuse me? A product that has never been activated, and therefore never used is out of warranty? "So what your telling me is that I was sold a product that won't install correctly but you refuse to help me because it's somehow fallen outside of warranty - even though it has never been activated or registered?" "Yes ma'am."

5) I apologized for raising my voice to him, asked to speak to someone else and that man then hung up on me. I kid you not.

There is a reason... there is a reason I happily switched to a Linux-based system two years ago. A system that has never crashed, never failed and never given me one frakkin' problem. I still need to do a Windows install. There are programs I need for my summer teaching fellowship that just don't work on Ubuntu. But I will be damned if I use a legal copy.

Microsoft - you have turned a girl who has legally downloaded every song she owns into a pirate. I hope you're happy.

Pirates non-Spoiler Spoiler

Yeah, that's totally Dame Judi Dench in a cameo. Totally.

Priest

Priest takes place in a world where, due to a war with the extremely superior vampires, humanity has taken refuge in large city-state compounds where they are protected by a dominant and creepy church. A church that seems to have forgotten half of scripture - or maybe in this world the Bible reads "Let humans rule over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. Except vampires. Seriously, those guys will fuck you up." To combat the vampires, priests are created/born/magicked/summoned/trained (it's not really made clear) to fight the vampires and they do a damn good job as by the time the movie begins vampires are all but eradicted.

Enter the plot: A young girl who is related to our main character is kidnapped by vampires, including vampire Karl Urban. She is a lot more upset by this than I would be. Our hero, who doesn't have a name, sets off on an epic quest to rescue her - defying the church and picking up some help along the way. His non-spoilery help is an outland sheriff. His spoiler help is another priest, this one a woman who is desperately in love with him - one can only assume because he is Paul Bettany since he's quite clearly not interested in pursuing her in any way shape or form.

There are crazy beast-vampires, a cave troll (seriously, looked exactly like one), a vampire queen who we barely see or hear about but I was totally rooting for, human-vampires, old-west gunslinging and what-not and lots of other things happening. Despite all of these other things happening, easily 64% of the movie is this:

Someone was really proud of those motorcycles is all I'm saying. And if I can digress for a moment's not-really-spoilers nitpick: At points in the movie we see our characters on these open motorcycles going upwards of 200mph across the desert. I don't know if you've ever stuck your head out a car window (or ridden a motorcycle I suppose), but it becomes extremely difficult to breath once you hit about 60. Watch your dog sometime, he'll pull his head in around 45-50. And yet, our heroes seem to have no problems. Now, there is a scene where the pull up somewhere and take off both goggles and pull off respirators - which would explain how they manage to breath. But it's one scene in what is, dead serious, 64% of the movie. The rest of the time I kept expecting them to blackout and fall over mid-ride.

Anyway, back to the review.

On the plus side the CG was good, nothing to complain about and for the most part blended seamlessly with the movie. I would like to meet whoever did the matte-painting of the cities because they were pretty awesome. The vampires had some issues with actually being in the scene, not just comped in, but all in all the effects were enjoyable and were it not for the plot issues I'd say might be worth the money for 3D (even though it wasn't filmed in 3D and it irks me to pay an extra $6 for an often poorly rendered visual effect).

This movie had one of two major problems - and I find it hard to write about because I'm not sure which exactly it was suffering from. And the two are exact opposites. Either:

A) Priest had too many plotlines. I only cared about maybe two and the rest were boring and felt like filler. I HATED the sheriff character and wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face several times and tell him to STFU - Cam Gigandet did his best to sell the character, but he wasn't given an awful lot to work with. It should have been pared down to just Paul Bettany and Karl Urban - although the 'plot' concerning Urban's character could have been dropped too and just left him in for the pretty value. I enjoyed the character, don't get me wrong, but his motivations were never fleshed out enough to make him interesting. If they had cut everything down to just Bettany and made it into a futuristic vampire version of Taken it might have stood a chance.

B) There wasn't enough plot. I felt like there was this whole world to be explored - mysteries and intrigues and mythology that just never got touched upon. Is this story earth? Apparently not because humans and vampires have supposedly been engaged in a bloody war forever - not just recently. But if it's not earth - why the hell do they have the same bizarre church with the same bizarre mythology? Who made the priests? Why does vampiring work the way it does? How vampires work at all isn't really explained and some of the things that were said seem to contradict each other.

Somehow, defying all odds and logic to how stories work, Priest managed to stay perfectly between these two. The result of which is it had exactly the wrong amount of plot.

[Note: Okay, I know it was a comic book and thus the original source will likely answer some of my questions - but don't ever adapt something that can't stand on its own. It's like, the first rule of making an adaptation. See: Why Lord of the Rings was 10 hours long.]

[Note 2: I'm going to say right here, before I go any further, that I would LOVE to see a director's cut of this. I sincerely hope that they just cut too much out for the movie to stand up on its own. An editing mistake rather than 'this whole movie is awful' mistake.]

All props to Paul Bettany - and lord knows I love that man and I would go see anything he was in because he succeeds splendidly more times than he fails spectacularly - but this movie was just not good. And it was trying too hard to be good to be awesomely bad. Both he and Karl Urban acted their hearts out - and you could tell for sure that Urban was enjoying himself immensely - but you can give an Oscar-worthy performance in a movie and it won't change the fact that it's about Catholic Old West Vampires.

I feel like this movie should have been to vampires what Firefly was to scifi. A different take on an old formula that might have revitalized an entire genre. And maybe as a comic book it was. But as a movie, Priest lacks the charm to be endearing, the polish to be dramatic, and the cajones to be scary. All in all, it failed as a movie at the most basic levels.

With all the love in my heart for Mr Bettany and Mr Urban, I wish I had my $9 back.

Worst Case Scenario

Whenever I am trying to make a decision - usually relatively benign such as 'Should I wear this hat today? - I always ask myself the follow-up question, 'What's the worst that could happen?'

You might think that in this case it would be something like appearing on fugly.com. But no.

No matter what the decision is, my brain immediately turns to some variation on this...

People fleeing in the background, optional.

And that, kids, is why I almost never try anything new.

A-Team

Oh my god y'all, how did I miss this when it came out? If my not seeing it in the theaters directly contributes to their not making a sequel I am going to be so mad, you don't even know. I will sign an affidavit that I will go see the sequel.

I love this movie.

I watched A-Team for the first time on Tuesday night while I was making my dinosaur coat (I will blog about my dinosaur coat later, promise). Since Tuesday, I have watched this movie at least three times every day - more on some. And I am no where close to being sick of it. I laugh at the jokes and cheer the action every time. You could not have made a movie better designed to fit my interests.

Do I even need to recap? Or can I make the assumption that if you are reading my blog of all things you have a fair idea of who and what the A-Team are. I have never in my life seen an episode (or at least hadn't before Friday night - yay Netflix), and even I could have given you a basic rundown on the show.

Put four crazy personalities into high-pressure situations, mix in self-deprecating humor and a generous amount of awesome. Sit back and watch it explode.

Quentin Jackson does an amazing Baracus - managing to fill Mr T's shoes without ever feeling like he's making fun or doing an impression. [Similarly, think Zachary Quinto in the new Star Trek.] He had a pretty silly B-plot, but I didn't pay it much heed and you might as well not either.

Bradley Cooper is pretty as always, and although he's not my favorite actor in the world, he plays Face perfectly. That role might as well have been written for the guy. Even at his most smarmy, you still want to take him out for a drink. His entire demeanor when saying "I'm worried!" in the hospital about fifteen minutes in sells the line in a way I can't really imagine anyone doing.

You know who may be my favorite actor in the world? Sharlto Copley. He was amazing in District 9, and as far as I can tell this is only his second major film, and he nails it. He has now gone on the very short list of actors whose films I will see regardless of what the film is about. I think that list is only about three names long at the moment. Watching him play Murdoch was a pleasure - I would shill out the $15 I paid to see Sucker Punch (which I enjoyed, but no where near as much) just to watch two hours of Copley playing Murdoch.

Lastly, and bestly, is Liam Neeson - the silver-haired fox. Rrowr. He straddles between father-figure and brother-at-arms so deftly that you'd think he was Hannibal. Now, I'll be the first to admit that watching him play what is in essence a comedic role is a significant percentage of what makes the movie so awesome for me. I'm finding myself disappointed he hasn't done more comedy roles - he does serious so well that it's both surprising and awesome to see how well he plays Hannibal's grinning, cigar-chomping mastermind. Also, he's gorgeous. I have a crush, okay? What woman doesn't?

There are some hilarious moments, one with the CIA operatives in a van about two-thirds of the way in that has me in stitches every time. "Hey, final request - don't let this guy shoot me please." Also, any scene with Murdoch, Copley plays him so hilariously insane you can't help but smile every time he appears on screen just in preparation for what he might do.

I'm not going to pretend this is a masterpiece of cinematography - there are parts of the movie and the plans that I am still catching, even on this - my twentieth or so - viewing. But do I care? No. And neither should you. As Hannibal says, "Overkill is underrated." The movie is outrageous, and enjoyable precisely because it is so outrageous. This movie is solid action movie fun.

For the past ten years Negotiator has been my favorite film. Although I only ever watch from about thirty minutes in to thirty minutes out - the bits actually in the building to be frank. But I love every minute of A-Team and it is so totally my new favorite. I'm so pissed I didn't go see it in the theaters. I don't think it was marketed well to the 18-34 year old female demographic, frankly.

If you haven't seen it, get it. If you did and didn't like it, give it another chance. Serious. It deserves it. I pity the fool who doesn't see this movie.

Alpha. Mike. Foxtrot.

Packages

Last week I sent my bestest friend a package using a flat-rate box. I remember this well because the post office lady and I discussed how I was actually losing money because the box was so light. I also sent a painting via UPS because it was a goofy size and I didn't have a box for it.

Today I got a text saying that the UPS package arrived and to explain something in the box. This confused me. It was a pretty self-explanatory painting. When questioned, I realized she meant something from the flat-rate USPS box which included some shirts. I stated this.

[The following are our texts]

L: I believe that the wearable items were delivered by ups, dear. Check your tracking number.

NH: No, it was a USPS flat rate box. I remember it well.
And only you could figure out a way to wear the other package.

L: It was not! I'm looking at it now. It's brown.
A brown UPS box arrived today containing a pair of socks, a robe, a t-shirt and a mysterious little frame WHICH YOU ARE NOW GOING TO TELL ME ABOUT.

NH: That was a flat rate box! I VIVIDLY remember this. Because I wrote it to [name], NY NY, USA, Earth. And it made the post office lady laugh.
I VIVIDLY recall this.
And I will tell you when I am DAMN WELL READY TO.

L: I am TAKING A PICTURE OF THE BOX. RIGHT NOW.

[I have not, as of yet, seen this evidence.]

NH: I'm so confused. I'm calling you.

[At this point, I called and had one ring before being shunted to voicemail.]

NH: Or I'm not calling you because you're texting in class.

[She totally was, and got in trouble for trying to take a picture of the box during class.]

[A phone call followed later in which her doorman stated to god above there was no other package for her and then I had it out with her doorman and she hung up on me. A few moments later...]

L: Hmm. Maaaaybe you were right about the 2nd pkg.

NH: HA!.
Ha. Ha. Ha.

[I am, as always, gracious in victory.]

I don't know what happened to the first package, or why it spontaneously changed colors. I am confused by this, but by god I was at least right about something today.

A Graph