at the movies

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The Dark Knight
We actually went and saw the new Batman flick a week (possibly more) ago, but I guess I never got around to posting about it … arguably because I didn’t think it was as good as everybody claimed. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was still enjoyable and Heath Ledger gave a great performance, but I certainly didn’t think it was the best superhero movie ever and Iron Man is still my favorite of the season. Admittedly, it probably didn’t help that we went to see it at the IMAX theater downtown, but got there so late that we were literally sitting in the front row of a packed theater – looking nearly straight up for over two hours didn’t put the movie in the best light – but still, I thought it was only so-so. Who knows, maybe I’ll think different after I watch it on DVD and can view the whole thing without a horrible crick in my neck…

Wall-E
This weekend, however, we finally went to go see the latest Pixar venture and…well, I sort of had mixed feelings on it. The CGI was absolutely amazing – these guys keep getting better and better with every single movie – and yet I can still look back at Toy Story and appreciate it, too. What has me on the fence, though, is the story – yes, Wall-E was adorable and was a really neat, little character to personify, however I guess it was just kind of weird for me to watch an entire movie with very little dialog in it … and no, I don’t really consider all of the buzzes and whirs, despite sounding like words, to be actual dialog. I don’t know – I guess I sort of compare it to if instead of talking, all Nemo and his friends did was go “blub blub blub” in Finding Nemo. It definitely had some hilarious and some cute moments, but ultimately it just wasn’t my favorite.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua
For the most part I’ve been shielded from this preview because we don’t really go to non-adult movies very often, but after watching it yesterday, I cringe at the idea of having to endure this dog movie … especially because after that loud-as-hell song and dance number, Sara turned to me and said, “Ooh – I can’t wait!” and she was serious.

Bolt
So this is Disney’s next actual non-Pixar movie and I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it turns out, but I don’t have a whole lot of faith … and this is why Pixar is the future of Disney animation. I’ll elaborate further in a moment below, but it’s just sad to see how a studio that used to churn out animated masterpieces by the dozen now can’t hit a story on their own to save their lives…or at least not nearly as consistently as before. I enjoyed Meet the Robinsons more than I have a lot of the classics – will be curious to see where exactly the super dog movie ranks this fall…

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Not much to say, except that the next movie that was scheduled for this Thanksgiving has been delayed by eight months…
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/ET_Cetera/Harry_Potter_flicks_release_delayed/articleshow/3373678.cms

…

The Pixar Story
So probably the best watch of the weekend, Sara and I caught this documentary on the making of Pixar on Starz and it was really great, and talk about inspiring to boot – you’d have thought you were watching the Walt Disney story when they were going through John Lasseter’s career! It was just amazing to see all of the work these guys did for Disney Animation back in the late ’80s before 3d films really ever even took off, not to mention their work ethics and the amount of pride that goes into their work. We both loved seeing the guys racing scooters through the office, launching paper airplanes of all shapes and sizes off the balcony, and basically just seeming to have an absolute blast at work – it made me very jealous! It didn’t really go much into the writing side of their work – more the animation, but it certainly seems like it would be an interesting venture. I don’t know if it’s too late for me to pursue that sort of a career path (specifically looking into films) or if that’s even the direction I’d like to explore, but it definitely got the creative juices flowing and hopefully I’ll be able to get a few steps closer to that big, secret goal of mine tonight!

There still are a few good people out there…

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So Sara and I have been fighting with WeddingChannel.com for the last couple of weeks about an order of disposable cameras that we never received. At first they were decent about it and said that the order had been delivered, so they’d have to verify with UPS before re-shipping the order. After something like 10 business days, they finally called Sara back and told her that they’d been shipped to the address that was given, so there would be no refund, but they’d be happy to sell us another batch of the cameras if we wanted! She asked them why would she want to do that, as she hadn’t received the last shipment of cameras that she’d paid for, and their only reply was there was nothing they could do to help.

Before I left work, I asked her to check online to see if I had mis-typed our street address when I originally placed the order and it turns out that I did, so with my fingers crossed I walked over to the neighbor’s house when I got home in hope that whoever answered the door would be an honest person who didn’t just try to keep the mysterious package that had been delivered to them.

Talk about a sigh of relief!

As soon as I asked if he’d gotten any packages he didn’t order, he exclaimed, “Oh – the cameras?! Yes – come inside. I’ll go get ’em for you!!! Honey, it’s the camera guy!” When he came back with the package, he explained – and this is just rich – that after he couldn’t find my name in the phone book or on yellowpages.com, he looked the company up on the Internet and called them twice to explain that they’d received a package that they didn’t order. The response from WeddingChannel.com? “That’s the address we were told to ship them to – there’s nothing we can do.” I replied that Sara had been calling them to figure out where the order was, too, and they weren’t much help either, and all the three of us standing there could do was shrug.

What I don’t understand is why a complete stranger calling in to say that he’d received something that he didn’t order didn’t raise any flags. So the address was wrong – we still had to provide an e-mail address and a phone number when we placed the order – why didn’t they put two and two together and give us a call? Worse yet, allegedly they had an “investigation” open to research where the order had gone – what, do they keep their billing records on assorted wedding napkins lying around the office?!

We learned two things today:

Number 1 – Do not order anything for your wedding from WeddingChannel.com. Sure, it was completely my fault that the address was wrong, but the fact that they completely shrugged off our problem because they weren’t technically in the wrong was deplorable. A company that wanted the good word of mouth, as many brides often tend to share vendors with their other friends who get married later, would’ve made more of an effort to help us find what we’d paid for.

Number 2 –Not all of our neighbors are complete morons. Despite the lasso kid next door and the kid who parks his beat-up Mustang right across from our driveway where it almost gets hit every single morning, there are still some good people out there. I was really worried that whoever had gotten them would’ve either trashed them or used them themselves by now, but other than opening the box to try to find anything to help track us down, our cool neighbors had left everything else in tact. And in a time when we would’ve struggled to find the cash to re-order them with everything else that’s going on, we very much appreciated that kindness.

Honeymoon Suite @ Disney officially booked!

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Well, ok – maybe not the honeymoon suite, at least not by Disney’s $1000+ / night standards, but it’ll still do us just fine. Garden-view, Club Level room at Disney’s Beach Club Resort – looking forward to Stormalong Bay, seeing what Club Level is all about, and having a room within stumbling distance from the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival!

(note on staying concierge: I’ve heard that it isn’t worth the extra cost and probably wouldn’t have normally booked it, but apparently they’re very busy that weekend and choices were limited! Even at this rate, we’re still trying to figure out our third night because they only had availability for Friday & Saturday nights … hoping Sunday magically appears before then so we don’t have to move. Nonetheless, if you can’t splurge a little for your honeymoon, when can you splurge?!).

Of course, it wasn’t easy because as I was hunting through available rooms, I also came across these awesome photos of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Suites at the deluxe resorts. I even got offered a reservation for the one at the Contemporary both online and by the cast member on the phone when I called to book, but at $2190 per night, I guess he wasn’t able to give us a two-grand-per-night discount for our Honeymoon to make that one an option!

http://www.suitedisney.com/wdwphotos/suites/

Keep in mind that each resort typically only has one or two of these kind of rooms and they tend to range between $1600 – $2000 per night, at least during the timeframes that I’ve looked. If you look through the photos, you can see that these are really the size of large homes right on property, putting even the grand villas at the DVC resorts to shame! I’d love to spend a few nights in one, especially the Royal Asante Suite at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge (the last photo shows its awesome balcony looking over one of the savannahs), but other than by winning the lotto or figuring out how to get Disney to comp such a room, I can’t ever imagine spending two grand a night for a hotel room.

Although now that I think of it, I wonder how many people you could split a room like that with… 🙂

This is Weekend Update, I’m Your Host – Scott Sevener

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Holy Giant Freakin’ Spider
I don’t know where they’re getting in, but the giant spider that I caught scurrying across our living room last night was entirely too giant for my own personal comfort! I would’ve gotten a picture of it, but he was the kind of spider who looked like he’d have taken the camera away from me if I tried it while he was alive and he wasn’t exactly in much of a photogenic state after I got through with him, if you know what I mean…

Note to Self: Really need to look into finding someone to spray around the house next week!

Little Wedding
Sara and I watch a lot of wedding shows right now, for obvious reasons, and some I really enjoy, while others I could take or leave. Well, today I watched one that seemed to just fascinate me – it chronicled the wedding planning process of a couple that also happened to be little people (i.e. vertically challenged) and it was just really interesting to see not only the additional challenges that they had to account for because of their height (finding wedding attire, making sure that accommodations at their reception were low enough for their friends, etc…) but also to see surprisingly how they still seemed less stressed than most of the other couples on these shows, and even ourselves, too! It was really neat to watch and at the end of it all, you could just tell that they were really genuinely happy – something that I’m not always entirely convinced of with some of these glossy brides and glazed-over grooms that I see.

HD Depression
I had to take a few minutes this evening switching Sara’s scheduled recordings for the Olympics over the next week from NBC HD to the regular NBC station to make sure we have enough room on our DVR for the entire thing. Which granted, I really couldn’t care less about the olympics, but I’m most definitely an HD geek and it saddens me to have to downgrade her recordings just because Bright House’s DVRs ship with such small DVRs by default. Of course, it doesn’t help much that blocks of Olympics coverage take up, like 5 hours at a time and thus two recordings so far is eating up almost 30% of our DVR across those 9 hours of HD content! The funny thing is, it’s specifically an HD DVR – wouldn’t you think it would have more recording space than your traditional DVR simply because HD takes up so much more room???

Awesome Writing Progress
I don’t want to get too excited just yet and jynx anything, but I’m extraordinarily happy about the writing progress that I’ve made over the last week or so. I can’t really say what the difference or the motivation is, but if I can keep this up just a little longer, I should be completely and totally caught up with both of the columns that I’m moving forward with for 2008. More on this as further progress is made…

Progress Energy sucks

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Aren’t there any rules or regulations that say that power companies have to provide consistent service, as a public utility or something? It seems like nearly every single day I come home to find all of the computers off and clocks flasing all around the house…

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