YouTube TV/Movie Reviewers

Tags

BBC, ChiqueGeeks, Dr. Who, Sherlock, YouTube

I really can’t stand most of them. My attitude is this: If you don’t like a TV show or movie, then shut your yap and make your own.

A lot of the reviewers are smarmy and annoying. But even the ones who aren’t do not know how to act in front of a camera. The ones who do that pointing move to get you to subscribe need to stop it. YouTube is not new. We know how it works. We know where the Subscribe button is.

So, if I don’t like them, why don’t I follow my own advice and make my own?

Why should I?

Are you going to watch something just because I make a video telling how great I think it is?

Are you going to avoid a TV show or movie because I make a video telling why I think it stinks?

No. You aren’t.

That’s because you’re smart. You have to be. You follow this blog, don’t you? J

And since you’ve taken the time to check out this rant, I’m going to give you a present.

Go to YouTube and check out ChiqueGeeks.

They are 2 British girls who watch Dr. Who and Sherlock and film their reactions while watching the show so it’s not really a review.

And they drink alcohol while doing it. So the reactions get funnier.

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Yeah! I’m Stylin’ At Work Today!

Tags

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I WILL Win The Geek War At Work. Tomorrow.

Tags

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., geeks, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Man

I get to work with some very cool people. But we, once in awhile, try to out-geek each other. And today was one of those days. 

Now, before we go on, we need to go back. To the Spider-Man Clone Saga.

My wife, Leslie, was a HUGE fan of Ben Reilly, The Scarlet Spider. And she was disappointed that Marvel did not put a Scarlet Spider t-shirt up for sale. For those of you who don’t know what that would look like, it would be a light blue color with a large black spider symbol on the front.

Let’s move up to Christmas 2013.

And gifts.

I had already decided to get Leslie a nice chunk of gift cards to her favorite things: Barnes&Noble; Panera Bread; and iTunes. But I felt like it wasn’t enough and decided to do a little searching. And this is what I came up with:

I put the cards in with the hoodie and, when she opened the box, the cards went flying as she yanked the hoodie out. Her family was a little shocked because they had never seen her act like this for a gift. But I’ve been at her side for almost 20 years and I know things about her that they don’t. Obviously.

She has been wearing that hoodie around the house on almost a daily basis.

So I figured that I would go back to the site where I found the hoodie to see if there was anything that I would be interested in.

WOW!!

A S.H.I.E.L.D. sweater and hoodie!!! In my size!!! 

My Must-Have warning system went all 3-alarm on me and I ordered them.

And today they arrived.

You probably think that all I will have to do is wear just one of these to work tomorrow and I will be Geek Numero Uno. However, the nice people who I ordered these from just happened to throw in two unexpected presents:

A S.H.I.E.L.D. button:

And a Stark Industries Keychain:

So..tomorrow…I will not only be Top Geek…I will flash these two items and destroy all competition. FOREVER!!!

BWA-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!!!!

BTW, the site is WeLoveFine.com

Hey! What’s Yer Beef, Stu?

Tags

beef stew, cooking, crock pot, Crockpot, no onions, slow cooker

http://busycooks.about.com/od/hotsouprecipes/r/cpeasybeefstew.htm

This super easy beef stew uses only five ingredients and is healthy and delicious.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours

Total Time: 8 hours, 20 minutes

Yield: 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 medium red potatoes
• 1-1/2 lbs. beef stew meat
• 1/3 cup flour
• salt and pepper to taste
• 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 cups water
• 3 cups frozen stir fry bell peppers and onions

Preparation:

Scrub potatoes and cut each into quarters. Place in bottom of 4 quart slow cooker. Mix flour, salt and pepper and toss with beef to coat. Add to crockpot. Add undrained tomatoes and water and stir.Cover crockpot and cook on low for 7-8 hours until beef and potatoes are tender. Add stir fry vegetables. Cover and cook on low for 30-40 minutes until vegetables are hot and tender.

It says to add salt and pepper to the flour, but I threw in a dash of turmeric, and a dash and a half each of onion and garlic powder and I am substituting 3 cups of frozen broccoli/carrots/cauliflower for the stir fry vegetables.. BTW, I am DEATHLY allergic to raw onions. And I thought I’d tell you that so you can send me easy slow cooker recipes that do not call for onions. On the other hand, I do have this ingredient conversion chart handy as well.

http://www.familytime.com/asp/conversion.asp?chart=2&UserId=&key=

And now, you have it.

Coffee Myths Debunked!!

Tags

coffee

I remember hearing a few of these while I was growing up. As it turns out, they belong in the same category as “your face will stay that way” and “you’ll go blind…if you don’t eat your carrots”.

http://www.yahoo.com/food/why-you-can-stop-worrying-and-love-coffee-even-more-72897243362.html

MYTH: Coffee is addictive

MYTH Coffee is bad for your heart

MYTH: Coffee causes cancer

MYTH: Coffee stunt kids’ growth

Oh yeah, one more thing…

Tags

New Year, rabbits

Hoppy New Year

Einstein’s Other Two Theories

On three…one…two…three…E=MC²!!!

Whew!! I’m glad that’s over. Let’s get to two of his other “theories” that I happen to find interesting.

One:

“A reporter interviewed Albert Einstein. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked if he could have Einstein’s phone number so he could call if he had further questions.

“Certainly” replied Einstein. He picked up the phone directory and looked up his phone number, then wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to the reporter. 

Dumbfounded, the reporter said, “You are considered to be the smartest man in the world and you can’t remember your own phone number?” 

Einstein replied, “Why should I memorize something when I know where to find it?”

http://bit.ly/J5qGo4

Now that is a nice and clever thing to say. What else would you expect from Albert Einstein?

Having said that, I would not want to have someone looking up how to perform CPR on me while I’m lying on the floor clutching my chest and gasping for air.

So this theory works for simple things. And it’s much easier today than it was back then what with iPhones & SmartPhones & 4G Tablets. You can pretty much look up anything you want, 24 hours a day, without ever having to resort to opening any kind of book.

And, as it is with all things, that has its Yin & Yang.

Books are great! Anyone who has ever been to my house knows how I feel about books. I think that I have 30+ bookcases filled with books of all types. I know that, when I retire, I could probably read a book a day from the collection and never re-read one book before I shuffle off this non-immortal coil.

But, when you are looking for historical facts, you’ve got be careful when reading a book that has not been written by someone who actually lived through the events.

My favorite books about history are ones that contain the speeches and letters of people who lived at that time. You have to remember that many famous people in the past never considered that their words would live beyond their own lifetime so they spoke their minds.

For example, I don’t ever recall reading this speech in my high school history classes:

http://bit.ly/J5qGo4

It wasn’t until after my wife, Leslie, got me into reading primary history that I found that a lot of what I was taught was a lie.

So, while Mr. Einstein liked to rely on the phonebook as a source of as simple piece of information, I look to other sources for more intricate subjects.

WikiPedia is NOT one of those sources.

Two:

“Another story about Einstein that is highly exaggerated but has some basis in reality concerns his clothing. Many say that Einstein wore the same thing every day and had a closet full of the exact same suit, shirts, ties, and shoes. This isn’t true, especially when Einstein’s second wife, Elsa, was alive. Elsa took a firm hand when it came to her husband’s appearance, and pictures of the two of them touring everything from Japan to the American Southwest show Einstein in beautiful silk vests, and dapper neckwear — as well as in a kimono and an American Indian headdress. But after Elsa passed away and Einstein spent his last 20 years as a professor emeritus at Princeton, his clothing did become more, er, irregular. He openly disliked wearing a suit and while already legendary for often going sockless, now he wore sandals. Perhaps the most common pictures of Einstein from that time show him happily shuffling around his Princeton study wearing a big gray sweatshirt. Luckily for Einstein, his life coincided with the invention of the cotton sweatshirt — for he was enamored of the soft warm comfortable garment.”

http://bit.ly/XcwJx

I think that, without Elsa’s obviously evil influence, this story WOULD be true and would be the second of Einstein’s “other” theories that I admire.

I did spend 20 years wearing various Air Force uniforms but my penchant for buying lots of the same clothes began when I started buying my own clothes. I was 11 years old and was tired of my folks picking out what I should wear, so I got a job delivering newspapers and took care of myself.

I lived near Boston so my autumn-winter-spring ensemble consisted of flannel shirts, jeans and boots. Fine for delivering newspapers when the temperature was cool and equally fine to wear to school.

I did spend the first 10 years of school going to Catholic schools, so there I had to wear a school uniform. But I got tired of the boys in one class, girls in another, setup and decided to switch to public school in 11^th grade.

It was the late 60s and I was just in time for the switch in public schools from formal dress to something more casual. Like flannel shirts, jeans and boots. I did have other clothes and, one day, when I was in public high school, one of the girls said something about how I always wear the same clothes.

The next day I went to school wearing a grey double-breasted suit with a white turtleneck under a gold & black paisley shirt. The day after that I returned to my usual outfit and she never opened her yap again.

Oh yeah, my summer ensemble was usually t-shirts, jeans and boots.

Flash forward ahead several decades.

I now have a job which consists mostly of behind-the-scenes, hidden tasks that I perform along with several other co-workers. People know that we exist, but few people ever contact us unless they need something from us.

And that’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.

We all work in our Cube City fixing corrupt data, researching possible fundraising prospects and making sure that no one gets access to information if they are not supposed to. I’m on a great team that does its job very well.

And I wear the same clothes every day.

And I keep my work clothes at work for a very good reason. I started taking public transportation 9 years ago, and after a few months, I got tired of getting up from the seat only to see that some foreign substance had attached itself to my shirt that I just got out of the cleaners or my nice suit which I had just had dry-cleaned.

So I wear jeans and a black t-shirt to work. Change there, then change back for the ride home. There is an excellent dry cleaners right outside my office building and that works out very well for me.

My work ensemble is dark blue or black slacks with a gray or black dress shirt. I have a couple of other colors just to keep things interesting (for me, at least), but I find that having that wardrobe is what works for me.

After all, if you see someone who always looks the same way, you tend to feel more comfortable around them. And if I have to go tell someone that they have committed a possible information violation, I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable.

The downside of this occurred when I was going to night school to get my M.A. In Writing. I tended to show up in my jeans, boots and a black t-shirt.

Like the young lady waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy back in my high school days (I graduated high school in 1970), someone made a comment about my style of dress.

But, unlike my high school days, I shook it off.

Until, one day, I was on stay-cation and had to go to school that night. It was cool out so I put on a long-sleeved tie-dye shirt. You can see that shirt here: http://bit.ly/K1TuAA

I got to class that night and a couple of the other guys showed up in jeans and black t-shirts. They were disappointed that I had not worn my usual shirt. And they meant it as a compliment. I should tell you that, other than one student, all the people I took class with in my scramble to get my M.A. In Writing, were some of the nicest, finest human beings you could ever hope to meet.

Now…if I could just get them all to wear jeans, boots and black t-shirts…

What One Thing Would You Change If You Could Take One Trip Back In Time?

I love this question. And I love the usual answers.

There have been hour-long panels at the science fiction convention I go to that have been devoted to this one question.

And those panels often get extended out into the hallways, into the coffee shop and into the wee hours of the night, fueled by one, or maybe two, alcoholic beverages.

Oh yeah.

The usual answers.

 Here’s the list:

Killing Hitler usually comes out right away. This is often followed by saving the people on the Titanic, making sure that 9/11 never happened, saving JFK, saving Lincoln, warning people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki about the bombs…all lofty, all well-intentioned and all wonderful.

Saving JFK. Stephen King’s last non-Dark Tower novel dealt with that one. So I am not alone in my fascination with the question.

But I would like to have your answer to that question along with an explanation for your choice.

Because…

As you might imagine…I’m about to give you mine.

Going back in time, only one time, with the chance to change one, and only one, historical event…

I would save a life.

I would save a life that I think is so important to the world that I would do whatever it took to keep him alive.

I would go back in time and save the life of Jimi Hendrix.

Yeah.

That’s right.

Jimi Freakin’ Hendrix!!

Jimi never had a #1 record in the US. That doesn’t matter.

Jimi changed the guitar forever. He changed the way people looked at writing songs. He changed how songs are recorded in the studio.

He changed lives. Just ask someone you know who plays the guitar.

Case in point, here is my favorite Hendrix song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QptmMGtzo4

Please take a listen to it. I’ll wait.

Like it? It wasn’t Purple Haze, was it?

Now consider that the song was recorded in 1966/1967. I think that the guitar work is still light years ahead of what any guitarist can come up with. There have been a number of Hendrix wannabes, people who could impersonate the style.

But I don’t hear the deep emotion in their work that I hear in Jimi’s. And his was the original. He imitated no one.

He was able to do all that with 4-track technology and a creative imagination.

And how about the lyrics?

May This Be Love by Jimi Hendrix

Waterfall, nothing can harm me at all,

my worries seem so very small

with my waterfall.

I can see my rainbow calling me

through the misty breeze

of my waterfall.

Some people say daydreaming’s

for the lazy minded fools

with nothing else to do.

So let them laugh, laugh at me,

so just as long as I have you

to see me through,

I have nothing to lose ‘long as I have you.

Waterfall, don’t ever change your ways.

Fall with me for a million days,

Oh, my waterfall.

Beautiful, right? Okay. I think that they’re beautiful.

Most song lyrics do not qualify as poetry. These do, in my MA in Writing opinion.

1966/1967. And we’ve progressed to what?

My overt idolatry of Jimi’s writing and playing is not the only reason I would save his life.

Another reason, and I can’t prove this but in my heart-of-hearts I believe this.

If Jimi had lived, we would never have had to put up with the short-lived disco craze.

I was at Ft Meade when that madness hit and I was writing articles for the USAF newspaper, mainly articles on music.

I had just written a review of a concert by The Kinks and got a reply that The Kinks were the old way and disco would forever replace groups like The Kinks. The guy even worked the phrase “ad nauseum” into his critique of The Kinks, you know, just to prove his intellectual superiority.

A year later, The Kinks released a double live album and the first videotaped concert: ONE FOR THE ROAD. They both sold very well and The Kinks were back on top.

Meanwhile, disco was dying. Then it took its last breath. There are still people who love it, though. Ad nauseum.

Back to my point, I think that Jimi would not have necessarily turned his back on disco, he just would have mutated it into yet another Hendrixian form of music that was better than anyone else’s efforts. The result would have been a new musical genre that would stand the test of time.

And I would have loved to hear what he would have done during The Grunge Attack of the early 90s.

But that’s only a wish. It can never be.

Unless some young science geek decides that there are things that need fixing.

My first piece of advice to that individual is to first read Stephen King’s book, 11/22/63.

If he thinks he can escape the butterfly effect jinx, then my second piece of advice is this: SAVE JIMI!!!

My Batman Coffee Mug

Tags

Barnes&Noble, Batman, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, Superman, Wonder Woman

The title is not exactly true. I do not have a Batman coffee mug. I have 12 of them.

Excessive?

Obsessive?

Does a man who has 12 Batman coffee mugs have some sort of psychological problem?

No. I do not.

I am simply prepared.

Prepared for what?

A Justice League of America meeting?

A gathering of comic book coffee drinkers?

Prepared for when the Caped Crusader dinnerware is finally released?

I would only be prepared for the latter if the dinnerware was black and had the iconic yellow oval with the black Batman symbol in the middle. Because that’s what my cup looks like.

I have 12 of the Vandor 20 oz Batman coffee mugs. The mug is all black except for the bas relief Batman symbol.

And I have 12 of them because I used to only have one of them.

There is logic behind that. There always is when it comes to all things Batman.

I started my current job in December of 2002. One of the first things I discovered was that the company had Keurig K-Cup machines and supplied its employees with free coffee.

Nice.

So I brought in my 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mug and, twice a day, I would fill it up with 16 oz of free coffee and add free sugar and free creamer.

And life was good.

Until…That. One. Fateful. And horrible. Day.

I was in the office kitchen getting my first huge cuppa joe for the day. Everything went as smoothly as it usually did. Sugar in, 2 K-Cups (one high-test, one decaf) brewed. However, after my 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mug was full of coffee and ready to remove from the Keurig K-Cup machine so I could add the creamer, a co-worker came into the kitchen and said ‘Hi’.

I turned to to say hello to her as I hooked my index finger into the handle of my 20 oz Vandor coffee mug and lifted it from the Keurig K-Cup machine.

It slipped.

I tried to grab it…screwthehotcoffeeTHISISMY20OZVANDORBATMANCOFFEEMUG!!!!!

It fell to the floor and shattered, taking my Gotham City Heart with it.

 the shock…THE HORROR!!!

My…treasured…cool…magnificent…20 oz…Vandor…Batman coffee mug…lay in pieces at my 12EEE feet.

My co-worker was almost equally devastated. I was known for that mug. People loved that mug.

Then a thought came to me. This was unusual in that I had yet to have my first cuppa joe for the day, but dreaded, awful, horrible events like this can often move a man to action.

I hurried to my office and did the Google thang for a 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mug. You see, I have a reputation among friends, family and co-workers of being able to dig through the garbage on the Internet to find whatever I, or they, want to find.

EBay…Amazon…The Vandor Company page…nothing…nothing…nothing.

NOOOOOO!!!!!! THIS COULD NOT BE!!!!

Well, I was at work and figured I just needed to dig a little deeper. So, after work, I hurried home, fired up my laptop and started in. And still got plenty of nothing.

The only thing any search turned up was plenty of sites that had it listed but also had it as “Out Of Stock”. I should mention that Vandor also makes a 20 oz Superman coffee mug. And there were plenty of those! There were hundreds of those!!! There were billions and billions of tall blue coffee mugs that had the bas relief Superman symbol on them.

But not one 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mug.

I called comic book shops. Nothing.

I went to several malls that had Warner Brothers stores. I went to their web site.

And it was all in vain. I was 20-oz-Vandor-Batman-coffee-mug-less.

Now you might think that I would sink into a deep, blue funk. That I would sulk. That I would go to my doc and beg for a prozac-zoloft-xanax fix.

But I’m a man who waited 42 years for the New Orleans Saints to not only win their first Conference title, but also win their first Super Bowl.

So I filed it in that part of my brain where I keep things stored so I can access them by setting up an autonomic reflex arc that kicks in when one of my senses detects the item.

I then went on living my life as though nothing tragic had ever happened. And, once a week, I would do my search.

42 years. Remember?

One Saturday, just before the Green Lantern movie opened, my wife, Leslie, and I went to our formerly favorite Barnes&Noble. It used to be a great place to write. It’s not any longer. But that’s for another blog.

I sat down in one of the comfy chairs they USED TO have in the store, and after settling in, I looked up and saw a display rack filled with Green Lantern merchandise. Well, I like Green Lantern. I even wrote a Green Lantern screenplay that’s better than the movie.

Yeah. I’m bragging. But it is. It has a solid character arc and is more about Hal Jordan beating his personal demons than it is about CGI stuff.

But I digress.

I figured that I wouldn’t mind having one of the Green Lantern coffee mugs that I could see from where I was sitting.

I set aside my laptop and went over to check them out. I picked one up and saw that it was a 20 oz Vandor Green Lantern coffee mug. Very cool. Not as cool as a 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mug, but all things Batman are cooler than all things anything else.

I decided to walk around the display to see if there were any other Green Lantern things that might tickle my fancy. Maybe a ring that glows. Something like that.

I moved to the right side of the display and saw a shelf that had several 20 oz Vandor Wonder Woman coffee mugs on it.

The next shelf down had several of the 20 oz Vandor Superman coffee mugs.

And way down there, on the bottom shelf, sat three 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mugs!

I grabbed them so fast that I created a vacuum. I ran back to my chair and stashed them there. Then I quickly found a bookseller and asked him if there were any more. He went back to the storeroom and brought me three more!!!

I paid for them, ran out to the car and put them in the trunk. I made sure that they would not be jostled on the way home. Then went back inside and packed up my laptop and Leslie and took off to the next closest Barnes&Noble. When we got there, I looked all over the store, or thought I did, and could not find any 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mugs!! I sped over to yet another bookseller and he knew exactly where they were…6 more of them!!!

I drove home that day and carefully stored 11 of them away. Number 12 was shoved, very tenderly, into my work knapsack. And, when I returned to work on Monday, I showed all my co-workers my brand new 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mug!!

They were all happy for me because I work with some very cool people.

Barnes&Noble no longer has these mugs.

Maybe when the next Dark Knight movie comes out, they’ll get them back. And you are probably thinking that I will make a run on the stores again.

In fact, you might even wonder why I did not spend the rest of that Saturday and all of the next day going from one Barnes&Noble to another so I could buy ALL of the 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mugs in Maryland, DC, and parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware. And maybe southern New Jersey.

Well, I am not obsessive. I do not lean toward excess. But, like I said, I AM prepared.

Prepared for 11 more instances of shattering mugs.

And you can be damn well sure that, these days, when I remove my 20 oz Vandor Batman coffee mug from a Keurig K-Cup machine, I have a tight grip on that handle.

I watch the mug as I move it off to the side for the creamer.

And, if a co-worker comes into the kitchen and says something to me, I do not look at them.

Instead, in a hoarse whisper, I simply say, “I’m Batman.”

And they know it.