Yes, I'm a Philogynist
Reviews
Movies, Books and T.V.
The Andromeda Strain
May 29th
A&E Networks did a two part ‘mini-series’ remake of The Andromeda Strain. They shouldn’t have.
They took a Sci-Fi CLASSIC and bitch-wrapped it in Hollywood. What they got was a star-studded “B” movie worthy of the Sci-Fi Channel at its worst. They took a GREAT story and transmogrified it into a mess that only a 10 year-old would love. They completely lost the greatness of the original. Michael Crichton (Whom I have met and gotten autographs from!) probably is rolling over in his spa at this craptastic ‘movie’.
I warn you – DO NOT WATCH THIS ABOMINATION. Rent the original, read the book – whatever. I will not even attempt to point out all thats wrong with this drivel. It’s ALL bad. Even the actors suck:
Benjamin Bratt
Eric McCormack
Christa Miller
Daniel Daekim
Viola Davis
Rick Schroder
Andre Braugher
Individually they are a great bunch of actors. In THIS offal, they just smell. RUN, don’t walk away from the TV if this is on. You don’t want to get any on you..
Seriously disappointed,
Me
[Update - 06/13/08] And, for goodness sake, do NOT buy the DVD. I don’t want these asses rewarded for cranking out steaming piles of crap like this.
New Author!
Mar 30th
I’ve discovered a new author, and DAMN, I’m in reader’s heaven. The author is John Scalzi. He’s an accomplished writer, but I’ve just discovered his recent books in Sci-Fi. The book that rolled me over was “Old Man’s War“. My GOD, I loved Mr. Scalzi’s sense of humor and his writing style. And the story is a blast. Give him a try – you WILL NOT be disappointed! I’d go into depth about the book, but I’d probably blow it for you, so go get it and enjoy.
Treo 700P : To Buy Or Not To Buy
Jun 15th
BUY!! This little jewel is a MUST BUY. I got one for my birthday (THANK YOU, BUBBA!) and I already think this beautiful piece of technology is indespensible. It is a phone, a PDA and a camera (although a weak camera). The phone, according to Andy who previously owned a Treo 600, has amazing signal sensitivity. I myself know that I’ve never been able to use a cell phone at the coast house and NOW I can.
Futher, I can send and receive Email, surf the web AND text message with the beast. Add all this together with the simply heroic battery life and I don’t see why Sprint can’t sell a blue million of these things. Simply amazing machine. The purchase of this thing has parked my Palm T3 and my Motorola T720 cell phone. The Treo 700P is BETTER than any of those other two in one package. Web surfing speed is pretty damn fast, considering you’re holding your browser in your hand.
Andy demo’d a feature of the Treo one evening for Bubba and I. We were at a Home Depot and standing in line for what seemed forever. We were getting concerned the restaurant would close before we got out of there. He popped out the Treo, went to Google, searched for the restaurants web site, clicked (yes, CLICKED) on the phone number listed on the web site and in seconds was asking the restaurant when they closed. AMAZING! (And we had plenty of time to eat that night)
The only downside that I’ve noticed on the item is the ringer is a bit weak and hard to hear in noisy work van going down the road. Of course, I’m half deaf, so don’t let that comment slow you down in considering the Treo 700P.
Pop in a 1 GIG SD card and you have all the ringtones (it uses cheesy MIDI natively and can use AMR which I think is cleaner/better), photos and music you want.
How many more superlatives can I use in regards to this device? Many, many more. Bottom line? RUN, don’t walk, to the store and BUY ONE. And we got a free phone for Bubba when we bought it, too.
Life is good.
Serenity
Oct 22nd
The Boss and I went with Andy the other night to see ‘Serenity’ at the moving pictures place. What brought us to this point is a short story…
Back in 2002, a new series appeared on Fox. It was called ‘Firefly’ and was set in the distant future in a solar system nowhere near like ours. It was about a group of people that were on the losing end of a war and were casting about in an old Firefly-class freighter named ‘Serenity’ looking for odd jobs and generally staying under ‘The Alliance’s’ radar. They were crooks. I can dig that, being semi-anti-establishment myself, these days. The main thing that turned me off to the show (then) was the western twist to the show. Western as in COWBOY western. The Captain’s pistol looked like an old Colt six-shooter. They spoke with a cowboyish drawl and slang. “In a SCIENCE-FICTION show?”, I said. So I gave up on it very early in the season, and it seems like most everybody else did, too. The show was cancelled after only one season.
Fast forward to 2005, and Andy, like he usually does, bent me over and made me watch the DVD version of the one season. and you know what? I LOVED IT! I truly was disappointed the show never went to season two. So when Andy said there was a movie coming out, I. HAD. TO. GO.
And you should, too. Go see the movie. Wait, go get the DVD of the series, watch THAT first, THEN go see the movie. It’ll be the best entertainment money you’ll spend in the next few months. Simply a genius writer/creator in Joss Whedon. His vision is amazing. Come the DVD release, I, like Andrew, am gonna buy TWO DVD’s so Joss dies rich and smug.
I give it FIVE INARA’S! (Watch the series – you’ll find out what an ‘Inara’ is) 
A Letter To Macmillan
Feb 5th
Posted by MDF in Commentary
No comments
[In response to this news article]
“I am a huge customer of Amazon. As such, I buy four to five books a month from them. I have found no other retailer with the breadth and depth of their offerings, certainly not a ‘brick and mortar’ bookseller.
I find your policy of not selling your books at Amazon to be sadly short-sighted and a bit disingenuous.
[EDIT - I was grossly mistaken on this part. AMAZON pulled Macmillan's books off of AMAZON'S shelves, not vice-versa. My apologies to all on that one]
I’m no genius, but I suspect your profit margin was the limiting factor, not the pablum spouted by your CEO. Customer service certainly wasn’t a factor as you’ve removed the largest bookseller in the world from access to your books. Ask any author out there and they’ll tell you that publishers are basically hoarding the profits from the authors due to their ‘long tail’ of people, all getting their bite from the revenue the books bring in. By the time the author gets paid, there’s not much left.
So, bottom line, I aint buying it. I’m sure I’ll be dismissed as a crank by you, but the reality of the situation is this – I’m not buying Macmillan books because Amazon doesn’t sell them.
Corporations need to start focusing on people like me, the little guy, in your spats with each other. Get over yourselves and give us access to your books at a price people like me can afford.
Mike Fisher”
If every Amazon customer did this, ESPECIALLY Kindle users, I betcha we’d get some fast responses and actions from the publishers.