Facebook

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Everyone seems to be caught up in the Facebook craze.  I thought I was safe at work (once they blocked it) and at home.  But now even Jenna has been sucked into the vortex that is Facebook, more specifically the little Mafia game on Facebook.  I have to be honest though, I just don’t get it.  (I don’t get twitter either for that matter.)  Now I know a lot of people think that if you blog you should get Facebook because it’s basically blogging.  I disagree.  I don’t blog for other people though because I have no pretense that people actually care what I think.  Facebook and Twitter are basically the same thing, espcially since Facebook updated their site several months ago. 

I loved the idea of Facebook when it was a more mature Myspace.  It was a place to reconnect with friends from childhood that had disappeared when they moved away or when we graduated college.  Now it’s nothing more than a glorified Twitter where you can share exactly what you are doing at that moment, plus you can throw snowballs at people and post pictures.  And of course let’s not forget about the all important “Friends” on Facebook.  People actually care about how many friends they can have on there and I’ve even heard of people competing to see who can have more friends.  Really?!  I have people from high school asking to be my friend and my only thought is “We didn’t like each other in high school.  What makes you think we are friends now?”  I’ve even heard people say, “It’s not official until it’s Facebook official.”  What does that even mean?  That nothing is life is real until you post on Facebook about it?  How pathetic are we a society that we think this way?

Maybe it’s just because I don’t think people care what I’m doing every second of the day and to be honest, I really don’t care what they are doing either.  Nor do I need a website to list who my friends are so I don’t accidentally forget.

New mattress may not be the answer

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We tried putting a sheet of plywood under the mattress to help prevent sagging.  It definitely worked and mattress was nice and firm.  Unfortunately it didn’t help with my back and actually cause pain in Jenna’s.  I’m starting to think I must have done something at work or at the house without realizing it.  If it’s not better after this weekend I may have to go to the doctor. 

Stupid mattress

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Our mattress is dying.  It’s starting to sag and causing pain instead of comfort.  It had a good life though, about 8 years, but now it’s close to time to be replaced.  Soon we will begin the even bigger pain of mattress shopping.  Personally, I’m leaning towards a Sleep Number so that both of us will be confortable and not have to compromise a good night’s sleep. 

(Yay!  Posting 3 days in a row. )

Marvel sells out

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It’s been a few days since the new broke and I’m still not sure what to think about the news that Disney has purchased Marvel Comics Ent.  My first reaction was that this was horrible news.  Now I’m leaning more towards quiet skepticism that anything good can come of this.  Disney has never come in and taken over something without causing harm with the exception of Pixar.  When they took over ABC the network was the leader in sports entertainment and they killed it.  Disney is the company that sued a daycare because they painted a giant mural of cartoon characters.  I can only hope Disney doesn’t decide to force Marvel to become more family friendly.  I can only pray they don’t decide the cut out the comic book department all together because they aren’t profitable enough.  And before you say that isn’t possible because Marvel is nothing without their comics, Disney doesn’t want comics.  Disney wants the 5,000 character library that Marvel created to make money, I mean movies.  Spider-man, X-men, Wolverine, Iron Man and Blade are but a few of the gold mines that Disney wants to plunder.  Let’s just hope they do it the smart way and don’t run them into the ground.

Yo, Joe!

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I’m not even sure where to begin with this movie.  From the very beginning you knew it was going to be interesting because of the giant Hasbro logo projected on to the screen.  You are reminded from the start that this was nothing more than a 30 minute toy commercial back in the 80s.  Never the less, I really wanted to like this movie.  And for the most part I did enjoy it inspite of several groan worthy scenes.  The dialoge was bad.  The action was great.  The story was beyond thin.  Did I mention the action was great? 

Honestly the action sequences are the only good thing about this movie, which is good since it’s supposed to be an action movie.  But it didn’t completely pull off being a GI Joe movie.  While the characters were a mismatch of skills and training, like the cartoon, everyone looked the same.  There were no cool different costumes to distinguish people.  They all wore the same black body armor that could easily have been in any other action movie.  The fight choregraphy was very well done though I found it hard to believe anyone could move easily in the costumes.  The weapons were very cool, even if there were no red and blue lasers.  It was pretty fun watching the different ways the Vipers got killed.  And the fact that they killed at least one Joe was something which did put the movie ahead of the cartoon. 

Over all I would wait to rent this one night when you have nothing else to do.  Or maybe check it out at the dollar theater if you really want to see it on the big screen.  If you really want to watch a good GI Joe movie, check out GI Joe: Resolute on cartoon network or DVD when it’s released.  It’s what The Rise of Cobra should have been.

Sad news

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Justin’s mother passed away this week at the age of 57.  I didn’t have the pleasure of really knowing her but I had met her on a few occasions.  When we were in school she was nice enough to let me come over for Thanksgiving Dinner one year when I couldn’t get off work to go home.  She will be missed.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

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After talking about this weekend we may be selling the house.  Jenna is not happy with the way the neighborhood is turning out and I’m not happy with our debt.  So we may just sell the house and go into an apartment for a little while to pay off some bills and find a house in an area in which we will be happy to live.  But nothing is definite yet.

Yay power outages!

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Not really.  Power outages can be fun when you’re a kid.  Lots of adventure and fun playing the day by candle light and lanterns.  It’s not fun when you’er an adult and your place of business looses power.  For over an hour.  First you have to get all the customers out.  And if you are lucky no one yells at you for the power being out.  Because, you have complete control over that of course.  Then you have get the teenaged staff to keep their ADD in check long enough for them to do what needs to be done.  Then you have to just sit and wait for the power to come back.  Though not really sit so much as run around and do things that can only be done while the power is out.  Like check emergency lights.  Then after a while you decide to de-thread movies and rig up the films so they can be run again quickly which is not extremely difficult, but not easy either.  So yeah, power outages… not fun.

Change is inevitable

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Yet it usually doesn’t happen all at once.  A few weeks ago Thor was fired from the Grande.  He was the only person that had been employeed there for as long as I have been.  There is no official story as to why he was fired but rumor has it that there were emails which the higher-ups did not feel were professional or appropriate.  Of course instead of talking to him about it, they just fired him.  (There is a pattern developing here with the way they will terminate people at the drop of a hat.)   They also decided they would interview for a “City Manager” position which was discovered to be a lie.  They were interviewing for Thor’s job right under his nose.  So, after Thor’s termination they made Kevin interum GM.  This is the second time they have done this with Kevin.  And while it might look good the first time, the second time is just a slap in the face.  They told him he would be GM until they found a replace.  Translated: Your good enough to do this for a little while and we have faith in you for now but we just want someone better.  So, Kevin decided he wasn’t comfortable with his future at the company and is now leaving us to go back to Regal.  He isn’t the only one either.  Stewart had the same idea and has already jumped ship and gone back to Regal.  So, now, within a few weeks time, we have no salary managers at the Grande.  We have three hourly managers, one of which has only been a manager for a month, another one who has gotten far to complacement in their job and a third who will likely leave soon as well.  Oh, and don’t worry, Thor landed on his feet and is back to work at Regal as well.

The next few weeks should be entertaining as the Grande slowly implodes.  Hopefully upper management will be able to get replacements soon but I doubt it.  It’s taken them a month or more to get a replacement for Thor.  It’s been implied that the projectionists will be put into a managerial role to help cover the deficits.  This is a huge mistake just waiting to happen.  For starters we aren’t really trained to handle things 100%.  Then there is the fact that if you pull us out of the booth to run the floor, who will run the booth? 

I’ve seen something like this happen before so it’ll at least be a fun ride!

Not my father’s Trek?

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Lately the internet seems to be buzzing about the new Trek movie.  People are bashing it and complaining about how much JJ changed things.  Well, from what I saw it’s still very much Star Trek.  Transporters?  Check.  Big ship that can do faster than light?  Check.  Phasers?  Check.  Surly Doctor, Conflicted Vulcan, and laugh in the face of danger Captain?  Check, check and check.  Overall I’d say the movie was very entertaining.  Not a great movie by any means but definitely better than some of the more recent Star Trek movies.  Did JJ change things?  Of course he did.  It’s a relaunch to stale story that hasn’t been told in years.  He updated it, polished it and made some adjustments that I found very exciting.  A “true Trek fan” might not enjoy it but this movie was made for a new generation of new fans who probably don’t even realize who William Shatner is other than being the guy on the Priceline commercials.  And it works.