Eastwood’s solid acting skills are on full display in this movie. The other actors, some apparent first-timers, are not so great. The movie moves at a brisk pace, with a mixture of humorous and dramatic moments. Eastwood’s character is more William Munny than Dirty Harry.

Grade: B+

On a previous version of janella.com…

…when I would write a movie review it would be long. Time is short, so my new movie reviews - when I have a chance to watch a movie - will be short. It won’t be extremely insightful, but it will convey what I feel about the movie.

For The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:

Brad Pitt grows young while Cate Blanchett grows old. Acting done well by both, and Fincher’s direction was spot on. But the ending left me unsatisfied.

Grade: C-

Happy 60th Birthday and Happy Retirement

My iPhone Contacts Disappeared!: While I was out and about today, my iPhone contacts disappeared. I noticed this when I received a text message from someone on my contact list, which showed their phone number instead of their name. I’m guessing my over-the-air sync with Mobile Me was the cause since I have seen this sync problem before but only with my iMac and dot Mac. But when I got online, my Mobile Me account and my iMac contacts were fine. At this point I don’t know what happened. It sucks to lose your contacts for no apparent reason when you’re out on errands. I wonder if this has happened to anyone else?

Beginning in July, California went ‘handsfree’. Now, I don’t talk on my cellphone often while driving but Farrah does. And so I did some research on a solution that would work for her.

The iPhone comes with a nice standard headset for listening to music and taking phone calls. It can be used in the car as long as you only use one earbud while driving. I do this often, but it can be uncomfortable, and I think Farrah finds this so as well. Farrah also finds Bluetooth headsets uncomfortable.

I heard Leo Laporte speak of the BlueAnt’s Supertooth Light Bluetooth Handsfree Speakerphone as a good solution, and so I ordered it from Amazon and let Farrah give it a try.

The unit charged quickly, with Farrah being able to try it the next day. The main unit attaches by magnets to a metal clip you can fit into your car’s visor. Having the clip allows you to easily move the unit from car to car, or simply detach it from the clip to hide the unit in your glovebox. To activate the unit, you extend the mic boom.

The sound quality is very good. I was able to hear Farrah very clearly while she was driving, and she was able to hear me without my yelling. The unit also comes with a built-in ringer so you won’t have to hear your cellphone ringing unless you have the BlueAnt turned off. The BlueAnt holds a very good charge. We’ve only had to charge it twice since having it, but people who talk often may have a different experience. The only negative experience we’ve had with the unit is when pairing it with two different phones. The unit appears to forget the first phone it was paired with, but works fine with the second. If you are the only one using the BlueAnt, then this will not be a problem. Overall, Farrah finds the BlueAnt solid and reliable, as do I.

There is a newer unit available, the BlueAnt Supertooth 3. I think this unit has a voice-activated calling feature, but I have no personal experience with it. You may want to read the reviews on that unit, but it does cost about $30 more.

I don’t know how I forgot, but I did.  Angche proposed to Lotte at her birthday celebration several weeks back.  You can relive the moment on their wedding web site (or my almost similar video.)

Congratulations to you both!

Yen and James welcome Timothy into this world. Congratulations!

Update: I just posted the photos we took.

I’ve incorporated, once again, RSS feeds into the sidebar of the page.  This should give my many visitors - I say this smiling - access to our friends’ blogs, as well as updates to my found Tumblr page.  You can simply click on the link to view the blog entry. The sidebar should update as they post more (hint hint!). 

I don’t know when Farrah starting putting massive amounts of pepper on her ketchup when we have fries, but now I can’t eat fries any other way.

When I met up with some friends at Yahoo! for lunch at the local In-N-Out, I notice Gloria did the same thing to her ketchup. I forgot to ask her where she got the habit from. I’m curious, who else do I know that does this? If you do this too please leave a comment and tell me how or why you started doing this? I’m just curious.

I have had about five digital cameras. I didn’t enjoy the Sony Cybershot DSC-T1 as much as I had hoped. Daytime results were good, but anything indoors or at night was very problematic. I bought it before a trip to Hawaii. This is when I learned to never buy a camera right before a trip, as you may not be happy with the results. I was happy with about 60% of the photos I took.

One of the features I liked was the ability to take these consecutive shots and have them as one image. I like this photo I took of Ernie when we met up for dinner one night.

I forgot to acknowledge several accomplishments on the blog. Kayla graduated middle school this year, and Jonathan graduated high school. Congratulations to you both!

I also forgot to mention (probably because I haven’t blogged in some time) that I have changed jobs. It’s been about a month now since I left my previous company and started working at the new one. It was a tough choice moving on, but change is good, right?

In my new job, I’m exercising a few different skill set then my last position. It is both scary and exciting. Needless to say, I am up for the challenge.

I don’t blog about work much, but it’s difficult to read that many talented people are leaving Yahoo! lately (here, here, and here). When I was luckily enough to join Yahoo! in 2002, I was met with a work environment very similar to my first Silicon Valley job. The company seemed full of energy, wanting to make a big impact on the Internet, more so then it had so far. It was exciting to be a part of Yahoo! and you could feel that throughout the company. The campus always seemed to be alive with energy.

Around early to mid-2004, if I recall correctly, the feeling within my specific group changed. What once was an exciting energetic team, became a stiff corporate group. I can’t say whether this was felt throughout the company, but I’m sure it could have become infectious. The change in work culture may have been needed for the company, but the company’s focus, and soul, were lost with the change.