A few months back I decided to change the way I rate movie reviews. Previously I used the old standard of assigning a letter grade to a movie. I then moved to a liked it slash didn’t like it scale. I didn’t find much flexibility in that rating system. Now, I’m moving to the real-world scale I use when asked about a movie. The scale, which I am sure is used elsewhere, is based on how much you are willing to pay to see a movie. The scale is as follows:

• Full Admission – Willing to pay for a full-price theater ticket, especially on a crowded Friday night.
• Matinee – Must see the movie in a theater, but do it as cheap as possible.
• Rental (DVD, Blu-ray, whatever media you choose) – See it right when it hits the retail market.
• Cable TV – You can wait until it shows up on cable to watch.

I’m sure there are other ratings that can be placed in there (e.g. cheap theaters, broadcast television) but I don’t find those ideal situations to watch most movies. Plus I don’t have a cheap theater near me and broadcast television has too many commercials to suffer through.

Here are a few samples of movies I’ve reviewed and how I would rate them on this new scale:

• Full Admission – 300, The Dark Knight, Wall-E, Juno
• Matinee – Quantum of Solace, Grand Torino, Knocked Up
• Rental – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Transformers
• Cable TV – Nights in Rodanthe, Spider-Man 3

Let’s see how this scale works for me.

I am not really a handyman, but for the past several months I’ve had the urge to fix. I’ve attempted to fix things that I normally wouldn’t think twice about hiring someone else to repair. For example, I replaced a car battery, changed our front and back door locks, and fixed a leaky faucet. I know, I know, I’m not rebuilding a car engine, but for someone like myself who is not mechanically inclined, these are quite surprising feats.

As I’ve mentioned before on Janella.com, we bought a new washer and in dryer. They both initially worked great, but the dryer stopped doing a great job in drying several weeks ago. By going through the troubleshooting steps in the manual, we figured out the problem was with the dryer exhaust hose. The hose connects from the back of the dryer, runs underneath the house, and exits through the side of the house.

No Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock here. Lucky me, I get to go under the house! The last time I was under house was four years ago. It was an unpleasant experience. I think I may still have a few scrapes from that last adventure. As a kid, going under the house was fun. When we had plumbing problems that required someone to go under and check on “the pipes”, I readily volunteered. Of course I was much smaller and slimmer back then. But now as a larger and more phobia-straddled adult, going under the house is not much fun. It was also once fun to climb up to the roof of the house to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. Now the only reason I go up on the roof is to clean the gutters before the next rainfall.

For this trip down below, I was intent on being prepared or as best prepared as possible. I bought a pair of coveralls at Sears (on sale!). I also bought a pair of hardy knee pads at Lowe’s, in hopes of counteracting any beating my knees might encounter. In hindsight I should have also purchased gloves, as my hands can take quite a thrashing under the house as well.

To make a long story short, with my wife’s help, we were able to replace the dryer hose and fix the problem. The dryer once again works as advertised! I know it’s not rocket science, but it just goes to show that all it takes is a little research and hard work to fix certain problems around the house. I’m not sure where this “urge to fix” has come from - perhaps from all the DYI shows on television. But with the help of the Internet, with all of its self-help websites and videos, you can do almost do anything. I don’t think I’d tackle rewiring the house, but as for the smaller jobs, leave them to me.

I’m starting a new blog. The domain name, alex-is.com, wasn’t my first choice. It wasn’t even my second or third. I wanted the domain name to be short and related to me or a hobby of mine. The name was inspired by the status updates you make on Facebook or Twitter. For example, when updating my Facebook status via the iPhone it starts with “Alex”, then you often use a verb such as “is”. Hence alex-is.com.

What to write on an iPhone?

Why start a new blog?

I have nothing against my previous blog I had at janella.com. But that domain name was a gift for my wife. Long story short - she disliked her @yahoo.com email address. I thought a personal custom email address would be a great gift. It has been and continues to be, used more for email than for web content. But I co-opted the website portion for my own purposes.

I blogged there regularly. But I have run into a little writer’s block as of late. I am uncertain of the cause, but I believe part of the problem stems from a revelation I had the other week that I’ve been unknowingly blogging for two. While the posts there were ascribed to me, I always felt I was speaking for both of us. This was not necessarily a bad thing, but my wife has never agreed to blog. As far as I know, she has no such desire to do so.

I’ve come to this realization not through anything she has said or done, but by simply reflecting on how much I enjoy writing about what I do or have done. As with many unfocused personal blogs, I’ve chosen to write on a variety of subjects, like the movie or television show I just watched, the trip we just took, or how much I hate the neighbor’s barking dog. I chose to be transparent about my daily activities. I don’t believe I ever asked her if she wished to do the same.

When I first realized this, I tried to change the style of how I blogged on janella.com. But I kept hitting a wall. It’s because that site will always be associated with both of us. I came back to the thought of creating a new separate website, under a different banner, in the hopes it would free up this writer’s block. And so, I think starting my own domain name would shrug off the impediment I feel. After all, as I’ve said before, janella.com was a gift for my wife.

Janella.com has been through many iterations over the years, pointing to various types of pages and services. Currently, it’s pointed to all the photos we have taken in recent years. I think it will remain as such.

What Will I Blog About?

Same subjects as before: news, movies, television, technology, photography, and whatever subjects I care to comment on. I’ll try to stay away from subjects involving family and friends, deciding to keep this part of my life private. But it will be difficult to stay away from that subject since it is a large and important part of my life. I’ll definitely stay away from anything concerning work - that’s one hot potato I’ll always avoid - with the exception of job searching, a subject I’ve written about previously.

I would like to steer clear from reblogging as much as possible. I’d prefer to use my tumblr for this function. But you never know. Reblogged media may creep in. If I reblog, I want to provide some of my own commentaries, as opposed to simply republishing material without thought.

Ideally, I would like to make a blog post at least once a week. This desire is a goal. Let’s see how real it turns out to be.

I’ve had the iPhone 3GS for over a week. Here are a few thoughts on how I feel about the phone.

Background

I bought the iPhone 2G back in September 2007, just after the price drop was announced. I was on Verizon, a carrier I much enjoyed being on. But the last phone I had Verizon was an LG Chocolate, a phone that didn’t live up to expectations. I was hoping it would turn out to be a good music playing phone because I was tired of lugging my iPod and phone around in my pocket. All it ended up being was a frustrating piece of equipment.

I figured a smartphone would be a good choice, but Blackberry phones seemed a bit too much.  The only other phone Verizon offered was the Motorola Q. A friend of mine had the Motorola Q. All she could say is it would crash often, even while on a call. Nice.

Now, I count myself as one of those people who are part of the halo effect. I received an iPod as a gift in 2005. Later that year I bought a 12” PowerBook. After few more iPod upgrades I bought an iMac.  Why not an iPhone?Initially I balked at the price.  It was way too much for a phone.  But when it dropped a couple of hundred dollars, well, I got the go ahead to get it.

My Thoughts on the iPhone 3GS

I was able to use the phone out of the box as it was fully charged.  Compared to the 2G, the phone feels smaller and lighter. The infamous oleophobic polymer screen adds to the experience.  Your finger seems to glide across the screen.

The recent OS upgrade to 3.0 has made the phone even better.  I don’t think I’ve ever owned a phone where the upgrades have made the phone more useful.  Sure, some of the features were available on other phones long ago (e.g. voice commands), but they are now on the iPhone and they are even more useful.  For example, the voice commands can control the music player.

It’s nice to have GPS, and coupled with the compass and Google Maps, for me it’s a killer combination.  I was able to use this in San Francisco this past weekend.  It helped me navigate around the city when I was unsure how to get to several places.  I can’t wait for easier turn-by-turn, such as that to be offered by TomTom.

Video on the iPhone 3GS is fair, better in bright light then in dim.  But it’s pretty neat when you can edit video on the phone and upload it right to YouTube.  They should add direct upload to other services, such as Flickr.

Battery life is good.  I average about a day-and-a-half.  The battery meter is now includes a percentage measurement.  I use the iPhone mostly like this:

• 40% iPod
• 30% web surfing (including accessing apps such as Facebook, Yelp, etc.)
• 20% checking and reading email
• 5% taking photos or video
• 5% GPS and maps

My only negatives about the iPhone is with AT&T.  Do I regret the move to AT&T? No, not really.  Coverage is decent where I am at.  Oh, yeah, a few calls are dropped in some areas, but for the most part it’s good.  The only complaint I have about AT&T is the apparent charge for everything under the sun (e.g. text messages, data plan). But it’s part of the package, so it’s part of the pain to put up with.  The data plan for 3G and 3GS is $30. If you want 200 text messages it’s another $5.

Overall, I am happy to still be using an iPhone.

(Considering an iPhone?  You may want to read the Techcrunch article The iPhone 3GS: Should You Get It? It’s a good read.)

Dan Cook at San Jose Event Center

I’m not a big Dane Cook fan. If someone was playing his CD or DVD I would listen or watch. But watching him live in concert is a different story. I had no set expectations in seeing him in concert. Unfortunately, his concert at the HP Pavilion was fair to middling at best. He lacked any real energy or (fake) spontaneity, relying solely on his charm to push him through the night. For me, the opening acts garnered more bellyful laughs.

Timothy Finn does a good review of Dane Cook’s concert earlier this year. It sums up the experience pretty well. Would I pay to see Dane Cook again? Probably. Would I spend as much? Probably not.

(Photo via sjsharktank)

You don’t know what I’m capable of.

Liam Neeson does his best Jason Bourne in this action movie. Neeson is an ex-Preventer who must now use his skills to save his daughter. The movie moves along in a good clip. The violence can get intense at times, but the payoff works.

Rating: Matinee

Damn! Somehow, someway my main blog was compromised. I’m not sure if it was on the server level or if my password was somehow guessed. I don’t think it’s the latter.  I tend to randomly generate my passwords and even I don’t remember them. I’ve reverted was was once the main blog back to Wordpress.com.  If Wordpress.com account becomes compromised, well, that would be a surprise.

Once again I find myself with only a few opportunties to truly blog. And so I’ve decided to revert back to a tumblr account. Newer posts I make will be here.

It’s Wolverine, bub!

First off, I hated the title of this film. It’s more suited as a comic book title than a film title. I think they could have gotten away with Wolverine. Non-fanboys would have known who Wolverine was, at least I think. I know he’s no Superman or Batman, but the target audience knows who Wolverine is. Well, onto the film itself.

As an origins story, it provided pretty minimal grit to understanding the man who is Wolverine in all the X-Men films. The story starts off with James / Logan as a boy and by the end of the opening credits he’s a man. The opening credits helped the film along similar to Watchmen, covering enough history to get to a fair starting point for the story. Well, what there is of a story.

I found the story weak and confusing at times. There are too many characters and story points to be compressed within the 107 minutes of the film. You can’t grasp any sense of who these characters are and why you should hate or care for them. It’s cool to see Gambit and Deadpool on the big screen, but it’d just as interesting to play them in a video game then watch them in this film again.

The fight scenes were on par with other X-Men films. But oddly the special effects seem to be worse. I would say the original X-Men film had better special effects than some of the scenes in this film. If you can wait for this film to come out on DVD, I’d say do so. It should be out by the end of the year.

Rating: Rental

The crew of the Enterprise 2009

I tried to set my expectations low for this movie, hoping it would be good. Looking back I didn’t need to do this, as the movie succeeds on many levels. This incarnation of Star Trek is accessible to both those familiar with and those new to Star Trek. The story involves time travel — of course, it does, it’s Star Trek and J.J. Abrams — Romulans, Vulcans, and everything else in between. I think the only thing that was missing was a Klingon.

The casting worked brilliantly, even having Winona Ryder as Spock’s mom worked. The special effects helped, not hindered, the story’s progression. There were two things that annoyed me: (1) the amount of lens flares in the movie, and (2) Pavel Chekov’s accent. The latter annoyed me only because of the number of lines Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov, had to speak. I would have preferred more lines from Simon Pegg, who plays the lovable Scotty.

Rating: Full Admission

Puppies. Evil puppies.

This is another one of those feel-good movies. But if you know your dog movies, then you know what’ll happen. Yeah, it happens, but not after Marley gets a hold of your heart. Wow, did I just write that? If you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ve pretty much seen the whole movie. Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson are likable, but their characters, and the story, really don’t go anywhere. The movie won’t rot your brain, but it won’t stimulate it either.

Rating: Cable TV

Hello Red. What are you doing here?

You may have seen Redbox in your local grocery store, Wal-Mart, or even your local McDonald’s. It’s a DVD rental machine. You get a DVD for $1 dollar for one day. Not a bad deal considering your other brick-and-mortar options (e.g. Blockbuster). I went to their website to see what movies they had to offer.

The site is easy to use. After creating an account, you can access their DVD catalog. Registering only requires an email address. Search is easily done by movie title, release date, category, or even by the Redbox closest to you. I was disappointed by the number of titles offered. I wanted to watch The Reader, since it is listed as Long Wait in my Netflix queue, but Redbox doesn’t offer this movie.

When you find a movie you want to rent, you can reserve it online with a credit card. The DVD is reserved for about 24 hours. If you don’t pick up the DVD, it will be released for rental and you’ll still be charged. After reserving, go to the machine’s location (listed on the site), and swipe the credit card you used on the website. The DVD will pop out encased in a firm plastic case. It’s that simple.

It appears Redbox may start offering Blu-ray titles, but there doesn’t appear to be a start date for this. If they offer Blu-ray and a broader selection of DVD titles, it could prove to be a successful alternative to my Netflix habit. If they continue to only offer limited titles, they may not make a significant dent in my rental habits.

I think there’s something on your face.

I finally watched the Oscar-winning-feel-good-movie-of-the-year on DVD. Yes, the actors are likable. Yes, the story is predictable. Yes, I’ll watch it if it’s on cable television, but I don’t think I’ll buy the DVD or rent it again. If you have two hours to spend on a movie, this isn’t a bad choice. You won’t have to think about the plot points too much, and it’ll make you, well, feel good.

Rating: Cable TV