Random

Mike Merryfield the Comedian

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Stop it or I’ll give you a knockin’ ullllllright?

We saw Mike Merryfield at Comix Cafe last weekend and he was one of the funniest comedians we’ve seen at Comix. His style of humor reminded me a lot of Brian Regan my favorite comedian of all time. I found one of his recorded shows on his website and I’ve included it below for your listening pleasure.

[audio:https://aldrichfamily.org/2007/12/mikemerryfield.mp3%5DHe’s also available on youtube as MikeMerryField and I’ve included his best video below.

Hollywood Sucks but Beowolf Rocks

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We saw Beowulf tonight at the IMAX in 3D. Wow. I think any epic movie must be seen at the IMAX and if possible in 3D. It added a whole other level to the movie experience. Until now I had never seen an entertainment movie in an IMAX (I have seen some short educational specials at different times). Adding the 3D effect to Beowulf was simply incredible.

Beowulf the movie itself was okay but without the graphical eye candy it’s nothing special. However; it’s still a must see especially in 3D at the IMAX. The story was changed quite a bit from what I remember of what I’ve heard before. I only have two real complaints. The first is the lack of a fight with Grendel’s Mother. The second is the ending which is horrible and typical Hollywood bull.

Can’t they just let a story be? It’s bad enough that every movie these days is either a sequel, prequel, remake or based on another piece of entertainment(book, comic book etc). Why do the stories of our times need to be left unfinished? The songs of old (such as Beowulf) were never sung until after the story itself ended. Why are today’s stories any different? Isn’t it better to know the ending than to be left in suspense?

Trailer below. (High quality Trailer from stage6 here).

[metacafe]http://www.metacafe.com/watch/920271/beowulf_trailer_2/[/metacafe]

Carbon-Free Stackable Cars

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Carbon-Free Stackable CarI recently ran across an idea from MIT students for Carbon-Free Stackable Cars. The idea is to simply extend the range of public transportation. Public transportation typically only allows travel to the most common places. Often your real destination is off the beaten track. If that’s the case and the distance is too great people will often choose private transportation instead. This idea attempts to close that gap.

This reminds me of ZipCar in Boston. They leave cars in residential neighborhoods and allow you to reserve them online. You simply walk to it and pick it up to make use of it by the hour or the day. There’s no attendant and no complications. It’s simply a service you use at your convenience.

The fact that the cars are Carbon-Free is a huge bonus. Since the idea is to travel just small distances it seems like the plugin electric idea is a great fit. I can’t wait to see something like this put into place.

The Mist

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Last week at bowling The Zone was giving away prizes for strikes in the 9th and 4th frames. We didn’t get either but figured we’d try our luck with The Zone anyway. As luck would have it they weren’t checking and we walked away with a book (Gone Baby Gone) and free movie tickets for The Mist. I had wanted to see it anyway and this was the preview showing. Great!

I haven’t read any of Stephen King writings yet, but thus far every movie has been awesome. The Mist did not disappoint. I particularly loved the ending. I will have to read the short story now though to find out if it ends the same. I have a hunch it’s at least slightly different. That being said if you like scary movies I’d recommend it.

The only thing left for me to say is “man that bitch was crazy!”

Trailer below.

Ratatouille

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We’d been trying to rent ratatouille from redbox for a few days but it was out literally everywhere in Rochester. Finally I found one available at the Perinton wegmans on Wednesday so I rented it online. Yep Redbox now allows you to rent movies online. Well, not streaming or anything unfortunately, but you can reserve it at a Redbox location online.

Ratatouille was a great movie. There was more humor in it than usually is found in the new animated movies. I found myself thoroughly enjoying it. The trailer is below.

[metacafe]http://www.metacafe.com/watch/663432/ratatouille_trailer_tv_spot/[/metacafe]

FeedCrier

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Feed CrierA few days ago a new webapp hit the streets. FeedCrier claims to keep you instantly alerted to any news from any feed you subscribe to using their service. It’s essentially a new feed reader that sends new items directly to your instant messenger account.

If you subscribe to a lot of feeds like I do I wouldn’t suggest putting all of them into FeedCrier but it is great for those few that you want to get immediate updates for.

A great thing about the site is there’s no account required. Simply provide your Messenger account (MSN, Jabber and AIM are all currently supported) and the feed’s URL.

Initially I was very cautious because I saw no mechanism for unsubscribing or maintaining your subscriptions. Luckily they explain it all here.

Into the Wild

~ randyaa ~ 3 Comments

It was raining last Sunday and we figured we’d go see a matinee of Into the Wild. I’ve wanted to see this movie since it came out and was glad we were finally seeing it.

The movie was great. It made me want to travel the country and find my own magic bus. It’s amazing the kind of perspective Chris McCandless had on life at such an early age. If everyone thought the way he did at 21 we’d be living in a much better world. Trailer below.

Edit: if you’re reading this in the feed the video may or may not appear. Please visit the article to view the trailer.

Gmail Windows Live ID

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Microsoft Windows Live IDIf you’re like me you use One E-mail address. I used to be a fan of two. One for junk forms, another for real use. Since spam filtering is so good now, and custom filters are so easy to customize, it became much easier to just get it down to one.

A very long time ago I created a Windows Live ID using an E-mail address from Time Warner. Actually, I created an MSN Messenger account. Later it was turned into a Live ID once Microsoft came up with the idea.

I have long since abandoned the Time Warner E-mail address but I have been stuck with the Windows Live ID that uses it. A short time ago I decided I’d switch. It was about time to combine accounts and utilize my one E-mail address as my Live ID account as well.

I never realized it would be so difficult to create a Gmail Windows Live ID. The first thing I did of course was to attempt to register using the normal windows live registration methods. Of course it instructed me that my account already existed. I thought this was strange but who knows, maybe I did create one already. I started the forgot my password procedure but was quickly told the account didn’t exist. Strange. After a bit of research, I learned that after a year of inactivity windows live accounts are disabled. No matter so I set out on the task of reactivating it. After several weeks of E-mails and live chats with microsoft I finally arrived upon the following E-mail:

Hello Randy,

Thank you for writing back to Windows Live ID Technical Support. I have read your messages with us and understand how inconvenient it can be when you are unable to access your account. This is Don and I look forward to providing you with the necessary assistance.

You can register your own e-mail account (Non-Hotmail or Non-MSN account) as your Windows Live ID if the e-mail address you are using is not part of a reserved domain. I would like to inform you that a company that controls the registration of all e-mail addresses within that domain manages a reserved domain. Recently, Gmail has reserved the creation of Gmail.com Windows Live IDs.

As of this time, users cannot register Gmail.com as their Windows Live ID using our registration Web site. I suggest that you contact Gmail support team for further assistance.

For the meantime, you can sign up for a Windows Live Hotmail which is automatically a Windows Live ID.

To create a new Windows Live Hotmail account, please visit:

some very long link

Please note that you will be directed to Windows Live ID Help Pane. If you encounter any issues, kindly verify which of the steps did not work for you as we want to make sure the instructions are easy to follow.

We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with the highest quality service available. Thank you for using Windows Live ID.

Sincerely,

Don

Windows Live ID Technical Support

I had no desire to create a new hotmail account since I was on a mission to reduce my accounts down to using a single E-mail address. I’m quite positive that my Microsoft Live ID is the very last account remaining not using my gmail address.

So I was trapped. Or so I thought, until I stumbled upon this little gem. I’m not sure how or where I found this, but at some point I happened across a link that was supposed to work for Gmail address registration. I’m not sure whats different with the link, I haven’t examined it closely. I will, however, tell you that the following link does work to register a Gmail Windows Live ID.

Register Your Gmail Account as a Windows Live ID