We rented a few last weekend, here's the good, the bad and the ugly (make that the crappy, the fun and the long).

Hard Cash
Hey look!  An action movie with Christian Slater, Val Kilmer, Daryl Hannah and William Forsythe.  Paula, Mark and I looked at each other, shrugged and rented it.  Don't you make this same mistake.  I now understand why this stinker went straight to video.  It starts off crappy and low-budget and then... well, it sucked so bad we turned it off.  I got my good deed for the year out of the way early... I took the bullet for you on this film. 2005 is looking great already (it certainly can't get any worse).

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
The Christian Slater stinker left a bad taste in our mouth, a little mindless fun in the form of a sequel to a movie based off a video game was in order.  The Cradle of Life is a fun, fast action flick with a likable cast of characters headed up by the smart-Alec, butt-kicking Croft (played by the first lady of lips, Angelina Jolie).  Okay, I've gotten over that she used to carry around Billy Bob Thorton's blood in a locket and it no longer creeps me out to look at her.  The acting is great across the board and the great cast does what they can with a mediocre script.  Don't expect a detailed thriller and you won't be disappointed.

The Return of the King (Extended version)
Make sure you set aside more than four hours to watch this fluffed up version of Peter Jackson's final installment.  Either add the extra time or get a mini-fridge and a catheter for your TV room.  Though it is long, it is a fun watch (and given the choice, I'd rather sit through this than Gandhi).  The added scenes don't add significant plot points from the book but merely suggest them (e.g. there are some added scenes with Eowyn and Faramir in the Houses of the Healing, enough to remind book fans of the romance between the two but not enough to give people who haven't read the books an idea of what happened).  My major complaint remains that Peter Jackson changed some significant and not so significant story-lines that I thought did add to the books.  In particular I was disappointed by his handling of the Saruman sub-plot and when the undead army appeared (the whole point in the book was the suspense of the pirate fleet landing... the movie tells you in advance that the pirate fleet is friendly).  One big plus of the extended DVD:  they've extended the scene of Peter Jackson getting stuck through the chest with one of Legolas's arrows... it's a cathartic (but as far as directors screwing stuff up goes, I still think George Lucas is more evil).  

Ice Cube... and... A Ditty.

Do you ever install a new piece of software and find that it breaks something else?  This person had the same problem. :D

Icon Story

Paula Little, you've just finished your first semester of graduate school... what are you going to do now?

Imagine a lens for your camera phone that is very small and has no moving parts yet is still able to focus and zoom like the “huge” lens you already have.  French startup Varioptic has come up with a technology that makes zoom lens elements which have been shrunk down to a couple millimeters in size... but they say they'll go smaller.

The technology is very cool.  They sandwich a couple of liquids of similar density into their element and move the edges of the liquid “bubble” by applying electrostatic pressure.  The surface tension forces the shape to bulge, focusing the element.  Clever.

Now maybe that Dick Tracy watch can really have a video phone!

Get the whole picture on this story at the register.

Thanks Denise for the tip on this Jamba Juice coupon: http://jambajuice.com/menuguide/featuredproducts.html

Starting tomorrow (12/1) people on the west coast will be able to request a free credit report at http://www.annualcreditreport.com/.  This new service will eventually be available to the whole country but is starting with the western states first, allowing the bureaus to do a gradual roll out (can you say beta test?).

I'll likely be one of the early people who runs out and signs up for a credit report, using my personal information to shake the bugs out of the new system.  I'm sure everything will be just fine, what's the worst that could happen?

The first states are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.  For more information MSNBC ran a story on the subject a few days ago: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6576905/

You know they didn't put this page up recently, but the number of things to see in Iraq makes me sad that the human race is so screwed up.  One more place I'm likely to never see in my lifetime.

On the entertaining side, I do like Atlas Tours's tag line: “We are sincere”.  If we're rude and obnoxious, don't fret, you know we mean it.