So I sent off payments like I do around the beginning of the month. One was to the dialup ISP I use WebTV through. It's probably a good idea I've been making some moves to cancel our long-time use of WebTV even in spite of the recent upgrade in the email handling of spam. Anyway, I got a call last Monday, 9 days after my payment to the dialup ISP was sent. The nice lady explains that they haven't received it yet.
Great. Just flipping great. It'll cost me $15 to sent to Western Onion to find out if the thing was cashed or not. And the Post Office for some reason doesn't offer Delivery Confirmation for just regular envelopes. This is really stupid. You can send something Certified, but not the cheaper confirmation for a regular envelope?
I don't know when I'll get around to being able to trace that first attempt at paying the dialup ISP. Maybe in the next few weeks I'll get that access back and finally have WebTV cancelled once and for all. I'll miss using it and the access to Usenet newsgroups when so many other ISPs have cut it off for stupid reasons.
UPDATE:
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Super 8
It's rare for me to do a movie review on my blog, so don't let me break this tradition by much. I was intrigued by the trailers for Super 8. Speilberg's name was associated with it even though he didn't write or direct it. Was it good? I'd say it was "Meh" and tell you to wait until it comes out on home video formats and rent it. At least if you must, go to a cheap matinee showing.
I'm not so much reviewing the movie that I'm going to do here as an account of what I did to go through to see the movie. The Alliance Cinemark 5 has state of the art digital projection, but the sound system is severely underutilized. Admittedly, the movies do cost less than other theatres in the area, but there's no excuse for not using the 6 speakers on the walls that go along with the ones near the screen. If there's a bass unit, I don't know if it's on. Plus the volume from what speakers are being used is clearly not high enough. The impact the movie could have had was hampered by a less than satisfactory sound system. Also, I had to put up with some idiot high school student (presumably) and his date continually talking for the first 45 minutes of the movie. I mean who the hell goes to a movie and sits there bullcrapping about stuff that's not the movie? I hissed a terse "Please shut the hell up" at them and the volume of their inane banter did decrease. Go outside to talk; you go into a movie to see a movie, not talk.
The movie itself seems to be mis-named because I expected a suspense and intrigue flick surrounding a reel of Super 8 film shot by accident that some kids were using to shoot a little movie they were making. "Super 8" is what you'd call a Classic 1980s sci-fi flick, and it makes pain-staking effort to reinforce it's supposed to be set in the early 1980s, which is why the kids are using a Super 8 movie camera and not videocameras.
I expected an all out conspiracy fight for the film the kids shot, unknowingly, after a mysterious train accident. I'm not going to give away how this was possible, because it's one of the movie's great moments. However, the story never goes in that direction and the existence of the footage on the Super 8 film the kids shot becomes secondary. It's not the film I was expecting which I felt would have been a better story. It's as if they couldn't come up with a better name.
I'm not so much reviewing the movie that I'm going to do here as an account of what I did to go through to see the movie. The Alliance Cinemark 5 has state of the art digital projection, but the sound system is severely underutilized. Admittedly, the movies do cost less than other theatres in the area, but there's no excuse for not using the 6 speakers on the walls that go along with the ones near the screen. If there's a bass unit, I don't know if it's on. Plus the volume from what speakers are being used is clearly not high enough. The impact the movie could have had was hampered by a less than satisfactory sound system. Also, I had to put up with some idiot high school student (presumably) and his date continually talking for the first 45 minutes of the movie. I mean who the hell goes to a movie and sits there bullcrapping about stuff that's not the movie? I hissed a terse "Please shut the hell up" at them and the volume of their inane banter did decrease. Go outside to talk; you go into a movie to see a movie, not talk.
The movie itself seems to be mis-named because I expected a suspense and intrigue flick surrounding a reel of Super 8 film shot by accident that some kids were using to shoot a little movie they were making. "Super 8" is what you'd call a Classic 1980s sci-fi flick, and it makes pain-staking effort to reinforce it's supposed to be set in the early 1980s, which is why the kids are using a Super 8 movie camera and not videocameras.
I expected an all out conspiracy fight for the film the kids shot, unknowingly, after a mysterious train accident. I'm not going to give away how this was possible, because it's one of the movie's great moments. However, the story never goes in that direction and the existence of the footage on the Super 8 film the kids shot becomes secondary. It's not the film I was expecting which I felt would have been a better story. It's as if they couldn't come up with a better name.
