Movies

We don't get to the theatre much these days, so instead we just rent them, or download them off Xbox Live. The latter was the case over the last week or so.

He's Just Not that into You was much better than I expected. The wife suggested we watch it and I was doubtful. I was wrong, there I said it. The stories were short, funny and sadly true to life.

Yes Man makes me happy. It makes me happy because it was Jim Carry being Jim Carry and that takes me back to the day (which was a Wednesday btw). He is hilarious. I just wish I could get the image of the Grandma scene out of my head.

Zach and Miri make a Porno is general Kevin Smith material minus Jay and Silent Bob, which was odd. The movies was funny enough and did provide some great new one liners to repeat over and over. Everything is funnier when it's repeated over several times; fact.

The Road

I have to admit, the only reason I ever heard about The Road by Cormac McCarthy is because I saw the trailer for the movies version on Apple. The Road was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. This is not usually the kind of book I go for, but the trailer and other reading I did after seeing the trailer, peeked my interest enough to pick it up. I'm glad I did.

I don't want to say to much because if you haven't read it, you should and I have no intentions of spoiling it. It is a beautiful work of fiction about a post-apocalyptic America. The main character is moving with his son south, hopefully to warmer weather. Along the way they encounter other people who don't have as noble goals as they do. I don't want to hype it more than necessary, but I was very emotional when I finished the book, and I don't usually get emotional about books or movies. This book really showed me what good writing and story telling is and now I can only look at my own writing and feel disappointed.

If you have read this book, or read this book because I have suggested it, please comment your thoughts below.

Habitat for Humanity

In the deathly heat on Friday, I went down to Huntington, West Virginia to help with Habitat for Humanity. My company, along with several other regional business sponsors a house in the Huntington area and I volunteered to leave the office for a day and help with the build. The email asking for volunteers made it sound like the house was almost done, and only needed some general things like paint, door and other odds and ends. I guess they changed houses on us because the house we got to didn't have a roof.

The overcast clouds gave some shield against the sun during the morning. After a few minutes of organizing, the main builder climbed a latter and put down a few slabs of plywood on top of the rafters. When two pieces were nailed down, he asked if anyone wanted to work on the roof. I'm afraid of heights, but apparently not as much as I thought because I was the first volunteer up. He showed us what to do, and we started making a roof. He soon went to another project and we finished half the roof before lunch break.

We only ended up working for about an hour after lunch. The temperature spiked over 90 and the humidity climbed to 85% or so and they called off the rest of the build for the day. Even though we only finished half the roof, it was great to work all day and feel like you accomplished something. So many times at my work, there are no tangible results to my work. I just do the same thing every day and then go home. The work I did Friday was going to an end, and was helping someone get a home to live in. I also learned that the people who get those houses have to finish a certain number of hours with Habitat to get a house at all. If you haven't helped with Habitat before, you should. There is nothing like manual labor to make you thankful for your air-conditioned office and it feels good to help people.

A long Week

It was a long week, here's a video...

Here's another and it's really awesome!

Swords and Soldiers

So let this blow your mind. Swords and Soldiers is a 2d side-scrolling real time strategy game; whew! There aren't too many entries in the 2d Side-scrolling RTS world, okay this is the only game I can think of. The game is developed by the Dutch game maker Ronimo Games. It was released in Europe in May and finally came to the US on Monday. The game is exclusively for download via WiiWare.

So how do you play a 2d RTS? Well just like a normal RTS you mine resources, create armies and march them toward your foe. This game is a very simplified version of that mechanic. When you create a gold miner, it goes and mines gold, you don't have to micro manage it. When you create a soldier it marches toward the other side and tries to kill anything in its way. If you're looking for the complexity of Star Craft, this is not your RTS. That said, if you love RTS's you have to try this game, and for 10$ how can you not? If you haven't played an RTS before, this is a great way to try out the genre and see what it's all about.

The art style in the game is cartoony and hilarious; not to mention beautiful. The main camping has a story, but it doesn't really matter. I will say the text between the characters is worth reading for it's odd innuendoes about meat, among other things. The sound is solid and really brings the audio visual package together. Add in a Challenge mode after you finish the campaign and a simple yet fun split screen multiplayer mode and you have a very deep, lasting game for only 10$ and what ever the extra cost of batteries is, because the Wiimote eats them like crazy.