Airline

Airline
A&E
Mondays - 10PM/9PM Central

Great reality show. I highly recommend it.

One cold, calculating motherfucker.

iPod mini - 4GB of storage - $249
iPod - 15GB of storage - $299
iLife - $49 (downloads of iPhoto and iMovie no longer offered)

It's about time that they put the hurt on users for iLife, and I'll happily shell out $49 for iPhoto's speed improvements (it's unbearably slow on a dual 1.42GHz G4 with nearly 2000 photos). GarageBand looks cool, but I'm not much of a musician... playing with loops in Soundtrack is fun, though. I'm still happy to get updates for all the other apps as I use them all. iMovie's currently exporting a video to VCD so I can send it to my Speed TV-less friend up North.

As for the iPod mini, interesting concept, but not quite what I was expecting. I thought it'd be more square-shaped than it really is. As a coworker of mine commented - iPod mini price drops could happen if Apple starts selling a lot of 15GB iPods (and subsequently stops selling 4GB iPod minis). Oh, and Phil Schiller (Apple's Sales/Marketing VP) mentioned that Apple hasn't ruled out the 2GB iPod mini. Interesting.

I'm still in love with my 1st generation (1G) iPod, but the announcement that Alpine would be coming out with a car unit with an iPod control interface might actually convince me to update to a 3G iPod (or use Nicole's 3G iPod in the car ;-).

El Gato's new EyeTV stuff looks cool. They added quite a lot of features in their newer models - MPEG-2, Digital Satellite support, and HDTV. Note that each feature comes in its own unit, but all use a Firewire interface. Unfortunately, there's not one über unit that supports it all. Still, it's better than MPEG-1 from the original USB EyeTV.

Hrm, what else... good on Ten Technology for coming out with a Bluetooth audio interface for the iPod. I'm curious as to how good it sounds. And Griffin's playing catchup now with Belkin as it released a voice recorder for the 3G iPods.

Paycheck

I don't usually review movies, but I feel I need to warn people away from this awful piece of crap. You've been warned. Keep reading for my feelings on this abomination.

First, I haven't read the Philip K. Dick story. I'm sure it was a lot better than the movie.

So anyway, Paycheck is John Woo's latest attempt at a blockbuster action flick. The concept is very interesting, but let's never let John Woo direct another flick that should've relied more on sci-fi rather than action. I really wanted to know more about the tech behind the story rather than watching cars explode.

Speaking of lame action effects, why do we put up with it? I mean, why can't Hollywood leave the lame-ass 1985 action movie effects in 1985? Really... cars do NOT just explode when they run into things. If I hit you really hard on the chest with a broomstick, I doubt you'll go flying 15 feet through the air. It'd take a lot of force to do that. Seriously.

Oh, and the movie's set in Seattle, but obviously filmed in Vancouver, B.C. For those that see the movie, let me clarify some things - Seattle does not have a subway system (Vancouver, B.C. does); Seattle police cars aren't nearly as futuristic looking as the ones in the movie (they did get the police uniform right, though); and 6th and Pine in Seattle is not an industrial area - it's downtown! Oh, and Seattle's downtown core is not as dense as Vancouver's.

So, if you want a decent John Woo action flick, go see M:I 2.

I wish I would've seen The Last Samurai instead.