Ramblings of the Day 3/12/09

- I think my neighbors live outside more than they do inside. It seems like every time I leave my apartment, they’re outside smoking. I would love to know how much they spend on cigarettes. They’re always there too. I’m curious as to what they actually do for work and how they pay their monthly rent. They’re nice people so don’t get me wrong. These are just odd things I have noticed.

If you haven’t seen this by now, then please watch. It’s the Jim Cramer vs. Jon Stewart interview from the Daily Show. If you’ve ever seen Jim Cramer’s show on CNBC, then you know he yells, throws stuff, and basically makes a spectacle out of giving “financial device”. It’s funny to watch Jon Stewart basically go “To Catch a Predator” on him. Stewart makes this loud mouth guy seem like one of those predators who is trying to come up with words quickly to get himself out of trouble. I’m not a big fan of either The Daily Show or Jon Stewart but this is pretty good.

I am kind of addicted to listening to this. It’s called “Freedom Writers” and it’s from the group “Two Steps from Hell”. The song is also in the new trailer for Star Trek. They basically make trailer music. You can’t buy it on cds or online. They only sell their stuff for commercial use and that sucks. Luckily, I found a place online that had quite a large collection of their material and I have been listening to it. While you don’t recognize most of their stuff, listening to it still makes you want to do something epic, lol.

This one is called “Down with the Enterprise”. It was featured in the first Star Trek trailer.

Ramblings of the Day 3/11/09

I watched “Dear Zachary” last night….. WOW. What an intense documentary. It’s really haunting. I don’t want to say too much about it other than that its a documentary that was meant to be a letter to the child of the best friend of the film maker. If you have netflix, PLEASE get the dvd or add it and watch it instantly on your computer or Xbox360.

Here’s the way I watch American Idol: I skip all of it until it gets down to the final 12 or in this case the final 13. For me, the auditions were funny the first two seasons, but then they just became stupid. Instead of having people that don’t think they stink but actually do stink try and audition, it’s become just a big circus. A circus full of people who just want to get on TV. Its ridiculous and I just don’t find it funny. If I do decide to watch one of the auditions, I watch it after its aired. That way, I can fast forward to the people who can actually sing. I usually skip the auditions and then all of the “Hollywood” weeks. To me, when it gets down to the final 12/13, you actually see people that might actually see in the future. We’ve never heard of 99% of the people who didn’t make it to the final 12. So who cares about those people?

My thoughts on tonight? I really have no opinion on Jasmine. There was nothing special about her and I don’t care that she’s gone. I am glad Jorge is gone. I thought most of the performances were bad the first night and he just didn’t impress me at all. He actually kind of creeped me out. Between him and that punk rocker guy Adam, they both creep me out. Adam has that really girly voice and he just reminds me of one of those emo “Hot Topic” kids you just want kick the crap out of. I do really hope he’s not the next David Archuleta, aka. the one all of the girls go crazy for.

I really don’t have a favorite yet. I was glad to see David Cook win last year as he was the one I rooted for during the season. I guess we’ll have to see a few more weeks for me to decide.

Chef Marco Pierre White hosts “The Chopping Block” on NBC. This guy is one of the most intimidating people I have ever seen. He’s the kind of guy that you would NEVER want to give bad news to. The show reminds me kind of like a mixture of The Apprentice and Top Chef, which I like.

The first episode was definitely entertaining. The premise is that eight couples compete to win their own restaurant. In the beginning, they were divided into two teams of four couples each. Each couple had a chef and a partner who regardless of their background, was a member of the wait staff. Each team had 24 hours to clean up and open a restaurant. They then opened and had a dinner service. Each restaurant was secret shopped by a professional food critic who then decided in the end which team won. Chef Marco then eliminated one couple from the losing team. The first episode did have a good twist at the end which was sad but interesting.

I really kind of wish deep down that Chef Marco was hosting The Apprentice instead of Donald Trump. He makes Donald Trump seem like your boss who is actually your buddy. Whereas, Chef Marco is that boss you don’t ever want to come in contact with because you know its gonna be bad. Anyways, I’m going to keep watching this one. BTW, I do think it’s funny that these chefs who host these cooking competition shows do nothing but say how horrible the food is 90% of the time. Is it really that bad? I doubt it. My dad is a professional chef and I could never imagine him being so negative like most of these chefs are.

South Park’s season premiere cracked me up. They made fun of Disney and The Jonas Brothers which was hilarious. If you get a chance to see a replay, try and watch it. The stuff they do with Mickey Mouse is great.

I have this thing where I can’t finish reading books. I buy a book that I think I’ll like, read a portion of it, and then just for some reason stop reading it. The only books I’ve read from beginning to end really in the last few years have been the Harry Potter books, The DaVinci Code, Twilight (yes, I read it), and The Last Lecture. That is not a lot of books. Even with this problem, I’ve kind of become interested in Amazon’s Kindle 2. I kind of want one. I think it would really help me get into reading more often. The problem is that I have a hard time ponying up $350 for a device that I can’t physically see a real life demo of. You would think that Amazon would have signed a deal with Best Buy or somewhere to at least have demos of the devices in their stores. Instead, Amazon set up a message board where you could go on and find people in your state that have one. Then you could go meet that person and see their Kindle if they so choose to show it to you. To me, thats tacky. I really don’t want to go meet someone I don’t know just to look at their $350 electronic book device.

I don’t understand some of the hate that people are having for “Watchmen”. It’s almost funny if you think about it. Whenever Hollywood reboots/remakes/reimagines something, the first thing we naturally do is compare it to the original source material. I can understand everyone doing the same thing for Watchmen. Its just funny that they have tried making a movie of this material for years and yet when they finally do and its by someone who loves the original material and it is about as faithful as you’re going to get for a movie, people still want to bitch. I just don’t understand it. If they had made it and it wasn’t as faithful as it is, people would have bitched. In my opinion, Zach Snyder did an amazing job taking a long graphic novel, cut it down to two and half hours, and keep a lot of the ideas the same. Every other version of this movie that they have tried to make up until now, has bastardized the comic SO much worse. Yet, Zach Snyder puts the page on the screen and its not good enough. Is it perfect? No. I had my nitpicks. Nothing ever is 100 percent perfect, but it was as close as anyone is going to get. I didn’t care for some of the music choices. I didn’t think it was necessary to have Dr. Manhattan be naked as many times as he was seen, but then again they were being faithful to the comic. I didn’t care for the bad old age makeup. But those things, are just nitpicks and they don’t take away from my overall feeling about the movie. I think the ending was better than the comic in my opinion. I think seeing a giant squid alien thing would have looked weird on screen. I think they went the right route and still conveyed the message of the comic. I just think some people are complaining just to complain. I’m really happy also that quite a few of the people that I thought wouldn’t like the movie, have actually loved it.

- It was nice to wake up this morning and have maintenance guys in my apartment fixing my AC. For the past week, my AC has been doing this weird thing where its comfortable during the day and then burning up at night. Shouldn’t have been the opposite?!

- I was finally going to watch “Australia” today but I’ve decided to wait and watch it on the plane to Cabo San Lucas. I didn’t realize that it would be a long flight and a three hour movie will help. Especially one I’ve never seen.

- I don’t understand this messed up weather here in Tennessee. Yesterday, you could have worn shorts and a t-shirt. Today, you need to wear warm clothes and a coat because they’re calling for possible sleet, ice, and snow tonight. WHAT THE HECK?!

Ramblings of the Day 3/10/09

-I need to make a conscious effort to try and blog a little more often. More posts, more readers.

-I am so glad to be off for 2 days. It hasn’t been incredibly busy at work, it’s just been having to be at work that tires me. I’ve had to work for the past 7 days and I’m just ready for a small break. Too bad I have things at home I NEED to take care of. On my days off though, I just end up wanting to do nothing at all. It’s so hard to force myself to get things done. I went on vacation last month and I told myself that I needed to clean out my apartment. What did I do all week? Pretty much nothing at all. I did go to the gym almost everyday but thats about it.

-I really want to try and lose 10 pounds before the end of the month. I think I can do it. I have lost over 55 pounds in the past year, so 10 pounds in completely doable. I just have to tell myself to keep drinking water, watch the calories, and force myself to hit the gym even on days I feel tired. Especially days when I have to work. I can do it. I’m currently at 184. I would like to get down to 174 or even 170 if I really work at it. I want to hit Cabo San Lucas and feel awesome.

-I’m not really looking forward to April and May at work. May is just going to be really busy every weekend. I honestly think May could end up being busier than the rest of the summer. April is going to suck just because ticket prices are going up again, which mean more upset customers and more needless things that my company is going to want us to do. I would love to know who makes the operational decisions for our company and I would love to see inside their heads. They come up with these “brilliant” ideas, but don’t put any thought into how they’ll affect the business as a whole. Some of their ideas are good, but when they want you to execute these ideas and then complain because you spent too much making their ideas come to fruition, its frustrating. Enough complaining about work. It just irritates me.

-I’m going to watch a couple of movies tonight. First, I’m going to watch “Dear Zachary” and then “Australia”. Most people that I have heard talk about “Dear Zachary” say it will tear you up on the inside. I’ll try and post about both movies after I see them.

- Have you seen the latest previews for…

Terminator Salvation? Very cool looking!

Star Trek? This movie looks EPIC. As a Star Trek fan growing up, I cannot WAIT to see this!

Wolverine? X-Men was good, X-2 was awesome, X-3 was turd on a dirty bathroom floor. I’m hoping Wolverine is awesome. Hugh Jackman is one of my favorite actors and he IS the best part of the X-Men movies.

Apparently I haven’t blogged in a while.

Apparently I haven’t blogged in a while.
Haven’t updated in a while. Just been busy I guess. Bloggin hasn’t been on the forefront of things to do.

It’s been an interesting last couple of months.

1. My sister is expecting and is due in July. The forecast is calling for girl but I’m still hoping that maybe the forecast will be wrong like it sometimes is and we’ll get a boy.

2. I got to see my friends Josh and Jesse a few weeks ago. They were in town from their whole “Peace Corp in Jamaica” thing. They weren’t here for a good reason but nonetheless it was still good to see them. Hopefully they’ll be back in the fall. They have been such great friends to me. I wish them well and I can’t wait to see them again!

3. If you haven’t joined twitter yet, do it! Follow me at “www.twitter.com/billyhammock” Twitter is pretty fun and addictive. You can add tweets via different phone apps on blackberries or iphones. If you don’t have a smart phone device, you can add tweets via text messages. It’s REALLY easy to setup. “BrightKite” is pretty cool too if you want to join that. It’s also like twitter. Go to brightkite.com to set it up.

4. I had a birthday. I still don’t feel like I’m getting older but apparently my age says I am. That sucks.

5. My car got hit in a hit and run. I can’t get the police to give me a report because they don’t do them anymore. Geico needs a police report to fix my car. I can’t give them that. Guess who isn’t getting their car fixed anytime soon? I hate the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department for screwing people over like that. I really appreciate it guys.

6. I’m tentatively scheduled to go Cabo San Lucas,Mexico with my dad at the end of the month. I’ve never had a reason to get a passport and now I do. Too bad it cost me $207 to get one expedited. Hopefully I get it in time. You pay to have it expedited and its still not guaranteed to get here.

7. Works ok. I guess. Nothing new really. Thats about it on that end.

8. I’ve kind of lost two friends. One got upset that he thought couldn’t bring his estranged family to a get together at a another friends house. Which was never really the case. He just doesn’t understand the whole “ask before you bring people over” thing. It’s not a big deal. It’s just common courtesy. Everyone else agreed. Of course we all got blamed for it. He’s still welcome to whatever we do. There was never any ill will intended.

My other friend publicly humiliated me at work in front of at least 6 people when we were having a stupid disagreement. At that point, I said to myself, “I’m done”. It was completely uncalled for. It sucks to throw away such a great friendship. I have given and tried so hard during it. But there was no reason to get yelled at the way I did. It was humiliating. And not just for me.

9. I joined a new gym. I kind of got tired of having to play the “find a machine” game at the Y. I also got tired of all the little kids and just the sheer busyness of it. So I joined Urban Active right next door. I get a cheaper rate thanks to work and its more grown up. I like the dark room that plays a new movie everyday on a projector screen while you work out. So far theres’ only been one movie that made me say, “I’m not going in there today…” The movie?? “Are We Done Yet?” Starring Ice Cube.

10. I got to go see AC/DC last month. It was pure awesomeness. Definitely my favorite rock band of all time.

11. I’ve decided not to go to Bonnaroo this year. There’s just not enough bands this year that peak my interest. There are lots of big name people that I’m sure will put on great shows, but it will probably be like Pearl Jam last year. I’ve heard of them, know a grand total of about 3 songs, and am bored for 80 percent of the show. I’m not a Springsteen fan and I’m definitely NOT a Phish fan. I don’t like jam bands. Period. Hopefully I’ll go back next year.

12. I haven’t bought any new dvds in a long time. Thats extremely weird for me. It’s not that I’ve grown out of buying movies. I guess there just hasn’t been anything out that I had to buy.

13. For the most part I’m really liking the current tv season….
Chuck- Please resolve the Chuck/Sarah storyline soon. I’m actually getting REALLY bored with the whole will they/won’t they thing. 3-4 seasons worked ok for Pam and Jim, but not Chuck and Sarah.

Heroes-This show is a trainwreck that we members of the so called “Geekdom” can’t look away from. Each season is a new direction. Its annoying. One week the show gets good. The next week, the show becomes stupid. It flip flops like this. It’s annoying. If they were smart, they would end all 20 different storylines and have them work together as a group like X-Men or something. I don’t care about the Bennetts anymore. I don’t care about Matt Parkman and his quest to find Daphne. I don’t care about the Petrellis except for Peter. I’m tired of Mohinder and his once a year predictable “I’m going to help the bad guys” plotline. I think the only storyline that I even really care about is Sylar. They know we’ll all keep watching but really, your show is stinking up the joint.

24- Jack Bauer is the man. I love that show

LOST- Awesome. Just great.

The Office and 30 Rock- Still the two funniest shows on tv.

Smallville- I like how they’re trying to comic book it up. As long as its on, I’ll keep watching it.

Grey’s Anatomy- Good. I’m ready for them to resolve the Izzie story for good. Overall, its a lot better than last year.

BSG-I’m really going to miss this show in a few weeks once it airs its series finale. I love that its a scifi show yet its more drama than it is sci-fi. People won’t watch because its considered sci-fi, yet when you can get someone to watch it, they realize that it’s so much more.

Fringe- Really great show in it’s first season. I’m really excited to see where it goes.

Thats about it for now. If I think of anything else, I’ll blog it.

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