Archive for the ‘Hong Kong’ Category

Skyline

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

So we just saw Skyline today. You know, this movie:

skylineposter

I think I would give this movie an F+, if there were such a grade, for the first 88 minutes out of the 92 minute length of this turd of a movie. 

I knew what I was getting into as soon as I saw Eric Balfour in the previews.  I knew it was going to be one of those Sci-Fi B movies that show up on the Syfy Channel in the middle of the day on Saturday. I’m sure Eric Balfour is a great guy, but I have never seen him outside of Syfy Channel’s more cheesy movies.

Crystal wanted to see a movie, and this was the only US movie showing here, in Hong Kong, that we haven’t seen yet. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part: 1 comes out December 16th and Megamind comes out on the most important day of the year, December 23rd (My Birthday). Yes, make a note of it.

I will say that although this movie gets an F+ it is definitely much better than the movies that form my personal trio of death. These movies are:

  1. In The Mix
  2. Ultraviolet
  3. The Little Black Book

While those three movies get an F-, Skyline, minutes 0 to 88, gets an F+. The movie suffered from six problems:

  1. Horrible storyline
  2. Stagnant plot (like NOTHING happened for the first 80 minutes)
  3. Horrible acting
  4. it had me thinking of a mash-up of Independence Day, Cloverfield, Kai from Lexx, and some mid 20th century brain snatchers movie.
    1. some have said they saw district 9 in it too, I didn’t.
  5. Zero big name actors
  6. should have been straight to DVD or a Syfy channel Saturday midday movie.

Now the first 88 minutes does have one thing going for it

  1. The special effects, with the exception of one brief part, were pretty bad ass

Yeah just one good thing about the movie. And the best special effects in the movie were all shown in the previews. But now to minutes  89 to 92.

As the pointless movie was coming to an end I started to wonder, what is going to happen here? Are the humans going to win? is some other alien force going to come and bring fiery judgment down upon the evil aliens’ heads? will the military try and nuke the crap out of them again? (Yes they nuked Los Angeles during the movie.)

No none of that. really that last 4 minutes of the movie totally changed it for me. It was sublime I didn’t really see it coming. I knew something was going to happen with the character but I couldn’t have imagined what they thought up. And then the stills right before the credits were pretty amazing. Truly, the last 4 minutes were amazing. But the rest of the movie is an ABSOLUTE turd.

Although, in my humble opinion, the last 4 minutes were pretty amazing, I think you should just watch it on Netflix. It’s going to be one of those movies that goes straight to online streaming. You won’t even have to wait for the DVD to get mailed to you.

The Nexus S hmm…..

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

The Nexus One is the first HTC phone I have ever owned and as far ass hardware is concerned it is by far the worst phone I have ever owned. Two weeks after I got my first phone the speaker broke and it had to be exchanged. In both of my Nexus One’s the touch screen was absolutely abysmal. But I stuck with it because I LOVED the software. And I still do love the software.

After reading that there would never be a Nexus 2 I thought all was lost and that I would be stuck with a crappy touch screen for another year. I really don’t like those user interfaces that cell phone manufacturers add on to the Android Experience. I just want the plain vanilla android. And after having to exchange my phone after two weeks I wasn’t about to void my warranty by rooting the phone to get the experience that I wanted. So I resigned myself to dealing with crappy HTC hardware. And after trying to get it exchanged for the touch screen, I now know I will NEVER buy an HTC cell phone again.

Then on November 16th, 5 days late, I found out about the Nexus S. The Nexus S is really the Nexus 2 with a mirrored 2 according to Eric Schmidt. When I heard about it I though “OMFG, FINALLY! I no longer have to feel all crappy about my phone!” Then it just keeps getting better! It’s going to have Gingerbread (Android 2.3), It will have NFC (Near Field Communication), it’s going to be coming out soon (more on the “soon” later), It will be sold at Brick and Mortar stores (Best Buy), and most importantly it is NOT going to be made by HTC! I was instantly in love.

nexus-s

I know that as soon as I get back from Hong Kong I am going to throw down 600 dollars and buy that phone and junk my Nexus One on Ebay. The Samsung Nexus S with the “pure google experience” is where it’s gonna be.

So in my excitement I sat down and watched the entire talk with Eric Schmidt at the Web 2.0 Summit and actually say the bad ass phone! But then came the downer. When Eric Schmidt said that Gingerbread will be coming out in the “next few weeks” I was very sad. This reminded me of the Froyo debacle from earlier this year. Google said Froyo would be coming out in a few weeks, or soon, or when it is ready, and it took months after that announcement.

 schmidt_nexus_sNexusS

Then I started hearing about hardware issues, and dual core optimized software. Supposedly at the last minute they decided to add a dual core processor to the device but the software is not optimized for dual core. For these reasons they delayed the November 16th release date. But in any case I hope that this phone comes out in time for the Christmas holidays. But with Google’s track record, I am starting to think that it won’t.

I really want the Nexus line of phones to continue because I enjoy the pure Google experience with tethering, no crappy UI’s, no AT&T telling me I can’t install outside applications, the ability to travel outside of the US and use my phone without having to figure out Black Snow and Cydia, and no Man with his foot on my neck! So please, please, please, do this right Google and Samsung. Please get the holiday sales so that this Nexus phone will be both a success both financially and in  terms of getting android out there to the public. I know that people like me will buy the phone no matter when it comes out because that’s how we do things. We are Android fan boys and girls haha. But you have to get the normal people on the bandwagon too!

Whenever the Nexus S does come out I will be buying it if I am in the US at the time. I won’t be back from Hong Kong until December 31st!

For all those people who think that “Samsung sucks and they shouldn’t have been chosen to make the phone and HTC makes good quality phones” you obviously haven’t suffered with the Nexus One’s abysmal touchscreen. the touch screen issue on the Nexus One is well documented and all over the internets. And HTC has done what? Zip, Zilch, Nada. In fact they make a big deal about how impossible it is to exchange the phone when you call them about problems. Then when they finally transfer you to the warranty exchange department, the warranty exchange department transfers you back to the tech support as soon as they find out you have a Nexus One. So yeah I am EAGER to get off of HTC.

Even if 99% of your products are great, how you handle that last 1% says volumes about your company. And those volumes about HTC are full of bad tech support and not taking care of their customers.

So anyways, that’s all folks I’ll write something else later!

RED VINES!!!!! (In Asia)

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010

redvines  

So if you read my blog last year when I was in Taiwan I made a big deal about the apparent lack of red vines in Asia. In fact I made such a big deal that if you search “Red Vines Taipei” in Google this website will be the first thing on the list. Well, as you can see from the picture above I have FINALLY found my Red Vines in Asia. Also here in Hong Kong you can get Red Bull which was also unavailable in Taiwan but that is less important. But anyways, The Red Vines were in this place called CitySuper in the bottom of the Times Square plaza at the Causeway bay station. Oh that reminds me, we landed in Hong Kong like 2 days ago, I will write an entry about it later, but first things first!

So Crystal and I were STARVING but I didn’t want to go to a real restaurant because I am cheap like that so we were walking around and stumbled onto Times Square which is this gargantuan mall that is literally a five minute walk from where we are staying. After going into the food court and eating Crystal noticed the supermarket in the CitySuper place. This place was one of those posh supermarkets with that whole foods feel that I avoid like the plague. But Crystal loves that stuff so I was forced to go in. As we were leaving Crystal stopped and pointed out the Red Vines. I INSTANTLY snatched them up and bought them. As I was thinking about the situation I found that this situation illustrates why we are perfect for each other, we generally complement each other very nicely. My natural attraction to dirt cheap food had combined with her attraction to posh “whole-food-esque” establishments ending in the relief of my greatest concern about food in Asia. It is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

But yeah, I was SO amazed to find the Red Vines in Asia, it was so unexpected. If you are in Hong Kong craving for some Red Vines go to Times Square, and you shall be rewarded. I am now so in love with Hong Kong. I have been saved from another Red Vines less Asia trip. And also it is much easier to adapt to Hong Kong than the other Asian cities I have been to. But more on that later…