I did find time to watch a little TV this weekend. There was this great program about string theory on PBS called The Elegant Universe and based off of a book of the same name. String theory is the “theory of everything” in that it brings unification to two very opposing ideas, gravity and quantum mechanics. If there was ever a program called “string theory for dummies”, this would be it and it’s absolutely engaging. You can actually watch the entire program online before you buy the DVD which I plan to do.

Normally, I would love the weather we’re having here in SoCal. It’s very windy with a slight drizzle and suppose to turn into thunder storms and heavy showers later. Yup, normally I’d love it, but not this week. It’s just adding to the frustration at this point. This is easily the most stressful week I’ve had since the last time our server took a dump which was two years ago and it seems there is more to come.

So some things about this holiday weekend. Well, celebrated Christmas with the family over at grandma’s house, exchanged gifts, and ate way too much. My parents got me my motorcycle jacket. Go figure, now I have everything but the motorcycle. That’s coming next month for sure. I’m looking at the naked sport bikes (ie. Honda 599 or Suzuki SV650) and the lower end fairing sport bikes (ie Yamaha YZF600 or Honda F4i).

I was able to get my traffic school done online. It’s the first (and hopefully the last) time I’ve done the online thing with traffic school. Let me tell ya, it’s way better than the classes and you can cheat your ass off with it. The 4 hour course took me about 15 mins. Nice.

Anything happen with you this holiday weekend?

Another fun filled night at work. We’re gonna take a break tomorrow and pick it back up Sunday morning. I’m still gonna be here until midnight or so tonight. I guess I’ll track Santa and listen to A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack until then. Fun times.

When all of this stuff at work happened earlier in the week, I thought to myself that I’d have no problems sitting in here all weekend. It’s not like I’m gonna feel bad for missing the holiday weekend. Well I was wrong. I most definitely would like to be sitting at my parent’s place right now with my family than here in this dark, cold, and lonely office building. :(

Can you seriously believe how quickly the year has gone by? I mean it’s Christmas in another 2 days. That’s just ridiculous. I’m sure a lot of people have this holiday weekend planned already. Want to hear my plans? I’m going to be at work until midnight tonight. Tomorrow, I work from noon to midnight. Xmas Saturday I get a break. Then I get to work again Sunday from midnight to noon. Then I get to do that again for the next couple of days after that. Sounds like fun, right? We had a bit of an emergency this week and now a bud and myself get to spend the rest of the weekend and through next week restoring a server. Yup, I get to play the role of “dumb tape loader”. To tell ya the truth, I really don’t mind at all. I probably would have been doing nothing anyway. Now I have something to keep me occupied. I guess since I am here by myself for the next couple of days, I’m sure I’ll be posting a lot of early morning nonsense.

Here are very hard to come by leaked press photos of the 2006 Corvette Z06. It’s not scheduled for release for about another 20 days.ul>

The second trailer for Batman Begins is here! They’re playing in the theater and it’s going to appear on the main site tomorrow. Only one word came to mind after I saw it. Wow! This thing has potential to exceed every expectation of what a Batman movie should be. You can check it out early here, but the quality is pretty low. I am way too excited about this flick and I need that movie poster.

Anyone catch the War of the Worlds trailer yet? Doesn’t show much, but you can definitely bet on something special happening when you throw Steven Spielberg behind a project like this. I’m looking forward to it.

The trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was also released this weekend. Yes, I know it’s Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, but I’m having a hard time imagining how it’s going to be anywhere near as good as the 1971 classic. Should still be pretty fun.

I had some time to play around with MSN Spaces (Microsoft’s online consumer blogging tool) and I have to say, it’s pretty impressive considering how simple it’s intended to be. Obviously, they aren’t expecting to convert over people using tools like Moveable Type or Radio blogging tools. It’d definitely not going to get anyone away from the many online content management systems out there like PHPnuke, Mambo, or Drupal. I see Spaces as being an alternative for the people using things like LiveJournal or Blogger, and it’s a much better alternative if you ask me. I literally had my Spaces site up within seconds. If you’re using one of the cheap online based blogging tools, Spaces is definitely worth a look and it’s completely free (for now).

There is this great program on Discovery right now called Black Sky: The Race For Space. Separated into 2 parts, it follows Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne’s timeline from creation to winning the X Prize. It’s absolutely amazing and I might have to go pick up the DVD.

And what a glorious Best Buy Tuesday it is. Spider-Man 2 was a definite pickup today. You know how much I love this flick. I’m still holding to this being one of the best movies of the year, especially considering all of the crap that’s been released. You need to go pick this up if you haven’t already. Also picked up Hero. Didn’t get to see it in the theater, but I heard it was a great love story. Could use one of those right now. Should be good. Finally, I picked up Faster, a documentary on the 500cc MotoGP class championship narrated by Ewan McGregor. Haven’t seen it yet, but it’s suppose to have some amazing footage of these bikes doing what they do best. Check the trailer out here. That’s it for now.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted, right? It’s probably a mixture of reasons for it. Lots of personal stuff going on. Top that with I’m lazy and you a recipe for no posts. Where should I begin? I think I’ll keep away from the personal stuff for now since I’m still at work and let ya know about the movie I saw last night. Believe me, though. I have a lot of personal stuff to say, so look for an update soon.

So I’m driving to the theater and am thinking to myself, there’s no way Oliver Stone could make a bad movie, right? The reviews for Alexander have been pretty bad, but I mean, it’s Oliver freakin’ Stone. There’s no way it could be as bad as everyone is saying, right? Wrong. This is 3 hours of my life I will never be able to get back and I’m pissed about it. I would say about 95% of the flick is dialog heavy. Most of it is just long monologs with close-ups of the actor’s faces. Boring, boring, boring! The other 5% are the action sequences and they are mediocre at best. The battles that should be huge and breathtaking seem very confined and underwhelming. You can basically tell it’s 50 or so people on a stage with digital enhancements all over the place. Even with the laundry list of great movies on his resume, it’s obvious Stone is still not capable of directing such an epic story. Want to get into the acting real quick? Ok. Everyone was bad. Colin Farrell is much better than this. Val Kilmer is too. Angelina Jolie, what a joke. She has never fooled me. Hopefully everyone will see this and her last five flicks and finally understand how terrible of an actress she really is. Now, there were two shinning moments in Alexander that just couldn’t be missed and they both come courtesy of miss Rosario Dawson. No, I’m not talking about her acting and screen presence. Those get lumped in with everyone else’s. I’m talking about what I believe is her first nude scene ever and it’s spectacular. (BTW, anyone have pics?) Is it enough to save the flick? Absolutely not! Do yourself a favor and spend those 3 hours picking lint out of your belly button. Compared to viewing Alexander, it’s time very well spent.