For the Love of Geeks

Philly municipal Wi-fi on again after being off again. Toshiba steps up and promotes its R500 laptop. Bumper stickers on your car could indicate you are unbalanced. Microsoft having various issues in Europe. Jon Shirley leaves MSFT board. Google Apps suffer outages. Good news for people pushing cloud computing. Firefox wants 5 million downloads. It’s a publicity stunt all the way. Samsung suing TV makers. Amsterdam to run mobile WiMAX. How did they get into the act?

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Apple unveiled the all-glass facade of its last high profile retail store in Sydney Australia, allowing a passersby to snap photos of the iPhone maker’s first Australian outlet before a black curtain was almost immediately raised to block interior views.

The three-story shop at 367 George Street will hold its grand opening on Thursday, June 19 between 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. local time. It will be the first of at least three stores destined for the continent, including one in Sydney’s Chatswood suburb and another in Melbourne, both of which are expected to open by the holidays.

The Apple Store Sydney | Photo copyright flickr user [ Carlfish ], under this [ license ].

Well, Mozilla has been DoS’d by themselves.

As you know, today is the day that Mozilla wanted to set the world record for downloads of Firefox 3.  Too bad that 30 seconds into the process, all there sites went bye bye.

Awesome .. simply awesome.   It amazes me that you would go the lengths that they have gone too to spread the word about download day, and not make dang sure that the site would be available for all to see.

So, even though this geek pledged to be apart of it, I will have to wait.  Hopefully the site will be back up and running at some point in the next 24 hours so that I can download my copy and be apart of history.

Back in 2003 when the trailers for [ "Hulk" ] were being shown in the theaters, I would gleefully clap and was so excited to see the movie, and so the disappointment that was Ang Lee’s attempt to destroy my childhood was that much harder to take.  From that perspective I want to thank everyone involved in doing [ "The Incredible Hulk" ] for restoring my faith in movie making and telling the greatest Hulk story ever…

This movie creates a great blend of the original TV series from the 70’s and the comic book origin, so that no matter what your knowledge is of the Hulk character, there’s something that everyone will be able to grab onto for the movie.

First off, the cast is amazing.  [ Ed Norton ] as Bruce Banner is sheer genius, and I thought he did an amazing job. [ William Hurt ] as General Ross was great.  I know a lot of people do not like William Hurt, but I love his style of acting, and I always love seeing him in a movie. I am torn about [ Liv Tyler ].  I really hated her after Lord of the Rings, but it wasn’t her fault that her character was poorly adapted and given too much of a role in the movie, and after [ The Strangers ], I started liking her again.  I wasn’t thrilled with her, but when the overall movie can make me forget the fact that I don’t like a specific actor, and truly appreciate the total entertainment experience, it’s something to smile about.

The story is complex, intelligent, fast-paced,  yet easily taken in by non-geeks. Enough references to the true comic, alternate comic, and TV show, that everyone has something recognizable.  I loved the cameo with [ Lou Ferrigno ], and especially that they had him do the voice over work.  I would like to think that if he were still alive that [ Bill Bixby ] would have found a small role in the movie as well.  I also appreciated the [ Stan Lee ] appearance that is the mark of every Marvel movie.

The action in the movie was well spaced and kept the movie going, and the CGI was not overused and kept the Hulk “real” which was one of my major complaints about the 2003 version.  I loved the “personality” that the Hulk had and especially the struggle for control.  I also LOVED the addition of the Hulks “super powers” such as the Hulk Clap, and the Hulk Smash.

Lastly, the addition of Tony Stark at the end was fantastic.  I love that they are setting up the Avengers movie, and that Hulk will have his place there.

Overall, I will definitely spend the cash to see this in the theater a few more times, and it will join my DVD collection as soon as it is released.

After reading review after review of “The Happening” and seeing how many people just absolutely hate this movie, I went into it knowing full well that this movie would likely suck, and suck hard.

First, let me state for the record, that the top three characters in this story [ Mark Wahlberg ], [ Zooey Deschanel ], and [ John Leguizamo ], are great actors/actress, and would likely see any of them in any movie.

So, yeah, watching the movie that I thought was supposed to be tense, and scary and suspensful, I couldn’t help but laugh through the whole thing.  Some of the scenes were downright silly.

When we left the theater, my friends and I were just shocked at how bad the movie was, and a lot of our comments were similar to what was being said on the reviews, such as ridiculous concept, bad story, bad acting, overbearing music, etc etc …

So then today, it kept really bothering me.  I really really like M. Night’s movies, and I think he is a fantastic storyteller (I never saw Lady in the Water so that one does not count.. ;).  So I just thinking that maybe I was missing something about the movie.

So I went surfing around looking for an M. Night interview about the movie, so I could find out what he was thinking when he made this movie, and I found this from [ CNN ].

CNN: So a lot of people are going to see this and say, “Is this an environment movie?” Are you sending an Al Gore-like message out here, or is it just a thriller?

Shyamalan: No. 1, it’s a B movie. This is the best B movie you will ever see, that’s it. That’s what this is. If there’s other things that stick to your ribs as you walk out, that’s great, but it’s supposed to be, you know, zombies eating flesh.

CNN: So when you say B, you don’t mean honeybee?

Shyamalan: No, I meant like, you know, zombies and killer things running around.

OK!  So now it makes sense, and all of a sudden I am going back through the movie and I am thinking about all the elements that make a good “B” movie and it is all there, and I am kicking myself for not realizing it during the movie.

I think we have become so accustomed to a certain type of movie that takes the unrealistic and makes it real, especially with all the Marvel movies being made in such a way that we could almost expect to see Iron Man flying around outside the theater.  This movie is not supposed to be that way.  It is not supposed to be realistic, and the actors are supposed to be a little cheesy, and there is not supposed to be major character building and the movie and pace of the movie are supposed to be overbearing …

I will grant that if you are not a “B” movie fan, then this is not the movie for you.  If you are expecting “Signs” or “The Village”, then this is not the movie for you, but if you want to remember back to the great 50’s zombie style movies and just want to be entertained for 90 minutes, then this is a GREAT movie for that.

Also, stop angering the trees… they will be the end of us all….

Firefox Download day is something that has been going around the internets for a few weeks now, and the goal is to set the world record for the most downloads in a single day.

Check out the [ official site ] to see who and where has pledged to do thier part.

The official game kicks off at 10 AM PDT today … which is a little over an hour from now ..