Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

Several years ago I worked for a guy who was what I considered to be at the top of his game professionally and technically. He was busy, taking important meetings, doing technical and sales work. He had a cell phone, a pager, a laptop -- which at that time was pretty technically ahead of the curve.

One day as we were driving to a pre-sales technical meeting he told me something I'll never forget. He asked me, "do you want to know the first thing I'm going to do if we make it big with this company?" I said that I was interested. He said, "I'm going to throw away my phone, my pager and my laptop and I'm going to avoid technology for the rest of my life."

I thought that was rather odd considering the field and business we were in. He continued to explain that he thinks that we've all become too connected. We have so little actual personal time because we can take and make calls anytime from anywhere. We're never more than a phone call or a page or an email away. This, he said, can be a good thing because it can help us to stay safe and keep us in touch with our families and friends. He pointed out that the unfortunate downside is that our vendors and our clients and our bosses and our co-workers have all increased their expectations of our availability. And we've been trained to think that if we turn off our phone, our client will switch to another vendor because that vendor is more available than we.

After a week like this one, I tend to agree with my old friend. This week my server has been completely bogged down and unstable. I haven't been able to have any fun blogging because I've been fighting the technology and since my server is used for other business ventures, I can't just let it die. Ug.

So, when I hit it big, you can be pretty sure I'm at least going to offload the management of all this stuff. More likely I'll be like my old friend and get rid of as much of it as possible.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It seems that today's theme is fruit. I didn't mean for that to happen, but that's just what has happened. Do you remember my story about the balloon? Well, something about my fruit entry and reminded me of a repressed memory from my childhood.

When I was in fourth grade, I had just moved to a new school. I hadn't made any friends yet, so I was sitting by myself in the cafeteria one day eating lunch. With my ever-present need for self entertainment I was eyeing my canned peaches, trying to find some new way to eat them that I hadn't tried before. I had cut them in pieces, mashed them, mixed them with other foods, etc. already and I needed something new ... something bold.

In a rush of bad judgement, I decided to try to eat the half peaches in a single bite. I hadn't yet realized that the peaches were, in fact, the same size as the interior of my mouth until I had scooped one in. Instantly my body's self-preservation system kicked into action when I realized that I could neither swallow, nor chew, nor eject the peach because of its size and placement at the roof of my ten-year-old mouth.

In my panic, I tried grabbing the peach, but that only pushed it back against my throat, igniting my gag reflex. I tried to push it with my tongue, but had no success. At the moment that I felt I was going to have to stand up and indicate that I was choking, I knocked my utensils on the floor. As I bent over to grab them, the peach was pushed up by the air in my lungs, slid out of my mouth and landed beside my spoon on the floor. At that point, I decided to cut my losses. I simply left everything where it was and sneaked outside for recess to find a renewed joy in my life.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I was talking about this with a co-worker yesterday. It's the general problem with fruit. I think it's safe to say that people like fruit. Really, who doesn't like a sweet fresh orange or a crisp red apple?

The problem is that fruit is fundamentally difficult to use. Yes, I'm lazy, but really, who wants to peel and orange, break it into segments and remove that weird white crud just to eat it? I'm the same with apples. I like them, but I hate working around the core. Same with pears. And don't even get me talking about pomegranates. The only fruit that's really easy to use is the banana. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of bananas.

So, what we need is a cool machine that would take fruit as the input and produce immediately edible fruit as the output. So, I toss in an orange and I get peeled and segmented orange pieces. I throw in a pineapple and it gives me evenly sliced pineapple rings with the core removed. I think it would be safe to say it wouldn't have to handle the lesser-known fruits like star fruit or the egg fruit. Maybe if you put in several different kinds of fruit you could get fruit salad out.

What do you think?

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Some new stills from the set of the next Harry Potter movie are available online here.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week we went out to eat at Red Robin. Mmm ... hamburger with guacamole, bacon, jalapenos and spicy jack cheese.

As we were leaving, my son asked if he could have a balloon, so I asked the hostess. Of course we can have a balloon. That's the whole point of balloons. However, my son wanted an uninflated balloon ... a raw balloon. Nope. Can't have it.

Try to explain that to a three-year-old boy. Actually try to explain that to me!?! I have to assume that some restaurant somewhere was sued by some moronic parent whose child choked on an uninflated balloon, or whose child lost a finger after wrapping the balloon around his finger so tightly that the blood couldn't circulate, or whose child lost an eye from stretching the balloon and letting it go like a rubber band only to have it slip and hit himself. You know - all the stuff you did as a kid.

Back when I was a kid, if I choked on something or got hurt by something, my mom would put a bandage on it and my dad would backhand me (metaphorically speaking) with a comment like, "that's what you get for ... [insert stupid kid decision here]". He didn't sue the school when my brother pried a thumbtack out of a toy and swallowed it. He didn't sue the Ginsu knife people when I cut most of my thumbnail off whittling hot dog sticks. We just learned not to do stupid things to avoid getting hurt: first getting hurt by the stupid thing and second getting hurt by the punishment for doing the stupid thing.

So, Red Robin doesn't give uninflated balloons, but they do give helium-inflated balloons. Isn't it possible that a kid could come up with some stupid idea to get hurt with that? I'm sure I could have.

It's a little sad to me that we have to be so aware of all the ways people might get hurt. I get it. I mean, I don't want my kids or their friends to get hurt, but I don't like that we're all so hyper-sensitive to it. I think it makes us all a little paranoid and a little less likely to let our kids have fun with their friends (especially when their friends are in our homes) because we're too worried about someone getting hurt.

If my mom had lived with that mentality, my friends and I would never have played superhero because that involved a lot of jumping from the back deck onto the grass. Oh, and bike jumping across the open trench in my friend's backyard would have definitely been out of the question.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Looking for something to read?

I highly recommend Brad Thor's Path of the Assassin. This is the second book in a series about secret service agent Scott Harvath. The first in the series was called The Lions of Lucerne. These books are something like a cross between Dan Brown's writing and the Bourne series of movies. They're fast-paced thrillers set in fantastic International venues.

I enjoyed The Lions of Lucernce, but I liked Path of the Assassin even better. Within just a few pages I found myself drawn into the story in such a way that I was unable to put the book down. And with the short-chapter format, I found myself constantly saying "just one more chapter". I read it three sittings in two days.

If you haven't read Brad Thor yet, I highly recommend his writing. You're getting into a series, though, just so you know. There are already five books in the series, if I'm reading Amazon.com correctly.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My dad used to say to me, "Son, if your head wasn't attached to your body, you'd leave it behind."

For some reason, that's how I'm feeling today. I know it's still early on a Monday morning, but I can't seem to get anything working. And it's not like there's any good reason for it. I had a great weekend, a good night's sleep. I haven't been sick. I'm not taking any medications and I haven't recently developed any super powers (that I know of). It's just one of those days...

Anybody out there have any insight?

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I love technology, but not as much as you, you see. But I still love technology. Always and forever. Always and forever...

It's amazing to me what a hack like myself can do with ninety minutes, an Internet connection and a bit of Javascript and PHP. Stuff like geo-coded mapping would have been painful at best even five years ago. Now I can just go to Google, get a mapping API key and start coding up useful and cool things.

If you haven't guessed, I added a map view for GlobeTrackr today. Maps are so much better for visualization than lists. You can really see how your traffic looks when you have a map.

Enjoy.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The Greatest Game Ever Played is probably the best golf movie ever made. I remember noting this movie when I saw trailers for it on the Disney Channel, but we didn't make it to the theater for this one. What I remember is thinking that I liked Shia LaBeouf in Holes so I'd probably like him in this movie. I was right.

The Greatest Game Ever Played is a great, inspiring family movie about a young amateur golfer who makes it to the US Open at a time when lower-class people were not generally accepted as players of the gentleman's game. While the movie centers around the game of golf, the actual golf scenes are not excruciating to watch (like the fly fishing scenes in A River Runs Through It).

The kids enjoyed this movie as much as we did, so it's definitely a great family film. I highly recommend putting it in your Netflix.com queue. 2.0π.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 05:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I suppose for most of my northern hemisphere readers, this time of year is a transition to less desirable weather, but I have to say, I love this time of year. Our summer is over, our monsoons have ended. It's beautiful.

From now until the end of May, we'll be enjoying the outdoors again. I've just reduced the watering time for my plants and lawn, but we'll just be starting our fun yard work in the next couple of weeks. We need to take out some grass, plant a garden and get some additional trees planted in the back yard. The kids are playing outside, so the bikes and scooters are finally getting some use again.

Oh, and now we can finally open the windows and let some air in the house! What a great time of year!

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've just updated GlobeTrackr with its first display option. If you already have a GlobeTrackr account, just log in and get the new code. I'll be updating the site again tomorrow so that you can tweak the settings of the display.

Also, I've added some aggregate reports. You can find out things like: what are the most popular sites in Canada or Germany. I'll be adding regions (states for the US, provinces for Canada) soon.

Enjoy!

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a good one: slimming photos with HP digital cameras. It's a feature that allows you to "slim down" the subject of your photograph so they don't look so fat.

Well, I'm not sure what the range on that thing is, but I'm not convinced it's going to work for all people, myself included. What they need is a targeted slimming feature that will reduce the gut (or tummy) bulges, erase double chins automagically and remove any cellulite. Then they'll have a product.

A camera that could make you look younger would hold some appeal for a lot of people I think.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in March, I released a web site tracking service I called GeoTrackr. Some time later, I had to pull the project because of a change in the data licensing.

Well, after discussing the matter with the data provider and changing the service to make it compliant with their terms of service, I'm happy to announce that GlobeTrackr is now online. I changed the name because I couldn't get the geotrackr.com domain name and I updated the service for more flexibility.

Right now, GlobeTrackr is not complete. You can't add the on-site reporting like I have on this site, but that is coming very soon. For now, you can get the tracking code and put it on your site ... and you can check your traffic information back at the GlobeTrackr site. Coming soon, you will be able to add on-site traffic reporting, view maps of recent traffic and see how your site stacks up against other sites in the GlobeTrackr network.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I reviewed the book Eragon back in February.

If you are a fan, you will be happy to know that the trailer for the upcoming Eragon movie is online now. The trailer looks great.

It looks like there might actually be something to watch in the theater this winter!

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Tuesday, Steve Jobs announced the iTV (due out in 2007) that will provide the link between your computer, iPod and television.

Quite a while back I discussed the video iPod and why I didn't think it was a great idea. Since then, I've actually watched two episodes of The Office on a video iPod and I've broadened my thinking quite a bit.

While it still isn't generally compelling to me to watch TV on a tiny screen, I can see times when that would actually work quite well. On a long flight, for example, it would be preferable over a laptop because it's easier to set up and use and the battery life is much better. But the important concept that I missed earlier is not in the actual form factor of the viewing device, but in the idea itself.

The idea is that I have a large collection of audio and video media in digital format now. I have all the music on my current iPod. I have downloaded several full-length trailers of movies that I enjoy watching from time to time. I have access to Google Video, YouTube and all of the downloadable TV and movie content on iTunes. I really could have a large electronic video library in addition to my large electronic audio library in a very short time.

The iTV is a small device that connects to my TV and wirelessly accesses the digital library on my computers so that I can watch it like I normally watch movies and TV -- on my TV. I'm a little slow I know, but now I get it and this is going to be cool.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 04:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

XXX - State of the Union is a movie that you can avoid. If you saw and liked the first one, but you haven't seen this one, don't lose any more sleep. XXX - State of the Union is entirely forgettable.

I liked the first XXX movie with Vin Diesel well enough. It wasn't a spectacular movie, but it did what it did. The sequel was just another movie in the category. For whatever reason, Vin Diesel didn't return for the sequel, so the writers made "XXX" into a title rather than a name -- so if they get funding for another sequel but can't get Ice Cube back for the role, they can still have a franchise.

XXX - State of the Union wasn't particularly bad. It just wasn't very good, either. So if you have anything else you'd rather do (including renewing your driver's license at the Motor Vehicle Department), you should probably choose the other thing. If, however, you've already done everything else in your life and have two completely unallocated hours to fill and don't mind filling them with mind-numbing action and horrible cliché-filled dialog, then XXX - State of the Union might just meet your needs. 0.5π.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been a PC user since I was sixteen years old. Really.

I started programming in about 1981 or 1982 with an Apple //e. It had 64K of RAM, one floppy disk drive and a green monitor. Well, the monitor itself wasn't green, the only color it displayed (for everything) was green. I taught myself AppleBasic, the quintessential programming language of the time (since it basically ran in the shell of the Apple //e with no other software requirements).

I upgraded that Apple //e two 128K RAM and two floppy drives before I switched to a PC in 1986. My dad let me have an old office computer then. It had a color (VGA) monitor, a floppy drive and a 20MB hard drive. I bought a copy of QuickBasic and learned to program (sort of) on the PC. Somewhere in that time, I saw the Macintosh computer. It was cool, no doubt, but I was a programmer and the Macintosh didn't appear to have any real programmer tools, so I stuck with the PC.

In college I wrote software on Unix, VMS, SGI machines and on my trusty PC. Not once did I touch a Mac.

Today, the landscape looks so different that I'm feeling a turning point approaching. What I do today is so different than what I did even a few years ago, that the things that used to make me a PC user are no longer a real issue. Outside of my day job, I use my computer for the following things: email, blogging, Internet browsing, writing, and Web development. I occasionally do some photo touch-up and graphics things, but that's very limited.

Email, blogging and browsing are all done inside of a web browser now. I use MS Word for my writing and I use a shell program called Putty along with a server-side editor called vi for my web development. None of these activities requires a PC. I could use a Macintosh for everything I do now. At this moment, I can't think of a single program that I use (outside of my day job) that requires a PC anymore. That's amazing to me. It wasn't long ago that I would have given up a lot of little utilities and tools to switch to the Mac.

Not today. My only reservation right now is the interface. I just don't know it, but I suspect it wouldn't take long. I don't know if you've been reconsidering Apple, but I'd be interested in your insights. I'm not interested in a religious war in the comments, I'm just interested in your general thoughts and whether you have a single application that you use daily that keeps you on your current computing platform.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I have a request for those of you who read my short story, Semper Nunc. Right now there are no reviews of Semper Nunc on Amazon. I would ask you to take a minute to write a review and be honest. Any reviews are better than none.

Thanks!

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I had never seen a single preview for The Illusionist before my wife and I walked into the theater last Saturday to watch it. I'm not a big Edward Norton fan, but I'm not sure why. I think unfortunately it's because I didn't like his character in the Italian Job. I am a fan of Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel though, so I was excited to see them in this.

The Illusionist is a movie that you probably don't want to take the kids to see. Not because there's anything patently offensive in the movie, but because it's geared toward a much more mature audience. It's set in the very early twentieth century in Vienna and it's a love story. It's not really a chick flick, though, so don't get scared off.

Edward Norton plays a magician in love with Jessica Biel's character. She's royalty, he's not. She's engaged to a prince, he's just returned to Vienna to steal her away. Using his magic tricks and his cunning, he sets up an elaborate plan to steal away his love and escape in such a way that they will not be pursued. Paul Giamatti plays the role of the police chief in charge of discrediting the magician under the direction of the prince. When the plan goes awry, the real intrigue of the illusion begins.

I really enjoyed The Illusionist. It's a perfect date movie. 1.5π.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If I didn't convince you earlier to open an ING Direct savings account (post 1, post 2), here's another reason: they've just increased their savings interest rate again.

The rate for their regular savings account is now 4.40%. This is the third rate increase since I've been a member. What are you waiting for?

Sign up at ING Direct today!

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Another release of the Star Wars movies arrived today. Today we can get the original theatrical release of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi on DVD. "What?" you ask, "Aren't they already available on DVD?" Actually, the DVD release of those movies was the updated versions of each movie with all the added gizmos and gadgets. This DVD release contains the movies as they were originally seen on screen in the 70s and 80s. If I get these (which I probably will), I'll have three sets of the original Star Wars trilogy at home.

In completely unrelated news, Linkin Park is finally available on iTunes. I don't really know why it took so long, but I've been checking iTunes for over a year. Last week I checked again and there they were. I know you've been waiting for this day, too. Rush over to iTunes and pick up your favorite Linkin Park tracks today.

My last random note of the day is about New Balance socks. You've probably heard of the brand New Balance as related to shoes. Well, I recently picked up some New Balance socks that claim to have built-in arch support. Well, I don't know about arch support, but I love these socks. They're the only socks that I've ever owned that are notable.

Okay, so you've just finished reading this entry and you're wondering why in the world you just read this entry. I can't explain it, either, but thanks.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Five years ago, in May, I visited the World Trade Center for the first time. I didn't know that it would also be the last time. Last summer I went back and visited ground zero. Next summer I plan to visit the site again.

Today my mom is flying to Washington, D.C. Remembering the tragedy of five years ago and knowing that my mom is flying today I can't help but think how resilient we really are.

I'm proud to be a citizen of the United States, but I'm not just talking about the resilience of Americans. I'm talking about the resilience of humanity. There have been tragedies of all types throughout the world and throughout history, but I still find humanity at large to be positive, friendly and caring. I've seen it personally in Mexico, in Great Britain and most notably in my two years in South Africa.

There really is a lot of love out there. If you don't see it, you probably need to get out more.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What do you do if you need to serve lemonade to 700 people every night? Pipe it in.

This is a picture my brother took back in August when our family went to the "Bar J" Chuckwagon in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Their lemonade is not good. The don't even pretend like it's going to be good. But their lemonade dispersal system is pretty cool.

The hose itself runs up a nearby post into an unknown vat of infinite lemonade (at least that's how I envision it). I'm not sure, but I'll bet the lemonade dispersal system could be used for your beverage of choice. I also imagine that if needed, the lemonade dispersal system could be used for crowd control in extreme circumstances.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Assuming Babelfish got it right, the title asks the question: "Do you speak Chinese? (您講中文嗎?)"

Seriously, I'm looking for some help from a native Chinese speaker on a short story that I'm writing. I'd like to have an email or instant message conversation with a native Chinese speaker who is also fluent in English.

Do you know anyone?

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Laura asked for my recommendation of a good spam filter. Well, that's a complicated question these days. It depends on how you get your email. If you have an online account, Google Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail or whatever, then you basically get what you get. I personally think Google's spam filter is pretty good.

If you use a program on your computer (Outlook, Outlook Express or something similar), then you have some more options. My favorite spam filter is called K9. It's pretty techie, so you'll need to follow the instructions (I can't help you with it), but it works great. It's a Bayesian spam filter, so it learns what you consider to be spam over time.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Bill just commented on my last article:

I just wanted to add a link to my module for the wiki's you mentioned if I could. It's located at http://blewett.googlepages.com/home22 and allows you to search any of the wikimedia wiki's (wikipedia, wiktionary, wikiquote, etc)

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A while back, I did a series on web sites I couldn't live without. One site that I use more and more that I failed to mention is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is fantastic. It's an online encyclopedia that has (right now) 1,368,541 English-language articles.

The amazing thing about Wikipedia is that it's a community-created encyclopedia. This means that anyone can add, edit and maintain the individual articles. This naturally leads to some pranks and graffiti from time to time, but overall this is the most comprehensive and up-to-date encyclopedia ever. I have personally added an entry and edited a few of them.

For me, Wikipedia is the first place I go now to find topical information. If Wikipedia weren't cool enough, there are several other wikis that I'm starting to use more often. Wiktionary is an online dictionary and Wikibooks has online editable books and manuals.

Again, if that weren't cool enough, the software engine that runs Wikipedia is open source so you can build your own wiki. The source is available at mediawiki.org. Collaborative editing and maintenance is so powerful. You could use it to create a resource for your company, your church or other organization. As with all technologies, wikis are so powerful they can seem daunting at first, but it's definitely worth the effort to figure them out now if you think you could use them in the future.

If you'd like me to write more about wikis or answer some specific questions, let me know. I think wikis are the sliced bread of the Internet right now.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This is an old movie, but it's so cool. I bought this movie on DVD when our family took our summer vacation to Idaho in August. I needed some new movies for the kids to watch in the car, and I found this one in the sale bin at WalMart.

If you've never seen The Explorers, you need to see it. It's like The Flight of the Navigator or The Last Starfighter (which you should also see). It's a fun kids movie from the eighties that is just scifi enough and just silly enough to work. It's probably best for boys between 4 and 12 or so. My three-year-old son loves it.

The movie stars Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix when they were both fourteen years old. It's a space adventure from the mind of a kid and it's a lot of fun. It's an eighties movie, so beware ... even though it's rated PG, it shows the boys drinking beer. Gasp!

This is one of my favorite kid scifi movies from that era. It's pretty corny to watch now, but it's still a lot of fun. 1.75π.

Quick add to your Netflix.com queue:
   The Explorers
   The Flight of the Navigator
   The Last Starfighter

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 05:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Do you use Technorati? Are you a blogger? If you answered "yes" to both of the previous questions, you can benefit from my new online tool.

You see, I use Technorati tags in almost all of my blog posts. You can see them just below each post. You'll see the word Tags then a series of links to relevant tags in my entry. Basically what these are for is to help Technorati categorize my article. If my article is a movie review, then I'll put the tag "movie review" at the bottom so when people search for movie review blog entries on Technorati, they can find one of my exceptionally good movie reviews.

The thing that's been killing me lately is that I've been typing in (or cutting and pasting) the same general code over and over and over. I'm a programmer and so eventually I'll pass the threshold of where I get sick of performing the same repetetive tasks and I'll take the time to build a little program to do it. That happened for me today.

I built a little Technorati tag link generator that's free to use. Try it out. Make suggestions. Pass it along to your friends.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I took my 8-year-old daughter to see Material Girls on Labor Day. First off, I just have to say that I was blown away by the fact that the theater was packed. Three people stood at the side of the theater to watch because there were no more seats. There's something wrong with that.

Well, the movie makers know how to reach their target audience. Based on the previews, the actresses (Hilary and Haylie Duff) and the storyline, this movie was made to reach tween girls. It did. If you don't happen to be a girl between the ages of about 7 and 14, you probably won't like this movie. Otherwise this movie is perfect.

Material Girls is formulaic mass media. It wasn't particularly bad, it's just a movie for tween girls. Of all the tween girl movies I've watched (which unfortunately is a very large number), this is actually one of the better ones. It's nice, the story is about generally nice people and it's fairly entertaining. We'll end up owning this movie when it comes out on DVD which makes me wonder why this wasn't shot as a direct-to-DVD film anyway since all the people who will see it will probably own it.

So, if you're a tween girl (not my biggest demographic) or you have a tween daughter, plan on seeing this movie. There are a few chuckles and if you're like me, you'll just enjoy watching your daughter watch the movie. That's the best part. 1.5π.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You've probably seen the 1976 version of The Bad News Bears starring Walter Mathau. It's a movie about a washed-up ex-baseball player who begins coaching a team of misfit kids in a local league. The coach is an alcoholic bum with no interest in the kids until some turning point in the movie and then he turns his life around and begins coaching and the kids go on to do well.

1976 seems to be a better setting for this movie than 2006. In 1976 we rode in cars without seat belts and we were less politically correct. Watching the 1976 version just seemed to fit. I didn't love the 1976 version, but it worked on some level.

This version stars Billy Bob Thornton who is entirely capable of playing a real turd, so the casting was right, but there was something very painful about watching the 2006 version of the Bad News Bears. It's basically the same movie. I mean it's the same story, the same characters, the same events, the same crude humor and even the same lines in many cases. It was hard to watch this version and not think to myself how much has changed in the last 30 years.

I didn't like it. I didn't like the 1976 version that much either, so I'm not surprised. If you think mean, drunk, rude and crude are funny, you'll probably get a kick out of it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. 0.5π.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The proliferation of junk mail and junk email never ceases to amaze me. After the long weekend, I was amazed (as usual) to see that my primary email account has 1,176 messages in the junk folder. Additionally I received 632 junk comments on my blog this weekend.

I'm used to it now and fortunately there are good spam filters available to make sure that I don't have to actually look at my junk messages anymore, but it still amazes me that the problem is so prolific. The question I have is who actually reads and responds to this stuff? At home I immediately get rid of all the coupons, credit card offers and other solicitations that arrive in my physical mail box. I don't answer the phone if I don't know who's calling. I never look into my junk email folder and I don't approve junk comments on my blog.

Who does respond to this stuff? There must be someone out there who does or all of these things would just stop. Can anyone explain junk mail/email and telemarketing? Is the response rate still good (enough)? Is it getting better or worse? I'm curious.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently I wrote about a book and an experience that affected me probably more than any as it pertains to my writing. Barbara left a question that got me thinking about the books and writings that have influenced why I write, what I write and how I write it.

First off, I'm only talking about the books that have influenced my fiction. There are many, many books I've read that have influenced my life that I'm not talking about right now. Sure, those books will have made an impact on my personality which will impact my writing, but I'm not even going to try to cover all of that here.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein was the first real scifi book I read. I've read it again since then and I loved it the second time, also. It's a book that has to be read because there's no way I could do it justice here.

Another writer that I loved when I was young was Piers Anthony. I read six of the seven books in the The Incarnations of Immortality Series. It's a strange series of fantasy books based partially on Greek mythology. I read these books between the age of about 16 and 21. When I was younger, they really worked for me. I read the sixth book at 21 and just didn't like it. I had changed. They didn't work for me any more, so I never read the seventh book.

I definitely went through a huge Stephen King phase. I must have read a dozen of his books. The only two that stand out for me are It and The Tommyknockers. Those two books scared the bejeebies out of me when I read them.

These days I'm a big fan of Dan Brown, Brian Haig and Brad Thor. I tend to read more action/suspense than scifi/fantasy now. The reason for that is long, complex and another story all of its own, but I'm still a fan of the Harry Potter series, and I've already written about my love for a new book called Fablehaven.

Other memorable books for me are Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

I'm curious to know what your favorite books are and why.

Posted by Blake Schwendiman at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)