Category Archives: reviews

Reviews / feedback / comments on books, movies, television, technology, food, etc. (These might be short snippets and not long reviews)

My Oregon Scientific Weather Station

Posted on July 14, 2006 | Leave a comment

I finally hooked up my Oregon Scientific Weather Station and I really like it. It’s got a remote sensor for outside and shows the humidity and temp for both inside and outside (or I guess you could put the sensor inside somewhere else in the house if you wanted). It shows the moon phase and sets itself via the atomic clock. The instructions read as if the atomic clock sends out a signal constantly (I thought it was a once a day thing). I know it took awhile (overnight) for mine to get the signal (and then I had to go set the time zone). It even makes a weather forecast based on the barometer and the humidity and temp. It’s a nifty little device and it’s well worth the money I spent on it.

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Audra part 2

Posted on July 1, 2006 | Leave a comment

So after Audra Kubat played last night, she was selling CDs and signing them and stuff. So I went and picked up an older one and got it signed. She’s very sweet and was chatty with people and I found out she plays locally at a place downtown somewhere a few times a month so I’ll be heading down there. I haven’t played the CD yet but I really enjoy the other one that I had. The TasteFest was a lot busier when we left, I bet it gets pretty crazy there over the weekend.

Plus, seeing her completes another one of my 101 in 1001 list items. You know, I just realized I never talked about her other than at the Aimme Mann concert, I put together some info and never posted it so here you go some info, reviews and probably enough mp3s to make your own little sampler CD:

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Audra Kubat at the TasteFest

Posted on June 30, 2006 | Leave a comment



Audra Kubat at the TasteFest

Originally uploaded by garylapointe.

So it’s really nice down here, she’s on stage down by the only grassy area I’ve seen.

The tastefest is nice, not too crowded but yet still a lot of people. And of course Audra is great!

We’ve got kids all over the place with hula-hoops and some are down by the stage (see photo). I might make my way back down here before ity ends on the 4th. (Later) Here’s the video with the kids, they were pretty hysterical playing down there (the audio is awful)

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StarGate Ultimate Edition – Review (Excellent #1)

Posted on June 28, 2006 | 1 comment

So one of the things on my 101 in 1001 list is to make sure I own 50 excellent movies (if I don’t own then I need to buy them) watch them again and do a review on-line. By “excellent” it has to be something to have mostly wide appeal (I’m sure a few won’t) and I’m trying to have a range of the types of movies. I probably owned 15-20 I’d put in this category and I’ve probably already bought a dozen since.

Without question StarGate would be one of those movies. And since I’ve been thinking about it a lot since my trip to Egypt. The ultimate edition actually includes the original and the longer cut on two DVDs (and gobs of extras). It’s a great movie with Kurt Russel as the action hero and James Spader as the geeky egyptologist who thinks that aliens might have actually built the pyramids. The government has some items they dug up a few years back and are trying to decipher the writings on it and they bring in the ridiculed scientist to come help them make it work.

I can tell you why I was disappointed, I was hoping for more Egypt references but while I remember lots, this show did turn into seven seasons of StarGate SG-1 full of references so I guess that’s where I recall lots from, I just thought there were more in the original movie. There was a bit, I just hoped for more. Still a great flick, lots of action great scenery, some big explosions and some really great characters. And they really do have a good story tie into the creation of the pyramids. Plus he also finds what every geeky guy traveling across the universe needs, a beautiful woman who doesn’t realize what a geek he really is :)

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Kyle XY – Review

Posted on June 28, 2006 | Leave a comment

So I really liked Kyle XY. I’m not saying it’s a great show, but I really like the sense of wonder they give him as he figures things out. You can still get the episode oniTunes for free and I think ABC is rerunning it on Friday night. Here’s the premise: This teenager is found naked in the woods, he’s intelligent but no concept of understanding his surroundings. A psychologist (of some sort) takes him into her family with a teenage boy and girl and the story begins.

Like I said, I really like they way they have him thinking and examining the world around him. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that he has no belly-button. Be sure to watch the news running on the television in the background when you watch it (you are going to watch it, aren’t you?).

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Brandi Carlile Last Friday

Posted on June 19, 2006 | 2 comments

We went to see Brandi Carlile last Friday in Ann Arbor. She was at the Blind Pig and as always the small venues are always better, IMHO. The opening act was Penumbrae and they’ll get a separate post later.

She was great, when she first walked out I thought she looked really young (I had thought she was in her mid-20s) and thought I had her music mixed up with someone else’s but once she started playing she was who I thought (she did reveal later she was 25 and she did look older later on…). She was excellent! She played a lot of different types of music, on her CD there is a song or two that has a hint of country and that come out in a few of the songs. She did a few acoustic and some with the band (four guys). I only knew her by name because they were playing her at Barnes and Nobel and I checked out what her name was. I knew I had to have heard some on TV or a movie (I was actually thinking a WB-type show), turns out she had three songs on Grey’s Anatomy last season (Tragedy, Throw it all Away and What Can I Say).

Her music has a range, a few make me think Norah Jones, some the melody makes me think Indigo Girls. I met her and got her to sign the CDs that I purchased and she was just super nice to everyone there. I’d definitely see her again if she comes to town. I should have brought my camera in, I didn’t even think of it (it was way to dark for my cell phone camera but of course I tried anyways, here’s two from while she
was performing and signing autographs).

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So I’ve been testing blog clients for my Palm 700p cell phone (updated)

Posted on June 18, 2006 | 1 comment

So if you’ve seen any short test posts lately it’s ’cause I’m testing blogging clients for my new Treo 700p handheld. Some old some new, some worked some didn’t, some the new versions didn’t. I just updated this post since I got slightly confused between a few of the clients when writing this up. The winners IMHO are:

  • Mo:Blog – easy to use (but I did have to look at the manual a few times), stand alone. I only did a few test posts so we’ll see later. One bug – when getting the blog id from the site the numbering got goofed up somehow, since none of the other clients did this I thought I’d mention it. The other odd thing was you pick the category when you set the blog up, not on individual posts. It’s about $15.
  • Azure – I think this was my favorite on my old phone too. It requires some kind of Java environment (I used IBM’s) to be installed. It does allow for the extended entry (and one category) and will download previous posts (this always makes me nervous on the mobile clients due to field length). And it’s free. See below for install information.

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    Stowaway – by D. Ann Kelley and James G. Kelley – Review

    Posted on June 12, 2006 | 3 comments

    I just finished reading Stowaway by D. Ann Kelley and James G. Kelley (and I happen to know the authors). Most of it takes place in Michigan, it’s kinda part of a series but it’s by far the best one yet so I’d definitely recommend this one first. It might reveal a few details from the first few books but it’s the most polished and fast read of any of the stories. The endings still end kinda quick though.

    Jill Traynor returns as the main character (after the first book they started adding “A Jill Traynor Mystery” as the subtitle. One of the new characters chooses the Edumund Fitgerald as the ship to sneak onto, I think we all know how that’s likely to end. But the whole mystery revolves around the message they managed to get off the ship that reveals where the ________ is/are located. It’s got a bit of historical fact weaved in (and they clarify the details in the afterward). If you’re from Michigan or the Great Lakes area and like mysteries it’s a must read.

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