Alien Reboot

We all love to take shots at Hollywood on this blog, and I came across a "hot of the press" article about the next crappy Hollywood remake - Alien!!! Knowing our family's strong love of the Alien franchise, I thought you all might be interested. I will not get into the merits of this remake, because Ridley Scott does appear to be involved. However, I have no hope that any reboot that comes from 20th Century Fox will be even watchable.

What I do want to do is direct you to read an article on the reboot at one of my favorite sites, Ain't It Cool News. The article is brief, but what you really need to read are the Talkbacks below. This website is famous for it's loyal, intelligent readers that post hundreds of Talkbacks debating every article. Sometimes I read a few, and I wondered what the average sci-fi fan thought about this reboot. The results are f$%^ing HILIARIOUS!!!!!! Go to the bottom of the linked page and click on the first post to open up the talkback area and laugh so hard you cry. I did!

Here is a sample to enjoy:

• We're already remaking Alien and Predator? Ridiculous. Let's remake a film that needs to be remade... how about Star Wars Ep I,II,III?
• I'd love to see a teen version of alien, I always wondered what "the breakfast alien club" would be like. This could be as good if not better than Jason x!
• can't we simply stop production of this and move on to a film that really needs to be made? The fans demand Aliens Vs Predator Vs Rocky right flippin' now!
• Cast Miley Cyrus as Ripley and her dad as Hudson. Zac Effron can be Hicks. The Aliens can be pink with big, adorable eyes and require shooting with friendship guns in order to make them nice again. And we all learn a valuable lesson.....the end. Awwwwww, isn't that a neat idea Hollywood? Golly gosh I'd love to see that movie...so marketable.
• why god why

How Are the Reds Winning?

Willy Taveras cf
Jerry Hairston 2b
Chris Dickerson lf
Jonny Gomes rf
Ramon Hernandez c
Alex Gonzalez ss
Adam Rosales 1b
Paul Janish 3b
Aaron Harang p

Believe it or not, this was the starting lineup for the Reds today as they kicked off a series against the Astros. 3 of these guys weren't in the majors 2 weeks ago. Worse than that, other than Taveras, none of these guys were guaranteed a starting spot at the beginning of the season, and most were questionable to make the roster! So what did the antithesis of "Murderer's Row" do? They beat up on the Astros for 8 runs on 13 hits winning 8-5.

So how did we come to this awful lineup? Votto has been out for 2 weeks now with an inner ear infection. Phillips broke his thumb. Encarnacion has a broken wrist. Bruce was worn out and got a day off.

How have we continued to win? Our pitching ROCKS! Our starters have been as good as advertised. Our bullpen has been solid. Cordero has been almost perfect as closer. I was a little worried when Volquez went down with back spasms, but it looks like he is fine.

I honestly am optimistic about the rest of the season. The Reds are hanging in there despite the MAJOR injuries that have depleted our already below average offense. When we get guys back healthy and summer rolls around, I think we may be a complete team that makes some noise!

By the way, I still hate the Astros. Even though they suck this year, I always remember that awesome game we went to at Riverfront when we were really young and there was a huge bench clearing brawl. I'm glad they suck!

Nice...

Finally - FINALLY - I was able to get FiOS installed at the house this past week. I was disappointed it wasn't available when we moved last summer, but they started laying the wire this winter and I had been eagerly anticipating it since. This was elevated when Colin and Liz moved into their house and promptly had FiOS installed. Man, was I jealous.

Anyway, aside from the beautiful HD picture that never stutters and the gorgeous on-screed display the internet is blazing fast (sorry all you suckers in Cincinnati stuck with Time Warner) - 20Mbps/5Mbps down/up. I knew those speeds were legit, but I wanted to do some speed tests just so I could drool.

So I headed over to speedtest.net and saw 19.8d/4.8u. Just to bask in it I went to speakeasy.net and saw 19.9d/4.7u. Nice. Then I saw that Verizon offered their own test and tried that - 6.4d/1.6u. What!? I tried all three again and and got similar results. I tried changing the test server locations - same results. Then I look at Verizon's results closer and see a note that says something to the effect of, "Your system has not been optimized for FiOS. Click here to download FiOS optimization tools." Ahhhh... So that's the trick - say my speeds suck, trick me into downloading and installing some crap-ware, then - miraculously! - I'm hitting those previously-promised blazing speeds. Sorry, Verizon, I'm not biting. When multiple other sources repeatedly tell me that I'm getting what's been advertised, I'm not gonna bite for your junk.

Aside from that, I'm loving FiOS. It beats the stuffing out of Cox in every category possible. Even better - it's $20 less per month. You'd have to have brain damage - or live in Cincinnati - not to switch!

Taken: 60-second movie review

I'll not give anything away in this review, other than high praise for Liam Neeson and whoever wrote this movie. I watched it while Teresa and her mom were out shopping and Sam was sleeping. At 94 minutes, it's not very long, but Taken definitely keeps you entertained and engrossed. For those of you who don't know, Taken is about a former US-government agent who is hunting to find his kidnapped daughter.

There were four (4) major reasons I loved this movie. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Liam Neeson is a bad-ass. Not only is he a bad-ass, he's a convincing bad-ass. At times I felt he had no soul, and that's just plain awesome in this type of movie.
   
2. The stupid factor is very low. This is mostly because Neeson is such a hard-core killer. Granted, this is Hollywood, so there are some spots where you question the validity of what's happening, but you can't expect to have a stupid-free movie these days.
3. As a new father, I understand Neeson's devotion to his daughter. At several points in the movie, I felt a fatherly pride in what Neeson was doing.
   
4. This movie makes fun of France and French people. I wholeheartedly agree with this theme.

In all, I'd say Taken was as good as, if not better than, Man on Fire. You can definitely make comparisons between Denzel and Neeson, and they are pretty good comparisons, for the most part. I'd give Taken 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

Another Classic Heffernan Photo

Random thoughts and questions related to this photo:

1. Kevin had the good sense not to be included. A rare stroke of genius for young Kevin.
2. Bridget and Ted seemingly are putting on their mean faces. Not a good look. Not at all.
3. Ian was captured while talking. Again, not a good look.
4. Colin decided to rock a pink shirt that was 4 sizes too large. He may have also tried to look tough, but failed miserably.
5. Awesome 90's fluorescent t-shirts? Check.
6. Rolling of sleeves on t-shirt? Check. Thanks Bridget.
7. Is Ted wearing white shorts?
8. Does Ted still have said white shorts?

Oh, Hell Yes!

Punch Out! Wii. May 18, 2009. And a mocumentary of a real-life Little Mac training for his comeback. And, yes, I have already pre-ordered this at Amazon. You should too, even if you don't have a Wii...

Ted's Star Trek Review (no spoilers)

So I checked out the new Star Trek movie last night. I admit I wasn't too jazzed about this when I first heard of the project over a year ago. However, the trailers won me over and made me think this could be something amazing. Then, as early reviews started to come out, I was shocked. Everyone claimed this was the most amazing Star Trek ever. It had 100% on the Tomatometer, which I have never seen. Many said this was accessible to non-Trek fans, and people were calling it this summer's Dark Knight.

With all that aside, I will say this is an exciting movie with great action and a lot of good laughs. That is typical of the Trek spirit. However, as a series reboot, it was forced to do 2 things. It did both well.

First, the characters had to be re-introduced. This was definitely the highlight of the movie for me. It was great to see all the classic characters come to life in a way that I have never seen in any previous movies and especially in the series. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, Sulu, Scotty and Uhura are each introduced with a big bang (Sulu's intro was definitely my fav)! In this single movie, every one of those characters has more action than in everything else I have ever seen (except Kirk and Spock). In addition, we learn new things about them that are pretty cool.

Second, the movie had to come up with a way to continue this rebooted series without having to redo all the previous series and movie episodes. When you think about it, you can't just redo Star Trek 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. So they had to come up with a plot device that allowed for a new future to explore. Did they ever pick a doozy! I think this plot device is actually pretty interesting, but if you weren't a Trek fan, it would be pretty hard to figure out the full implications of this new movie. Thus, Trek neophites will miss out on a quite a bit. It actually required a bit of thought on my part to fully grasp the implications of what they have done.

So this movie accomplished what it had to. I recommend everyone check it out. Was it the spectacular epic that all the reviews I have read claim? No way. Very entertaining, but not a cinema masterpiece. I think that Abrams needs to come up with an iconic villain to rival Khan, the Borg and villains of other series. That would take the new Trek series over the top!

A New Regular Column

Mom and Dad recently visited with some pictures of the Royal Heffernans from the good old days. After viewing them I had an idea. I am going to be posting somewhat regular posts showing some of the old pictures. Some are sentimental and some are funny, but many will be posted. I don't have a scanner, so I will take a digital photo of the pictures. It's not the ideal method, but most of us will remember the original picture nonetheless.

This brings us to the first picture:



What the hell were we thinking? Matching denim?! What the heck! Not one of us thought for a second that we might all look like idiots? I guess Mom and Dad were smart enough to not be caught in the photo. I actually remember thinking I looked pretty good at the time. I was wrong.

I have additional wallet sizes of the original if anyone should want one.