Terminator: Salvation...

I attended the 7:30 showing of the new Terminator movie, and I was thoroughly impressed! It was fun, intelligent, and action-packed. The acting was surprisingly wonderful. I felt it was very true to the other movies, with the exception of there being no f*** words. I thought the decision to go PG-13 instead of R was an excellent decision, and it's going to show in the box-office. Christian Bale as Jon Conner was fantastic! 3 and 1/2 stars.

EJB...What's the point?

I'm recently learning EJB at work, and am having a hard time figuring out the point of it. I'm thinking that its purpose is to have a standardized service-oriented architecture within Java. Why not make the service-oriented architecture even more abstract and usable across ALL programs and development languages and just use some web services? That certainly seems to be more standardized anyways. Oh well.

Conspiracy theorists...

At my semi-new job, I have a wonderful friend that is a conspiracy theorist. We have had many disagreements about the validity of his theories, and I am never closer to being convinced. The biggest problem with their logic is their idea of what 'proof' is. I ask them for a 'reputable' source from any type of media, and they can only show me stuff that other conspiracy theorists 'know' via their research. They say that there can't be proof from the media because the media are controlled by the bankers. Am I just to trust little tiny coincidences that 'make sense' in their minds? I don't believe that a group of people can be that smart or powerful enough to control the world that they suggest. The way the conspiracy theorists describe these controlling figures you'd think they were Gods or something. The bankers don't make mistakes (except for the few little things that don't add up that the omniscient theorists can see as blatant proof, but normal people can't). How depressing their lives must be; to think that we have no power over our lives and that we can't beat them except by overthrowing the federal reserve (a helpful institution).
Oh well, I guess I'll just keep trying to convince him.
Cheers.

A mormon's perspective of 'The Godfather'...

I finally watched The Godfather this last weekend, with of course editing by Clearplay. What a fantastic movie! I really enjoyed it, and didn't find the 3 hours in length to be boring at all. Now, I didn't see any of the sex or excessive violence, so I can't say that I enjoyed the whole movie objectively. But, I can say that it was a fabulous story, superb acting, and wonderful cinematography. It certainly does belong in the top ten films of all time.
4 stars ****

Prince Caspian: a case of Trying too much...

Netflix, via Starzplay (Starz allows Netflix to show all their movies available online) has now allowed access to the second Narnia film, Prince Caspian. My wife and I have been watching it off and on for the past few nights, and we both agree: it's too slow! I think what they were trying to do was to make it more like the Lord of the Rings, which of course isn't possible. I'm quite familiar with both series of books. Tolkien is very well known for his long-windedness whereas C.S. Lewis knew he was writing for children. So, when Lord of the Rings would drag out a scene, it was actually condensing it comparative to the book's narrative; whereas, Caspian does the opposite, they drag out a scene that is probably a paragraph or less into 5 minutes. It just moves so slowly! Don't get me wrong, so much about the movie does work. It just doesn't work in dragging out scenes. A fantasy movie--especially a kids fantasy movie--shouldn't try too much subtle drama.
Overall, two stars **

Pre-Pampering Panic....

Well, Charity's due soon, and I would like to mention my panic that occurred about two months ago:
After October General Conference, I decided to run the numbers (do the budget) to see where we stood and how much we would have left over when Charity stopped working. I realized that it wasn't a lot; in fact, there wasn't any left over! This got me very stressed, and caused me to start looking for a new job. I had talked to my boss about my predicament, but he didn't seem to positive about any sort of raise. So, I proceeded to look for different opportunities; always coming up dry because no one wants to pay an entry-level programmer more than I was making. So, eventually we came to grips that we would have to be on a 'beans and rice' type budget until a better opportunity came about.
I eventually found the 'better' opportunity and I feel good about it. But, I've also been going through a "Fathering" book, where the author wrote about this phenomenon: the Pre-fatherhood panic. I guess as the breadwinner, this is a very normal response to the changing situation. So, new dads: know that this is normal and part of being a patriarch/main-breadwinner of the family.
Cheers.

The Audacity of socialism...

I wore a chopka to work today to celebrate the new Era of politics: socialism. I sincerely don't believe that Obama is a bad guy, but I just think his policies are not good for me personally. I have every intention of making $250,000+ later in life, and that makes me a target. The cartoon above illustrates it best.