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This is a great resource for people like myself that would love to relive the past.  I should warn you though, its very sad in some ways.

http://www.deadwrestlers.net/

R.I.P. Randy Macho Man Savage 2011

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  I own the original TRON on DVD and watch it often.  As a boy it was one of those films that captured a time and a place and to get back there I just pop that DVD in and I am instantly transported to an arcade in the 80′s.  i love the actors and even though the story seems a bit weak its undoubtedly a groundbreaking film.

   I was very excited when i heard about a sequel to TRON and MEGA excited to hear that Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner BOTH would be back not as cameos but actually reprising their roles from the original.  I must say I was blown away.  This was more than I could have ever expected.  There are more nods and tipped hats to the old movie than I can detail here.  Things as simple as dusty old hand held led tomy games to 80′s music blaring from a jukebox in an old arcade.  Lots to love here if your paying close attention.

    The acting is very impressive. As already mentioned Bridges and Boxleitner are both quality actors but the newcomers Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund do a wonderful job here as well.  I was drawn in from the moment it started till it was over.

    The effects were of course TOP notch.  The 3D was tremendous.  I have seen quite a few 3D movies lately and this one had the best so far.  Things shown in real perspective, items moving in and out of foreground and background, just really well done all around.

    The Chase scenes are AMAZING.  The light cycles are back with major improvements to their appearance as well as their capabilities.  The fluid dynamic of the camera work was truley awe inspiring.

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    The costumes were well done and believable, albeit, aside from some glowing strips of light here and there they were almost nothing like the old movie.  I did not miss the toga, greco-roman sash thing from the original at all.  THIS is what a program would wear in a digital world in MY imagination for sure.

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    There are two things I will never forget about this new movie and here they are in order of importance.  The technology used to make Bridges young again as the character CLU is STUNNING.  Benjamin Button has NOTHING on this.  It looks and acts and FEELS like the real deal.  I know its almost fully CGI and in a few fleeting moments of screen time it had a few creepy quirks, but its still AMAZING how real it was.  Words cannot do it justice.

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    Lastly, the soundtrack by Daft Punk was unbelievably perfect for this film.  It is simply spellbinding.  The 85 piece orchestra coupled with old school techno meets in the middle with superior results.

   My final thoughts today are..GO SEE THIS MOVIE.  If you love the 80′s and enjoyed the first film this is canon and a MUST SEE.  If you are not of that generation, disliked or have never seen the first film, SEE THIS ONE ANYWAY.
I left the theatre wishing I could see it again and sad that it was  over.  Being a  film buff this rarely happens to me.

Enjoy!

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    I decided to return the DVR and just drop that service.  I went down to the office which was a pleasant experience.  They were polite and knew their jobs which I was kinda shocked to see.  The problem is I asked that they take off the DVR charge and since I no longer had a box hooked up to my high def TV ( we get a good clear QAM signal so I don’t need it) I wanted the high def part of my cable package removed also.  She said they could not do that.  They would take off the box and an extra equipment charge but my package is high def weather I like it or not now.  That’s the way all the plans are now.

   Well needless to say I did not argue much because I could tell there was no changing this persons mind.  I walked away with a smaller cable bill, but not by as much as I had hoped and a sore feeling in the hid quarters.  Be careful what you change about your cable service because you can never go home.

..oh and Comcast, next time could you please use some lube?  Thanks.

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    I worked all day on Thursday the 15th without so much as a hiccup from my work computer.  I logged and powered off as usual at end of day and dragged my weary butt home.  On Friday I arrived at my office a little early hoping to get a few things done and when I  turned my PC on it powered up and began to load windows just like every day for the last 6 months.  Once windows loaded, the explorer shell restarted.  Not too odd, ive seen that before, but then it restarted again, and again, and you get the picture.

     So it seemed that windows explorer had been damaged or corrupted because each time it would load it would restart.  I could get no work done.  Now I am a resourceful tech savvy guy so what did I do?  I opened the task manager and caught the explorer process in one of its start cycles and ended that process.  Now, that worked to stop the restarts, but now I have no desktop and no icons or start bar.  Not the end of the world but it damn sire makes getting to my applications a pain. 

    Long story short for two days I ran every malware, spyware, antivirus scan and combo fix I could get my paws on.  Everything about the PC seemed to work fine just  no explorer shell.  When the utilities, which I have used many times to rescue other users computers, and fix many problems on clients PCs, failed I was left calling the corporate office to chat with the IT admin there to see what the next step would be.  He had me run a slew of other diagnostics and even try to re install windows to no avail.

    Looks like the issue the entire time was a failing hard disk drive.  This has to be one of the weirdest HDD fails I have ever seen.  I have had drives click into infinity then cease to spin. I have had them whine into drive oblivion.  I have had them overheat and puff smoke and even spin backwards but I have never had one behave this way.  Needless to say a new HDD is on its way to me via FedEx overnight. 

    I sure hope tomorrow sees me back online so I can actually get some work done.  Hope you enjoyed my tale of hard drive woe.  Rest in peace Hard Drive..

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     I must admit that I fell into the trap of believing the hype and had it embedded in my mind that the end of the first decade of the new millennium is about to end.  Many people call this decade The Oughts or The ’00s. Clearly, then, the decade includes years that have zero as the third digit. Next year, that third digit turns to a 1, so the end of the decade obviously is at hand right?  Consider also the popular terms affixed to decades.  Since I am a child of the ’80s that would mean that can only years that include some derivative of 80 should be included.  In no way can 1979 be considered part of the ’80s. Using that logic, 2010 must mark the beginning of the next decade.   Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines a decade as “in common usage, a ten-year period beginning with a year 0, as 1920-1929.”  All of these factors prove that this decade will end on Dec. 31, 2009, Right?

     Another school of thought says that as we age, we are not said to be 1 until after living 12 months, and we do not celebrate a 10th birthday until after living 10 years. Logical conclusion: The next decade won’t begin until after 2010 concludes. If you think about millennia the first one thousand years started with the number 1 and thus ended with 1000.  This means those years 1001 through 2001 would equal the second millennium.  Following this logic the first decade of this millennium began with the year 2001, and the last year of the first decade of this millennium will be next year, 2010. This is a very compelling argument.

     Does that mean Webster’s dictionary is wrong? No, the definition mentioned earlier, pertained to the “common usage” of the word. The same dictionary also defines a decade as “officially, a ten-year period beginning with the year 1, as 1921-1930.” Webster apparently wants to make everyone happy.

   It seems like the debate itself will be lost in the sea of media outlets and emotional minds ready for this decade to be over.  I for one am happy, since it gives me two years to consider and be respectful of all the wonderful, wondrous and sad things that have occurred in the last ten years.

Happy new year all!

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My dad used to work for an old style pizza place in Indianapolis called Shakey’s Pizza. When my mom would drive to pick him up I would tag along and roam around the empty store while he closed the place down. I have few memories of that place but the ones I have are pretty cool.  It had the first game room I ever saw it had a wild sand pit type game where you controlled some bulldozers in some sand for a quarter.  There was also an old style film projector that my dad would pull down from the ceiling some nights and I would watch giant spider movies while we waited.  Shakey’s is still “shakin” its just no where in TN or Indianapolis.  

As child we lived in an apartment complex in Indianapolis.  Behind the main buildings was a pretty busy roadway and across that  there used to be a great burger joint you may remember called Burger Chef.  I loved the little kids meals they used to have.  I remember it was a real treat when mom would walk my brother and I across that street and grab a snack.  Burger Chef was actually founded in Indianapolis where I lived as a young child.  Sadly it went the way of the Dodo and the last restaurant owned independently at the time closed down in Cookville Tennessee, which as luck would have it is where I live now.

  Shoney’s Big Boy was a super place to get some grub.  I VIVIDLY remember this restaurant for many reasons.  This was the very first salad bar I can remember eating.  It also had SUPER hamburgers.  The plastic and metal Big Boy statue out front has to be one of the most recognizable icon /logos EVER.  Apparently the guys that owned the Big Boy logo and the guys that owned the Shoney’s name had a falling out and they have now split, so you have a sparse few Big Boy restaurants up north and way too many sad excuses for them called Shoney’s down here.  Shoneys I am sad to say is a shadow of its former glory days.

   Steak. Steak is to men what mothers milk is to little babes.  My very first REAL steak restaurant experience came from a restaurant called Western Sizzlin.  It had a great salad bar also but alas nothing lasts.  While the chain is still kickin.  They no longer have any in middle TN where I live.

The first real smorgasbord type restaurant I ever ate at was a place called Duff’s Smorgasbord.  My grandmother loved this place and I can recall that they had some of the BEST fried chicken I have ever to this day had, well cept maybe for Popeye’s.  I can’t find much info about this chain other than it faltered and went under a long while back.  Seems there is only ONE left in all of the world and its in Pigeon Forge.

    Few things in life make me as happy as the memories I have from an 80′s era marriage of the new technology of video games and one of the best foods ever, pizza.  Music, video games, and pizza all collided at Showbiz Pizza Place.  It breaks my heart to think that the ONLY functional showbiz restaurant left in the world is all the way over in Dubai.

    While we are on the subject of pizza I always wondered what happened to a great little pizza place that seemed to vanish from the town where I live called Pizza Inn. Seems the chain is still in great standing BUT the closest one is all the way in Clarksville near the Fort Campbell Army Base.  >Cries<

 
     Last but not least, living in the south you would think that I get all the southern food I could ever want.  While you may be largely right, I never had as much fun as a kid as when we all went to PoFolks, a southern themed restaurant that served drinks in real mason jars instead of glasses.  It had white trash red neck decor on the inside and again i guess I loved it so much because my late grandmother really enjoyed it to.  Now the remaining few can only be found in Florida, a long, long drive from TN.

 
Hope you enjoyed my list.  I really enjoyed making it.  Never take anything in life for granted cause when you blink, it could be gone.  Cheers!

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