Real Steel Review

When I was really young my parents split.  All I really knew was my mom growing up. My dad was around when the shared custody let him take me every other weekend. I didn’t understand what was really going on and at times I thought my dad just didn’t have time for me or I wasn’t a fit for his life.

I loved a movie growing up that had a great father-son element to it. That movie was Over the Top.  This movie featured Sylvester Stallone and his character was trying his best to get acquainted with this boy that he really had never even met. This boy was his son and was now going to spend some time with him since his mother had died. They travel the country and reconnect while Sly’s character competes in arm wrestling competitions. This was an epic movie for me because the movie had a super message about a man who cared very deeply for his son even though he hadn’t ever got to spend a ton of time with him and didn’t always know how to show his feelings when he was finally around him.

Now that I am a father I have been looking for that one gem of a movie that could define that “father-son” feel for the next generation and I think I may have a winner.  I recently took a trip out to L.A. to check out a screening of the new movie from DreamWorks Pictures called Real Steel and at first I just thought this movie was going to be a “Rockem’ Sockem’ Robots” ripoff.  Boy I was way off!  These robots were absolutely stunning in being the next step in the sport of fighting.

See, it is the year 2020 and the game of competitive fighting has changed quite a bit. In the years prior, human fighters could only dish out and take so much physical damage before something in either fighter’s body gave out. This was not a good problem to have when you had audiences that wanted more and more brutal fights and finishes in regular bouts.  In 2014 Human fighters were then phased out and replaced by robot fighters that were controlled remotely by human operators.  There is a huge market for these robots to fight in from small town sideshows to the big time events in the World Robot Boxing league. In the WRB, robot fighters stand over 8 ft tall, weigh in at a whopping 2,000+ pounds, and fight to the death!

You must be thinking “Ryan…I thought you said that this was a family movie?” Indeed it is. The film revolves around Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), who is a old school human fighter who lost his chance at ever being the champ. Now he spends his days and nights scrounging around and trying to find any pieces that can be assembled to make him a working bot to make a little money, Charlie drives around from one underground boxing venue to the next. When things don’t exactly play out the way Charlie really wants them to, he is abruptly confronted with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) and their story seems to start on rough waters. They find a robot by chance and begin to bond over the sport of fighting and strengthening their relationship through their wonderous journey to the top of the league.

I think that this is an awesome movie. A real action packed film whose characters strive to break records and mend relationships. Real Steel reminds me of many of my favorite movies like Over the Top, Rocky, and sprinkled with a tad bit of Transformers. This movie is rated PG-13 and is suggested to be a family film. I do think that every one of my kids would love this movie and think it is one of the best family action films of all time but there are a few concerns. The violence of fighting robots is okay but the atmosphere of emotions tied directly to the characters (human and robot) that take a beating is quite brutal. There are a few instances of language and I’m not a person who totally blows off a movie for a few curse words but when it has an eleven year old saying them to his father it makes me heed on the heir of caution. I just don’t want my kids thinking it is okay to say them because a child said them to his father in the movie. I don’t have the excuse of telling my kids that those are just “grown up words” when someone so close to their age just rattled them off. The kid says a** two times (one time calling his dad an a**), he also says sh*t once, and there are a few other mild profanities.

All-in-all this was a knockout of a movie that will leave you wanting to continue on the adventure.  I look forward to sharing this movie with my children in a couple of years with me beeping out the bad words or just skipping through those scenes.  I hope that they see it not only for a movie about a fighting robot and his rise to the top, but the fight of the heart between father and son.

To see more and support the movie go and “Like” REAL STEEL on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/realsteelmovie

September 30, 2011 | Filed Under Review/Giveaway | Leave a Comment 

Winnah!

The Olive Garden Endless Pasta $25 gift card giveaway has ended and your winner is…….

#80 EMMA L HORTON!

Even though she likes salad and not soup like me I guess I’ll let it slide.

September 30, 2011 | Filed Under Giveaway Winners | Leave a Comment 

My First Day in LA

 

We arrived in LA on Saturday and I could not believe that sunny California was so cloudy when we landed! After awhile it seemed that the city’s little joke that it was playing on was over and the clouds blew away. This city is big and it is a great deal different than back home in Houston. I really like it so far and am really anxious to go and do all of the things that Disney/Dreamworks has in store for us.

On Saturday night we saw a screening of Real Steel and (I know it sounds redundant but I can’t say anything else about the movie until it’s release) I thought it was a solid movie.

Today we get to meet Hugh Jackman (“Charlie Kenton”), Sugar Ray Leonard (“Boxing Consultant”), Shawn Levy (“Director”), Anthony Mackie (“Finn”), Erik Nash (Visual Effects Supervisor), Noisy Boy & Atom Robots & Puppeteer.  It is going to be a super packed day and I hope to get some audio of today’s meeting to share with all of you out there.  Also, I really want to try Carl’s Jr and In and Out while I’m here since I never have.

September 25, 2011 | Filed Under Family | Leave a Comment 

Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Bowl Giveaway

Anyone that really knows me knows that I really love to eat. I have changed my eating habits a great deal over the last year to get in better shape and to improve my way of life. I do however still have the occasions to where I eat whatever I want and how much I want. What a coincidence that Olive Garden has their Never Ending Pasta Bowl going on now until October 9 and it’s only $8.95!

I took a little trip on over to my local Olive Garden with my wife attached to my arm and a growling in my belly. We sat down and immediately wanted to get our order on. We took a pass on the wine and got our usual Diet Cokes and then sat there in front of the menu and pondered on what we were going to scarf down. It took me about 1.7 seconds to figure out what pasta and sauce combination I wanted to start out with first. I ordered the Never Ending Pasta Bowl with my selection being the Orecchiette with Five Cheese Marinara. I always get the Zuppa Toscana soup instead of the salad and managed to only eat one bowl of soup in anticipation of the pasta goodness coming my way. Crystal set her sights on some seafood pasta dish and had the same soup.

You can also add unlimited servings of either meatballs, Italian sausage, or grilled chicken breast to any of your pasta dishes for an additional $2.95 and I added the meatballs to my first bowl.  The second bowl that I created was the Orecchiette with the new Pizzaiola Meat Sauce that is a pizza-inspired red sauce with Italian meats (pan seared beef, Italian sausage,and pepperoni!), mozzarella and fontina cheese.   I topped it off once again with magnificent meatballs.  On my third bowl I knew that I was already down for the count and asked just for a bowl of meatballs swimming in the Five Cheese Marinara sauce.

 

Never Ending Pasta Details.

  • Enjoy unlimited servings of pasta with your choice of unlimited soup or salad and their signature breadsticks
  • Choose from 42 pasta-sauce combinations including two new sauces, Pizzaiola Meat Sauce and Roasted Mushroom Parmesan with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
  • Their annual much-anticipated offer kicked off Monday, August 15 and runs through October 9
  • Build your pasta and sauce combination at www.NeverEndingPastaBowl.com.
All-in-all we had an exceptional dinner together just my wife and I.  Before we left though I did have to ask our wonderful waiter, Ryan, in his experience what is the most popular combination of all time.  His answer surprised me when he said “regular spaghetti and meat sauce”.  WOW!

Giveaway

One (1) winner will receive:

  • A $25 Olive Garden Gift Card.

How to Enter

Tell me whether you prefer soup or salad!

Extra Entries Available

After you have completed the first entry, you are eligible for additional entries. Make sure you leave a separate comment for EACH entry. Each counts as one extra entry unless noted otherwise.

  • Subscribe to Daddy Digest by reader or email.
  • Like me on my Facebook Fan Page.
  • Follow Daddy Digest on Twitter AND Tweet about the giveaway. Leave the URL to the Tweet in your comment. You can tweet once a day, but remember to leave the URL to each tweet.

This giveaway will end on September 29th at 10:00 PM Central time. Winner will be chosen via a random number generator. Giveaway is open to US entries. The winner must contact me in 24 hours to claim their prize. Good luck to everyone!
The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely that of the blog owners. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. I have been given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions in any freakin’ way.

September 20, 2011 | Filed Under Review/Giveaway | 488 Comments 

Comic Reading Today

I have always loved reading. Not really diving into several thousand page novels but sitting down and reading short stories, comic strips in newspapers, or one of my favorite…comic books. I used to be an avid collector of the things. Not really a collector to buy and resale for outlandish prices but more of a collector to save and revisit later on for the stories that I really liked and enjoyed. I have started to introduce comics to my kiddos as a way to get them to be more interested in reading. Taylor has recently gotten a kick out of reading some of the Captain Underpants books that are pretty much a longer story set in comic form. Rylan has to have some time devoted to hearing one of us read a story aloud to him as a part to his Kindergarten homework everyday.  As for Peyton, he is going to have to start reading one day.

My comic collection has dwindled down to only four long boxes filled with books. That still is a fairly good amount of books putting my collection at around 850 books. They do still take up some space but two are in the attic and the other two are in the back of my closet. It is a pain to have to go a pull a box out and then search through a couple hundred just to get out one or two books to read daily. Thank goodness for the digital age and gadgets that take advantage of it. These days what I have been doing is taking a digital copy of a comic book and then throw them onto the iPad. It makes it a whole heckuva lot easier to just move individual issues to it or even combine pdf files to have a larger story or even a complete run of a series.

I also like that I can go and scan some of the old issues that are a bit brittle and not for little hands and then put those on my computer. After that I just move them into a pdf converter and viola! It just really feels cool that the very same comics that I grew up reading and enjoying are now here for my kids.  I do like to keep the fun in comic reading though as every once in awhile I still go by the comic shop and bring some copies home for them or even letting them pick out a book off of the rack at Toy’s R’ Us since they do actually still carry copies these days.  I do, however, still find them torn up all over the floor in their room the next day!

 

September 17, 2011 | Filed Under Family | 1 Comment 

The Muppets Spoof Trailer

It’s been a long while since there has been a Muppet movie hit our ocular receptacles. The Muppets will arrive in the theaters everywhere on November 23rd and this will be the first Muppet theatrical film since Muppets from Space from 1999. Head on on over to The Muppets Facebook Page and check out the new spoof trailer of their new movie after “Liking” them. I mean, how could you not like them?
 

September 17, 2011 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Hacker Would Make Me a Slacker

One of my online friends Dave, from the Jen and Dave show, lost his entire site to the plague of the Hackers about a month ago. I found this out because when I went to download his latest show it gave me an error message in iTunes saying that it was available and then it never updated. As I sit in front of my computer I am almost scared to death when a sound blurps (that words is blurted and chirps mixed together) and my antivirus is saying that a Trojan had been found in a certain file. I was alarmed when I saw that the file it was coming from was the Jen and Dave show file. So, Dave had been taken over completely by some deranged individual that probably loves being on the Javascript blacklist and has aspirations of being one of America’s Most Wanted.

So Dave had to completely destroy everything that he had on his sites after this attack. He deleted it all! Now his sites are back up and more protected than ever with some serious code hardening and probably a 47 character password to his dashboard! I have to say that I do not think that I would have even had the strength or know how to put it all back together and bring my site back from the edge of death. So, if you are are a hacker please don’t ever attack me because I would not know what to do and my kids would probably start crying….loud…without ceasing….very annoying.

 

 

 

September 15, 2011 | Filed Under General | 1 Comment 

Logitech Keyboard Showdown

When I got my iPad a couple of months back I immediately thought of all the accessories that I wanted to start looking at to pimp it out. I had actually been going back and forth wondering if I really could use an iPad or if it would just sit there and be used only for occasional games. Are they too big and delicate to even be in this house with all of these kids running around? I needed something to protect it but I also wanted to maybe just take it along with me when I travel instead of lugging around a standard laptop.

I knew that I did not like typing out long emails and blog posts with the onscreen keyboard. I make enough mistakes on a regular keyboard and I make even more with the onscreen virtual keyboard. I think I should just stick with what I make the least mistakes with and keep the auto correcting of my blundering fingers to a minimum. So, I sought out some solutions in the form of my friends over at Logitech and their selection of Bluetooth keyboards to suit my bumbling typing needs. I tried out two products with my iPad2 and those products were the Logitech Tablet Keyboard For iPad and the Logitech Keyboard Case for iPad 2.

You can find both of these items over at Logitech’s site. The Keyboard Case for iPad 2 retails for around $99.99 and the Tablet Keyboard For iPad retails for around $69.99. Also keep up with Logitech on Facebook and Twitter to see what other sweet products might be coming your way.

The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely that of the blog owners. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. I have been given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions in any freakin’ way.

 

September 5, 2011 | Filed Under Review/Giveaway | 4 Comments