I have been streaming a great bit of the Stargate TV series lately. The franchise has easily become one of my favorite of all time. I have watched all ten seasons of SG-1, 3 of the 5 season of Atlantis, and seen all of Stargate Universe. Now I found out that Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has just made it easier for people to follow in my footsteps.

In the grand tradition of Black Friday FoxConnect.com has slashed a ton of prices on some of their best titles. These indlude DVD, Blu-ray, complete seasons, and complete series. You can find select titles up to 70% off on the FoxConnect.com in their Black Friday section. HOLY COW I am going to go broke!

While in L.A. a few weeks ago I got to see a special screening of a movie called The Secret World of Arrietty. Crystal and I got to see it in a small screening room inside of the Dick Clark Productions studio. I love all animated genres and have had a great time with animes in the past. The Secret World of Arrietty is an animated adventure based on Mary Norton’s acclaimed children’s book series “The Borrowers. This is an animated feature that really pushed it when it came to Crystal because it really walks the line of “anime looking”.

After seeing the movie she came around and thought it was something really fresh and took you where you didn’t think it would take you. Traditional Japanese animation, or anime, doesn’t typically take the traditional “western” storyline approach like our movies do here in America. That’s what kept her entralled.

Arrietty (voice of Bridgit Mendler), a tiny, but tenacious 14-year-old, lives with her parents (voices of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) in the recesses of a suburban garden home, unbeknownst to the homeowner and her housekeeper (voice of Carol Burnett). Like all little people, Arrietty (AIR-ee-ett-ee) remains hidden from view, except during occasional covert ventures beyond the floorboards to “borrow” scrap supplies like sugar cubes from her human hosts. But when 12-year-old Shawn (voice of David Henrie), a human boy who comes to stay in the home, discovers his mysterious housemate one evening, a secret friendship blossoms. If discovered, their relationship could drive Arrietty’s family from the home and straight into danger.

I know that the kids are going to love this movie especially Taylor who will just fall in love with Arrietty and how strong she is despite her size. Hope you all get a chance to check it out as it hits theaters on February 17th, 2012!

Well after four months of being a Windows Mobile user on a HTC Surround I had to say no more. I said goodbye to my Apple iPhone at the end of August due to how slow the phone had gotten. It was several years old and I do not think that the plain old iPhone 3G could handle the software load and updates that it had taken on over the years.

I really did love the speed of the HTC phone and the handset boasted some very powerful specs. It was the availability of apps and features that ultimately did it in for me. When I first got the phone custom ringtones weren’t even an option. How does this happen in the age of phones today? My Nokia 3130 from 1999 at least did that. After four months of the Windows Mobile phone coming up short it was time to return to an IOS device.

The main thing that I was wanting to talk about is not the phones themselves but the Apple store itself. What is wrong with this place? As soon as you walk in the place you feel the cold distant feeling that overcomes you as you enter the sparse environment. Underneath the vast array of visible and hidden security cameras the employees are sure to be laughing at the customers walking in with confusion in tow.

I guess it just comes down to me feeling weird when I am in the Apple store. I have to check in as soon as I get there (like being seated at a table in a restaurant) and then wait for another person to actually talk to me. Also, the alarm systems hooked up to the devices are so touchy that I cringe with fear when near and refuse to touch them at all.

When we entered the store there was a special roped off section with some bearded young dude handing out white cards that had different iPhone and different specs on each card. You collected the card of the model you wanted and then proceeded to the roped off section to claim your electronic fruit. It was just weird and made me feel uncomfortable with the whole experience.

I did walk away with a sweet new iPhone 4S though so I guess it was worth all of the trouble and tasks you have to go through to get one. Kind of like letting your kids play outside and them getting dirty. Even if you have to clean them all up it is worth trouble if the reward of them going to sleep a little early is there.

I think of my self as a fairly good parent. I do my best to try and share many things with my kids that I think that they would enjoy. While showing the trailer for the new Muppets movie to my kids I realized that they had never seen any Muppets movie before. How bad of dad does that make me if all that they have seen of Kermit the Frog was an occasional cameo on old Sesame Streets?

I am desperately scrambling to catch them up before the November 23rd release of the new movie. The movie were all on Netflix streaming but now they have seemed to disappear. I did notice that at some stores they sell a multi movie pack that have three movies on one disc. So, in anticipation of the movie I hope to catch us all up before I deemed an utter failure.

For the longest time I thought I had a problem.  Not a drinking problem or a gambling problem, but a problem losing something very important over and over.  My wedding ring has had a history of not wanting to stick around much.  I have currently been the owner of three wedding bands and it’s not because I have walked down the aisle three times.

Right before Crystal and I got married over nine years ago I had a difficult task of figuring out what type of ring I wanted.  I knew that I did not want a plain old yellow gold band.  I really checked out a good bit of men’s platinum, men’s white gold, and men’s tungsten rings.  I knew that platinum would be silly for me to get because it would have been a bit out of my price range (I had already spent enough on her platinum set).  I purchased an amazing wedding ring that was white gold and had a few diamond baguettes in it.

Needless to say, five years later I stuck my wedding band in my back pocket one afternoon before painting my daughters room purple (as to not get paint on it) and realized that the pocket had a hole in it hours later.

A year after that I picked up another $50 band at a department store and left it in a bathroom somewhere while washing and drying my hands.  I just HAD to make sure that there were no germs hiding under that ring!

The latest one was  just some super cheap band that I picked up at some store in my daily travels.  I think that the kids actually picked it up and then it disappeared into the void.  I’m sure I will find it on an action figure one day as the boys probably used it as a royal crown for someone.

I have made a promise to myself that I will go at this one more time and I vow to not lose this one.  I have been going over some options and found some really great rings that are made of tungsten.  Men’s Tungsten Online has a really sweet selection of rings.  I just wish that they would have an accidental idiotic husband loss insurance.

Crystal also got the same phone that I did and she refused to hook hers up until about two months later when finally she could not take the crawling speed of her old iPhone. The reason she waited so long to switch over was a simple reason…Windows Mobile 7 did not support custom ringtones. I know right?!?! A cell phone that does not integrate custom ringtones in this day and age? I liked the phone well enough that it did matter to me that it did not have that function.

Windows has since released a brand new update for our phones and I updated mine this past week. The update added over 500 new features. Crystal was excited that they finally announced custom ringtones and was now really liking the phone. Like I said though, I updated mine, she did not get the update notification. Windows is slowly rolling out the update to select customers in select markets and I happened to be one and she was not.

She got excited though when news broke about the new iPhone coming in two weeks. She said she was excited that she got to dump the Windows phone in favor of the new iPhone 5. I explained to her that it was not the iPhone 5 but just a hopped up iPhone 4 with a better camera. She was then mad yet again and went back to liking her Windows phone…for now!

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?
 

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.

Crystal and I recently had our first serious getaway since our honeymoon almost eight years ago. I didn’t think I would like traveling so much…but I do. Crystal starting asking me of all the places I would go if I got the chance to travel to them. I promptly told her that if given the chance I would love to check out some all inclusive holidays to Italy. That is where my family all started many many years ago and I would, like most people, like to travel to see my country of origin.

My second place that I would love to visit is Egypt. Who would not want an all inclusive holiday to Egypt to check out tons of stacked stone that makes up the wondrous structures known as the pyramids? I told Crystal that if we go I would definitely make the most of the trip and spend some time trying to find the location of a very ancient yet technologically advanced device known as the Stargate. See if we had that we could travel instantaneously via a wormhole directly to our destination. Then we wouldn’t have to fly across an ocean and we would be able to have cheap holidays to Egypt instead of pricey ones.

The third place I want to go is Japan. Who wouldn’t want to go to the birthplace of Nintendo?  Not only that  but I think that the Japanese culture is such a unique one.  From the their food to their architecture Japan sets trends that echo throughout the world.  I really want to have my own kimono too.

There has been a delay in me flying. Not a single instance or a certain flight but the delay in getting me on an actual flight in a long time. I first flew when I was around nine years old. My step-dad took me on a short flight from Houston to Austin to spend the day with his parents and give me the chance to see life above the clouds.

I am now set to be going out of town this next week and I will be flying for the second time in my life. I have no idea on what goes on or how this process is supposed to go. So many things are running through my head about the flight itself. Even simple stuff like “what are the bathrooms like on a plane?” I heard that if you unrolled a whole roll of toilet paper on a plane it would suck it all down in around 5 seconds! I’m sure that after I tried something like that someone would inform me of how un-green that is. Crystal always says that she could never sleep on a plane. I think I am going to try to and see if I can do it and if it’s comfortable or not. I’m sure that when I wake up from my catnap I will have a pamphlet on my chest filling me in on all the information on snoring that I will ever need.

I’m not even going to go into the security thing. Hopefully, people won’t pat me down to much.