Friday, July 11, 2008

Posting with Blogger Buddy

Every once in a while I check to see if there are any interesting Vista Sidebar gadgets available. I mean, how many clock utilities do we really need?

One I just found is Blogger Buddy, which lets you post from your Sidebar without having to load your browser or editing app.







Well, this might be the first and last post from Blogger Buddy for me! Clicking on the Image button has a space to fill in the image tag, but it wants an html link, and it won't let you browse your drive for images.

No thanks. For quick text-only posts, I can see the advantage, but I prefer show and tell. Another problem I just found - I tried to select the following text and click the Italics button, and instead of bookending the text with the italics tags, it just put the opening and closing tags after the end of the text. That's useful, said nobody.

This is actually my second attempt - I think I messed up the gadget trying to move it off the Sidebar.

Also, I had to post the text of the, uh, post, with Blogger Buddy, then open IE, log in, edit my post and manually upload and add the images.

Speed Racer

Wow.

A few nights ago we caught Speed Racer at the dollar show.



Call us crazy, but we actually liked it!

I had heard that the reviews were terrible, so I went in to it not expecting it to be double-billed with The Shawshank Redemption, so perhaps our sights were lower than the average critic.




Psychedelic-trippy-more-than-exist colors? Totally. Sometimes there was just so much going on in the scene that I had no idea what was what, who was winning or if we had just gone plaid.

The acting was okay for this type of movie, and I actually laughed out loud a few times, which surprised me. Our kids definitely enjoyed the racing scenes and crazy stunts and tracks, but they got a little restless in the extended dialog scenes.

What's funny is I went through the whole thing thinking Val Kilmer played Rex Racer, but apparently it's this dude! Some people on the forums apparently also think that he looks like Val Kilmer, so I guess I'm not the only one.

I really like the car designs too.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

McDonalds commercials

Man, over a month off of blogging and I come back for my 250th post with some McDonalds commercials?

Yes!

The only thing we like about McDonalds is the ice cream cones. And an air-conditioned playscape. The two things we like about McDonalds are the ice cream cones and the air-conditioned playscapes. And RedBox drops. Okay, I see where this is going. While we don't eat there, I really liked their commercial featuring Line Rider, a great game that deserves some posts of its own.

I love the "music" on the first one.



I didn't know there was another one until I searched for the first one.



Last night my boys and I are watching a little SpongeBob...do we really need a link?...and I saw another commercial that has moved up in my favorites list.



These girls can dance! It looks like the motion has been sped up slightly in a few places, or some frames have been removed reminding me of some really old-school MTV VJ techniques. I made my boys sit through the commercial about five times before relinquishing control back to SpongeBob.

Besides their technique, which I'm trying to copy to perform at work, I love their facial expressions.