RonVitale

Shopping

Only a few days left for Christmas shopping before the big day arrives!  You better hurry up.  Am I into all the consumerism that’s running rampant this time of year?  You bet I am and I’m not afraid to admit it.  I really like going out and getting gifts for friends/family.  It’s a lot of fun to get caught up in the holiday spirit and forget, for a while, the problems of the world.  It’s easy to forget about the war, survivors from the hurricanes, and a host of other problems.  But since I’m a pretty cynical guy when it comes to life (I like to think of myself as a realist, but I think my wife would call me a complainer), I do like to see the Christmas lights, hear the caroling, and just try to have some fun.

My wife and I wrapped Christmas gifts last night while watching the film “The 40-year-old Virgin.”  I like to keep an open mind, but I didn’t really enjoy the flick.  It was boring.  While watching the film, I felt really sorry for the main character, wondering why he was being portrayed as such a loser.  Some people choose to live a celibate life and reducing a man to the worst possible of everything (he doesn’t drive a car, he has a crappy job, he collects action figures, etc.) was a bit unbelievable.  Yes, there were some funny scenes, but give me “American Pie” over “the 40-year-old Virgin” any day.  Hands down.

Again, I’ll watch all sorts of flicks.  I’m definitely not a prude. 

So my Christmas shopping is mostly done, presents are wrapped, and about half of our cards are out in the mail.  The tree is up with lights, but no decorations outside.  I still have to find out what my family is doing this year.  In years past, my family would come to our house and we would hold Christmas Eve dinner (the seven fish Italian dinner—but don’t tell anyone—we didn’t always have seven fish), all opening our gifts up after the kids went to bed.  What will we do this year?  I believe we’re going up to my brothers and hanging out there.  Plans aren’t definite yet, but that would give us time to relax and not have to worry about moving unpacked boxes out of the way.  With Christmas only a little more than a week away, we’ll be finalizing all our plans soon.

Speaking of unpacking, I’ve been having a blast in finding old Dungeons & Dragons rule books, modules, and back issues of Dragon magazine.  I’ve opened some of the issues of Dragon magazine and they’re 22 years old.  Man, that makes me feel old.  I can’t believe that it’s been that long since I used to subscribe to the magazine.  Time passes by quickly.  I still can’t believe that it’s been over 12 years since I started playing the card game Magic: The Gathering.  Speaking of which: I finished episode 2 of the Magic Sock and am waiting to see when/if MTGSalvation.com will be running the video blog on their site.  Hopefully, it’ll be before Christmas.  We shall see.  I also submitted the Web blog to iTunes, but it’s not showed up there yet.  My thought is that I could obtain some traffic via people looking for Magic: The Gathering podcasts via iTunes.  I’m hoping that iTunes will list my video.  I don’t know if they will or not, I’ll have to see.  I think it would be great if they did, but it’s out of my control.

From the stats on the first episode, I had over 560 people download it.  I don’t think that’s too bad.  Will I find an audience or not?  I’m not sure, but it’ll be fun in trying.  I like tinkering with the technology to put The Magic Sock all together, but it does take a lot of work and time.  Both of which I don’t have much of these days.  However, it’s my goal to work on episode #3 around Jan. 1st.  Again, we’ll see how much time I actually have.

Well, I’m off.  I’ve stuff to do.  Take care and have fun. 

Films

I think everyone is tired of my bitching about moving and unpacking so I’ll just change the subject. I haven’t made much time to write, trying to get back into work from having been out from moving, and also preparing for the approaching Christmas holiday. I have cards to send out and my son’s gifts yet to wrap.

This time of year I also try and take some vacation time so that I can spend with my family and friends (and play some Magic, see movies, mess with techy stuff, etc.) This year is no exception. But I wanted to talk about some movies that I’d like to see:

Shopgirl
King Kong
Syriana
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Brokeback Mountain
Memoirs of a Geisha

I’ve always loved film since I was little. I believe the first movie I saw in the theater was “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” I remember my grandfather taking me to see some crazy film (an alien movie in which the saucers were spinning around on the screen like dishes) that looked like a Saturday afternoon TV serial. Horrible special effects and bad acting. But over the years I’ve seen some wonderful films about the human condition. Yes, I’m picky in what movies I see (especially now with having no time to go to the cinema), but I like to see a mix of films.

I also enjoy seeing foreign films, watching them in their native language (I hate dubbed movies). If you’re looking for a great anime flick to watch, check out Howl's Moving Castle. You probably missed it in the theaters, but it’ll be coming out on DVD in spring 2006. Directed by Hayo Miyazaki (“Spirited Away” won an Oscar recently), “Howl’s Moving Castle” is a marvel to behold. The animation is beautiful, the story is engaging, and the experience in watching it is simply sublime.

With the films I mentioned above, I’ll probably only get to see two or three of them in the movie. And here’s the rub: Which film should I go see? I believe Brokeback Mountain is up for 7 Golden Globes—that doesn’t necessarily make it a “must see” film, but I do like to try to take it some films that are noteworthy. And a story about two cowboys, who are married to women, but fall in love with each other is an interesting story. If done right, I’m curious to see the writing and how the emotional aspect is portrayed onscreen.

Next, I’d like to see Syriana. Topical, explosive, and extremely complex, from what I’ve read about this film, it’s right up my alley. It’s not a film that I’m dying to see, but I am intrigued by the content and I’ve read there are some excellent performances in it.

Shopgirl I want to see (ah, I remember the days of seeing Claire Danes in “My So Called Life.” I loved that show), but I think I’ll wait for Netflix. I hear it’s a great film, but it doesn’t fall into the “I must see this on the big screen” category.

So what film does fall into that? Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong are up there as “must see” on the big screen. I’m leaning toward King Kong because I’ve read some rave reviews and I’ve enjoyed Peter Jackson’s “Heavenly Creatures” and the Lord of the Rings films. I doubt I’ll see a movie everyday, but if I had to pick three movies to see, I think they’d be:

Brokeback Mountain
King Kong
Chronicles of Narnia

They’re not in any particular order. Hopefully, one day the movie industry will wake up and smell the coffee: My wife and I used to go to the movies nearly every weekend when we were first married. But having a child, changed our going out plans. Now I can walk on any street in New York and buy a pirated copy of current films showing in theaters for under $10—why can’t I buy a legitimate copy? I know that the movie industry is thinking that they’ll be shooting themselves in the foot, but I’ve gone to movies and seen them on the big screen and then buy them on DVD (how many copies of Star Wars do I have? Three copies!). For films that people love, they’ll see it any way they can. No matter if they download it from BitTorrent, buy a pirated copy, or simply wait to rent it. People will get the film they want and watch it at their convenience.

Many people are increasingly becoming tired of the cinema: The audience is sometimes loud (cell phones on, etc.), the prices are extremely high ($9-$10 a ticket), and you have to deal with traffic problems. I’m not saying that I want the cinemas to go out of business. No, I’m saying that DVDs of films should be released much closer to the theatrical releases or simply release them at the same time. I know some directors are already considering this option: Releasing the film in the cinema and on DVD at the same time. We’ll have to see if this catches on. And if that idea doesn’t work, why can’t we rent a film and watch it on our TV? Again, there’s money to be made here, just the business model needs to be worked out. If you offer a high quality product at a good price, why would people buy a pirated copy? There would be no need.

And to you cynics out there: I don’t just see Christmas time as a chance to go to the movies. But I do look forward to seeing some films. My wife and I have worked hard in the move and at our jobs so I want to enjoy some fantasy and sit back and watch a good flick. Reading, listening to music, and watching films: All hobbies I enjoy. And I’m so looking forward to having some rest and relaxation. Peace.

Coming Soon: Magic Sock Episode 2

Yesterday my wife and I went to get the Christmas tree and we had it up by the time my son came home from daycare.  You should have seen his face!  And the noise he made: He was really excited.  He helped me put on the star and made sure to try and throw a few Christmas balls.  All in all, a very good time.

More on that later.

But I wanted to let all your "The Magic Sock" video blog fans know that the next episode has been made.  I'm waiting for the staff of   MTGSalvation.com to review the episode and then put it live.  Hopefully, it'll go live before Chirstmas.  So keep your eye out for it!  The second episode was filmed right before the move so it's shorter and I haven't had a chance to incorporate some of the ideas I had, but still I think it's a better episode (it's more focused, shorter, and to the point).  I hope you like it.

Back to Christmas: I woke up this morning early (it's my first day back to work since last Thursday) and realized that Christmas is only 12 days away.  Wow, it's coming fast this year.  I'm looking around our new home and I'm still tripping over boxes.  I found more music CDs to put away, but we still can't find our remote control to our DVD recorder.  I had not packed it, leaving it for my mother-in-law to use so she and my son had some TV to watch.  I called the movers up yesterday and hope to hear back from them in a day or two.  It's not looking good. :/  I wish I know where it was.  I tried to go through all the boxes, but I've not had any luck.  Maybe it was in a box that went into the attic?  I'm not sure.  I was hoping that it would have been in a box with the Christmas stuff, but I couldn't find it there either.  Oh well.

My office is coming together well.  Wireless is up, all the PCs in the house are up and running, but I still have pictures to hang up, lots of stuff yet to put away in the basement, and most of our books.  That's going to take some time to do.  With my son, it's been funny just seeing him get used to the new place.  There's a lot more room for him to run around it, and I've been very happy to see how excited he's been with the Christmas tree and getting ready for the holidays.

The last four days have been rough.  Yesterday I worked from 5:30 a.m. until right before dinner.  I did get a chance to hook up the surround sound system in the living room.  I've not tested it (not sure if the speakers are out of phase or not) and it's not the permanent location (I want to move the equipment into the basement after we get new rugs down there and do some painting), but it'll do for now. 

Well, I need to get ready for work.  Take it easy! 

Unpacking

You know, I thought that the move itself would be the most difficult part of the experience, but it wasn't.  Unpacking, putting stuff away, and then clearing all the boxes out has been a chore.  Not to mention getting up all the computers and the wireless in the house.  There's still a lot for us to do.  Are we happy?  Well, I'll admit that I'm overwhelmed.  There's so much to do.  Lots to do.  Why rush and why not take my time?

My son will only be 2 1/2 only once and I want to get the Christmas tree up so that he can see the lights and the hanging Christmas balls.  When I'm driving around at night and seeing all the lights up, I've been a bit sad that we don't have our own lights up.  I love the lights and the magic of Christmas.  I know that sounds very commercial--I mean what do lights have to do with Christmas anyway?  I just remember the lights when I was young and being so happy in seeing the lights around our house. I used to help my grandfather put the lights on the lawn and I have many fond memories of that.

Already I've seen our son's eyes light up as he sees a blow up snowman (this year's "new" thing for a lawn ornament) at night.  He points at it and yells: "Snowman!"  I just have to smile.

Well, I'm running out of energy.  I'm a bit tired.  But I wanted to quickly tell the move story.  My mother-in-law slept over to help us work with the movers.  However, with the snow we received (about 6") we woke up to a world of white.  Our son's daycare was closed and I was extremely happy to have my mother-in-law's help. 

I finished packing the last of the equipment and then went outside to shovel the snow.  But instead of dealing with snow, it had started to rain.  Heavy rain and a half a foot of snow.  Trying to shovel the wet and heavy snow was a pain in the ass.  After the shoveling we got into the car and tried to get to the final walk through our new house.  By one of our cars was stuck in the snow and we tried to push it out into the main road.  We made it through the snow and after the walk through went to settlement.

After that, we arrived at our new house and--I had to shovel again.  By the end of the day, I was ready to collapse.  Both my wife and I just could stay awake too much longer.  We were tired, sore, and just plain sick of it all. The next day I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and started to unpack stuff.  Well, here it is now--Sunday night and there's still plenty to do.

I'm off.  Time to rest a bit.  Take it easy.  Peace.