Kevin and I had a nice Independence Day this year. Sandy had to work, so Kevin and I went to Emily’s 4th of July party at her house. It was pretty nice. The food was awesome, and they had a few little fireworks for the kids. It was pretty hot and humid though, so a bit uncomfortable, and it even drizzled on us a bit as we sat outside. Their plan was to walk to the Racine Fireworks following the party, but Kevin and I weren’t interested in that, so we headed home awhile after we ate.

The puppies had to stay penned while we were away from home, so it was also good to get back home sooner so they could get out. Not that they were stressed from people in the neighborhood setting off fireworks though–they’re pretty used to it already. In fact, we used Zak George’s techniques for conditioning them to loud sounds, so now they’re pretty much indifferent to loud noises and even get excited at times, thinking they’re going to get a treat. When they do this and we notice, they do get a treat too. It’s kind of funny to see them get excited instead of scared when there’s a loud BOOM though, and they come running and stare at the treat container. I also watched Black Hawk Down last night, which had plenty of explosions and loud noises of it’s own, so I don’t think they could tell the difference anyway. It also helps that I listen to my movies and play my music pretty loudly at home (when Sandy’s not there), so they’re pretty used to all that noise.

Speaking of movies, “Shazam!” just came out on digital this week, so Kevin and I watched it. We had been looking forward to it, since we missed it in theaters. We both thought it was pretty well done. I think DC is learning a lot from the success of Marvel’s movies and using a lot more humor in their stories, which is nice. We also watched “Little” last week, at Kevin’s request. It seemed a bit childish, with a premise that has been well-used in a lot of other movies: A successful business woman who is really really bossy and used to getting everything her way is taught a lesson when a spell is cast on her so she wakes up as a 13-year-old the next morning and struggles to get through life trying to convince everyone that she’s still a successful business woman and not a 13-year-old child. Remember the movie “Big” starring Tom Hanks? Yeah, it doesn’t compare.

I watched “Batman and Robin” just to see the only Batman (George Clooney) with nipples. That’s right, nipples. I only planned to watch it up to that point, but it became so over-the-top and ridiculous that I couldn’t resist seeing it through to the wacky ending. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s one-liners were oh so bad. In fact, everyone’s was. It was like they were trying way too hard to be a comic book instead of a movie.

I watch “After Earth” too, thinking “It’s a Will Smith movie, it has to be good.” Whoops, my bad.

Lastly, I watch “Mercury Rising”, an old Bruce Willis movie from 1998. I hardly remembered what it was about at all, so it was fun to experience it again and I liked it.

You might be wondering how I remember everything I watch so well, especially at my age. I must confess, I don’t. Plex does. I’ve noticed recently that Plex keeps changing for the better, embedding more and more great features. But its ability to sort movies by “Date Viewed” is pretty handy for jogging my memory. It’s other nice and very cool features include the display of the ACTUAL time your movie or show will be done, once you start playing it. This seems like a pretty simple thing, but I haven’t seen any other service or player do this and it’s pretty handy, I must say. You instantly know, the first time you pause your movie, when it’ll be done (if you watch it straight through without pausing from that point forward). Then there’s the in-depth statistics–I can see all of the users who have played our movies, TV shows, music, and videos, what they’ve watched and for how long, since forever. I can rate each movie and TV show we have and sort movies and TV shows by those ratings or sort them by many other criteria. The Plex interface is very much like many other movie interfaces such as Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Movies Anywhere, etc., except for the fact that everything is local–meaning all of the movies and TV shows are on my local Plex server itself–it doesn’t have to stream anything over the internet (unless I’m playing a movie or TV show remotely). And since most home Internet services don’t support streaming FROM a home very well, Plex uses “syncing” of specified content to help resolve this issue. This lets me choose the movies and TV shows that I want to “download” to my device (phone, tablet, etc.) and Plex automatically syncs them with the server. That way they play as easily on my phone as they would if I were playing them from home where my server is.

That was a bit more detail than I intended, but you get the idea. I love Plex. And movies.