Category Archives: Entertainment

Android, Entertainment, Technology

Black Knight for Android WORKS!

Leave a comment

I am so excited.  I just discovered that they fixed Black Knight for Android.  It’s part of Pinball Arcade, an awesome collection of real pinball machines for Android.  Black Knight has been available in Pinball Arcade for several weeks, but I was never able to get the Magna-Save magnets to work for the game, and they’re a critical element in the game.  Plus, the magnet buttons–which are right above the flipper buttons in the real game (which I mastered and personally owned for several years in my younger days)–were placed at the very top of the table, making it virtually impossible to actually use, even if they DID work.  But they didn’t even work, so I guess that didn’t really matter much.  I was very disappointed, and since I never saw any complaints from others I was beginning to wonder if it was just me having the issue.

Today I loaded it up to see where was was in the standings.  I was as high as #15 in the world for awhile, with my best game being about 3,500,000 points.  Now my same score is about #36 in the world, and dropping.  So I started a game, and was shocked to see that the magna-save buttons had been moved near the bottom of the screen, just above the areas you normally flip the flippers in!  Seeing this, I wondered if they actually worked now.  So I dropped a target bank and then tried using a magnet when the ball got near it… BAM, they work!  FarSight Studios has totally redeemed themselves–this game ROCKS!  I can finally unplug my Wii… I won’t be using it again… I can comfortably wait for the Wii-U this winter.

Android, Entertainment, Family News, Health & Fitness, News

Essential Android Apps

Leave a comment

We’ve been very busy the past few weeks since Sandy’s dad George passed away.  He left behind a great family of three kids (if I can call them that) and a pretty darned nice house, if I do say so myself.  We’ve been busy getting things in order, cleaned up, shuffled around, and legally situated, and we’re almost ready to “Git ‘er done!” as they (Larry the Cable Guy) says.  Since I’m not willing to discuss anything regarding this in detail yet, and I still feel like writing, let’s talk apps.

There are a few apps on my Android that I just can’t live without, and I’d like to discuss them.  The first one is Evernote.  Evernote is free, and it’s awesome.  It’s very simple to use, and you can use it just as a basic note-taking app if you want to.  Once you write and save a note in Evernote, it’s on your account and will automatically sync with every other device you have (if you have Evernote on that device) and this way your notes will be available to you everywhere you need them!  This has become priceless for me at work–I often take notes before going offsite to other faciltiies.  I used to write up a quick Word document, print it, fold it up and put it in my pocket.  Now I simply type it up in an Evernote document and I can head out the door knowing when I take out my cell phone, it’ll be there for me to read whenever I need it.  Evernote also does much more.  It lets you attach files, insert images, and documents such as PDFs and docs, and it’ll even OCR your images and will find the text within them instantly whenever you search for something!

Another must-have app–for me, anyway–is Cardiotrainer.  I won’t walk without it.  It GPS-tracks your walks (or hikes, rides or drives), providing you with an excellent map of your journey as well as complete calorie-burning details and much more.  It even allows you to set optional goals for you trip, such as a specific amount of time you’d like to walk, a certain distance you’d like to travel, or a certain amount of calories you’d like to burn off, and it will prompt you accordingly at the intervals you set, as you walk, so you know exactly where you are and how close you are to your goal all the time.  This is one of those smart talking apps too–none of of beeps and ringtones, it talks plain english to you.  It will even automatically play a specific playlist of your music as you walk, if you want it to.  I prefer to listen to my audiobooks on my walks though, which encourages me to walk even more–so I can get further through each book I’m reading.  Cardiotrainer is free for basic use, but the “pro” version is the version I use, which include all of the features I mentioned.   It’s $9.99, which is actually pretty pricey for an Android app, but believe me, it’s worth every penny!  Especially if it helps you live longer and healthier, as it has me…A one-time $10 fee is a no-brainer!

There are many more apps I could mention here, but it’s time for breakfast, so I’ll only mention one more: Handcent.  Handcent is an SMS texting app replacement.  It replaces your stock Android texting app with a fancy-shmancy “bubble-type” texting app, akin to the iPhone texting app.  It includes a TON of options, so you can pretty much customize it exactly how you’d like it for everything from popups when you get a text to exactly what ringtones you want it to play for a specific person or for the default text-received ringtone.  It even has “skins”, which opens it up to hundreds (maybe even thousands) of user-created and custom skins you can use while texting.  You can even make it look and act just like the iPhone–if you want to keep it simple.

So that’s about it for now… breakfast time!

Entertainment, Internet, Music, Technology

Amazon MP3 ROCKS!

Leave a comment

Wow, Amazon MP3 just blew my mind!  When their service started, I was pretty disappointed that they didn’t grandfather in all of my old MP3 purchases.  Instead, from the day their cloud player went live and forward, it would store your music.  Bummer for me, since I had spent hundreds of dollars on music on Amazon since they first started selling MP3’s.  I didn’t lose any music though, I still had it stored on my own drives.  Well, today they’ve finally included all of my previous MP3 purchases into my Amazon Cloud collection!  I had just under 100 albums on my cloud drive before, and now, as Amazon continues to scan my old purchases, it is importing 1,936 previously-purchased albums!  Wow.  Luckily, NONE of these albums go against my GB storage limit, since they were purchased from Amazon!  So now this gives me another streaming option in addition to Audiogalaxy and Subsonic.

Up until now, Audiogalaxy has been my preferred streamer.  It’s completely free, streams much smoother than any of other option I’ve tried, and it even works great at work.  Subsonic has the added benefit of downloading as standard MP3’s so I can use standard media players on my devices to play the music, but it doesn’t want to play at work.  I’ll have to see how Cloud Player stacks up, now that I have all my music back on it.

Kenosha, Music, Photography

New Kenosha Art

Leave a comment

I added 8 new photos to the Kenosha Art set today.  These were all taken during my Pennoyer Park walk yesterday.  They’re the first 8 photos in this set – 2 new park signs, 4 black-on-blue themed music murals that were ocated around the restrooms at the bandshell, and 2 new tile art images, located on either side of the bandshell itself.  Enjoy!

Kenosha Art – click on any thumbnail to view the set
Android, Entertainment

Amazing Alex! – a mini review

1 Comment
Amazing Alex, Rovio’s new game, just came out this morning!  For those who don’t know Rovio, they’re the company who created the wildly successful Angry Birds game and all of its incarnations.  Amazing Alex is their first non-Angry Birds game.  I played several levels of it this morning to check it out.  Do you remember the board game Mousetrap?  Or the old “Incredible Machine” game for the PC?  It’s just like that!  It’s a physics game where you have to setup a chain reaction to accomplish a goal–like getting a basketball to drop into a basket.  I thought they went a bit too far in giving you the answers to many of the early levels just to teach you how to play though.  The entire first section is VERY easy, and it seemed like only the last few levels of it I actually had to think a little on my own to complete.  That’s as far as I went so far though.  I’m guessing (hoping) there are tons more levels to come, each one more complex than the last.  There was also a hint that there’s a level creator in it too, though I haven’t even looked for it yet.  Hopefully they’ve thought of everything and created a whole community sharing element so everyone can share their creations with their friends.  It sounds like it’s the start of another awesome game!  The ad-free version is 99 cents, and worth every penny!
Entertainment, Movies

My Birthday

Leave a comment

Everyone wants to know if I had a nice birthday.  At this point, I don’t know why you’re supposed to celebrate getting another year older… maybe you’re supposed to be glad that you’ve managed to survive this long.  Believe me, I am.  I’m 49–or as Mark says, “older than dirt”.  Everyone says that about their grandparents.  I’m not quite there yet.  Not a grandparent anyway.  And I FEEL better than I have in years.  I’ve been losing weight with all of this walking and eating right, and it’s making a lot of things easier.  Heck, I can almost see my feet again!

We went to visit George in the hospital yesterday.  He’s doing better.  He’ll be going to a nursing home for rehab next, and we’re hoping for the best.  Next I worked on Ty’s laptop.  He somehow managed to spill Aunt Jemima over his keyboard, basically gluing down several of his keys.  This took some work, carefully popping off, and removing, each glued key, cleaning it, and cleaning everything underneath it, then reassembling it.  Not an easy task on a laptop.  On a regular PC keyboard I would have just replaced the keyboard with a new one, but on a laptop this can get pretty pricey.  It worked out ok though, and the keys are working fine again.

Next, Kevin Ty and I went swimming at Rec-Plex.  I did 10 reverse laps and the current channel–this is a hot-dog-shaped channel of current where you can basically just ride the current around the loop with no effort at all.  Walking in reverse, however, is just the opposite.  It requires MUCH effort, and after a few laps you can really feel it.  My goal is always 10 reverse laps.  After 7 laps I got a cramp in my left calf, but I managed to still complete the full 10 laps.  Kevin, as usual, got “carded” again a couple times when we got in the hot tub.  The age requirement is “12-16 year olds allowed if accompanied by an adult,  under 12 not allowed.”  Apparently Kevin always looks like he’s under 12, because they always catch him and look to me.  He’s 14 now, so this has been going on for almost 3 years.  He just hasn’t “sprouted” yet.  Ty, on the other hand, with his “hint of a moustache” is never an issue.  But since Kevin and I are members, I am relieved to know that if he ever REALLY gets carded–where the want proof–all they have to do is check their own records.  They have his photo on file, along with his date of birth, which proves his age, and they’ve had it since we started going there.  I think we even went there right after his 12th birthday, just to celebrate him now being “hot tub-eligible”… yes, I believe we got carded that day, too.

When we got home from swimming, Sandy had an awesome supper of cheese ravioli & meatballs with marijuana sauce (yeah, it’s marinara sauce, but I pronounce it differently), then it was on to a video chat with Jay and his family.

I had planned to have a fire as well, but we quickly ran out of time and had to get to our double-feature of MIB and MIB II to get ready for MIB III, which we’re going to see today.  Ty passed out halfway through MIB II, and Kevin opted out of the whole thing, since he has watched them both so many times in the past.  I guess we’re about as ready as we’ll ever be for today’s matinee.

Entertainment

Uptown Car Show

Leave a comment

Uptown Car Show 2012Kevin and I (and Socks) went to the Uptown Car Show yesterday.  It was ok, but kinda small compared to the others we’ve been to.  There didn’t seem to be many cars there this time.  The reserved block between 60th Street and Open Pantry was completely empty, though it was still blocked off from traffic, reserved for the car show.

The music was great (didn’t get the name of the band, sorry), and they had a KPD Canine training demonstration that was interesting.  We walked home after that (Sandy wasn’t available for a rescue pickup) and I was pretty exhausted.

This time, Kevin took all of the photos of the event.  Take a look, I think he did a great job.

Audiobooks, Entertainment, Movies

Movies & Books

Leave a comment

As an update to my last post, now that the Oscars have come and gone, as far as the nominees go, I’ve seen Hugo, The Help, and Moneyball.  I thought all three were very good.  Kevin was a little disappointed in Hugo, saying it was kind of boring in parts, and I can see that for a little kid I guess, growing up with blockbuster robot movies like Terminator and Transformers.  A simple automaton didn’t cut it for him.  For me, however, I thought it was fascinating, especially the artful way the entire movie looked overall.  It was fascinating to watch, especially in Blu-Ray.  I also saw Tower Heist.  I don’t think it was nominated, but I liked it.

In other media, I finished Stephen King’s “Duma Key” audiobook recently, and I just started The Hunger Games, at Kevin’s request.  Kevin has the real book (yup, the old tree-killing paper type) and asked me to get the audiobook so he can read along with it.  He’s reading it in school too, for one of his classes.  They’re going to compare the movie to the book, once the movie comes out, which should be very interesting–and enlightening for Kevin.  It’s amazing how so much gets dropped and rearranged when books become movies.  I hope he goes to see the movie with his class though–I’d hate to have to take him to see it myself before finishing the audiobook.  It takes me awhile to read a complete audiobook, and seeing the movie tends to deflate my interest in completing the same titled audiobook, since it kinda spoils the story and totally changes the self-imagined images you create in your head when you read a book, once you see the movie.  I’d rather completely finish the audiobook, then see the movie….even if that means missing the theatrical release and waiting for the Blu-Ray release.

Entertainment, Movies

Alienated

4 AliensWe went to see “Paul” this weekend, and as they say, “There’s a app for that!”  Kevin “alienated” all four of us just for the occasion.  Yes, I’m a bad dad, taking 13-year-olds to see an R-rated movie.  We really enjoyed it though.  It explained a lot about Area 51 and what’s been going on there, and even revealed how Steve Spielberg got a lot of his ideas for “Close Encounters” and ET!  There were so many jokes and references to old movies and history, that I’m not even sure the kids caught or even understood half of them.

Entertainment, Movies

The Lost Room

Kevin and I watched an excellent mini-series from Netflix this past week.  It’s called “The Lost Room”.  It’s on two discs.  Here’s the description of it from Wikipedia:

The Lost Room is a science fiction television miniseries that aired on the Sci Fi Channel in the United States. The series revolves around the titular room and some of the everyday items from that room which possess unusual powers. The show’s protagonist, Joe Miller, is searching for these objects to rescue his daughter, Anna, who has disappeared inside the Room. Once a typical room at a 1960s motel along U.S. Route 66, the Lost Room exists outside of normal time and space since 1961, when what is only referred to as “the Event” took place.

It was an excellent movie.  It’s one of those movies you want to watch again, and when you do, you put together even more pieces of the puzzle and it makes even more sense, making it just as enjoyable the second time around.  I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Android, Entertainment, Music, Technology

Amazon vs Google – The quest for the MP3 market

Amazon just released “Cloud Drive” and “Cloud Player” for Android.  It lets you stream your music from the cloud.  5GB of cloud space is free, and you get upgraded to 20GB if you buy just one MP3 album from them in 2011 (from this date forward).  All future purchases of Amazon MP3 music are stored in their cloud space for free, so if this is the only place you get your music, like me, this could be great.

But unfortunately they’re not including everyone’s previous purchases, which is very sad.  I have purchased hundreds of albums from them over the past few years, so this would have been awesome, so unfortunately this is a deal breaker for me.  I have over 250GB of music, so they’re saying I would need to purchase a t least a block of 200GB of cloud space for $200 per year!  Or worse yet, their next plan up, which is 500GB for $500 a year! Yikes!  So it looks like I’m sticking to streaming my own music from home for now.

Google, however, is about to release “Google Music”, which promises to offer streaming of your own music from home, as well as from the cloud, and they’ll have their own MP3 store to purchase new music!  This sounds pretty promising, and if it works out, I might just have to switch to purchasing my music from Google instead of Amazon in the future!  We’ll see.

Audiobooks, Entertainment

Book Quandary

1 Comment

I just got a new credit for an audiobook at Audible.com, and I’m stuck.  I currently have 17 books on my wishlist and I can’t decide which book to get next.  I always figure each month I’ll get one of them until my wishlist is empty, then I’ll have everything I want.  Nope, it doesn’t work that way.  Throughout the month I get regular e-mails about new releases, specials, etc., and it never fails that every month there’s at least one or two books that look really good that I want to read (listen to).  So here you go.  Below is my wishlist.  If you can suggest one, perhaps that you liked yourself, I’d really appreciate your input.  Or if you can suggest something that ISN’T on my wishlist, go for it.  I can always add it to the list if it sounds good to me (which would actually defeat the purpose of this post, but what the heck–I’d hate to miss a good book).  The top one–Physics of the Future–I just added recently.  It sounds fascinating, based on the preview listen.  But then again, so do many of the others.  Help!

Audible Wishlist 03-20-2011

 

Audiobooks

Room

I’ve been reading some audiobooks lately.  The last one I read was very good: “Room” by Emma Donoghue.  This is an excellent story told by””and in the voice of””a 5-year-old boy.  This makes it pretty unique, and the audiobook format works perfectly for this type of story, in my opinion.  Here’s the publisher’s description of the story:

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.  Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough…not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.  Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

Movies, Playstation (Sony), Wii (Nintendo)

Netflix goes disc-free on PS3 and Wii! Woohoo!

This is quite a relief!  We no longer need a disc to watch Netflix on our PS3 and Wii!  I guess their exclusivity agreement with Microsoft has now ended.  We love watching Netflix on the PS3 more than the X-Box–even when we had to use the disc–because we have an older X-Box and it gets quite loud trying to keep itself cool combined with the generally louder drive.  We still have an older “fat” PS3, but it’s second generation, and pretty quiet in comparison.  It also keeps itself much cooler.

The new Netflix Instant on PS3 also brings to totally new interface we’re trying to get used to.  It looks much better so far though, so I think we’re going to enjoy it a lot more.   As for the Wii, who knows?  We don’t use it for Netflix because of the much lower resolution, but we did get the Netflix disc for it in case we wanted to use it.  I guess if the interfaces ALL improved a great deal, I should give it a shot sometime and see.

Now if I could only get Netflix to stream on my Android…

Entertainment, Kenosha

Kenosha Officers Become YouTube Video Stars

The Kenosha Police Department is back with another Web hit, but this time it’s for a good cause. Earlier, the department got some extra attention for a send-up of the “12 Days Of Christmas” song officers made. This year, Officer Dennis Walsh said they wanted to try a different holiday. Walsh and his partner, Officer Jeff Wamboldt, made a parody of the “Monster Mash” song. Full story, The video:

[chromeless id=frN6sXN7LUw]