Rants & Ravings From an Aspiring Daydreamer

SpaceBrew Review: Comparing eReaders

I set out in search of a good eReader, hoping to facilitate the nessecary dwindling of my rather Brobdingnagian collection of hardback books. There are a lot of choices on the market today, but only a few rise to the top, leaps and bounds above the others. These three are the Kindle, the Nook and the Sony Reader. I shall therefore discuss the pros and cons of all three of these and tell you why I ended up choosing the one I did.

Firstly, I did not want a tablet device that runs Android. I don’t need another computer in the house. Good Greg, I’ve got a lot of mother cussing computers. And a tablet is like a waiter at a busy dolphin diner: it serves multiple porpoises. Sniff. I really just wanted something that reads ebooks, and that’s all. Nothing fancy, but something clean, sharp and comfortable.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:7 mins read

The Summit of Mount Nerdly

It probably doesn’t come as any big surprise to most of you who know me that I call myself a geek. I am familiar with computers, one might say. I have dabbled in code and graphics design and network administration, internet systems, databases and even paintbrush. Heck, this very site you see in front of you was hand-coded from scratch to finish using nothing more than Notepad++ by yours truly. Meh. Not a large achievement there, but I’m proud of it. I like it. Anyway, I still do some things sometimes that make me step back and blink, and sometimes even go so far as to turn my head and frown, thinking, ‘Damn! I really am an insufferable geek. A ridiculously overboard, head-to-toe nerd to the highest power.’ This here’s one of them stories.

Let me back you up a little bit though, just for the sake of the journal. I took a computer lit and a computer programming class when I was in seventh grade. I did exceedingly well at both, as the language and theory just sort of “clicked” with me. It just made sense. The hot teacher, therefore, invited me back the next year to be her lab assistant. I wish this had some kind of awesome twist to it where I told you stories of being stuck in the lab alone with her on several long, late nights, but alas – nothing like that ever happened. Now my English teacher, on the other hand…

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Four Wake-ups ‘Til Florida

It’s finally here, friends: that time of year when we leave for the Big Penis. That’s right, the continental fallus we like to call “Florida”. My red-haired wife and I have gone every year for the last three years. This will make our fourth trip together. And the only difference between this trip and the previous three years is that we aren’t taking the kids. I figure they’re old enough to stay at home and take care of themselves.

My buddy Christian is in town from Omaha, and has been staying with us since Saturday. So he’s gonna hang in the house until we get back. Works out perfectly. You see, I like having someone stay in my house so I won’t feel bad about leaving the fridge plugged in and the air conditioner running.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:travel diary
  • Reading time:3 mins read

Congratulations, America! You win!

Way to go, the United States of America. On Independence Day – the day in which you celebrate your nation’s birth – the most important day in this country’s history – you host a hot-dog-eating contest. Let’s all celebrate our nation’s freedom and make ourselves look even more gluttonous and stupid and self-serving and arrogant by stuffing our obese faces with tubes of processed pig intestines and giraffe anus. I can think of no greater glory!

This hot-dog-eating contest has become a staple in American entertainment. These skinny little dudes eat fifty-plus hot dogs in a matter of minutes. They dunk them in bowls of water so they’ll go down more quickly and easily. Do you know how bad hot dog buns (or any bread, for that matter) taste when they’re soaked with water? Yeah, me neither. You know why? Because it’s gross!

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:2 mins read

I Hate Websites That Suck

It seems that in this age, everyone is required to have some sort of web presence. Even if it’s just to tell everyone what your name is, that you have a cat and you like listening to the Jonas Brothers. Everyone has a Facebook page. I don’t even know what happened to MySpace, but it has very clearly been supplanted to the far less flashy Facebook. Everyone has a Twitter, from which they let all of their followers know exactly what they’re doing all day long, every single day. The ridiculousness of all this is getting ridiculous. And there’s your opening paragraph.

First of all, no one cares about you and your stupid cat. No one cares that you like Justin Bieber and James Blunt. You don’t need to take up space on a web server hard drive somewhere just to tell people about your pathetic existence. Nor does anyone care that you’re STANDING IN LINE AT PIGGLY WIGGLY AND IT’S TAKING FOREVER OMG LOL WTF!!!!1 Do something useful with your life. Take down your stupid alliteratively titled website (e.g. Hannah’s Heaven, Carol’s Closet, Mykynzy’s Mansion) and post instead, something useful.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Brew Review: Ricky Gervais – Out of England

What? Another review? Yeah, well the only other things to talk about right now are getting kicked like dead horses, with boots covered in bacon. And the guy doing the kicking has a blister on his foot because there’s a hole in his sock. And his wife is a dental hygienist. So yeah, it’s kind of tiring. I’m already tired of the conspiracy theories about how dude isn’t really dead. Or how he’s been dead for a long time. Seriously? We need another conspiracy to latch onto? :rolleyes:

And plus, too, when I see something great, I like to share it with you guys so you can see something great too. So let’s get this starty parted.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Happy Birthday, The Bug!

Today is my youngest daughter's birthday. It is also, however, comma, the ten-year anniversary of the death of Douglas Adams. So which do I write about? Well, duh! How much can you say about a two-year-old's birthday? Seriously? Who cares? I mean, I can't think of-- hang on... I'm being told by... What's that? I am? No? Oh. Okay. Never mind. Apparently we're uh... Let's... Well, let's just back it up a bit. So as I was saying, of course I'm going to talk about The Bug's birthday! I mean, how exciting! She's two years old! And!... And!... Two! Can you believe that? Okay! That's it! On a serious note, it is pretty crazy how quickly time flies. Remember when I wrote this column on the day she was born? Yeah dudes. Two years ago. Now she's running around, talking little baby talk, saying things all cute, climbing up stuff,…

  • Post author:
  • Post category:event
  • Reading time:3 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: The Prestige

Occasionally there comes along a film that is so great it makes you say a cuss word and choke on your bourbon. And even more remotely, there comes one that makes you rearrange and alter your top-five favorites list. Well, friends and enemies, this here is one of those.

This film came out around the same time The Illusionist arrived on scene. Just like Deep Impact and Armageddon, The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor, and Little House On The Prairie: The Movie and James Bond in Casino Royale. Like movies always seem to hit the scene at the same time. Like they both thought of it at the same time and one of them didn’t copy the other’s idea. (Like Leeanne Rimes suddenly deciding she needed to sing How Do I Live Without You shortly after the superior Trisha Yearwood had already sung it. And sang it well. And there’s your introduction.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Love and Other Drugs

Now here’s a movie that needs a nod. I rented this movie based solely on the title and the rating it had on Netflix, thinking it was a chick-flick, and my red-haired wife and I could enjoy it together over caramel popcorn and bourbon. Now see that, ladies? I am a man who is not opposed to renting something I think my red-haired wife will enjoy, and watching it with her. I’m quite a catch, if you think about it.

Anyway, this is a fairly original storyline, not too overdone, and pretty well written. A young woman (Anne Hathaway) is diagnosed with Parkinson’s and runs into a young man who has just gotten into the pharmaceutical sales business. Think Steel Magnolias or Philadelphia. But see, it’s not really a chick-flick. It’s more of an emotional drama that should appeal to anyone with a heart than just to women. Well, it should also appeal to any red-blooded man who wants to see Anne Hathaway naked.

Seriously, and I know you’re not going to believe me when I say this, but I had no idea she got naked in this movie before I rented it. I think I might have seen that she was in it, but I actually clicked the Add to Queue button before I even read up on it. Like I said, the title made me think it was a chick-flick. But boy does she get naked in it. A bunch. And we haven’t seen her breasts since Brokeback Mountain. Which means all of you homophobes who are too cool and too manly to watch that film have never even seen them at all!

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:4 mins read

25 Years Later: Chernobyl

Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the tragic disaster that ruined Chernobyl and affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I’ve read the story many times over the years, fascinated by the insane breakdown of events that put them in that predicament, and it gets more interesting every time I read it. But it also depresses me greatly.

The greatest weakness in the system was humanity. We caused the catastrophe. Humans are a stupid, self-serving, arrogant bunch. And that arrogance changed Chernobyl and the surrounding towns – basically making them unlivable for the next thousand years. That’s when it will be safe to move back. But there will still be radiation for up to seventy thousand more years.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:event
  • Reading time:4 mins read