In between Tiger Woods and Grand Slam, I found time to check out my most recent GameFly arrival: Ghostbusters (Wii).  It’s gotten some modest reviews across the board but in my time with it, I’ve enjoyed it.  Not only does the Wii-mote work quite well as a Proton Pack but the dialog between all of the characters, voiced by the “real” Ghostbusters, really carries it.   Definitely worth a rental or purchase once it comes down a bit in price — it seems a bit too short for a full price game.  If nothing else, it’s a quick diversion to remind me how great the Ghostbusters movies were.  Now, if only 2012 would hurry up and get here…

Do not mistype your name.  Or your grandmothers name.  That is the lesson I learned recently when I realized I had purchased a plane ticket for my grandmother with the wrong name on it for a trip later this year to a family wedding.

Somehow, I managed to put my grandmothers last name in incorrectly, double-check it repeatedly, and then submit it.  Somehow, I put in my grandmothers name from her 1st marriage — over 50 years ago — and not the name she’s been using for the past 50 years… Whoops!

Regardless, I assumed these sort of mistakes happen all of the time and was stunned to learn that, while they may happen often, there is very little recourse.  Apparently, airlines do NOT change the names on the tickets once they’ve been purchased.   Somehow, this is construed as a security precaution though in what manner it adds security, I have no idea.  Regardless, particularly after 9/11, it’s apparently a real challenge to get the airlines to help you out if you make just such an error.   The people at Orbitz and the airline were extremely friendly and eager to help… as long as it was understood that they would provide no help whatsoever.  Why the name I typed in on a website with no validation is any more “secure” than the slightly different name I want to put in to replace it is beyond me.  The only “help” I received is that the lady didn’t “think” it would be a problem.  Reassuring.

A perfectly innocent mistake that could have, and still might, cost me several hundred dollars.  Especially since the flight is on… 9/11.  Oi.

My two visits to the movie theaters the past few days couldn’t have been more different.  Last time I was in Vegas, we happened by Caesars where they were filming some movie we had never heard of called the “Hangover”.  Well, that movie came out a few weeks ago, Brian, Christina, and I saw it last Saturday, and it was hilarious — Highly recommend it.   Then last night, Christina and I joined her parents for Earth, an abridged for-film version of the Planet Earth series.  While I loved the James Earl Jones voiceover in the film, do yourself a favor and watch the Planet Earth series, in HD if you can.  Amazing stuff.

The Hangover seems to be the “breakout” comedy of the year.  While I’ve heard good things about Paul Blart: Mall Cop (seriously) and, of course, Up and Monsters vs. Aliens were also hilarious, The Hangover seems to be catching the most people off-guard on how funny it is.  Several of the film sites out there seems shocked that a film could be this funny without any “big names”.  They contrast it with the disappointment/bombs of the “made” comedy stars (Seth Rogen in Observe & Report, Will Ferrell in Land of the Lost, and Jack Black/Michael Cera in Year One) and wonder why it succeeded instead of the others.   I can’t speak for others but I can watch the trailers for Mall Cop and The Hangover and say, hey, those look funny while the others all looked … well, not.

Nor do I understand why the big names like Will Ferrell and Jack Black are supposed to carry more weight than Kevin James and Ed Helms — The latter two are significantly more entertaining.  I can appreciate Will Ferrell & Jack Black but give me Ed Helms on the Office and his Daily Show work anyday of the week.

About the big 3 consoles…

• Microsoft still has money to burn – Microsoft is throwing money around at an atrocious rate and are continuing their agenda to buy out as many Sony exclusives as they can.
• Sony is still incompetent – The base price for a PS3 is still too high and, despite superious hardware and more, better game exclusives, Sony is playing catch-up on too many things Microsoft is getting right — e.g. online integration, Netflix.
• Nintendo is still content to mint money – Ever since the Gameboy came out, Nintendo hasn’t had to succeed on the home console front to make gobs of money.  The additional runaway successes of the Wii and Wii Balance Board have only reinforced their corporate mentality to ignore conventional wisdom.  The results of their lackadaisical approach have mixed results but pretty much universally infuriate Nintendo fans.  However, Nintendo showed no interest in changing their ways as indicated by the announcement of the mind-numbingly pointless Vitality Sensor device.  That said, they have another monster success in the making with the Wii Motion Plus.

On the “Wii is eating us for breakfast” hardware side of things…

• Sony Wand – In its attempt to compete with Nintendo, Sony wants to add a Wii to it’s massive collection of underutilized features instead of trying to compete with games.  Attempts to seize the award of “Worst Accessory Name” from the Wii-mote but loses to the other hardware upstart…
• Microsoft Natal – Not content to mimic Nintendo, Microsoft tries to out-do the Wii with a whiz-bang, controller-less device.  End result: Microsoft throws a lot of money into advertising Natal.  It amazes at some things and fails at more.  No one writes games for it and ultimately becomes a pointless afterthought like the Live Vision Camera.  Microsoft throws more money at it and incorporates it into the XBox 360².  It does, however, take the title of “Worst Accessory Name” from the Wii-mote… seriously?  Natal?
  

Wait, weren’t there games there, too?

• 360 is still for shooters, PS3 is for variety – Despite Microsoft’s best efforts (see above), the PS3 still has a larger variety of games, more exclusives, and shares all but a couple of the must-have games with the 360.   On the other hand, the 360 will continue to churn out FPS’s at a mind-numbing pace and benefit from the best online multiplayer experience.
• It’s a good time to be a Wii owner - After a bit of a drought, the next year is set to be amazing for the Wii.   Tales of Monkey Island, Super Mario Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros. (2 new Mario games?!), BoomBlox Bash Party, Punch Out!, Swords & Soldiers, Little King’s Story, Overlord: Dark Minion, The Conduit, and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories are all on my radar as must-play games. In addition, Wii Sports Resort will be a monster success and …
• Unlike Natal & Sony Wand, the Wii Motion Plus add-on is taking motion-control gameplay to the next level now - If they are ever released in a functional state, Natal & Sony Wand may supersede it eventually but they are each at least a year or more away from release.  Wii Motion Plus integration with games like Tiger Woods and Grand Slam means that for the first time in a very long time, sports games on a Nintendo console are now the best ones to get.
• Monkey Island! As far as I’m concerned this was one of the biggest announcements of E3.  Not only is LucasArts creating an updated version of the Secret of Monkey Island with updated graphics and voiceovers but TellTale Games, the same development company that makes the excellent Lego Star Wars games, is creating Tales of Monkey Island, all new episodic adventures in the Monkey Island storyline.  I’m giddy and practicing my sword fighting insults now.
• For non-Wii/DS gaming, Assassins Creed 2 is the game I’m most looking forward to. The first AC was a brilliant game marred by repetitive missions.  If AC2 can maintain the same quality of gameplay while fleshing out some of the missions, it will be an instant classic.
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat 2 looks amazing but… I’m finding myself lacking enthusiasm for a sequel.  I think I’ve played one too many shooters on the 360.
• The 360 is looking mighty thread-bare these days.  Other than the aforementioned Secret of Monkey Island SE and Assassins Creed 2, there are very few 360-specific games on my radar.  Overlord 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Bioshock 2, and Dragon Age Origins are the only games I can think of that look interesting off-hand and most of those are available on PS3 as well and, other than Dragon Age, not necessarily more compelling than a rental.
• If Scribblenauts is half as good as it sounds, it’s going to be amazing.  A game limited by only your imagination, it’s no wonder many publications are declaring this game the best in show.  The legend…
• Speaking of DS games, is there any more successful product than the DS that is as under-appreciated?  The stable of truly compelling, great games on the DS is massive, still growing, and puts every other video game system to shame.  Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and Golden Sun DS were, rightfully so, crowd-pleasers on display at E3.

White chocolate mochas are a vice of mine.  I don’t even like coffee but all too often, you’ll find me in line at Starbucks giving in to temptation.  When a company has become as prevalent as Starbucks, it’s hard to imagine what it was like before it arrived.  It’s excessive proliferation is the punchline of numerous jokes.  However, if you read any business news sites, you’re bound to come across regular articles talking about the decline of Starbucks.  ”It spread too fast, too far”, “overpriced coffee is not suited for the down economy”, etc.  Declining profits and stiff competition are frequently cited as the reasons for their fall from grace.  And while I think growing threat of Green Mountain Coffee and McDonalds expanding their coffee products are a 1-2 punch that anyone would struggle to compete against, it seems to me the real problem with Starbucks is Starbucks itself.

I remember reading a whole article in Forbes or some other similar magazine about the changes Starbucks was going to implement to expand their core business of selling just coffee.  They had several distinct strategies for continuing their amazing growth trend – 1) Grow their music and entertainment relationship; 2) Serve food, such as breakfast sandwiches; 3) Adopt new cappuccino machines that make a “perfect” cup of coffee, every time; 4) get turnaround time for customers at 3 minutes.

I can only speak anecdotally of course, but there is little doubt in my mind that Starbucks has gone downhill and I think it’s due to a failure of each of their business strategies.   The first, the entertainment business, is being scaled back as it isn’t having as much success as they were hoping.  The second and the third are directly related to the fourth — the amount of time to get a coffee from Starbucks has skyrocketed.  The new machines are slower and the staff is now too busy warming up prepackaged sandwiches to run the machines anyway.  My visits now range from 10 minutes all the way up to a half-hour… which is insane for a convenience.  Or rather, what once was a convenience and is now just a bad habit to kick.  And that, for me, is why Starbucks has a steep hill to climb if they want to maintain their brand as it is today.

In the realm of most admired companies, I have to think Pixar must be considered a top contender.  I saw Up last night and just like every other Pixar film, it excels in every way.  It is one of the more “cartoony” Pixar movies but that doesn’t take away from the film in the least.  Pixar has an extraordinary talent for taking a brilliant and original story and turning into a cinematic masterpiece.  If it needs to be more fantastical or “cartoony”, so be it.

Much like Wall-E before it, Up has a near perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.  The reviews were so positive across the board that there was actually a running story last week as to whether it would receive any negative reviews.  Needless to say, I am not going against the popular sentiment — Up is an excellent movie and is one more notch on Pixar’s perfect record.

The NFL draft officially ends the coverage of sports I usually care about watching.  Shortly thereafter, most of the regular tv shows have their finales and go on break for the summer. The end result is normally a severe lack of compelling television content.  I don’t watch all that much television anyway but I’ve found myself watching random sporting events, including bits and pieces of the NBA playoffs, NASCAR, golf, ping pong, tennis.  I even went to a baseball game (though I would have to be extremely bored to sit through a game on tv).   The lack of decent tv coverage of soccer is particularly galling during the summer as that would certainly fill in nicely.  That said, the most captivating thing I’ve watched so far is the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee.  I can’t even fully explain it beyond that it’s nice to see kids idolized for being smart.  Not to mention the coolest kid I’ve ever seen in Kennyi Aouad:

I’m a convert. On the recommendation of a friend after conveying how obsessed I was about the Spelling Bee, I added Spellbound to my Netflix queue. Supposedly, it’s Wordplay for spelling bees and if so, I’m sold.

Despite Christina and I doing our best to reign in all of these activities taking up all of our free time, life hasn’t really let up very much.  Last night, we were offered free tickets to join our friends at the Nationals game.  Free sporting events tickets are always nice but particularly so when they’re “Diamond Club” tickets with $160-170 face value.  We had gone to one or two previous Nationals games since the new stadium opened and been very impressed — the Nats stadium is nice.  However, the Diamond Club is beyond nice.  A fancy restaurant, enclosed seating, waiter and waitresses serving you at your seats, seats right behind home plate, and $35 included in our ticket.  That’s right, each of us was able to spend $35 at any of the food or memorabilia shops at the stadium at no cost to us.  Granted, $35 at the Nationals stadium is only enough for about a hotdog and couple of beers but seriously, how cool is that?  I don’t even care for baseball but I thoroughly enjoyed my game last night.  The Nationals even had a great rally in the 8th inning for the win.  Well worth the price of admission!

A three-day weekend was very much needed.  As always, I did less — much less — than I planned and had an extremely lazy weekend.  That’s not to say it was boring; On the contrary, I had more happen in the past several days than I have had happen in the past several months.  Starting last Wednesday through Saturday, I learned of a pending jail sentence, a pending divorce, two pregnancies, and a severe motorcycle accident — all involving family or close family friends. If there is one thing family is good for, it is keeping things interesting!

The new Star Trek is directed by JJ Abrams and reboots the series back to the beginning by creating an alternative timeline.  I read a preview of the movie over on /Film that described the premise and had extremely low expectations of the movie.  JJ Abrams is widely praised by a small group of passionate fans but I am much less impressed with his work.  The only work that ever grabbed me was Lost but I’ve never seen a show become as much of a chore to watch.  I happily gave up on that show a couple seasons ago.  Needless to say, I was not optimistic that JJ Abrams time-traveling tendencies were going to do anything but kill off the last remaining Star Trek nostalgia.

I am not what one would consider a Trekkie.   The original Star Trek series was enjoyable enough but it never really caught me like it did many others — it was a bit before my time, I guess.  I never paid much attention to any of the later series but when I did happen to catch the odd show, it ranged from “all right” to “who watches this stuff?”.

As far as the movies though, I thoroughly enjoyed II – The Wrath of Khan, IV – The Voyage Home, and VI – The Undiscovered Country, the three of the so-called “even-numbered” Star Trek movies with the original cast; the rule of thumb being that the even-numbered movies were the good ones.   The last of the “good” Star Trek movies, VIII – Insurrection, didn’t impress as much but that’s possibly because I never found The Next Generation cast as compelling as The Original Series cast.

I typically find time-travel movies/books instantly worthless as there will inevitable be too many plot-holes to tie the story together (see Lost above).  However, on very rare occasions, a movie/book can overcome that and succeed.  The Back To The Future movies have been the only exceptions I ever held to my “time-travel stories suck” — the exception that proves the rule — until Star Trek.

Not to say Star Trek didn’t have massive plot holes that weren’t glaringly obvious.  It just succeeded with a very entertaining story, a great foundation for future adventures, and a superb cast based on the original series characters.   Simon Pegg as Scotty?!   Yes, please!

Space… the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.

The premise of Star Trek — man’s voyages to discover space — is simple, open-ended, and a great foundation for some truly great entertainment.   I highly recommend the new movie, plot holes and all, and am looking forward to the future sequels.   Star Trek is now relevant again.