(Note: some spoilers may lie ahead. I promise to be gentle though.)

We saw WALL*E today at the local cinema, which has stadium seating but is lacking the automatic Cone of Silence that you'd like to lower on certain members of the viewing audience. Okay, I made that up. I would actually like to lower the Pillar of Fire on certain members of the viewing audience, but Cone of Silence sounded more merciful. WALL*E, as you've no doubt heard, is mostly dialog-free for the first 30-40 minutes, and I think some people feel uncomfortable about that. I mean, a movie with no talking? So they respond by filling in dialog themselves. I am not kidding you. The people behind us (A father, mother and daughter, I believe) would insert little witticisms and explanations as though they were narrating. I confess on a personal level that I wasn't as patient and understanding and love-my-neighborish as I should have been. (Outwardly I was fine; I did not pull out my nunchaku and pummel them into unconsciousness like the little man inside me was suggesting.)

Anyway, WALL*E is brilliant. It is so good that afterwards I was sad because I don't work for Pixar or Disney. Don't get me wrong: I love my job and where I work now and well it's only slightly behind Disney/Pixar. And there's the freelance work and the blogging and playing Scrabulous on Facebook. But if I was looking for green grass on the other side of the fence, well Disney/Pixar would be a good choice.

The movie itself is about a robot left behind on a dystopian Earth to clean up humanity's garbage. And there's a whole lot of it. The inhabitants of Earth have left long ago and now live aboard a space ship, spending their days in hover chairs, watching television and getting their meals from biggie style soda cups. The story kicks into high gear when a ship lands on Earth and an amazing, sleek, explorer robot (EVE) makes her appearance.

WALL*E is rated G and is accessible to kids and adults alike. They story seems more mature than previous Pixar outings (less A Bug's Life or Toy Story, and more reminiscent of the adult themes of The Incredibles and Ratatouille) but works on many levels. Kids will see a movie about a robot that gets caught up in a grand adventure; adults won't miss the message of WALL*E that never gets preachy but makes it's point. And WALL*E himself is an instantly lovable character with much to admire: A particularly poignant scene wherein WALL*E demonstrates devotion is really heart-warming. I won't say anything else for fear of spoiling one of the movie's best moments.

The fans on IMDb have given WALL*E a 9.3/10, which ranks it as the 110th best movie of all time, and critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has it at 97% with 134 reviews logged. The movie is 103 minutes and comes with a Pixar short ("Presto") that is also wonderful. If you get the trailer for Beverly Hills Chihuahua, just look away.

Posted by Carl at 9:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

LEGO has a free application for Mac OSX and Windows that allows you to create LEGO models out of 763 different bricks. When your model is done, you can actually upload it to the LEGO website and buy a kit with all of the pieces you need. I haven't played with it yet, so I have no idea how expensive that might be.

Here's the LEGO Digital Designer page which has a link to the download area.

Posted by Carl at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is one of those stories that you have to read carefully because it may cause all of your arteries to simultaneously explode. Henry K. Boateng was sentenced to life in prison for killing his 5-week-old son (let that sink in) and attacking the baby's mother. While in prison Boateng became a Buddhist and then sued the state prison system for violating his civil rights because he was denied a vegan diet.

And he won.

U.S. Chief District Judge Mark L. Wolf found that the state did indeed violate Boateng's (now going by the name Daniel Yeboah-Sefah) civil rights and ordered that a vegan diet be provided.

Boateng's lawyer, Beverly B. Chorbajian, was quoted as saying that Boateng was pleased by the decision. "The statute is designed to protect these people who are stuck in institutionalized settings," she said. (This is the part where I popped several arteries. Stuck in institutionalized settings? How does that sort of thing happen? Oh, that's right.)

The last sentence of this article is just amazing though:

Wow.

Posted by Carl at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mark your calendars!

On 08.08.08 Galactic Freedom Day will be upon us. The day that we finally end all of the secret agreements that have kept extraterrestrial life...secret. I know this to be true, because there's a website about it and the Internet never lies:

Galactic Freedom Day Website*

If you follow the link you'll find the Galactic Freedom Day Declaration that has this sentence that I thought was particularly humorous:

I chortled.

*I should point out that while I'm linking to the Galactic Freedom Day website, Blog Hero, Blog Hero, Inc., Blog Hero Enterprises, the Blog Hero Legal Team (Sven), the Blog Hero interns, and Rubert the Blog Hero Pizza Delivery Guy who's always rather grumpy put does deliver a mean deep dish, does not wish to imply any sort o endorsement of said website, Galactic Freedom Day, extraterrestrials, citizen organizations, or individuals. Please use your own discretion when visiting Galactic Freedom websites or signing any petitions thereof. On. There upon. You know what I mean.

Posted by Carl at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The HMS Ontario has returned from the grave, having been discovered 228 years later resting in remarkable condition at the bottom of Lake Ontario. The color waters of Lake Ontario are thought to have help preserved the wreck. It was found sitting upright, learning over to one side, with both masts still in place.

Shipwreckworld.com* has a great story here, including pictures that explorers Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville were able to take of the wreck with a remote-controlled robot built by Scoville.

*There's actually a shipwreckworld.com - how cool is that?

Posted by Carl at 9:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No Weather Channel for you!

More at TV Decoder

Posted by Carl at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From PR Week:

Why on earth would anyone clarify a company statement like "Don't be evil" and end up saying that it's just to spark debate? Some things are probably better left unsaid.

Posted by Carl at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If I see the ShamWOW! commercial with Vince just one more time, I think I'm going to call and get some. So help me, I'm that close. I mean, have you seen this? I actually want to buy 100 and throw them all in a swimming pool at the same time and see what happens.

If someone out there can talk me down I would appreciate it. BUT, I can get 100 ShamWOWs for under $2,000. Under $2,000! That's less than it takes to fill my car with gas.

Posted by Carl at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This was a question that I asked at a bible study tonight. The study was about Psalm 1, which is also known as the first psalm. I had to confess two things: that God isn't on my list nearly as often as He should be, and that I really, really, really was excited to purchase the LEGO Indiana Jones game.

I've only played about 20-25% of the game (not including all of the "secret" things you can do in the game like, well, I'm not sure because I haven't figured them out yet) and I've enjoyed it immensely. There's one part where you can have your LEGO Indy build a large LEGO truck and then you can jump into it and run over little LEGO Nazis. That's worth the price of admission right there.

But don't take my word for it! Here's a review on MSNBC that is positive, although it compares it (unfairly I think) to the LEGO Star Wars game.

(I should take a moment to explain that I'm aware that the juxtaposition of mentioning Psalm 1 and running over LEGO Nazis with a big LEGO truck may seem odd to some. Others, however, probably just haven't thought enough about it to realize that yes it's pretty odd.)

Posted by Carl at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's a lot of stuffed Mickeys...

Have you bought/plan to buy anything from Disney this year? (I, unfortunately, must plead the Fifth)

(UPDATE: This entry previously claimed that Disney 2008 X Merchandise would exceed $30B. I want to state in no uncertain terms that Disney does not sell X merchandise, whatever that would be, and even if they did it's unlikely that they will move $30 billion dollars worth. However, if anyone could unload X, Y or Z merchandise to the tune of $30 billion it would probably be Disney. Or maybe Procter and Gamble.)

Posted by Carl at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I found a brilliant article at Freakonomics today written by Stephen J. Dubner, whom I have never personally battled in a game of croquet. (In case you were wondering.) Stephen has also never attended a single one of my Petroleum Man Burnings, which does disappoint me some. But I digress.

The article has a great story about making ice cream and how, at the end of the process, the ingredients cost $12 and the ice cream didn't turn out well. Once you factor in labor costs, electricity and gas for cooking and traveling to the store, you can see he probably really took a bath.

Of course, you have to decide if you were trying to make ice cream to save money, or were you trying to make ice cream because of other quality intangibles: it brought the family together in a shared experience, you created lasting memories of the crappy ice cream you made, perhaps you learned through the process how to make better ice cream the next time.

So on the one hand you have all of the financial considerations, and on the other - the intangibles.

I was thinking about this exact thing because of the price of gasoline, food, energy, etc. My thought was, "How can I cut down our expenses by doing more and spending less?" My first idea was "couponing." I read somewhere that aggressive coupon usage can save you $600 dollars from your yearly food bill*.

BUT. Is that a good deal? Let's say that managing the coupons (hunting them down, clipping them, organizing them, hunting down the right products at the store, using the coupons - the whole process) add 5 hours a week and will therefore save you $11.53* That means you basically have a coupon job that is paying you $2.30/hr. At this point, does it make much sense? If I can earn $50/hr doing design consulting work then this would seem like robbing from my family.

At least, that's the conclusion that seemed inescapable.

But then I realized that people who do the coupon thing probably get more out of it than the merely the savings. They derive a certain pleasure and sense of accomplishment (which is perfectly deserved) and that should be calculated into any decision like this.

I guess I'm still not sure how to apply any of this. I doubt I'll be calling someone every-time something breaks or need fixed or sanded or glued or nailed, molded, or painted. But I wonder how much one should think about these decisions.

Is there something you do to save money that maybe doesn't save money but you also just love doing it? I'd be thrilled to hear of any examples out there. I would have someone blog for me but that would be an added expense with very little return, unless the person got very popular and wrote a series of witty Disney Travel Books, in which case I would mostly be happy for him. Just after I would have pounded him to jelly with my laptop.

Any couponers out there? Or anyone out there either do-it-themselves with a great rationale, or hire someone else to do it for them with an even better rationale. I'd love to hear! If you don't want to leave a comment, email me at carl@carlschaad.com or leave a note in a message not to publish it. Thanks!

*I suspect my numbers are way off, both in terms of what couponing can save when done correctly, and how much time is involved in doing it correctly. So if you double the amount saved in a year to $1200, and increase your time to 7 hours, you're still only making $14/hr. Good, but not the $50 I'm looking for. Of course, the $14 is tax-free and the $50 isn't, so it's more like $14 vs $30. Still better but not doable.

Posted by Carl at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

And I thought the price of gasoline was intolerable... The Christian Science Monitor weighs in on inflation, Zimbabwe, and a 160 million dollar bag of potatoes*.

*Zimbabwe dollars, which hopefully are printed in large denominations or are very, very small.

Posted by Carl at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AP article.

Posted by Carl at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just a test. Nothing to see here.

Posted by Carl at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)