Flix on the Net

Once upon a time when renting dvds through the mail was in its infancy, I signed up for blockbuster online.  The best part of the program was that you got a free in store rental in addition to the ones through the mail.  I would usually use these on television box sets.  I was definitely getting my money's worth.  After a few years they changed their policy to every movie received through the mail could be exchanged for an in store rental.  I like that at first, but after a while it became one more errand to run.

This winter I decided to switch from blockbuster to Netflix, because I was tired of driving to the store.  Evidently my $12.95 a month was the only thing keeping Blockbuster afloat.  Shortly after I cancelled my subscription, they closed down the Blockbuster nearest my house.

My plan was to take a break from movies for awhile then switch over to Netflix.  I enjoyed not having to schedule my life around when a movie would arrive in the mail, so I continued putting off signing up for Netflix.  Rewatching Angel this summer has kept me content and not missing movies at all.  I am over half way through and loving it as much as always.

Around the middle of June, I thought of a great blog post that I needed to write for you.  It is not ready yet, but it will be soon.  For this post to reach its full potential, I needed access to some movies that I don't own.  I finally signed up for Netflix and got their first month free trial.  Before my trial month was even over, they changed their prices on me.  It went from $9.99 for everything to $7.99 for dvds and $7.99 for streaming on the ps3.

During that first month, the only movie that I had downloaded was God in America.  It was also available to watch at pbs or at church if I had attended with any regularity this summer.  So I considered dropping the streaming portion of my plan, but then I watched The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.  It came highly recommended by Ring of the Other Hand and his father, so I gave it a try.  I watched 14 episodes in one weekend and knew that I had to keep streaming.  Episodes last only 22 minutes, so I can watch several in a row or any time that I have a little time to spare.  After the Avengers I can watch Futurama, Family Guy, and cartoons from my childhood.


The only drawback is that this may become a stumbling block to my desires to read and write.  Sometimes I do not have the self discipline to turn off the television.  Hopefully I will be able to find the balance.

Back to Routine

I feel out of place when I return to work anytime that I am away for more than my usual two days off a week.  Maybe it is because of the intensity of the fluorescent lights that gives the place an unearthly feel or it could just be that I am returning to the outside world from the arms of my family.  With my family is the only place in the world that I truly feel I belong, and there is a gaping hole inside of me whenever I leave them.  Even though there was great sadness in our latest gathering, their company filled me with joy that cannot be measured, and I count the hours until I can return.

When I finish writing this, I will scrounge something to eat from my nearly empty refrigerator.  A far different meal time from the thirteen to fifty people that I, along with my band mates, have been feeding for the past five days.  I just watched the Netflix movie that I have had since Wednesday, and next I will tackle my google reader, full nerd inbox, and dvr that have been filling up for a week.  The monotony with which I fill my life has resumed.  I found a temporary cure for my internet addiction, but it came with much too high a cost.

Time to Walk the Plank

There comes a time in every baseball season when it becomes obvious that the Cubs are done for the year.  This season it happened last Thursday when Carlos Marmol gave up five runs without recording an out, blowing a 2-0 lead.  Today the Cubs are 38-58 and 13 games out of first place.  Their pitchers are last in the National League in ERA, batting average against, walks, and quality starts.  I don't see much chance for improvement.  The Cubs have also committed the most errors in the Major League.  Unless they can find some way to turn things around, they are ruining their chances of luring Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder to the team next year.

Each year when this happens, I choose a team to root for down the stretch, usually the Not Yankees.  This year I choose the Pittsburgh Pirates.  They are 49-44 and only half a game out of first place.  The Pirates have not had a winning season since 1992, so it would be a nice change to see them keep winning this season.  That being said, I will still be rooting for the Cubs to win this year.  Even during the seven remaining Pirates vs Cubs games, I will be longing to sing Go Cubs Go.

Parental Guidance Suggested

Being an adult, or at least of an age that is considered adultish, I do not pay much attention to movie ratings.  However, I did notice the PG rating last night when I watched Megamind.  Why do they make cartoons that require parental guidance?  I read some movie reviews at parent oriented websites that said the reason for the rating was the violence.  I have been watching cartoon violence for many, many years and most of that without parental supervision, so I am not the best judge on what is appropriate for children.

There was a line in the movie that I thought was not at all appropriate.  The villain in the movie states that the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Queen of England are not real.  I do not understand why someone would put that in a movie for children.  I grew up believing in the existence of two of those three.  If I was a parent, I would not want a cartoon suggesting that the mythological characters that my child believes in are not real.

Other than that, I loved the movie.  I knew before watching that Will Ferrell was in it.  If I had not, I doubt that I would have recognized his voice.  The only voice that I could identify was Jonah Hill.  I am always surprised at how bad I am at recognizing celebrity voices in cartoons.  I have gotten to the point where I don't even try.

Not That There Is Anything Wrong With That

Blogger keeps up with how many people find my website, how they get here, and where they come from.  It is not surprising that most of you are from the US.  Unfortunately it does not track by state.  If it did, I am sure that Arkansas, Kentucky, and Virginia would be top visitors.  It is a surprise that I have gotten 96 foreign pageviews.  Brazil is in the lead for the bronze medal.  I know some missionaries there, so that may be the source of those hits.  But I have no idea why Germany is in second place.  They were in second even before I wrote about Hitler.

What is more interesting is how people find my site.  Actually only one search was interesting.  Someone found my blog by searching “is shane of today i was pompous gay.”  I cracked up when I read that.  There are two possible explanations for this search.  Someone who knows me, my website, and how blogger works performed this search so that it would show up in my stats.  If this is what happened, well done my friend.  I laughed heartily when I read that.  Though if you are the same person who searched “shane samples is first class and pompous,” you should have given up on comedy after the first attempt.

The other option is that the searcher really wanted to know the answer to the question.  I just skimmed through the history of my blog to see if I could find the answer.  The only pictures of me are from the church retreat.  They are all action shots so it is hard to tell just how bad I dress.  Trust me that anyone who has seen my wardrobe would not have questions about my sexuality.  I wrote a love letter to Natalie Portman after seeing Black Swan.  That is all the evidence that I could find to prove I am straight.  But I found even less evidence for being gay.  I promised to write about my love for Joss Whedon, but I have only mentioned him in passing since then.  Surprisingly I have not blogged about my man crush on Jon Stewart.  The only post that I have found that proves I am gay is the photo of my dining room table.  That photo is so close up, that you can’t even tell that it is a nice enough table to be owned by a gay man.

I could not find enough conclusive evidence on my blog to prove one way or the other.  I guess you will just have to keep reading to find out the answer.

There is a 7:33 montage from this episode on youtube, but I could not get it to load on here.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Four

The next time that I want to write a series of posts remind me of this series and the basketball tournament series.  Even though my love for these characters is great, there are only so many ways to say for whom I voted.

In a comment on my last post, Mac did a better job than I can, of explaining why Snape beat Harry this round.  Padfoot made an undeserved appearance in the final four.  Ron and Hermione round out the quartet.  If my vote was the only one that mattered, Hermione and Snape would have been joined by Hagrid and Molly in the final four.  Nothing against Molly, but that shows how lopsided the brackets are.

I have voted against Ron and Sirius for the past two rounds.  As much as I hate for either to make the championship, I will be voting for Ron.  The other match-up is Hermione vs Snape.  I think that Snape should win, but I will be voting for Hermione.

Harry Potter and the Order of Ocho

If Cedric had beaten Hagrid, I would have stop following the Harry Potter World Cup.  So, "Congratulations," or "I'm sorry,"  depending on how you feel about this series of posts.  I did my part in getting Hagrid to the this round.  There is a limit to the number of times that you can vote.  I counted my votes once, and it was eighty something.  That seems like an strange limit, so I probably miscounted.  After voting my limit, I would be forced into a cooling off period.  Then after an amount of time that I never measured, I was able to vote many more times for Hagrid.

Some of my other favorites did not do as well.  I voted for Fred over Ron, the Dark Lord over Sirius, and Dumbledore over Lupin.  Last post I said that Ginny vs George would be the most difficult vote, but Dumbledore vs Lupin was nearly as tough.

I have at times questioned the seeding of this tournament, but it looks like they got it right.  All four top seeds have made it to the elite eight along with two twos and two threes.

All the Stars

The MLB All-stars were announced yesterday, and like all other baseball experts, I disagree with some of the players chosen.  You will hear some people complain about the rule that every team must have an all-star but not me.  I love this rule.  It gives all fans a reason to care about the game, and rarely is there a team that does not have a deserving all-star.  My problem is with the fan voting.  They vote for their favorite players rather than the most deserving.  There are three player who were voted in by the fans who did not make my team.  Here are the teams as they should be.  My changes in bold.

National League
Catcher - Brian McCann and Miguel Montero
First Base - Prince Fielder, Joey Votto, and Gaby Sanchez
Second Base - Rickie Weeks and Brandon Phillips
Shortstop - Jose Reyes, Troy Tulowitzki, and Stalin Castro
Third Base - Aramis Ramirez and Ty Wigginton
Outfield - Matt Kemp, Ryan Braun, Lance Berkman, Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutchen, Justin Upton, Hunter Pence, and Matt Holliday
Pitcher - Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Jiar Jurrjens, Cliff Lee, Clayton Kershaw, Tommy Hanson, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Craig Kimbrel, Heath Bell, Joel Hanrahan, Tyler Clippard, Jonny Venters, and Francisco Cordero.

Montero replaces Yadier Molina.  Ramirez and Wigginton replace Placido Polanco and Chipper Jones.  Some might say that I chose Ramirez because he is my favorite player, but his stats are better than those of any other third baseman out there.  There was no one else at third who deserves to be on the team.  I chose Wigginton over Daniel Murphy, Ryan Roberts, and Pablo Sandoval.  All five of these guys are having better seasons than Polanco and Jones.  If the Panda had not missed half the season so far, he would have made it instead.  CarGo and McCutchen replace Carlos Beltran and Jay Bruce.  Hanson, Kimbrel, and Cordero replace Brian Wilson, Ryan Vogelsong, and whoever wins the final vote.  My last guys eliminated were Carlos Marmol, Michael Bourne and Danny Espinosa.

American League
Catcher - Victor Martinez and Alex Avila
First Base - Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera, and Paul Konerko
Second Base - Robinson Cano, and Dustin Pedroia
Shortstop - Asdrubal Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta
Third Base - Alex Rodriguez and Adrian Beltre
Outfield - Jose Bautista, Curtis Granderson, Jacoby Ellsbury Melky Cabrera, Adam Jones, Adam Lind, and Michael Cuddyer
DH - David Ortiz and Michael Young
Pitcher - Justin Verlander, Jered Weaver, James Shields, Josh Beckett, Dan Haren, Gio Gonzalez, CC Sabathia, Felix Hernandez, Kyle Farnsworth, Sergio Santos, Chris Perez, Mariano Rivera, Aaron Crow, and Josh Bard

I made more changes to this team.  VMart replaces Russel Martin even though he is mostly a DH these days.  Pedroia replaces Howie Kendrick.  Peralta replaces Derek Jeter.  Melky, and Lind replace Josh Hamilton and Matt Joyce.  Jones replaces Matt Weiters as the only Oriole, and Konerko replaces Carlos Quentin for the White Sox.  Haren, Sabathia, Santos, Farnsworth, and Bard replace CJ Wilson, David Price, Brandon League, Jose Valverde, and the final vote winner.  Konerko, VMart, and Jones are candidates for that last spot.  Even though Ortiz and Young made my team, I am opposed to a DH being voted into the starting lineup.  I should have picked Michael Pineda over his teammate King Felix because he has better stats, but I couldn't do it.  Pineda, Joyce, and Brandon Boesch were my last cuts.  I considered Scott Baker instead of Cuddyer as the lone Twin.  Farnsworth's ERA is more than two runs lower than his career average.

Of course, everyone has their own opinion about who should have made the team, but mine are right.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Sixteen

 This round the voters got 14 of the 16 right.  I am not surprised that people picked Sirius over Tonks, but I have no idea why someone would choose Bellatrix over Molly.  Because of some poor seeding Ginevra and George had to face-off in the second round.  I doubt that I have a more difficult decision in the rest of the tournament.  It is funny how this bracket resembles my usual NCAA basketball bracket.  3/4 of it look ok, but one region is terrible.  I have voted for the loser in six of the twelve match-ups in the Diagon Alley region.  My choices would have been Peeves, Molly, Tonks, and Kreacher instead of Draco, Bellatrix, Sirius, and the Dark Lord.  In the other three brackets only Luna is missing.

There was only a two vote difference in the James Potter/Tom Riddle Jr. match-up.  I voted at least twice, which means that I determined the outcome.  If political elections were ever this close, I might have to start voting.