Korn!

Treese and I went to see the Korn concert last night and it was great! It got started at about 8:30pm, which was a half hour later than it was supposed to start. The opening band was Islander, whom neither of us knew anything about. They sure rocked, though! The song lyrics were pretty much unintelligible as they get completely lost in the sheer intensity of the music, but that's to be expected at any metal concert. The same thing happened with Korn but they played songs I already knew so it didn't matter. Both bands were high energy and played very loud, so loud that it would vibrate my whole body. After Korn's first song there was some technical issue with one of the guitars so the drummer gave us an awesome drum solo to keep us entertained while they got that fix. The rest of the show went on without a hitch and after it was over it took quite a while for my hearing to return to normal. We hadn't had time to eat before the concert so we went to Denny's for dinner. So did several other people from the concert, which made sense seeing as how it's one of the few places in town open that late.

Digital Dental X-rays

I had a dental cleaning this afternoon. They did x-rays with a new digital system the recently got, so those thingamabobs stuffed in my mouth had wires coming off them that connected back to their computer. Apparently these digital x-rays use much less radiation than the traditional method, which was good to hear considering some of them had to be taken several times. I had been flossing every night since my last cleaning so my teeth and gums were all in excellent shape and the cleaning didn't take too long.

Crimping Cable: Charter Select

Our cable bill went up a couple weeks ago and when I had called to get it reduced like I do every 6 to 12 months, the lady on the phone said there were no better rates. Thus, I spent the last couple weeks (minus the time we were in L.A.) looking into streaming options in preparation for canceling the cable portion of our Charter service. This morning I called to cut the cord and was surprised when the guy on the phone presented a new offer: local network stations plus 10 cable channels of our choosing plus a free year of HBO or Showtime, all for just $11 more than our Internet bill... plus tax of course. That caught me off guard, but since it was about what we would have been paying if we subscribed to Netflix I said lets do it. When Treese got home we picked out our channels, then I called them back up and got it finalized.

Transformers: The Last Knight

Last night we went to see 7pm showing of Transformers: The Last Knight. Treese had already pre-purchased the tickets, which were for assigned seats, so we didn't need to leave early, but she did have to rush home from work so that we wouldn't be late. Once we got there we learned they had pushed it back to 8pm, and we were expecting to get free popcorn but that turned out to be for participating locations only, of which this location was not. We hadn't eaten since lunch and popcorn is too expensive to buy so we were quite hungry. On the plus side, our friend Cindy was running late so she was able to meet us there without missing any of the movie.

These Michael Bay Transformers movies are all dumb. Everyone knows it. You're expected to just turn your brain off and enjoy the ride and I was able to for some of the previous films, but this time I just couldn't. Perhaps because I was hungry, or perhaps because this is the fifth one of these things and they have yet to improve anything other than the CGI. I didn't understand why Optimus Prime decided to return to Cybertron to meet his maker and didn't understand how he thought he could get there by just using a jetpack. So now Tranformers don't need spaceships to fly across the galaxy? And I really, really didn't understand how he actually made it there in only a couple years! How fast was he going?! How close is Cybertron?! I also didn't understand how Cyberton, a freakin' planet, could arrive right next to Earth and yet not affect the oceans or the weather or gravity or anything else.

These films are known for their action and there was no lack of it here, but it was shaky, zoomed-in, and cut so fast and often that I could barely tell what was going on. I didn't care about any of the characters so I didn't care who won or who died. I also didn't like the sexy professor lady. She was smart, sexy, clumsy, and completely generic. The banter between her and Mark Wahlberg felt forced, never clever or witty. I liked that 14 year old girl they introduced in the beginning but I didn't like how she was barely used at all and I hated how they ended up using her at the end. There's so much more I didn't like but I'm sure you don't want to hear all about it. There was some humor which got me to chuckle a few times towards the beginning, however I got bored early on and after a while the jokes stopped feeling humorous. There was a ton of fighting and explosions and eye candy but not one reason to care about any of it. If the next Transformers movie also ends up being done by Michael Bay, I think I'll pass.

Back from L.A.

We had a great time in Los Angeles this year for the E3 convention. We started the drive down on Monday morning and got there in the late afternoon, of course stopping at Harris Ranch along the way for lunch. Chad missed it last year due to a scheduling conflict but he was able to make it this year and so flew in from Las Vegas. The next day we all went to the convention, which was pretty terrible as for the first time they let in the public which made it super crowded. The walkways between the booths were so packed with people that we could barely move through them, and the smell of B.O. was quite unpleasant. Plus, all the games shown were simply sequels to existing games so there wasn't really anything new at all, and we saw only a handful of people dressed up. We only spent a few hours there and about half of that we spent outside the halls where we could just sit and breathe. Later that evening we went to see The Book of Mormon which was a fantastic play. Totally worth seeing if you have the chance.

The next day we skipped E3 all together. Chad had to go do some recording but the rest of us went to a store filled almost entirely with soda pop. There were so many different flavors it was overwhelming. We bought several to bring home and try out, including banana, caramel root beer, and birthday cake. Later that afternoon we went to Jimmy Kimmel Live! where we met up with Chad and hung out in the green room until it was time for the show at which point we were taken into the audience. The main guest that night was Jamie Foxx who was extremely entertaining. After the show we had to drop Chad off at the airport afterwards so he could make his flight home, then we met up with Stephanie to get caught up with what she's been doing this past year. We had planned to meet up and eat at Umami Burger but when we got there we found it was closed for renovations so instead we went to the deli near our house. We had a delicious meal and great conversation, a perfect way to end our last night in Los Angeles. The next morning we started our drive home.

Wonder Woman

We went to see Wonder Woman yesterday afternoon, and we both enjoyed it. When we got home I started looking into what kind of options were available were we to ditch cable, as our rates are going up this week. Every year the rates go up and I have to call and say I want to cancel and then they find another promotional rate for us. I was thinking that this year perhaps we really should cancel. It's not like there's a ton of great stuff on cable. Some good shows, yes, but enough to make it worth the money?

Return of the Treese

Treese got back from the New Kids on the Block / Boyz II Men / Paula Abdul concert yesterday. She saw it first in Sacramento on Saturday with her sister and some friends from work, then again in San Jose on Sunday with another friend who lives near there. She really enjoyed the concert, both times, and says it was totally worth it. I spent those days pretty much just working on Absolute Anime, though on Saturday night I did take a break and watch an episode of the new Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Ken: Unloaded

Yesterday morning I had the privilege of helping to unload over 500 boxes off the back of a semi-trailer. The boxes contained the Summon Night 6: Lost Borders - Wonderful Edition external boxes (which are simply beautiful, by the way). To our surprise the boxes were not stacked on pallets, they were just piled loose in the back of the trailer. Victor was able to round up some pallets from Design Time down the street so at least the boxes would be on pallets after we got them out of the truck, but that didn't help with the unloading. I got up in the trailer and moved the boxes to the edge where Victor and another guy named Ken could easily reach and transfer them to the pallets. It was a tad warm in that giant metal box and my lower back started aching half way through from the constant bending over, but it wasn't really too bad as the boxes were very light and I never got winded thanks to my daily post-breakfast cardio workout. Glad to know that my morning misery is paying off!