A Nerd Reviews

Boo hoo for first-time homeowners who purchased property between April 2008 and December 31, 2008. You are possibly eligible for the $7,500 tax credit (depending, of course, on your household income and the cost of your property) but the stimulus package signed by our 44th President, Barack Obama, that waves the requirement to repay that credit only applies to first-time home buyers who purchase their property between January 1, 2009 and December 1, 2009.

Previous to President Obama’s signing of the 2009 Stimulus Package, the First-Time Home Buyers Tax Credit required the credit to be repaid over 15 years. It was basically a 0% interest loan. Now, it’s an ACTUAL TAX CREDIT. AND, if you purchase your home between January 1, 2009 and December 1, 2009, the maximum credit is $8,000!

http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/

I vaguely remember this movie coming to the theaters and I didn’t see anything in the trailers that interested me enough to fork out $7.50.

Last week I walked past our video store’s discounted movie rack and The Brothers Solomon was on there and I saw enough redeeming qualities on the cover of the DVD to go ahead and make the purchase.

Written by Will Forte, directed by Bob Odenkirk, and staring Will Forte AND Will Arnett! I assumed it was full of socially inept people with far too much self-confidence, and it was, and it was silly, but it was also very funny.

So the plot is ridiculous, don’t worry about it. Two socially inept brothers desperately try to impregnate a woman in order to give their father a reason to keep living. I guess that isn’t so bad, in brief summary, but loads of ridiculousness happens in there. I’ve heard people refer to this as a Dumb and Dumber rehash – WRONG.

The Brothers Solomon was much better than Dumb and Dumber (whose title pretty much sums up the quality of the movie). The Brothers Solomon takes advantage of awkward set-ups and deliveries making for a much smarter movie.

I think if you like The Office, Mr. Show, or Arrested Development, you’ll understand and enjoy The Brothers Solomon.

Too long, too long, too long.

 Oh, and it was too long.

In the movie theater, watching it for the first time, Dark Knight was really entertaining. I do remember my bladder begging to differ sometime around the Gordon v. Dent scene, but that sort of added to the tension at the time.

But watching it a second time, with out the glitzy big screen, I was very disappointed. I was more forgiving the first time. But, after raving about the movie to my parents, I was awfully embarrassed to have to sit through the movie a second time and beg their forgiveness.

What happened to the Joker after Batman jumps out of the Harvey Dent fundraiser to save Rachael? Did he just hang about and schmooze? Or did he torture and humiliate a bunch of people while looking for Harvey? Or did he just give up and call it a night?

I guess the audience was supposed to assume the later, but, come on!

And all those scenes with the cell phone sonar-unnecessary. It felt like an obvious set-up for a video game.

And didn’t it feel preachy? Like a bunch of bumper stickers and just-say-no ads strung together with explosions in between?

Outside of the please-suspend-your-disbelief moments (everything involving the police and the Joker, the dogs v. batman-the-martial-arts-trained-unarmed-combat-specialist, the chase scene where Dent’s in custody and the Joker apparently PLANS on being captured) there were also those we’re-just-not-going-to-explain-ourselves moments-like the fundraiser where Bruce takes out Dent just as Gordon’s learning about the DNA on the card…and then leaving the Joker in a room full of Gotham’s most powerful while lounging with Rachael, the fingerprint constructed with bullet fragments-REALLY?-and disappearing reappearing Dent coin-did Batman pull it from Rachael’s body and put it next to Dent to GENTLY let him know Rachael was dead?

After much speculation, the 2009 Golden Globes seemed to reaffirm peoples’ belief that Heath Ledger will go on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.The late Australian actor, died on January 22, 2008. The Oscar nominations will be announced on January 22, 2009.Heath Ledger was up against Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr for their roles in Tropic Thunder, Ralph Fiennes for his role in The Duchess, and Philip Seymour Hoffman for his part in Doubt.I have so far only seen Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder, and can say I-so far-agree with Heath Ledger’s win. Once I watch Doubt and The Duchess, I will comment further.

Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan accepted Ledger’s award with ”a mixture of sadness and incredible pride.” And rather than dwell on Heath Ledger’s death, Nolan said he’d prefer to concentrate on “the incredible place in the history of world cinema [Ledger] built for himself.”

Nolan’s acceptance brought the audience to a standing ovation: “On behalf of all of us who worked with Heath on Dark Knight, I accept this with mix of sadness and incredible pride. He will be eternally missed but he will never be forgotten.”

I wonder about the other supporting actor performances that may be nominated for an Academy Award along with Ledger. Who else had a marvelous performance in 2008?

Probably Robert Downey Jr, he was hilarious in Tropic Thunder (was he channeling Russell Crowe?).

Definitely Philip Seymour Hoffman (the man’s brilliant). But I doubt Tom Cruise will make the cut…I also don’t think Ralph Fiennes will get a nomination-The Duchess was somewhat of a disappointment, if I remember correctly. What else came out last year that I didn’t get to see…hm…Oh, Milk.  I hope someone from Milk gets nominated. Did Frost/Nixon come out in time to be considered?

Back in September NPR introduced the research of neuroscientist Larry Young’s theory of monogamy after researching the brain chemistry of prairie vole pair bonding. Young observed the release of a brain hormone called vasopressin in prairie voles, a species of vole that pair bonds. Young then injected the hormone into male voles of a different species that do not pair bond, and made a otherwise promiscuous vole

hold his nose and close his eyes and…pair bond. 

Here’s the link to the article at Nature.com: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7226/full/457148a.html Now that Valentine’s Day is approaching, Young and his voles are back in the media. Young predicted that soon a love potion could make an appearance on the market. On NPR, the idea of a love vaccine was touched upon. Of course the pros and cons were discussed…generally. It was mentioned that it might be nice to suppress the feeling of love after a break-up or the death of a loved one, but it was not mentioned that a “love vaccine” might be used to suppress homosexual love. I understand that everyone may want to avoid that conversation/controversy. But, it brings to mind that scene in the third X-Man (horrible movie, by the way) where Rogue gets in line to have her powers removed.Is it ethical to consider creating a love vaccine? I can’t help but imagine some anti-gay groups demanding the availability of an anti-love/gay supressant.  And consequently, some families forcing possibly forcing this vaccine on any child they may suspect of being gay. Can anyone else see the danger in this?  The possibility of seeing this turn into a gay vaccine rather than love vaccine?

Any thoughts?

My neighbors brought me a freezer bag full of homemade cookie dough tubes last night. Two chocolate chip tubes and two oatmeal cookie tubes each wrapped in wax paper with the baking instructions on the outside.

I am so wowed.  It was such a thoughtful thing to do.  The packaging made it easy for me to freeze the dough and save it for a day I might have company, which then sets me up to easily invite my neighbors over for coffee and cookies. 

Wonderful wonderful idea, and, in her honor, I posted an oatmeal cookie recipe below. 

Oatmeal Walnut Raisin Cookies Ingredients

1 1/4 cups Butter

1 teaspoon Baking soda 

3/4 cup Brown sugar

1 teaspoon Salt 

1/2 cup Sugar

1 teaspoon Cinnamon 

1 Egg

1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg 

1 teaspoon Vanilla

3 cups Oats quick or old-fashioned

1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

1 cup Raisins1/4 cup Chopped Toasted Walnuts 

Instructions for Oatmeal Walnut Raisin CookiesPreheat oven to 375 degrees. 

Beat butter and sugars until uniformly creamy in color. Beat in egg and vanilla. Separately, sift together the flour, baking soda and spices and then mix in the dry ingredients.  Stir in oats and raisins.  

Using a tablespoon, or small ice cream scoop, drop by rounded blobs onto ungreased cookie sheets (I like using wax paper as it makes it easier to slide the cookies onto a drying rack, but there is enough butter in these cookies to make it easy enough to get them off a cookie sheet without greasing it first). 

Bake for 8-9 minutes if you like chewy cookies and 10-11 minutes for crunchy cookies. 

Once removed from the oven, let stand on the cookie sheet for approximately 1 minute before moving to a wire rack. 

Store tightly and covered…or do what my marvelous neighbors did and pack tightly and freeze for later consumption.

http://www.pandora.com The Music Genome Project.If you go to www.pandora.com, after couple of quick and easy steps, you are designing a radio station (or several radio stations) that plays songs similar to your tastes…in theory. 
The problem I am having with Pandora is a problem I have with a lot of radio stations; repetition. I am hearing the same songs every day, sometimes twice a day, often (in the case of Blues Traveler’s Hook, three or four times a day, seven days a week). Of course, Pandora offers you the option of removing a song from your playlist for a month, but what if I want to listen that song in a week or two? Or, what if I am just too lazy to block every other song–Which, I am, by the way.I also do not like that you can not go back. You can see that artist and song that just played (nice) but if you were not paying attention, and you would like to actually listen to that song that just played that you think sounded kind of cool, you are stuck waiting for it to come back around…and the chances that it will come back around are slim unless you give that song you are unsure about a thumbs up.And, if you really loved that last song, you can not purchase it on Pandora. We had a radio station on

Michigan
State
University’s campus that had a link to itunes for each song they just played, so you could go and purchase whatever marvelous tunage you just heard. 

But, until someone offers Pandora.com money to associate them, they are unlikely to offer a music purchase option. 

So, I like it. It is nice to use in the office as background music sans-commercials. But it is annoying. I can only hope that it, much like Netflix, will improve with time

Wonderful movie. Very fun…but, is it too close to Forrest Gump?

I understand that the audience is supposed to suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy what amounts to a folktale. And with that understanding, I can say that I really enjoyed Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, but, I also understand everyone’s gripes with the movie.

The audience is presented with a sequence of over-the-top events that amounts to the main character’s victory. And, although a case can be made that all of the events in the life of Jamal-the main character played by Dev Patel-are based on actual horrors experienced by some residents of the slums of India, the fact that Jamal has experienced so many of the extremes and that all of those horrific experiences eventually lead to his “happy ending,” is mildly irritating.

Like I said, I like a good folktale; they’re fun and usually very creative. But, when you display so many atrocities in one film and then deux ex machina, abracadabra, viola, happy ending, it pisses me off.

The ending is happy, because it was written to be happy. That’s okay. I can accept that and enjoy the movie. The story has you believe that it’s fate that allows Slumdog’s hero to overcome, that fate wrote the ending, but it was screenwriters, directors, and studio producers that ultimately have a say in how the movie should end. And face it; most people don’t want to pay the money to see a movie without a happy ending.

Still, that’s fine. But, I say this is like Forrest Gump for several reasons, but the most irritating one is this:

The main character doesn’t grow. He was born innocent and unselfish and he’s consistently placed in unfair situations that he continues to fight against because he doesn’t know any other way to be, and in the end he’s earned his happy ending by virtue of having been tortured in the pursuit of making someone else happy.

And it’s a disservice to the people who have actually lived through violent discrimination, the Vietnam War, poverty, and prostitution.

Of course, Jenny dies in Forrest Gump, and Latika is “disfigured” (she’s still gorgeous, so the quotations were meant as a mark of bitter sarcasm) so, I guess not everyone gets their happy ending, but there always needs to be a gruesome sacrifice by a side character-the horse’s head, a mother’s blood, a sister’s body part, etc. But that main character has to remain intact in order for the audience to leave the theater contented.

It’s not very surprising that today’s 100 most searched words include several variations of Thanksgiving, Thanks giving, and Turkey.

But why is Paris Hilton still interesting?

Or Britney Spears for that matter?

Aren’t people tired of these girls yet?
I know, I know, as long as boobs and any other type of naked is involved, they’ll never get old.

Other top searches today: MP3, wiki, skin, Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Eminem, mapquest, American Idol, Tsunami, Greenland, Brooke Burke, Playboy, Myspace, The Shield, Cooking, Recipes, Batman, Bat Man, Dark Knight, treatment, and a variety of curse words, diseases, and mispellings.

I was surprised that Black Friday or Blackfriday deals didn’t make it on the list.

It is the future, and, of course, human-kind left Earth an uninhabitable mess and somebody else’s problem. And while the children of earthlings eat and shop themselves into a stupor, one small, sentient robot continues to stack garbage on Earth. But Pixar’s WALL-E does not just stack garbage; he collects garbage, plays with garbage, and dreams about the love and companionship he watches in old movies and is unable to experience himself, that is, until EVE arrives.

At a little over an hour and a half in length, Pixar’s latest computer-animated movie, WALL-E, requires the patience and attention span of a slightly older audience and an equally forgiving nature from that older audience.

People are getting fat and lazy, the world is being polluted beyond repair, and no one, especially the government and big business, wants to take responsibility. This has been said before, and WALL-E does not just preach, it bashes you over the head. And just when you thought you could not take anymore, it makes you smile.

There is not much dialogue in the film and there is, in fact, no dialogue in the first half hour. Oh, there is plenty of entertainment, with all the emotive nuances of a great Buster Keaton performance, but the subject matter and the dialogue-scarce execution is not going to register with the average eight and under age group.

With that said, it is beautiful and sweet and lives up to we have come to expect from Pixar: An intelligent, caring movie for almost all ages.