Philoking.com

Last night was the Seattle Mac User Group meeting, dBug, here in Seattle. My wife is a member and had asked me to attend with her. Being that she was already in Seattle, I had to get there and we all know I don’t really like to drive if I can help it, at least not far.

I decided to take a grand adventure and take the Seattle Metro bus system to meet her then ride back with her after the meeting. It really was quite a fun evening so I thought I would share a little bit about the entire experience.

I used the fancy dancy Seattle Metro Trip Planner to find out exactly what buses and times I would take and was prepared with a nice printed page of three travel itinerary options.

If 100 > 90, Run Fast
I took off at 4:20 for the 4:38 bus at 124th and 100th with my Zune jamming some music, Camera in hand for any photos I decided to take, and my backpack full of goodies to keep me busy until I should arrive at Westpark Center at 6:00.

When I arrived where I “thought” 100th street was, I realized it was 90th. I had 8 minutes to make it to 100th so I hauled ass and got there with two minutes to spare, the MT 320 bus was a whopping one minute late, not too bad.

I boarded the bus, flashed my FlexPass that Microsoft so nicely provides me for free public transit, and I was on my way. The first leg was about 20 minutes long, putting me at the Terminal near the bridge to Seattle with about 20 minutes to wait for the MT 256 Bus.

My grand master plan was to pull out my handy MSI Wind, tether it to my cell phone and chit chat with Dawn while I made my way to Seattle. My plan was thwarted when I realized I had 30% battery life and had no USB cable to even let the laptop power the phone. That is not like me! When I returned home for the evening I made sure everything that was supposed to be in my bag was put in and everything was charged. Bad Jason!

Crossing The Bridge
With little use for my laptops without internet, I pulled out my trusty Zune and queued up the Live from London episode of Diggnation. People watching I noticed that the busses are not only clean but there is a pretty good mix of people on them. It’s a safe feeling bus and there are so many gadgets about you don’t feel self conscious advertising that you carry a small Best Buy in your backpack (Doesn’t everyone?)

A few times I had to ask people on the bus what the stops were because other than being very quiet, the bus drivers calls the stops out in the fastest possible verbiage you can imagine. I don’t think I understood what either of the drivers I rode with said once.

When I arrived at Westpark center, and made my way to street level, I quickly realized I had no clue where I was or which direction to go to find the streetcar pickup. It was only 0.1 mile away according to my directions, but nowhere does it say which direction! You might want to try and square that away before you go because it could be troublesome.

I reached back into my goodie bag and pulled out my handheld GPS to figure out exactly where I was. I was a good several miles from Dawn still, so I popped out my phone, called her and gave her my intersection and she headed out to pick me up on her way to the meeting.

I didn’t finish the last route of the ride, but I am glad it worked out like it did, we had just enough time to grab a little food before the meeting started.

Macs and Adobe
The meeting was actually quite well attended. On hand were two engineers from Adobe to show off the cool new features of Adobe CS4 Production. Checking out the new features and integration of Premiere Pro, Soundtrack, After Effects, Encore and Media Encoder was impressive. I got a fancy Adobe CS T-shirt to add to my black T-shirt collection for my time. Unfortunately we did not win the copy of CS4 being raffled off, Dawn was quite sad about that!

All in all it was a fun evening, great demos, the bus ride was actually fun and it left me with a great deal of confidence to take the bus system when we want to go downtown instead of driving and parking and dealing with keeping up with a car.

If you have avoided the metro system, I recommend it, it wasn’t crowded or dirty and the entire trip was a pleasure.

It’s Wednesday, I am sitting in our stateroom taking in some quite choppy seas. As far as I can see, which isn’t far, there are 8-10 foot swells until the fog line. This is about what I expected from the ocean in this area, we left Tracy Arm Fjord this morning heading for Ketchikan tomorrow morning and at the moment it’s slow going and pretty rough.

We are totally enjoying our vacation however. Monday morning we arrived in Juneau Alaska and although it was quite wet, we found ourselves totally enjoying our day. We started with a trip to the Mendenhal Glacier. We took a not so scenic bus ride out there, it was raining and the windows were pretty foggy. Although we got a great verbal tour, we couldn’t see much of what was being pointed out.

When we arrived at the glacier things were quite different. The glacier was magnificent. We caught a bear fishing for Salmon at the creek, a Bald Eagle high in the trees and took in the beautiful Alaskan Scenery on our way back to the port.

When we returned to the port we waited a few minutes before we were off on our whale watching adventure. Our guide took us about 20 minutes out into the channels until we sighted these incredible creatures just off the boat. In all we saw about a half dozen Humpback Whales. The trademark spout of air and water, the big dives, the displays of Dorsal fins, it was amazing to see.

We sailed through the night after Juneau and when we woke up we were in Skagway Alaska. After rambling around town for a few minutes and even coming across a Starbucks (and a $6.75 White Chocolate Mocha, heh) we took off in a small bus for a ride up the White Pass. Our tour guide took us to the old cemetery, thrilled us with stories about Soapy Smith and other local color, and then we headed out the pass and eventually into Canada. The scenery was simply breathtaking. I can’t imagine how people managed to cross that territory in the gold rush.

After making it back to the boat, we woke up in Tracy Arm Fjord and the Sawyer Glaciers, these were pretty incredible as well. We sailed around and past our boat’s sister ship the "Star Princess" and seeing that ship against the glacier and mountain back drop really puts the size of the country into perspective.

That finds us back where we are now, in heart of the Inside Passage making our way to Ketchikan, then Victoria British Columbia and eventually back in Seattle Washington early Saturday morning. I am sure there will be more photos to come, but I have picked out a select few to show what we have seen and done on this vacation so far and uploaded them to Flickr. You can view these photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/philoking 

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. I going to check out the email I haven’t looked at in four days, see what’s going on and I’ll be back to the world on Saturday. Adios!

When you are competing with products that are trendy, fashionable and appear to be refined and expensive (aka Apple) is this what you want pimping your product? Not me.

R.I.P. Zune Guy…..

Are you kidding me?,
originally uploaded by philoking.

I know it’s probably not the most manly blog post I have ever made, but good grief, look at this cat!

So, this will be kind of a long blog, but after a dinner conversation with Dawngrrl last night, I thought it would be fun to talk about the movies I want to be remade the most, and for fairness, I will not mention some of the ones that are apparently on the radar but not confirmed (Clash of the Titans anyone?)

1. Cloak and Dagger (1984) As a kid, there were quite a few great movies like this. As a matter of fact at least 3 will make my top 10. These days the kids movies are either bigtime adventure CGI fests like Spiderwick or Bridge to Tarabithia, or animated. Not that I find anything wrong with those formats, but man where there some great family adventure movies when I was a kid. Cloak and Dagger which starred Dabney Coleman back in the day was one such movie. ”11-year-old Davey, whose mother is dead and whose father doesn’t spend nearly enough time with him. So the boy loses himself in video games–and even has an imaginary friend, a super-resourceful secret agent. When he accidentally comes into possession of a spy group’s secret plans, and winds up on the run from them, he must learn to rely on himself and his imaginary pal to save his skin. But, in the end, Dad proves to be his real hero.” Of course update to Xbox 360 or PS3 from Atari, add in your token new actor to play the agent..Owen Wilson if you wanna go younger, maybe Michael Douglas if you want to keep the older guy. This one would make a great fun family flick today.
2. Flight of the Navigator (1986) This Disney vehicle was actually incredible in the special effects department for 1986, “After a mystifying disappearance aboard a spectacular, futuristic spacecraft, David Freeman returns to earth possessing vast, undiscovered knowledge about the farthest reaches of the universe. With these sudden navigational powers, David is able to take the fantastic flying machine anywhere he desires.” Still a great storyline today. Get one of our token new kid actors to play the kid and just update it a little.
3. The Last Star fighter (1984) I love this movie. Recently I bought it and Andy the resident 10 year old loved it to. This movie is definitely ready for a re-appearance with the new kids. It’s a fun movie, great story and a good platform for some killer effects. “Alex Rogan is a small town teenager with big time dreams. Dreams of college… of success… of marrying his girlfriend, Maggie. He’s just like everybody else, except Alex has a very special talent… that no one on Earth can appreciate. But, tonight, a mysterious stranger has called on Alex. He’s come from a galaxy that’s under attack from an alien force. And Alex’s unique ability is their last hope.” If you haven’t already seen this one, it’s time you hit Amazon and check it out on DVD, it’s a great family film.
4. Red Dawn (1984) This one will require a little story re-working. Not that the Russian invasion of the Midwest ever really worked, but it really won’t work today. Update it to an Al Queida type terrorist group, make it more urban and let the cameras roll. There are plenty of new brat packers that you could fill this flick with to ensure box office gold, and it would be super fun! “8:44 A.M. A full scale military invasion by foreign troops begins. Total surprise. Almost total success. A gang of high school kids become the last line of defense.”
5. Labyrinth (1986) Two words, Marilyn Manson. Take the Jim Henson style, toss it right out the door, make it a Tim Burton movie with Marilyn Manson as the goblin king. “Young Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) is left home alone by her parents and she has to babysit her little brother Toby. But the baby keeps crying and Sarah, while telling him a story to make him sleep, inadvertently conjures from a fantasy world the Goblin King (David Bowie) who steals the child and brings him to his castle in the middle of a labyrinth. Sarah has to rescue him before midnight, or the baby will became a goblin…” I wanna watch this movie!
6. Better Off Dead (1985) I know, you can’t replace John Cusak, but these movies have got to be made available to the new tweens. Give Shia LaBouf the lead and redo it, right along with One Crazy Summer! “Lane Meyer is a depressed teen who looses his girlfriend Beth. This is her reason for the split; “Lane, I think it’d be in my best interest if I dated somebody more popular. Better looking. Drived a nicer car.” Anyway, poor Lane is left alone and thinks up treacherous ways of killing himself. He finally meets a French beauty called Monique and falls for her. Simultaneously, he must endure his mothers terrible cooking which literally slides off the table, his disgusting next door neighbour Ricky (and his mum) and he must prepare for the skiing race of his life – to get his old girlfriend back!”
7. Gremlins (1984) This is another classic that children need to remember, it could be done very well while staying faithful to the original. “Minature green monsters tear through the small town of Kingston Falls. Hijinks ensue as a mild-mannered bank teller releases these hideous loonies after gaining a new pet and violating two of three simple rules: No water (violated), no food after midnight (violated), and no bright light. Hilarious mayhem and destruction in a town straight out of Norman Rockwell. So, when your washing machine blows up or your TV goes on the fritz, before you call the repair man, turn on all the lights and look under all the beds. ‘Cause you never can tell, there just might be a gremlin in your house.”
8. Poltergeist (1982) This movie scared the crap out of me as a kid. The effects were good, but imagine a retelling now! “While living an an average family house in a pleasant neighborhood, the youngest daughter of the Freeling family, Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke), seems to be connecting with the supernatural through a dead channel on the television. It is not for long when the mysterious beings enter the house’s walls. At first seeming like harmless ghosts, they play tricks and amuse the family, but they take a nasty turn- they horrify the family to death with angry trees and murderous dolls, and finally abduct Carol Anne into her bedroom closet, which seems like the entrance to the other side.”
9. The Karate Kid (1984) Give me Jackie Chan as Mister Miyagi and some up and comer that isn’t a total effeminate pansy as the kid and let the film roll. “Daniel and his mother move from New Jersey to California. She has a wonderful new job but Daniel discovers that a dark haired Italian boy with a Jersey accent doesn’t fit into the blond surfer crowd, especially when he tries to date one of their girl friends. Daniel manages to talk his way out of some fights but is finally cornered by several who belong to the same karate school. As Daniel is passing out from the beating he sees Miyagi, the elderly Gardner leap into the fray and save him by outfighting a half dozen teenagers. Miyagi and Daniel find the real motivator behind the boys’ violent attitude is the their karate teacher. Miyagi promises to teach Daniel to fight and arranges a fight at a karate contest some months off. When his training begins, Daniel can’t understand what he is being shown. Miyagi seems more interested in having Daniel paint fences and wax cars than teaching him Karate.”
10. Police Academy (1984) Don’t just make Police Academy 14, reboot it ala Batman Begins. Make it rated R, give it a less spoof and more pure comedy style with some top standup crossover actors. These movies were great. “New rules enforced by the Lady Mayoress mean that sex, weight, height and intelligence need no longer be a factor for joining the Police Force. This opens the floodgates for all and sundry to enter the Police Academy, much to the chagrin of the instructors. Not everyone is there through choice, though. Social misfit Mahoney has been forced to sign up as the only alternative to a jail sentence and it doesn’t take long before he falls foul of the boorish Lieutenant Harris. But before long, Mahoney realizes that he is enjoying being a police cadet and decides he wants to stay… while Harris decides he wants Mahoney out!”

What about you? What do you miss? What needs a remake?