Underworld : Evolution

Ok, so first the good : the plot does everything that the first movie does and more. It even gives a nice little backstory at the beginning. Very entertaining.

Then, the bad : The first movie had some gore, but it was mostly out of frame. This movie spares absolultely no scene where it can show nudity/sex/pornography, heads flying off, and body parts being severed with blood spewing in every which direction. It's all way, way over the top and so completely unnecessary. It really detracts from what is an otherwise decent movie.

Watch vs Skip : Watch, but on cable where they can't show all the really nasty stuff.

The Lies of DirecTV

I recently signed up for DirecTV after being fed up with cable for many months. Their marketing is extremely attractive. $50 a month for a package that would cost you $80+ with cable. But the marketing is not in sync with their actual policies.

First things first. The installation was completely free and was handled extremely well. The technician came out to our house (on time I might add) during a day when it was pouring down rain, installed the dish and was in the house for all of about 15 minutes, installed the box and left. They even provided an HDMI cable free of charge (which costs something around $50 at Best Buy). So two big thumbs up for the installation. Well done.

Then the first bill came. Sigh. The first bill showed a charge for $80, and my immediate thought was why would I go through all the hassle of canceling cable and setting up DirecTV for no savings? So it turns out the fine print is really crappy. You have to apply for a rebate after you get the installation which takes SIX TO EIGHT WEEKS to process and then they apply the rebate to your account for 12 months going forward - they don't backdate it to your start date. So if you are hoping to lower your bills immediately by switching to DirecTV, that's not going to happen.

So I will be paying the same price as cable for 3 months, which I never would have agreed to had I known that from the start. Just to make matters a bit worse, somehow my online contract got morphed from a 12 month commitment to an 18 month commitment. How that happened I will never know.

Just to rub salt in the wounds, the week after we had DirecTV installed, the AT&T guys went door to door announcing that u-verse was available to our house now which is cheaper than cable and more functional that DirecTV. Oh well.

Please don't buy DirecTV. They advertise that they run a more consumer-friendly business that the cable companies but in reality, they are just a bait and switch operation.

10k - The Race!

So apparently my Nike+ Watch needs calibrating because I finished what I thought was a 10k race in a sparkling 54 minutes, pounding out mile after mile at just about 8'30" and then when Julie finished, her ipod said we'd only run 9k out of 10k. I checked it on mapmyrun.com when I got home and confirmed that we had only run about 5.8 miles of the 6.22 needed for a 10k.

Regardless, I accomplished my goal of running a 10k less than 2 months after I walked one and in pretty decent fashion if I do say so myself.

The entire training regimen :

Date mile time pace
08/31/2008 6.29 1h43'46'' 16'29''

09/01/2008 2.48 24'23'' 9'50''
09/02/2008 0.93 08'12'' 8'49''
09/03/2008 2.27 21'45'' 9'35''
09/06/2008 2.62 26'03'' 9'57''
09/10/2008 2.45 24'49'' 10'08''
09/11/2008 0.98 08'52'' 9'03''
09/14/2008 2.89 34'05'' 11'48''
09/16/2008 1.05 09'14'' 8'48''
09/19/2008 2.01 18'23'' 9'09''
09/21/2008 3.52 42'12'' 11'59''
09/23/2008 2.50 26'56'' 10'46''
09/25/2008 2.00 17'34'' 8'47''
09/28/2008 4.02 40'21'' 10'02''
09/30/2008 3.01 28'36'' 9'30''
10/02/2008 2.02 18'41'' 9'15''
10/05/2008 missed workout
10/07/2008 3.02 30'08'' 9'59''
10/09/2008 2.01 19'32'' 9'43''
10/12/2008 3.99 37'02'' 9'17''
10/15/2008 3.05 28'22'' 9'18''
10/19/2008 5.01 48'15'' 9'38''
10/21/2008 2.99 27'03'' 9'03''
10/23/2008 2.04 16'49'' 8'15''
10/26/2008 5.50 49'45'' 9'03''
10/28/2008 3.05 25'17'' 8'17''
10/30/2008 2.00 17'07'' 8'34''
11/01/2008 6.22 54'12'' 8'43''

Christmas 2008 | Giftag

Christmas 2008 | Giftag

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