Hand Crank Radio into Perpetual Motion Machine?

I was just day dreaming about these devices earlier today. And I was wondering if it were possible to have the power source that powers the radio power the crank instead. So you would just have to crank it a little while and it would power itself. I guess something gets lost in the action of cranking the radio or maybe the power generating part so it won't actually be perpetual. It sure would be cool though to crank a radio for a while then the radios crank slowly turns on its own powering the radio after that. I need to e-mail a physicist to see if this is actually possible.

Sour Candies

I have always loved Sour Candy since I was a kid. Even to this day I still love to eat Sour Candy more then Chocolate candy fi I get a choice. These are the types of Sour Candies that I remember eating back in the day. Some of them I still eat.

Nerds:

These are not the most sour of candies but I have always enjoyed them. They have a tangy quality that can't be beat. They color your tongue as well. Also by providing two different flavors in one box so your mouth doesn't tired of eating one thing or the other. My favorite brand of Nerds will have to Apple Coated Watermelon/Lemonade Coated Wild Cherry pictured above. These are great and I always try to buy some when I see a Crack Seed Store. The only gripe I have is that the box is kind of small so you have to ration them. They need to sell them in a nice Whoppers Milk Carton.


Sweet Tarts:


These are the perfect combo of Sweet and Sour tastes. I have eaten these for quite a while but one tube lasts quite a long time to me. They are sometimes hard to eat in a large quantity because after a while the acid from them wears down the layer of skin on the insides of your cheeks. I can only eat about 20 or so before I can't enjoy their flavor anymore and I have to take a break. I guess you could probably eat alot more if your crunched them instead of sucking on them until they are totally gone.


Sourpatch Kids:


These are my preferred movie theatre snack. They have a nice sour coating that makes your mouth pucker and then a nice sweet gummy flavor after a few seconds. They are fairly small so the gummy doesn't get stuck in your teeth. Also they come in assorted flavors so you don't tire of just one taste. The best part of them is the pure sour sugar at the bottom of the bag. It is very similar to a really sour Pixy stick. I could eat an entire bag of this sour sugar if I got the chance.


Lemonheads:



I haven't had these in a long time since they are fairly rare in Hawaii. I remember them being very sour at first and then getting sweeter after a while. They are also kind of chewy and get stuck in your teeth quite easily if you aren't careful. Looking at the website they have all sorts of different flavors and should offer them in a rainbow assortment.

My Fantasy Team

This is my Team for Fantasy Football. They are known as the Hedge Funds:



Starters
D. McNabb
(Phi - QB)
B. Roethlisberger
(Pit - QB)

P. Burress
(NYG - WR)
D. Stallworth
(Phi - WR)

E. James
(Ari - RB)
C. Portis
(Was - RB)

T. Heap
(Bal - TE)

J. Kasay
(Car - K)

Pittsburgh
(Pit - DEF)


Bench
C. Dillon
(NE - RB)
T. Green
(KC - QB)
Ro. Smith
(Den - WR)
J. Horn
(NO - WR)
C. Frye
(Cle - QB)
D. Huard
(KC - QB)
Cincinnati
(Cin - DEF)

Kanye West Hawaii Concert Review

Well, I saw the Kanye West show last night in Hawaii and boy was I entertained. I am not his biggest fan but I decided to go as part of my "try new things" campaign. I was really pleasantly surprised and I really enjoyed everything even though I can't hear very well out of my right ear. This is all told from a R&B concert newbie POV.

I have no idea how to dress for something like this so I was apprehensive at first. I don't know if Kanye is a shorts and T-shirt act. I also figured he wasn't an aloha shirt act either. Well, I was thinking about buying a new button down shirt of the concert but ended up going with a regular collar shirt and cargo shorts thing. It seemed like a good choice since almost everyone was wearing pretty much the same thing as me. Just an A&F shirt and jeans or cargo pants.

There was a massive line the stretched out past the parking garage but lucky thing we got in about the middle of the line since it was General Admission. The people waiting in the line seemed to be a mix of Army guys with short hair, college kids with preppy clothes, and groups of teenagers, and 20 something girls in pretty conservative clothes. For some reason I thought it would be more girls in club clothes (ie low cut and tight) but I was wrong.

Well the concert was set up with risers along the sides and a big open space in the middle. You couldn't bring food into the general admission floor but I smuggled in some macadamia nuts and pecans that I bought at this Fresh Roasted Nut stand. I ate the pecans and immediately felt thirsty. Luckily my friend had some gum so it wasn't so bad. We sat on the risers on the right side so we were stage was to our right. It got packed quick and I felt lucky that we got there early to get decent seats on these risers.

The opening act sucked monkey nuts though. They were some local Hawaii rap band called Extreme or Immersed or something. They could have been called Submerged for all I care. They pretty much ran at top speed around the stage and shouted rap lyrics at the top of their lungs in a barely intelligible manner. I don't mind rap if it has a good beat and the lyrics are easy to understand but this was just a joke. I really hope I never have to hear this loud, obnoxious band again.

Well after that audial assault I was really looking forward to Kanye. I pretty much only heard his Golddigger song but I really enjoyed it so I was looking forward to it. He started off fairly quickly with hard rapping songs that got the people in the right mood. Everyone was flashing the Diamond Dallas Page sign for some reason. I guess that is somehow connected with Kanye but I'm not sure how.

He goes into quite a few songs that I never heard before but were very up tempo and cool. He also ran around the stage and mostly delivered his lyrics with his left hand back and his body facing sideways to the audience while kneeling with his head down. He looked like he was bowing low to the audience or he just needed that stance to get out his pretty rapid fire songs. I was also struck at how big his body and head were. He had a giant melon and had monster hands even though he looked about 5'8" or so. At one point he jumped on top of a speaker and the crowd went wild.

He was backed up by an all-woman classical instrument band with one woman wearing white and playing a violin like a crazy person. He also had a very talented DJ that played his turntables in a very good solo to a Lil Jon song. Kanye played various songs from his albums one after another mostly playing older stuff at first. During the show he ran off the stage 4 times and changed clothes. I guess he sweats like Patrick Ewing and needed a fresh shirt every now and then. He also towled off several times with a black towel that he threw into the audience.

He also had a part where he rested and played some songs that inspired him. He even played "Take on Me" from Ah-Ha and even did the dance from the song. That got the crowd laughing pretty well. He also played some songs where that he wrote the beats for and performed parts of them. That really got the crowd cheering as well.

Finally his 3rd to the last song was Golddigger and the entire crowd went ape when he started singing it. They also sang along to every part of it and the sound was quite deafening. He then sang a newer song Touch the Sky. Then he sang Jesus Walks for the encore. Everyone had a great time and were leaving with big smiles on their faces. As we were leaving we saw several groups of people passing out flyers fro Junior Marley, for a Ultimate Fighting thing, and for some Lounge or something. I think that was a pretty good idea since you have all these similar people all together at one time so you can promote your events fairly easily.

Footballers Wive$

I have recently borrowed this series from Netflix and I am really having a good time watching it. I was supposed to go to bed early last night after I finished my Federal Taxes but I just wanted to watch one episode before I went to sleep but ended up watching 3 of them. This show is really addictive and I am glad they are still making it in the UK. Also Zoe Luckner the main character is one hot Brit:

Inside Man Movie Review

Well I went to see this Spike Lee film and I have to say that this one is his best. I liked Malcom X too but this one is better. It follows Dog Day Afternoon fairly well with a group of bank robbers dressed as painters go into a very upscale bank and take everyone hostage. The opening scene kind of made me think of that scene in Heat where they knock over the bank. I have to rewatch it to find out why it made me think that way.

We are then introduced to Denzel Washingtons character and I was blown away by him. He was dressed like a Fancy Dan with a fedora and a starched suit. Kind of a quirky detective that I guess New York seems to create. He has a great interplay with his partner the same guy that was the interpreter in Amistad. The scenes with them together are outstanding. Denzel's character is fighting some kind of bribery rap so he may or may not be crooked. He seems like an okay guy and this hostage thing is his big chance.

So we go through the plot and you are thinking who the bad guys actually are and how they are going to get away with it. In the course of events we get introduced to a bunch of Spike Lee style characters. There is a Sikh guy with a turban who is released from the bank who is humliated that he is though of as an Arab and his turban is taken. We also have a Brooklyn style guy who is grabbed off the street that knows Armenian which is what the cops are picking up from the bank on a bugging system. We then see his wife who trades her bag of parking tickets in to help the cops. There is also an obnoxious Italian girl (who I thought was pretty hot), a Jewish woman who would rather be shot then disrobe, and another Jewish guy who is a diamond merchant of some kind. Just a melting pot, slice of life, New York style.

We also get introduced to Willem Defoe and Jodie Foster. Defoe is kind of underused and is pretty much just a cameo role. But Jodie Foster does a great job as an ice-queen bitch corporate fixer who is working for the bank president. She exudes a menace and polished confidence in everything she does. It is a great roll that I wanted to see more of in the movie.

There are a bunch of twists and you can see that the plot is very well developed with the acting performances holding everything together. There is a nice twist at the end that I really liked and has the "fight the system" vibe that most Spike Lee movies give off. All and all it was a very well done movie that I will probably end up buying the DVD of.

Larry the Cable Guy Movie Review

I went to see this movie with my Dad and I found it alot better then I thought I would. It is basically one long fart joke with Larry acting like a big slob throught the movie. The humor was my kind of thing with lots of sight gags and Larry acting like the same Redneck character from his comedy act. If you like his act (which I do) then you will probably like this movie.

The plot is basically some stuff about someone is poisoning the contestants at some kind of Food Festival, Iron Chefs type of thing. You think it might be the Mayor played by Joe Pantoliano with wierd-assed eyebrows. Larry is matched up with an uptight partner that looks like of like a man and who Larry thinks is one throught the movie. You get introduced to various goofy characters but Larry is pretty funny throughout. There is an extremely funny blooper reel at the end similar to There's Something About Mary . All and all the movie is funny if you like Larry the Cable guys comedy act. If you don't then it will probably suck ass.

Mariah Carey at the Grammys

She is really filling out nowadays. I was watching the Grammys last night and she looked quite a bit bigger then she normally does. She looks great to me but I have a feeling that Leno may replace Kirstie Alley with Mariah in his fat jokes.

Great Eating Site for Hawaii

This is a great site for finding restaurants in Hawaii. I really like how many of the restaurants have menus and contact information. Good stuff.

Glory Road: Movie Review

This was a very good movie in the Coach Carter/Remember the Titans mold. It had all the tropes of its genre and did a good job of presenting them. The movie is about the 1966 Texas Western vs. Kentucky game and the season that led up to it. It is the story of how 7 black players overcame prejudice and end up playing a game that stood up for their entire race. There were many things that made this movie work in its genre.

The coach was tough but fair and he was hard on the players when he needed to be. Josh Lucas did an outstanding job as far as I am concerned and has entered the pantheon of great sports movie coaches. There were several great scenes of him reacting to how Seattle beat Texas Western and spoiled their perfect season. I also liked a scene with him seeming over matched when he met Adolph Rupp for the first time.

John Voight does an outstanding job as Adolph Rupp. He had the voice and mannerisms down pretty well and really kind of looked like the Kentucky Coach. The part where he is giving a pep talk to the team when they were down was outstanding IMO. They could have portrayed him as the mean old racist guy but Voight gave him a likeable quality. In the movie Rupp surrounds him self with racists and they uttered most of the slurs and not Rupp. I think they did this with an eye toward protecting Rupps sizable legacy in Kentucky.

Haskins wife who was played by Emily Deschanel the woman from the Bones TV show was kind of a low point in the movie. She played the generic supportive wife and didn't say or do very much at all. The movie would have really been solid if she was played by an actress that had a little more to give to the role. I think the scene where they get the death threats could have been outstanding if it was done by an actress with a lot of dramatic range. Deshanel just looked kind of wide-eyed and freaky most of the time.

The Kansas game was well handled and it made it seem like Western Texas got in because Jo Jo White stepped over the line out of bounds line before he launched the game winner. It was kind of like if not for the after the buzzer referee call then Kansas would have played Kentucky in the final. What was interesting is upon checking CBS sportsline it looks like Utah was totally omitted from the movie. I guess they were running short of funds or something.

The final payoff game wasn't a fake nailbiter like they usually do in this genre. They pretty much stuck to what happened in real life but I read in Sports Illustrated that Kentucky did not lead at all in the first half. It also implied that Pat Riley was the center and not a guard/forward like he actually played. Riley and Dampier were the star players on Kentucky though.

Well, all and all this movie was great and I will probably watch it again if it pops up on HBO some time in the future. It deserves a place with Hoosiers, Coach Carter, Remember the Titans and other great sports movies. It was a credit to the genre.

Popozao Lyrics Dissected

Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.
Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.

Okay this is obviously a product plug to Toys-R-Us or possibly the Toyman the Superman villain. K-Fed is rumored to be a big Superman comics fan or possibly believes he is Superman.

Gatinha sai do chÃo, vai descender popozÃo,
gatinha sai do chÃo, vai descender popozÃo.

What the hell does this mean!

In Portugese it means “bring your ass”,

Oh okay now I get it.

on the floor, and move it real fast.
I want to see your kitty and a little bit of titty.

Wait I thought you wanted to see her ass? Does Britney know you are scoping Brazilian women's butts/breasts/feline pets. Do not cash your meal ticket K-Fed.

want to know where I go when I'm your city?

No absolutely not. I don't even want to know if you are in my city at all. And if you did tell us you are in Honolulu. Please, please, don't tell us it is someplace weird like a certain public toilet on a certain night and freak us out.

Girl, don't you worry about all the dough,

Is this the dough you got from Britney? I think you need to be the one worrying K-Fed.

because a cat is coming straight out of the know,

Where is this cat coming from? I have a feeling that this is a misprint and the song says the cat is coming strait out of the nose. Then it makes perfect sense.

ready to rock those shows all the way to Rio.
Bring that Brazil booty on the floor.

So the cat is coming out of the nose, rocks the shows all the way to Rio, then has this Brazilian man/woman bring his/her booty and sit on the floor. A very talented cat indeed. I wonder if this was the "kitty" that he wanted to see earlier in the song.

Up, down, all around:work that shit to the funky sound.

I wonder if he is talking about the cat or the Brazilian man/woman that he wanted to sit down.

Going to see where I'm going, oh?

Ah this is an obvious reference to Sandra Oh the star of Grey's Anatomy. Hmm, I wonder if K-Fed wants to cheat on Britney with Mrs. Oh. Is this a ubiquitous shout out to Mrs. Oh. Or perhaps Sandra was just curious on where K-Fed would go and he will be telling her soon enough in the song.

Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao

Gatinha sai do chÃo, vai descender popozÃo,
gatinha sai do chÃo, vai descender popozÃo.

This Portugese phrase is obviously where Mrs. Oh is supposed to go. Perhaps this is some kind of special meeting place. Gatinha sai do chao may be Brazilian Restaurant in LA or possibly Las Vegas. Who knew that Sandra Oh knew Portugese.

Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao

Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.
Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.

More references to Toyman. I really hope he doesn't have some sort of fascination with the Toyman. Or perhaps just with a certain part of that characters anatomy. Just the mere thought of Toyman's thing should make one scream in fright. And the thought of *all* of said thing being "put onto" K-Fed in some awful way would turn even the stoutest individual into a gibbering sanity-robbed bag of protoplasm.

[repeats]

I really hope not.

Worst Song Ever Made K-Fed's Popozao

I was watching the Conan O'Brien show the other night and they were making fun of the new Kevin Federline song PoPoZao. I did not realize how bad this song was until I heard it all of its stomach churning glory. Check it out from this site. This blog has the awful, awful lyrics of the song.

[random screaming, laughing and grunting]

Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.
Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.

Gatinha sai do chÃo, vai descender popozÃo,
gatinha sai do chÃo, vai descender popozÃo.

In Portugese it means "bring your ass",
on the floor, and move it real fast.
I want to see your kitty and a little bit of titty
want to know where I go when I'm your city?
Girl, dont you worry about all the dough,
because a cat is coming straight out of the know,
ready to rock those shows all the way to Rio.

Bring that Brazil booty on the floor.
Up, down, all around:work that shit to the funky sound.
Going to see where IÂ’m going, oh?
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao,
PopozaoPo, Po, Po, Po,
Popozao, Popozao

Gatinha sai do chão,
vai descender popozão,
gatinha sai do chão,
vai descender popozão.

Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao
Po, Po, Po, Po, Popozao, Popozao

Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.
Toy all your thing on me, baby.
Toy all your thing on me.

[repeats]

Mariah Carey pose

It seems she really likes this pose for some reason. I guess it is better suited to showing off her butt. Or maybe she spilled food down the front of that dress and doesn't want to camera to see a chicken leg sticking out from between her boobs.

Casanova: Movie Review

Well I saw this movie the night before last and I was somewhat disappointed. I really wanted to see the Producers but they were having some sort of party for the Sony Open in Hawaii. They had a red carpet that was blocked off and half the theatre was shut down with a massive black tarp blocking it off from the rest of the place. I peeked behind the tarp and saw they had all kinds of good food and even some sort of Ketel One vodka display. So we ended up seeing the Casanova instead.

The movie was a fairly straitforward romantic comedy with lots of mistaken identity and people masquerading as one another. I just really disagree with the reviewer who said it was similar to Shakespeare in Love. That movie was head and shoulders better then this one.

The story is about how Heath Leger playing Casanova falls in love with Sienna Millers character Franchesca Bruni. They have several bits of mistaken identity and people concealing themselves but it all just came off as a bunch of crappy sight gags and people acting like fools.

One of the bad things was that the two actors did not have any chemistry at all and you didn't understand why they fell for each other. Bruni didn't like Casanova at first but she falls in love with him even though he is a womanizer and such. He also lies to her and pretends he is different people over and over but she doesn't seem to care about that. I guess she falls in love with him because he decided to put himself on the hook for heresy. Whatever the case it all felt ham-handed and false for some reason.

Another thing I didn't like was both Oliver Platt and Jeremy Irons characters. They both were terrible even though you know they are both great actors. Oliver Platt played a baffoonish Genoan lard merchant that was supposed to marry Bruni. He is big and fat complete with a giant, fake belly. A fat lard merchant see funny funny stuff. He was basically a poorly written clown character.

While Irons really gets a raw deal. He plays a Papal Inquisitor who is supposed to be menacing but came out stupid. I know Irons could have really done a great job if was in a role that was put together decently. I guess that is more a fault of the script then anything else. They should have written him as a very deadly no-nonsense sort of character to play off of the light hearted baffoonery that surrounded him. Then you would have feared for the life of Casanova if you had any emotional investment in the character. Instead Irons was just embarrassing in the role.

As a whole the movie could have done with some script editing to make the story flow a bit better. I think in the right hands this movie could have been a real gem. I liked the basic outline of the plot and some of the twists were pretty interesting. But all in all the movie was very disappointing and I was expecting better.

5 More Reasons to go to Florida State

If I knew that the FSU experience was this good I would have passed up University of Hawaii. Wow! Oh and I'll go with reason number one with the green bag why I would choose FSU for my education dollars.

3 Reasons to go to Florida State!

This is courtesy of ABC sports.

s.

New Year's Resolutions 2006

Well here are the things I am going to try to do this New Years:

1. Get down to 175 lbs.
2. See my abs.
3. Get more sleep either through naps or going to bed earlier or a combination of both.
4. Get more exercise each week through joining a gym and actually going this time
5. Be more assertive
6. Be less lazy when it comes to everyday things
7. Read at least 5 books before the year is out
8. Be nicer and more caring to people in general
9. Don't talk trash about people (stamp out the gossip!)
10. Gain at least 7% in the Stock Market.

King King: Movie Review

I went to see King Kong last night and I really enjoyed the movie for the most part. Peter Jackson has really done a good job in the movie as a whole. However there were some things about the movie that I liked and other stuff that I didn't like.

The first thing was putting Jack Black in a non comedy roll. I like Jack Black and I think he is fairly funny but it just didn't do it for me to see him as a weasly businessman. He does too much emoting and funny face stuff to be taken seriously for this kind of roll. I kind of wished they used someone like Paul Giamatti in this roll. I think Giamatti would have really done a great job as an oily salesman type of guy. I know this movie needed some comic relief but Giamatti has pretty good comic timing and would have nailed the role IMO. The rest of the characters were pretty decent and I liked Naomi Watts quite a bit. She had a very real damsel in distress quality that shown through in the movie.

The love story did not work for me though. Watts and Brody have almost no chemistry together and I couldn't tell why she fell in love with him. It really seemed like one of those things where it says "characters fall in love" on King Kong Script page 21 and the audience needs to take it for granted. It would have been cool to make it more old school and have the two in-love characters not even share a kiss until the very end of the movie. Just keep building up the tension and finally we get the payoff at the very end.

I also had a little trouble suspending my disbelief in the parts where she is running around in bare feet on the jungle floor. She would have been cut and bleeding in no time flat. I guess they figured that if you can believe an island full of giant beasts and dinosaurs you can believe that a barefooted woman can run around in a jungle with no problems.

King Kong really looked phenominal and again Andy Serkis does a great job of making a CGI only character come to life. The audience feels bad for King Kong and I forgot that he was all done on a computer very early on in the movie. Too bad Lucas didn't let Serkis play Jar Jar Binks when Phantom came out. Maybe we would have felt something other then abject hatred when we saw him on the screen.

The CGI was again shows that ILM can not even touch WETA when it comes to effects. Almost every CGI thing looked as real as they could have gotten it. It really felt like you were in 1930s New York and on Skull Island. Jackson is very good at these kinds of immersive films and this one is no exception.

All in all the movie was a good one and is one of the better remakes of a classic film out there. However this film was not a classic in my eyes. It is a great piece of work but I think Jack Black ruined it for me. I know that comedians have made the jump from comedy to drama but Black does not seem ready yet. With Giamatti in that roll however, this movie would have been outstanding and would have bordered on classic in my eyes. Well I'm glad Jackson could get this one out of his system so he can start working on the Hobbit. That is probably the film that I am the *most* looking forward to in the coming years.

Harry Potter update

I am really getting into this book. So far there are whole swaths of the book that are different than the movie. The part where Ron and Harry have a disagreement went on for weeks in the book but seemed to be only a few days in the movie.

The whole Yule ball scene was different in the book as well. It wasn't as creepy as in the movie. And it had a real the kids are growing up, but not too fast, quality to it. It was a whimsical coming of age thing and not a every man for him self makeout session. They didn't explain why that one girl was crying though which was a letdown.

The Moaning Myrtle scene was similar to the one in the movie though. With her peeping at him under the water and all. She also covered her eyes when Harry put his pajamas back on after the bath. Whatever the case it would have been good to have the movie follow the book closely because the book is very good. More when I get closer to finishing it.

Christmas Holiday

I had a great time this Christmas even though I never even left my house for two whole days. For dinner we had a tasty ham. We had a shrimp cocktail with nice fresh shrimp as well. We also had this very tasty green bean casserole type thing as well. My diet is still going decently even though I ate some Christmas cookies and a pumpkin pie.