Any home viewing suggestions?

Now that I have my NetFlix up and rolling, I'm compiling lists of movies and TV shows that I want to get for my home viewing pleasure. I like that I can get movies that I would normally not buy or rent unless I had this NetFlix convenience. Go to a video store and pay $3.49 to rent Elektra? I don't think so. Add it to my list of 20 movies I get in a month for $18.00? Ok. I have a Queue full of movies to watch, but am concerned about the next couple months when I run out of ideas. I guess there's plenty of shows I want to catch up on, but what happens if I run out of ideas. I hate searching for films on NetFlix because the browser isn't very user friendly. If you add a film to your queue, there is no way to get back to where you were on the search list. The return to browsing button takes you back to the top of the movie list and then you have to go through all of the movies you've already searched through. So, I thought I'd shout out see what everyone out there could sugest to me. Any good new or old movies that I should watch? What about TV shows that I need to see? My buddy is going to let me borrow the Sopranos, so I was able to take those off my list. So, what are your favorites? I'm pretty diverse in what I like to watch, so no idea is a bad idea.

For all you Joss fans....

As some of you may or may not know, I am a fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. Yes, that makes me resemble a teen aged girl in some ways, and yes, that show has been cancled, but I own the DVDs and have been watching some of them of late. I started off with season three a week or so ago (I need to get 1 and 2 back from Amy) and am now watching season four. Let me tell you: Season four is when this show gets good. One through three are good and entertaining, but the first disk of season four has made me laugh out loud several times already today. It is definately when Joss starts employing more of a sense of humor with all of these characters. For example, in their first day of college, Willow is excited and talks to Buffy about how all of the "throbbing knowledge" on campus and how she can feel it "thrusting inside" her and "spurting" wisdom. She then claims that the conversation went somewhere she had not meant it to go. MUCH funnier in the show, but you get the jist. There are a few major changes that make the fourth season better than the first three:

1. Angel is off with Cordelia and Wesley on his own spin off show and is replaced by a new recurring vamp, Spike. Spike is a much better character and (according to my wife) is much better looking than Angel.
2. The gang is out of High School and have moved on to college. There is much more plot potential and the plots do get much better.
3. Willow becomes more of a witch (and eventually a lesbian. that may be season 5 though) and plays a greater roll in the action.
4. More Oz. No, not the HBO homo-erotic prison show, I'm talking about the character Oz. He plays a bigger role in the plots and is one of the funnier characters.

Well, for those of you that like Joss and his wacky sense of humor, you should watch the previous seasons of Buffy. Be patient through the first three seasons, which are still good, but the fourth is a step above the rest. One of the episodes even won an award. An Emmy, I think.

Help Wanted

So, We've decided that we are going to paint in Gabriel's room. He so into Star Wars and Star Wars toys that we are going to go with a Star Wars theme. We'll paint the walls all (not sure what color) and put some glow in the dart stars all over the place and then either find someone to paint a Vader mask or a Death Star on the wall. As the icing on the cake, I am trying to find Star Wars Diecast ships to hang from the ceiling in a battle type formation. THAT has been the hard part. I can't find any of the ships that I want to hang. Well, I guess that's not true. I have found Vader's TIE Fighter (which I have learned is not named TIE because it looks like a bow tie. It stands for Twin Ion Engine or Exhaust. not 100% sure), Boba Fett's

Slave One

, and two standard TIE Fighters. I have my mom looking too, and she has found a

Mellenium Falcon

. I just can't find any Rebel ships. I need X-wings, Y-wings, A-wings, and B-wings. I'll be happy with X-wings, since I'm not 100% sure that the other ships are out there to buy. I think the Y-wing and A-wing are, but not the B-wing. I've searched Toys-R-Us, KMart, Meijer, and WalMart (sorry Bryan) to try to find these ships. Therre is no where that I have found to buy them online (except for Ebay, but I don't want to pay for the toy plus get gouged for shipping). So, what I would like, is for you fine friends of mine to keep an eye out when you go to a toy store or one of the mega marts mentioned above and look for some Rebel ships. There seems to be a bunch of Clone Wars and Sith vehicles out there, just not the old school Rebel ships. Anyway, if you see one and could pick one up for me, I would appreciate it. I would reimburse you and even cover shipping fees if you are not in Columbus. I'd be happy with a few X-wings, but any Rebel ship is welcome.

Diest update : I am 1/4 of the way to my goal of losing 100 pounds. I need to get on our treadmill some more, but the diet is working pretty good.

the best $17.99 per month I've ever spent

Sorry that it's been a while since I've posted. I feel like Rinnert. I haven't had too much going on lately, so nothing to write. I do have some good material for when I have time for a long post. We emptied some more boxes and Jessica found something interesting. I'll give you one clue: WWW. If you can guess what this might be, you get bonus points. Granted, the points are worthless, but hey, they are a bonus. It should be funny for those of you that went to high school with me.

OK. The best $17.99 per month I've spent. You may have read about this on Amy's blog: NexFlix. I have heard the commercials and have thought about getting NetFlix before, but I finally just went to the site and signed up. If you've never heard of it, you pay a flat monthly fee and then you add DVDs t a 'que' of movies that you want to watch. NetFlix then sends you the first movies (or movies) on you list. If you pay the flat $9.99 per month, you get one movie at a time. If you pay $17.99, you get three movies at a time. I went with the Cadillac version. You then return the movie in a pre-paid envelope and they send you next DVD. I signed up on Monday and got my first three movies on Wednesday. The cool thing is that the movies come in individual envelopes so you can watch one, return it, and get the ball rolling on receiving your next movie. I'm going to try to milk this as much as I can to watch as many DVDs as I can. It will be easy since I watch DVDs while I work. Since I'm not going to pay any extra, I will be more likely to take chances on movies that I may not have watched otherwise. I started out by getting the first three disks of season one of the Soprano's. I've always wanted to see the show, but never had HBO. So far, it is really good. Sex, violence, drama, the Mob. It's got everything. So anyway, if you watch many DVDs, I recommend that you check out NeFlix. Apparently, they are kicking Blockbuster's ass because I saw a commercial from Blockbuster indicating that they are going to start going DVD rentals in the same way as NetFlix. Nothin like trying to play catch up.

First ER visit

Well, after almost four years (it will be his birthday this Friday) Gabriel finally got to have a trip to the emergency room. He fell and cut his eye on an end table. Not his eye, really, but really close. It was a little scary, what with all the blood. Luckily Jessica had just gotten home, so the trained medical person of the family was there to take care of things. We called her dad to come get the other kids, so that they wouldn't need to sit around the hospital with us, and then ran off to Children's hospital downtown. Let me say, this was probably the fastest visit to an ER ever. We were in and out in less than an hour. No other patients were waiting, so we were taken right back, checked out by a nurse first, then the person that would fix Gabe, and finally two doctors. Instead of stitches, Gabe's face was glued shut. The stuff they use is like Super Glue, but without acitone, so less burning. I was so proud of my little guy. He was very brave the whole time. Funny too. He kept telling everyone that he hurt his eye on the table and that he was going to beat up the table. Then he started telling everyone that he was going to have a Star Wars birthday. I'm really glad that his eye wasn't damaged. As you can see, it was really close.

Will I Ever Grow Up?

I don't mean to say that I want to grow taller or bigger. I'm plenty grown up in that manner. What I wonder is will I ever lose the little kid in me? Granted, I don't really want to lose that little kid in me. I like that I still have 'childish' interests. For example:

I recently put up some shelves in my basement office. Some of you probably think, "good idea, Eric. You probably need the storage space." Well, the reason that I put the shelves up is so that I had a place to display my Star Wars Legos. That's right. I have a Tie Interceptor, B-Wing Fighter, a Tie Bomber, and Slave-1. Plus alot of mini lego ships. I like the old school ships more than the ships from the new movies. I'd live to get a AT-AT, Millenium Falcon, Start Destroyer, and Death Star, but they are all over $100 kits. It's not like I play with the ships (much), I just really like building them.

I like video games ALOT. I know, a lot of adults these days like video games, so maybe this is not a good example. Mu favotites are first person shooters. I could play Halo 2 all day. I also like Doom 3 alot. However, I have small children and am not really allowed to play gorey shooters much anymore, so I play Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic, which is less intense. I will get an Xbox 360 when Halo 3 comes out.

I like board games. Monopoly, Starego, and the best of the best: Risk. I actually got Risk for my computer a while back just so that I could play more frequently. I once tryed to play Axis and Allies with Rinnert, but the fact that the game instructions suggested that you set up a place to play where you can leave the game up for a few days made me lose interest. A few days to play a game? I don't have the attention span for that. I guess other adults like board games too, but when you throw Magic, the Gathering into the mix, that elevates my standings as a childish person. Yes, I play Magic. I don't actively buy new cards anymore, and I don't get to play ofter, but that is because I don't have anyone to play with. I used to play alot in college, but the people I used to play have moved away.

WHOA!!! I just had a revelation. Looking back on what I worte, it dawned on me. I am not too childish, I'm just a big nerd! Not that there is anything wrong with that. I kind of like my status as a big nerd. You get to do a lot of fun stuff (like building Legos) that 'cool' people may take for granted. Honestly, I would be a bigger 'nerd' if I could afford it. I had to give up my comic book collecting back in college because of low funds. I'd probably still be reading several books if I could have afforded them throughout the years. Wolverine, X-men, Stormwatch, Excalibur, they were all good. Plus, I'm sure there a alot of other new books that are good that I have no clue about just because I've been out of the scene. Also, I'd have the Star Wars Legos mentioned above if I could afford them.