Whew. I am not sure how often the posting will go this week. I just finished my second long 10 hour day of work (stretched over 13 hrs).

August and the first part of September is always the roughest part of the work year for us because we always try to get a release out in mid-September. I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but there is still a lot to do.

At some point I need to get back to my iPhone project too.

I watched the movie last night on Disc.

I can't say that I really liked it or disliked it. I have never really been a big fan of movies within a movie. I picked it up because of Robert Downey, Jr and he was definitely the best part of the movie. Tom Cruise was good for about 5 seconds after the reality sinks in that he is ug'd down. Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey were throwaways.

I have to say that I had a big laugh when the director meets his untimely end after his big speech, but that is the only big laugh I can remember.

One other thing I got a laugh from was actually the disc's commentary track. At the beginning of the movie there is a faux trailer for where Robert Downey, Jr and Tobey Maguire are doing a love story. The funny line being "Oh look Iron Man and Spider Man are in the same room together".

I give it 2 out of 4 stars.

I watched Valkyrie last night on Blu-Ray. I liked a number of parts of the movie. The supporting cast was fantastically cast. Tom Cruise was just so-so. I am not sure if I just didn't think he was believable as a German officer, but he just didn't seem to fit.

The scene driving into the Wolf's Lair and the other scene where they are driving up the mountain to Hitler's retreat was beautifully filmed. The North African attack was poorly done I thought.

I think I was more intrigued by the part of the film where Kenneth Branaugh's character was trying to get the wine back than most of the setup for Operation Valkyrie. The only three real engaging Tom Cruise scenes was when he had to get Hitler to sign off at his retreat, the aborted assassination attempt at the Wolf's Lair, and trying to get out of the Wolf's Lair after the bomb went off.

I give the movie 2.5 stars out of 4. Likable for the supporting cast, but I can't imagine watching it ever again.

Ouch. Apparently it was my fault that the Prius was acting up. I get a call this morning and they found the problem. When I replaced the battery there was one connector that was not tight enough and it was just enough to cause all of my problems. I usually am good about those things, but considering where the battery is in the Prius (behind the right rear tire well) it doesn't surprise me.

Oh well, at least it was only $50 to fix.

I jump started the Prius today (thankfully that worked) and got it over to the local Toyota dealer for servicing. I figured it would at least be an all day affair so I brought my laptop over with me and worked until my wife had a break from the kid to pick me up.

At 5pm we get a call from the Toyota service rep that they have two guys working on it, but they have no idea why the battery is draining so fast. He said he'd give us a call as soon as they know something.

I don't think my wife has ever liked my car. I love it. It has been my favorite car I've ever owned. She was very quick to call my car a POS when it wouldn't start early in the week. :) All cars have some kind of problem especially when they get past the 5 year mark. Even my first car, a 1981 Toyota Corolla, had electrical problems. It was the Corolla where I first learned how to jump start a battery.

For now I think I am going to cut Toyota a little slack on this one. I know the electrical problem isn't anyway connected to the transmission because the auxiliary battery is what is getting drained. Maybe I will change my tune though when I find out what the problem is.

I read the entire blog from the guy who went into the gym and killed those women. His blog was already taken down but it exists in a Google cache.

It is a long and rather chilling read. The guy definitely had some issues with women. To go almost 20 years without having an intimate relationship is sort of mind boggling in this day and age. And I don't just mean sex. There are so many outlets for meeting people online in a non-threatening environment, establishing a relationship and taking it to the next level.

This quote also kind of stuck with me:

But this guy teaches (and convinced me) you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven.

Obviously this guy is a nut job and is trying to justify what he is about to do. But it is a quote that really puts into my mind something that is logically wrong with morality and religion. I have been to church when a priest has said "even the worst sinners can make it to heaven". That gives hope to those who are honestly seeking redemption, but what about those who haven't committed a sin but plan to do something bad and see that as their "get out of jail card" (like this guy obviously thought). And I am not just talking about murder. When I used to be a believer, I know for a fact that I used that "get out of jail" excuse when I did something that I didn't think was morally correct. I really just think it is a wrong message to send. Actions have consequences and repercussions.

My wife got in the car on Sunday morning to go run an errand. Again it won't turn on. Crap.

A couple of weeks ago I replaced the battery so I was unsure what it could be. So I pop the trunk, flip on the multimeter and the battery is putting out 12 volts. Weird. It is not the 14 volts when I first got the battery, but it is still up there. Certainly enough to get the car to start.

This week I am going to have to figure out how to get it to the dealer. I am not looking forward to that procedure.

I have kind of been in a reading rut lately. Usually by this time of year I have read 15-20 books. I think I am only up to about 8 or 9. Some of that I can blame on the life changes this year, but there really is no excuse to be so far behind.

I picked up a book last week that I thought would be interesting. It was a buddy cop murder mystery type of book where the "buddies" are women, kind of a Cagney and Lacey kind of vibe to it. The problem is I am 50 pages in and I am bored out of my mind. It is not exactly the subject material, it just seems like I have read so many books that start out exactly like this book plot wise that it is not an enjoyable read. I know I should probably give it another 50 pages or so, but I think the book is going back to the library.

Usually when I am bored with fiction I go through a spell where I only want to read non-fiction. The interesting thing is that the time it is taking me to get bored with fiction is getting shorter and shorter.

There are a number of fiction books coming out this fall that I am interested in including the new Dan Brown book and the new WoT book (sans Robert Jordan). Maybe I need to do some creative Amazon searches to see if I can find some potential gems.

In the meantime I have a non-fiction book I just got delivered today from the library. More about that later.

Skype can really be a pain in the butt sometime. I go to their website to renew our online number tonight and of course they reject my credit card and point me to Paypal to finish the transaction. Since Skype and Paypal are both in the same bed it is not surprising, but since I have never had problems with my credit card at Amazon and other places online it is pretty annoying.

So I got to PayPal, login, and then scratch my head. Adding a credit card to your account is buried in their menu options. PayPal is also complaining to me that I don't have a valid account anymore because of "changes" and I need to validate my address and phone number on file. So I go and see my address, but the phone number is masked only showing the last three digits which I don't recognize. This is really turning into a pain in the butt.

I end up calling PayPal's customer service line and I give them my info telling them that I have no idea what the phone number for my account is. After some back and forth I found out the number they have on file is from 4 years ago when we used to have an actual home phone. So before I get a chance to tell them what my new number is, the rep tells me she needs to transfer me to a "specialist" because I have "limitations" on my account and that I would have to hold on the line for a few minutes. Obviously it was an upsell to their premium product. So right when she puts me on hold I say screw this and hang up. I have already wasted more time on something that should have been 2 minute procedure.

I was about to give the big FU to Skype and drop my online number when I go back to the Skype site and notice that you can pay by Moneybookers. So I research to make sure they are legit. I go to their site, enter in my info and within 2 minutes I have my online number payed for.

If PayPal didn't have Ebay would they even still be in business? or is it because of Ebay that PayPal has gone downhill? I can understand the need for validation to cut down on scams, but it really was ridiculous.

I was a little peeved today.

I have been holding off upgrading my wife's iPhone 3G to 3.0 just to make sure the new OS worked solidly on my first-gen iPhone. Amazingly, 3.0 has been relatively bug free for me. In fact I think it is a lot better than the 2.2.1 update. The battery life feels longer. Apps haven't been crashing for me. Safari is snappier.

So this afternoon on a break from work I decided to upgrade my wife's phone. Everything runs dandy until I get to the point where the firmware is installed and it is looking for activation via iTunes. I get this nice nasty message window saying to "check my Internet connection". Oh great, the activation server is down.

Three hours later the server finally comes back up and the phone is activated. Everything is gravy.

I understand why Apple has to do the activation, but it really is a pain in the butt to essentially have a bricked phone until the servers come back up. About the only nice thing is that you can still make outgoing emergency calls, but that is about it.