There's a lot to like about "Live Free or Die Hard". After all, before there was Jack Bauer, there was John McClane doing anything and everything to stop the bad guys using only his fists and guns from the people he killed. In this movie, it's no different. The movie starts out as a version of one of his earlier films "16 Blocks". He's gotta escort a hacker to Washington D.C. for interrogation after there's a breach in the FBI computer system. But when the country around them turns into chaos and hired henchmen target this hacker, John McClane goes into, well, John McClane mode. What results is a 130 minute action adventure that doesn't seem boring at all. Some of the stuff that occurs in the film is a bit far-fetched, okay, very far-fetched, but if you don't let that bother you, you're in for a great ride.

This is probably the last post until my vacation starts next week, depending if I'm able to watch Transformers on Monday. I'm gonna try to blog my trip as best as I can with stops in Chicago, Las Vegas and Sacramento.

A pair of electronics purchases highlights this weekend. I'm writing this blog on my new hp dv6000t notebook which came in this week and it's a vast improvement over the old Toshiba. This one features Windows Vista which isn't as bad as people say it is. I do find it weird that there is a difference between being logged in as an administrator and being logged in with administrator privileges. Also, the glossy finish produces plenty of fingerprint smudges but I don't mind that.

My parents went ahead to buy a new TV that's long overdue. Where it'll fit in the house still eludes me but I'm sure they'll find room for the Panasonic 58" plasma somewhere in the family room. The only thing that sucks is the wait from Comcast to get HD hooked up on the TV. The guy said the first available day they can come out is July 3, when I'll be on a plane to Chicago, which also means my first chance to catch it will be July 8, the day after the day of perfection apparently.

Downside to the TV? My parents insist on watching all of their thuy nga dvd's all over again, now with an upconvert DVD player.

Watched The Police last night and it was pretty awesome. They played all the great hits and came out for 3 encores. I stood 6 rows from the stage but while I had a clear view of them, I still watched them from the giant screen right in front of me. Sting was showing his age but still came off as cool. Stewart came with a ball of energy and was probably the best one of the three. He always had that look where he's staring down at death and he'd come get him if he didn't hit the drums right. On the other end, Andy had that look where he was trying to remember the words and chords to each of the songs. But he had a great solo in the first encore.

Two movies you should definitely see are Pan's Labyrinth and Ocean's Thirteen. I wrote off Pan's during Oscar season thinking it was just another visual movie with not that much plot to go along with it but I was pleasantly surprised. Ocean isn't as good as the first but much better than the messy second one. The problem with this one is that Eleven pulled you into lots of different directions before finally explaining how they did it. Thirteen is more straight-forward but I liked the whole concept of the film plus having Al Pacino doesn't hurt.

One of my high school teachers always sought to set students' expectations low so that when we did well, we'd feel so much better about ourselves. Maybe that's what the producers of Pirates of the Caribbean were thinking when they made the last two films of the series. Part 2 was just so bad and boring, I fell asleep. And I snore too so the sold-out crowd was probably none too happy. Fast forward to Part III, At World's End, and you know what, it ain't that bad. Maybe it's because the second one was dismal, they had nowhere to go but up. Or it could be it was genuinely good. Nah, that's not it.

The movie was still pulled in too many directions by characters who each had their own agenda to follow. At least putting everyone in the same general area for the last half of the film helped everything gel together for one final action-filled battle.

It was a few months overdue, but I finally bought my new laptop over the weekend. Kinda. I settled on a hp dv6000t from Costco online. It has the Core 2 Duo chip, which supposedly has some kind of high-pitched noise if the power settings are turned on in a certain way so hopefully my new system will have that problem fixed. It should be here in a week.

The Sharks lost again. Better luck next year. But the small factoid I discovered years ago lives on. No team that has beaten the Sharks in the playoffs has won the Stanley Cup. The Red Wings were eliminated by what looks like the final champion Anaheim.