Since my new job is going to require me to commute roughly 30 miles to work every day, we’ve been looking at getting a second car.  Initially we thought we’d pick up something used and cheap…  But my father wanted us to get something solidly reliable.  So he’s giving us a chunk of cash to help pay for a new car.

I’m not real familiar with the whole “shopping for a new car” process…  We’ve only ever owned used cars and we’ve never had to do much bargaining or financing.  So I was kind of surprised.

We looked at a number of cars that claimed to “start at” $14,000 or so…  But once you’d added automatic transmission, cruise control, and air conditioning they were closer to $18,000.  And then we’d talk with a salesman and discover that the price on the manufacturer’s website was not what they were being sold for.

Very confusing.

Eventually we settled on the Kia Soul.  It’s got decent gas mileage, good safety rating, a couple consumer awards…  It comes with cruise control and power windows and all that good stuff…  It looks nice…  And it’s right around $16,000.

So then we started trying to make a purchase, and things got a little weird.  I didn’t realize just how quickly a dealer would sell you something that costs that much.  It seems to me that there should be more deliberation or something…

But they just took my information over the phone, ran some numbers, gave me a price, and they’re driving it over to me as I type this.  I should be signing papers and taking possession of our new car in just a couple hours.

So weird…

We went to see Alice on opening weekend.  That Friday, in fact.  I mention this because it’s so unusual for us to do that.  Neither Terri nor myself enjoy crowds.  We’ll normally try to see a movie when it would be least crowded…  We’ll go to R-rated things in the middle of the day on Saturday, for example, figuring that most folks have better things to do with themselves.

But Terri has a soft spot in her heart for all things Wonderland…  And we’re both big fans of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp…  So we just had to see it as soon as possible.  Which meant braving one hell of a crowd on a Friday night.

It was worth it.

The movie was shown in that fancy new digital 3D that Disney is using these days, and it was very effective.  Subtle, unlike the old bicolor cardboard glasses…  But effective.  It added a very real feeling of depth to everything on the screen.

The story is basically that of Through the Looking Glass…  At least in that Alice winds up defeating the Red Queen and killing the Jabberwocky.  It’ll be familiar to anyone who’s read the stories or seen any of the previous movies.  But it’s also got a very original feel to the movie, and plenty of liberties were taken.

The acting was all very good…  If, perhaps, a bit odd at times.

Alice was a very likable character.  I definitely wanted to see her save the day and reclaim her muchness.

The White Queen was just plain strange…  She kept yammering on about her vows and floating around with her arms in the air…

The Red Queen was a lot of fun.  Delightfully malicious.

The Red Knight was another odd one…  Sinister one moment, comical the next.

And Depp delivered one hell of a Mad Hatter.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Scottish hatter wielding a claymore before…

It was all thoroughly enjoyable.  Completely engaging.  Definitely worth the cost of admission, and even worth dealing with those horrible crowds.

We watched 2012.

I know…  It’s gotten horrible reviews.  Everyone says it’s bad.  I didn’t expect much, and we rented it from one of the RedBox kiosks, so we were only out $1.  And I generally enjoy a disaster movie.

But 2012 was a whole new kind of horrible.

I expected it to be fairly bad.  I didn’t expect amazing acting or anything like that.  But I really wanted a decent disaster movie…  Lots of screaming and running, stuff exploding, people dying.  The kind of sound and noise that may signify nothing, but at least distracts you from reality for a while.

And while 2012 did have lots of sound and noise, I was too distracted by all the awfulness to actually be distracted from reality – if that makes any sense.

The flow of the movie was just awful.  We see some scientist in India who discovers that neutrinos are somehow interacting with water to superheat the Earth’s crust (WTF?!).  Then he’s at some political meeting trying to talk to some guy.  And then he disappears for a while.

We’re introduced to some random writer-turned-chauffeur and his family.  I suppose he’s kind of the everyman of the movie…  But he isn’t particularly likable.  Nor is it clear why we’d be rooting for him as opposed to the plastic surgeon his wife is now in love with.

We see some shady-looking people evidently selling seats on some kind of ark or escape-pod or bunker or something.

We see some people collecting famous works of art to be preserved.

It all seems to drag on an awful lot.  I wasn’t looking at a clock, but it felt like absolutely nothing was happening for the longest time.  Just various people going around doing various things.  No explosions, no chaos, no disaster…  Nada.

And then, when things start going wrong, it doesn’t make sense.

I mean…  Not that a disaster movie like this is ever really going to make a lot of sense…  But this was worse than usual.

Mr. Writer Guy somehow puts everything together just in time to race home and toss his family into the limo…  And then races through a rapidly-crumbling LA to the airport…  And it’s a damn good thing that Mr. Plastic Surgeon is a pilot…  And then they fly through a rapidly-crumbling LA…  To an almost-ready-to-crumble Yellowstone…  And then to an almost-ready-to-crumble Las Vegas…

Watching these cities disintegrate before our eyes could have been very dramatic, if it weren’t for the horrible construction of the scenes.  It felt more like I was watching a cartoon than a disaster movie.  The characters are all gawking with open mouths at the carnage around them.  The limo drives through a skyscraper as it falls to the ground.  There’s light-hearted comments and comical expressions every few minutes.

The characters make basically no sense.  None of them.

We’re introduced to various people…  Some musicians going on a cruise, a Russian mafioso, the President…  And we’re given some direction in how we’re supposed to feel about them…  And then they just stop mattering.

The Russian mafioso, for example…  He starts out looking like an asshole.  He’s a scary jerk of a Russian mobster.  Obviously not a nice guy.  Probably made all his money by kicking puppies and eating kittens.

But then he starts acting more human.  Starts to seem like he might be a nice guy.  And everyone’s expecting to see some kind of change of heart…  Maybe he’ll wind up saving someone, or sacrificing himself…  Or maybe he’ll at least turn out to be a not-so-horrible person.

But then he abandons everyone, including his girlfriend, to the mercies of the apocalypse and hops on a helicopter headed for safety.

So…  Why did they attempt to humanize him?  Why not just leave us with an asshole of a Russian mobster?

The whole movie is just one contrived emergency after another.  Every time it looks like our heroes have reached safety, some new ridiculous problem arises.

By the end of the movie I was just waiting for the credits to roll.  I simply wanted it to end.  I’m not sure how long the movie actually was…  But it felt like an eternity.

Slashdot | FCC Asks You To Test Your Broadband Speeds

The Federal Communications Commission is asking the nation’s broadband and smartphone users to use its broadband testing tools to help the feds and consumers know what speeds are actually available, not just promised by the nation’s telecoms. At http://www.broadband.gov/, users enter their address and test their broadband download speed, upload speed, latency, and jitter using one of two tests (users can choose to test with the other after one test is complete). The FCC is requiring the street address, as it ‘may use this data to analyze broadband quality and availability on a geographic basis’ (they promise not to release location data except in the aggregate). The agency is also asking those who live in a broadband ‘dead zone’ to fill out a report online, call, fax, email, or even send a letter. The announcement comes just six days before the FCC presents the first ever national broadband plan to Congress. Java is necessary to run the test.

The government is attempting to roll out a plan to get better broadband to more people.  Part of this involves finding out what kind of broadband is actually out there right now.  To that end, the FCC has made a speed test available at Broadband.gov Results from that speed test will be aggregated to provide a more realistic picture of what kind of broadband is available in various areas.

Additionally, if you have no broadband available where you live, you can report that on their website.

So…  Hop on over to Broadband.gov and give them some feedback.  It’ll only take a few minutes.

We went to see Alice in Wonderland over the weekend…  And I’ll have more to say about that later…  But right now I want to mention the trailer we saw for Tron Legacy.

Tron was a terrific movie back in the day.  Had a huge impact on me.  I still enjoy it to this day.

I was pretty skeptical about Tron Legacy…  It’s awfully hard to do a cult movie like that justice.  Especially when the original was so thoroughly a product of the time it was created in.

And then I heard that part of the plot of Tron Legacy would involve hacking Skynet from the inside…  Well, that sounds pretty horrible to me.

But the trailer looks good.  It looks very good.  And it’ll be in Disney Digital 3-D, which I’ve been very impressed with so far.

So, I’m cautiously optimistic at this point…  I’ll have to see the thing in theaters.  There’s really no other choice.  Even if the reviews are absolutely awful I’ll wind up going.  But right now I’m thinking that it might actually be an entertaining way to waste a few hours of my life.  Time will tell.

New trailer for Iron Man 2…  Looks pretty good.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first movie.  My only complaint was that you didn’t really get to see too much of Tony being heroic.  Granted, Tony isn’t exactly hero-material…  But I still wanted to see him fighting evil and saving the day.  Looks like the sequel will have plenty of that.