TheJoey.Net

I’ve been using my Treo now for just about two years. Don’t get me wrong; when I first got it, it was like nothing I’ve ever used. It was new and exciting. The phone before the treo was boring and bland. It didn’t give me what I needed. The Treo changed all that. But now, nearly two years into it, things have gotten boring; stagnant. That’s when I saw the Blackberry 8830. Smaller than the treo and so many more features. After spending the weekend with it, here are some of my thoughts.

• The usability is great That ball is amazing and makes everything so much easier to navigate.
• Syncing: I admit it took me a while to start the syncing process with my computer (more specifically, Outlook). But once I got my number sitched over, everything became easier. Syncing with Outlook is a sinch.
• Application Installation: Really easy. Most of the time I can do it right from the Blackberry.
• Email: I was set up in litterally 2 minutes flat. Much easier than emailing on the Treo. Plus, email to the blackberry is instant, and even beats it to the inbox sometimes. I also picked up GMail for the Blackberry, which is excellet. If I want to access my physical gmail box, it’s now an application on my phone.
• Messaging in general: All messages go to one place. I like this. Missed call? Voice Mail? Email? TXT? All under “messages.” I don’t need to be clicking around to view everything. And with the “Today” theme that comes on the phone, all I need to do is press one button.
• Did I mention how awesome that ball is?
• Instant Messaging: I have the ability to use Google Talk, and through an app called JiveTalk, AIM, Yahoo! and MSN. These applications are very nice looking and easy to use. Plus they look like the real apps, which makes the experience even better.
• It comes with a Password Keeper application. How cool is that?
• Battery Life: I haven’t charged this since 10:00am. Going on 14 hours, and moderatly heavy use (I was testing battery life today), the batter stands at 65% full. The Treo can’t match that in the least.
• Size: Noticably lighter and thinner than the Treo. While slightly wider, you don’t notice that in your pocket, just when it comes to looking at the screen.

As you can see, I am quite a fan. It hasn’t frozen on me yet either, which is a big plus considering I was running a lot on it today. In the coming days/weeks, I will be testing out the multimedia side of the 8830- as soon as my microSD card comes in. I also plan on looking into using the tethering feature to see if I can actually use this bad boy as a modem, and the built-in GPS feature that’s advertised.

posted on July 10th, 2007 in Reviews, Tech| | show comment » « hide comment

Some would say I’m stubborn. OK- a lot of people would say that. When I have an opinion, I’m pretty dead set in it. But my mind can be changed. Going into Transformers I wasn’t expecting spectacular. I wasn’t expecting crap either. I was expecting mediocrity. Boy was I wrong. The Transformers Movie was awesome in a lot of ways. There are some things you need to ultimately need to get past, because it is a cartoon turned movie, but overall it’s a great movie.

I think is is mainly due to the fact that the plot is fairly complex and it all comes together in the end. There are 2 major story lines with sub stories in each: The Military encounter with a Decepticon, and our main character, Sam Witwiky’s encounter with the Autobots. The movie doesn’t just focus on the kid’s overcoming whatever he needs to overcome to make things happen. It’s focus is on the greater story of everyone helping the Autobots save the Earth. And the back story of why they came to Earth isn’t half bad either.

The acting was good. My benchmark for this usually is how emotionally invested I am in the characters. If I don’t really care what happens to them, I’m probably not that into the movie due to bad acting. Not the case here. From the moment the movie starts, we are introduced to Captain Lennox of the US Army, played by Josh Duhamel and I was hooked. This guy was a bad ass. Duhamel did a great job of playing him. Of course, Shia LaBeouf also did a great job as Sam, an awkward high school student who gets thrown into this mess. He was also pretty funny. Megan Fox was also great as the leading lady in the film.

I don’t think I need to mention the visual effects, but let me say that they are stunning. The robots looked awesome, the fight scenes were really cool. These and the aforementioned are the reasons I could overlook the somewhat lame or over dramatic parts of the movie. I’ve also read criticism that all this movie amounts to is a ‘pro-military, pro-car’ film. I see nothing wrong with that. The movie shows how brave our military can be, and even though this is a fictional story I think the underlying message is still there. And what reasonable person is anti-military? Or anti-car for that matter? I like both of those things.

All in all it was a very entertaining film, full of explosions, hacking, a couple of beautiful girls and giant robots. There is really nothing more you could ask for in a summer movie.

posted on July 8th, 2007 in Reviews| | show comments » « hide comments

Admittedly, the summer movies I’ve reviewed, I’ve given bad reviews to. That’s not my fault. I am not a movie hater, as I’ve accused my friends of being. These are the people who hate every movie they see, being over critical of every aspect of every movie. Not me. And Mr. Brooks (as well as my track record) is proof. This is the first great Summer 2007 movie I’ve seen.

Mr. Brooks is about an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a family man, a good guy. But this good guy is also addicted to murder. And he is so smart that he doesn’t get caught. He isn’t even a suspect until part way through the movie. That’s in part, due to his friend, Marshall, who is imaginary. What is so great about this movie is not only the story line, but how it’s fairly fast paced; it keeps the audience thinking about what will happen next. There are no things that go unexplained and I didn’t think it was predictable. Oh, and the acting. William Hurt, who played Marshall, was excellent.

Hurt is someone I’ve never seen or don’t remember seeing before, despite that fact that he has been in movies like The Village and Syriana. His performance as Marshall was excellent. The character he played was smooth, laid back and very convincing. He ‘helped’ Mr. Brooks commit these murdered by covering the bases Brooks ‘didn’t.’ He was able to portray this dark character in a great way. Costner and Hurt worked well together. The dynamic duo they created worked out very well. Even though Brooks was crazy, you couldn’t really tell. Then, there was Dane Cook.

Without giving too much away, you could tell Cook’s character, “Mr. Smith,” was a little crazy. That, I think, was well done by Cook. He was able to bring out the insanity in Mr. Smith that maybe we should have seen in Brooks, but didn’t because of how smart Brooks is.

Overall, the movie was excellent, and highly recommended. It’s a great thriller that keeps you thinking and doesn’t slow down. Everything that happens is deliberate and moves towards the ending in someway, even if you don’t see it until the end (ahem, or while you’re walking to your car…)

posted on June 7th, 2007 in Reviews| | show comment » « hide comment

Another highly anticipated summer film. And in my humble opinion, another disappointment. Pirates, much like Spiderman, had some great parts. But for the most part, it was a film that was built up really high, and which did not deliver. Some spoilers follow.

We are left with Jack Sparrow in Davey Jones’ Locker, and Capitan Barbosa is back to get him. Why? Because the pirates of the world are in trouble, “the song” has been sung, and Jack is needed as a holder of one of the ‘nine pieces of eight.’ We are off to an alright start, except we don’t know what the song is about, what the nine piece are about, and we kind of have a new reason Jack needs to be rescued, if memory serves me correctly. I find with this film, not much is explained. There is just action, some comedy, more action. Pirates should not be that kind of film. Especially since this is a three hour continuation of another three hour film. The length of the film is my first problem.

The movie was too long. There could have been numerous pointless parts thrown out to shorten it, or to extend other parts that needed it. There was a part about the goddess Calypso that was extremely drawn out and amounted to nothing. The entire film we are told about how Calypso will sway the major fight in one way or another. Finally she is freed and she has a moment with Davey Jones, then just kind of goes away. That’s a lot of build up for nothing. And that is my second problem with the film.

The film hypes up a lot of things that turn out to be nothing. Will and Elizabeth fight. Nothing happens. The Calypso situation. Everything that happens with the Brits. The governor getting killed. That should have been expanded on a little more. And then we see new characters, like Jack’s dad (played by Keith Richards), and we think something great is going to happen. He is in the movie for a total of 5 minutes. We don’t even learn about him. He just kind of pops in to say hi. Lack of character development is my last major complaint.

It’s not just with Jack’s dad. It’s with Calypso, and even Davey Jones. And Bootstrap Bill. All of the supporting characters really. We get virtually no development in some new major characters. My brother put it best when he said all of the writers went to different rooms, wrote their own movie, and threw them all together. There was a lot going on. But it was almost a lot of nothing.

I really wanted to like the film. The first one was great. The second one was good too. But this was a pretty weak attempt to live up to the self made hype and inside jokes of the last two films.

posted on June 2nd, 2007 in Reviews| No Comments »

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a video game. Heck, It’s been a while since I’ve played a video game. But as the school year thankfully and sadly (seeing as I’m a senior) came to an end, I found some time (and took some liberties) and decided to get and start a new game. That new game is Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

Admittedly, I did not think the game would be this fun. I knew my brother had it and enjoyed it, but I had no strong urges to play it. It was picked up kind of on a whim, which is why I have it so late after it came out. However, the game is incredibly fun. You pick and choose your team of four Marvel heroes, switching them out whenever you have the opportunity. You start off with Wolverine, Spiderman, Thor and Captain America. Unless they were incapacitated, I’ve kept Wolverine and Spidey in the whole time. My other two favorites so far are Human Torch and Thing. Deathpool and Storm are also very good choices. The first thing I really like about the game is the team management. If you keep a set of characters together a lot, they learn to work together. It’s also up to you to give them upgrades and spend the money you pick up wisely to get the best team you can. (Also, I was able to unlock the symbiotic suit for Spidey. I cannot wait to upgrade that baby!)

As far as game play goes, it’s pretty good. The controls are easy to use and intuitive, but not so simple you can’t do really cool stuff. I personally like the combos you can do with other heroes on your team. Movement, jumping, swimming (there is an Atlantis level) and fighting are easy to do. I love flying with Human Torch and swinging with Spidey. The graphics are amazing. The people at Raven/Activision stepped up the graphics for the 360, which is excellent because the game looks great. Multiplayer is awesome. Me and a couple of friends played together yesterday and it’s well done. They just join in and are now part of your team. The only complaint of have about that is you can only advance so far apart from each other. It’s tough sometimes when you are in a big battle and you can’t move in a certain direction due to the fact that Player 2 is in the other corner.

Finally, there is the camera view. I think the developers made the best choice here with how the camera moves and how you can control it. With a team of four, there isn’t much other choice, and while sometimes the over-top view can get a little annoying at times, it’s the best option and usually works well. All in all, I really love the game and have been playing it pretty obsessively. I haven’t really played this much since around November, when I got Gears of War.

posted on May 19th, 2007 in Gaming, Reviews| No Comments »