40 Behind The Scenes Photos From Classic Horror Movies | The Roosevelts

40 Behind The Scenes Photos From Classic Horror Movies | The Roosevelts

Great slideshow of some behind the scenes photos of scary movies.  Really takes the sting out of the "horror" to see Pennywise the Clown taking a break on the porch of a house...

Sir...Can you please stand up?

The next installment of the "travel blog" has to do with a very kind old man taking a weird turn.  On my flight to Chicago, I was seated next to an older gentleman (probably early 70's) who was polite for the entire flight.  No problems whatsoever.  He got up to use the restroom in the middle of the flight, and we shared a cordial laugh when he had trouble locating his seat belt.  Perfectly normal interaction for a flight.

If you have flown on a commercial airliner in the past 10 years, you probably are aware of the etiquette of how to deplane.  When the seatbelt sign turns off, several people immediately stand up (I can't, for the life of me, figure out why, but that is a different story) but most people remain seated.  People start to file out of the plane, row by row, until you get to your row. Then you stand up and get your bag and leave.

Which gets us to me.  I was on the aisle seat, waiting for our row's turn.  There was no room for me to stand up because the aisle was full of other people.  There were still about two rows in front of us that hadn't stood up yet, so it wasn't even close to my turn to stand up. This is where it got a bit odd.  The older gentleman next to me says, "Sir?  Can you please stand up?" as if I could have stood up, but was choosing not to.  He wasn't rude...he actually said it very politely.  I was just floored at what I could have possibly been doing for him to assume I wasn't going to stand up as soon as I could.  Trust me, I wanted to get off the plane as soon as I could.  I turned and looked at him, momentarily stunned while trying to imagine what scenario he was running through to say this to me.  It really took me aback.  I looked at him, and said that I was going as soon as I could, trying very hard not to sound annoyed...but in reality, I was a bit annoyed.

There always seem to be a couple of people on every flight who think that the flight is their own personal vessel, and they can't be bothered with all of these other people. The best example I can think of is the person who is in the row behind you, and uses your seat as a way to pull themselves out of their seat or out of the row...causing your seat to lurch backwards violently as they huff and puff their way towards the restroom.  Or, the person who violently moves their seat back as quickly as they can, launching anything on your tray table on to the floor. It just amazes me how people operate in their own little cocoon, oblivious to the world around them.

Most of the time, people are perfectly gracious.  But every once in a while, you get something that happens to you that just floors you...and I will keep telling you about them. :)

Dave's Travel Blog

I travel a pretty fair amount for work, so I get to spend a lot of time in airports and on airplanes.  If there is a better place to people watch, I don't know what it is.  You get such an amazing cross section of people that it never fails to make me wonder how we survived as a species.  I figure I can start to document some of the things that I have seen, because some of them are just too good not to share.

Flight to Chicago O'Hare:

Seated in the row in front of me are an older couple (probably late 50's) and what appears to be their 10-11 year old grandson.  Gramps is in the aisle seat, Grams is in the middle, and blondie boy is at the window.  It was a pretty uneventful flight, and we were seated near the front of the plane.  Upon arriving at O'Hare, in the two second window between pulling into the gate and the pilot turning off the seat belt light, Grams tears off her seat belt, leaps over Gramps and attempts to make it to the back of the plane (probably 30-35 rows worth of people) to get to the bathroom.  She made it all the way to....my row before realizing that she would never make it back to the bathroom.

Has this person ever flown before?  How could she not know that before the seat belt light even went off that there was no way she was going to make it back there?  Hell, you could be seated three rows in front of the bathroom and have trouble making it back, but she wanted to traverse 30 rows of passengers, 5 to a row in less than .3 of a second?  I could only shake my head in disbelief.

Next blog post...The impatient old man seated next to me...

Refine Edge

Refine Edge:

Jennifer Aniston’s leaked security camera footage confirms terrible rumors

Jennifer Aniston’s leaked security camera footage confirms terrible rumors:

(via Tastefully Offensive)

My Blackberry Trials...

Last November, my work allowed me to purchase an iPhone 4s for my daily use.  It was easily the best phone experience I have ever had.  Everything worked very well. Of course, there was the occasional hiccup, but overall, the experience was as close to perfect as one could get.

Last month, my work (who was purchased by a much larger company) told me that I had to get rid of the iPhone and switch to the generic phone offered to all employees, the Blackberry Curve.  It has been one of the worst months of my life (#firstworldproblems) as far as phones are concerned.  I will skip, for the most part, my displeasure at a multi-million dollar company giving their employees the crappiest phone available.  Having said that, here are some of my observations of note:

• First of all, I have really small hands for a guy.  Seriously, my hands are only slightly larger than the average woman's hands.  I have an egregiously hard time typing on this sucker. The buttons are too small, they aren't very responsive, and I spend more time going back and correcting words than I do actually typing out the message.
• Work forces me to have a password on the phone, which I understand.  What I don't understand is that basically, the Blackberry is locked down and you can't do ANYTHING without typing in the password.  You can't set the phone on silent, you can't adjust the volume, you can't even start up the camera without putting in a password.  That is about as far from a good user experience as you can get.
• The web surfing experience makes me want to shoot myself in the face.  It is terrible.  Nothing loads smoothly, the scroll button is inconsistent at best, and the back button doesn't work consistently.
• I have dropped the phone three times on accident.  All three times, the back has popped off and the battery fell out, forcing me to restart my phone.
• For a phone that doesn't do anything, the battery life is pretty bad.  I have unplugged in the morning, and had the battery run out in the evening several times.  What could possibly be draining the battery?  I don't talk on it that much...
• Bing is the default search engine.  That should tell you enough about the user experience.
• App support is abysmal, but I can't blame developers.  It is like retrofitting the Titanic.  Spending any significant amount of time on app development for the Blackberry would be counterproductive.
• One thing that I really miss about the iPhone is the iPod part.  The Blackberry, for lack of a better term, blows in this regard.  I think I have attached a pair of headphones to it once, and it was such a horrible experience that I just gave up.

With all of the attention paid to Steve Jobs in the last 5 years or so, you would think that there would be some attention to detail that would float to the top, but there are so many little things that I notice that I would consider unacceptable in a product design.  For example:

• The USB cable gets plugged into the side of the phone.  This is a bad choice for a couple of reasons.  One, it makes the phone hard to use when it is plugged in.  The cord sticks out awkwardly and forces you to only use it on one ear.  Second, if you have a desk, you better hope you can plug in in on your left hand side (of the desk), because it won't work on the right hand side.
• This is a tiny detail, but one that didn't get by me:  The plug has a little Blackberry logo on it.  When you plug the cord in to power up the phone, the logo is on the wrong side of the plug.  Jobs wouldn't have let this happen. :)

 

It isn't all bad, though.  There are a couple things that are at least useful:

• Google Voice is somewhat integrated into the OS, so at least that is easy...but the Google Voice app is barely functional, so you trade off a bit.
• It is a good phone...

I do see why companies still use Blackberries.  People who use BB don't use data, so it saves them a ton of money on data plans.  My data usage has probably dropped 90% since switching.  It is unfortunate, though, because no one I work with likes their phone.  They look at it as a detriment, and in some occasions, feel embarassed to use it when in high-stakes sales situations because it is a bit of a status hit.

It is amazing to me how phone companies haven't tried to steal Apple's business model.  Make one kick ass phone and that is it.  You look around and you see every phone company making tons of devices to fit all different customer types, and none of them are really succeeding.  HTC has taken a nose dive in the last year. Samsung is paying Apple a billion dollars for copying the design of the iPhone, and Motorola still hasn't figured out how they are going to do anything since Google bought their mobile division.  I bet there is enough talent at RIM left to make one really great phone that people will like.  Sure, you aren't going to put a dent in the Apple juggernaut, but you could at least create some forward momentum.  

If you are fortunate enough to have a job that provides you with a phone that you like, make sure to tell them thank you.  It could be much, much worse.

Big Fat Meh

• All of this recent uproar of "surviving the zombie apocalypse" had me thinking....wouldn't most people in the world have to be zombies for there to be an apocalypse?  Just thinking about the odds of becoming a zombie would deter me from "preparing" for it.  Chances are, all of the people who are super prepared would probably become zombies themselves, making their preparation irrelevant.
• The Google Nexus 7 tablet looks fascinating, but there seems to be one point that everyone isn't mentioning.  App Sharing.  In my family, there are two iPads, two iPhones, and each of the kids has their own iPod touch.  When I buy an app through iTunes, everyone gets the app for no additional charge.  But with Android, I don't think that is the case.  This will REALLY deter me from buying an Android tablet, unless they address this.
• Since everything is tied to your Google account, there is too much separation for a family.  I can't believe no one thought of this...or if they did think of it, they certainly don't seem to care.
• It is funny how different parts of the country are the same, but totally different.  I just got back from a few days in Maryland and Delaware, and everything works the same, but nothing looks the same.  I guess I am just used to the way Texas is laid out, because nothing felt right while I was there.
• I am nervous about the Cowboys' season this year, because I do have reasonable expectations.  Last year wasn't so bad because I expected them to have a down year.  This year is different from my vantage point.
• I have noticed that my life is significantly less busy and easier to deal with if my teams are terrible.  I am a wreck if the Cubs are in the hunt.  I haven't had much to worry about for a few years. :)
• I watched the pilot to the new show, Revolution.  Apparently, something happens that makes electricity not work anymore, and we go back to being farmers and such.  Even though the trailer was directed by Jon Favreau and has Gus Fring from Breaking Bad in it, it gets a big fat meh from me.  Way too much sword fighting and arrow shooting.  It was like the producers watched the Hunger Games right before they filmed it.  Give me STORY, not fighting!  Give me characters, not blood!