Marthon of Life: Dean Karnazes Inspiration

Today will be a little different than my norm. Not that I really have a norm. Instead, today we'll be taking a quick look at a book a brother Marine recommended. Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All Night Runner by Dean Karnazes. Now before I get into it, I'll take a second to remind you, I'm not big on running. If you recall my previous blog on fun exercise, I made it pretty clear. But this book made me want to lace up and hit the pavement. To sum it up quickly, it's a great read.

Dean writes this, picking segments out of his life. Where he first found his love of the run, to where he is now. Throughout his story, you come across humor that makes you want to yell, "Run, Forest, Run." At the same time though, you get presented with something that most sport/athletic books leave out, injury. And I'm not talking the occasionally mentioned bumps, bruises, and barely mentioned breaks. I'm talking details that make you take notice, and say, "Holy COW!" At the same time, however, Dean doesn't go into painstakingly descriptive rants about it. It's simple, and straight forward with just enough detail.

From the get go, the book pulls you right in. It's not written like a biography, nor is it written like a sports journal. Which lets face it, too many sports books are. Instead, Dean writes like he's talking directly to you. And why not? He is in fact telling his story to the world. It reads like a casual conversation that you'd have with a close friend. This is seriously the fastest read I've had in years.

Even though it's about him and his exploits, he doesn't just ramble on about himself. He talks about his family, what they've been through, how they've grown, and how they've hit the high's and low's of life together, adapted and overcome. Love and loss, it's all right there. He talks about some of the people he's met, and who all he runs for as well. If anything you find love and tragedy throughout this book, but in good portions. Neither overshadows the other.

Ultimately this book is about the ultra marathon we call life. Running is just how Dean gets through it. It's inspiring, a breath of fresh air, and a lost toe nail all at once. While I'd love to give more detail, I'm afraid I'd get carried away and give out too much. So I'll simply say go read this book. It will make you feel good.

P.S. Thanks for the great recommendation Adam. Semper Fi brother.

Burn Notice and B Movie Actors

Just another quick jaunt through my mind. So I've finally gotten into the show Burn Notice. It's taken me time though. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until recently.

Typically, I love a good B movie. They're campy, cheep, fun. And ultimately you see hungry up-and-comers that are really putting themselves on the line to make it or break it. Which leads to what caught my initial interest in the show, Bruce Campbell. I've been a huge fan of his for years. The initial ads for the show didn't win me over. Instead I was looking at it as a cheap, American knock-off of Mission Impossible. But with Bruce being cast, I felt it would only be right to give it a shot.

So I tried, failed. Tried again, and failed again. I just couldn't figure out what was throwing it. The dialogue was good, the filming was good, effects great, there's some good acting here. And it hit me, it's the acting of the main character. He's good with voices and accents, but ultimately he's just walking in, chin high, and delivering lines. I don't feel him. Not only that, but watching his movement kills me. He doesn't seem like a spy, or that he's even trying to play one. The most honest acting he does is when he's putting on a "please don't hit me" act for the bad guys. He just strikes me as a straight up sissy.

Now, I've watched all the way up through the end of season 4. It's steadily gotten better. The other actors are great, and the story has stayed true. I'm not seeing Michael Weston as much of an act now because Jeffrey Donovan has finally gotten comfortable (though not entirely connected) with the character. But it's evolving quicker and quicker, and I have hope to actually be pulled in completely fairly soon. I'm really liking it now. 

This is really why I don't care much for many well established actors. For instance Tom Cruise. Back in his early days he had emotion, and something tangible. Today, it doesn't matter if he's a spy, or Jerry Maguire, he plays it all the same. It makes him just another over paid actor, but once in a while, he breaks away from his norm and shows us he still has a little gas in the trunk. Such as when he portrayed Les Grossman.Then you have the likes of Nic Cage, who also has fallen in the rut of different characters generally being the same. What makes him different is when he tries to do something different, he comes across as freakin NUTS!

But when you get a B movie actor, you know it's truly for the love of film. That's probably why the Bruce Campbell's, Roddy Piper's, and Adrian Paul's keep their magic. They've seen glory, utter crap, risen again just to find they're standing knee deep in the sewer, and they keep coming back for more.

Hail to the B actor actor baby. And here's to Burn Notice getting better.

Worldwide Warriors: The Party and the Jack

Time for a special edition from yours truly. I say special edition, because this isn't something I was actually going to write about. But enough people have asked me, so here it is. Time for my take on last nights concert! From the get go, I have to admit this isn't my style of music as many of you know. So I'll do my best to remain objective.

Ticket to the show!

So my wife is a fan, and really wanted to go see Pitbull. Being the kind of hubby that I am, I bought tickets. The headliners for this tour of course being Pitbull & Kesha. The people that are touring with them are Justice Crew and Jump Smokers. So before I get into Pitbull & Kesha, let me get the negatives out of the way.

Isleta Amphitheater, Albuquerque, NM on the lawn

The show opened with Justice Crew. For those who don't know, myself being one until last night, Justice Crew is a hip-hop/dance group out of Australia. Holy cow! I cannot explain how far up the ladder of garbage this group is. First off, they didn't come out to a song of their own. They looked like a group of wannabe strippers concentrating more on remembering their choreography, than actually trying to dance. It was horrible. Not only that, but the lack of commitment was sad. They'd poorly perform through a section of a song, then stop for some unpracticed banter that came off like they were reading it from a cue card for the first time. While I'm sure they have some sort of talent somewhere in there, it just wasn't seen at all last night. The dancer on a sheet of cardboard outside the local Walmart is more entertaining than this group of aspiring artists. Keep practicing guys, you need it! To end the pain, they finally performed a single of their own. It sounded like a rip off that was stuck between Nsync and Justin Bieber. Aside from the teenage girls who don't know any better, the audience just didn't care by that point. Everyone was looking for a new drink, or waiting in line for the restroom. For this segment I give it two thumbs down, and a huge yawn. 

Next on the list of, "What were you thinking?" is the filler that came out between Kesha & Pitbull. A couple of DJ's that call themselves Jump Smokers. I'm still trying to figure out how the heck these idiots are classified as a band. They came out and did a club set that was 100% was I hear on the local radio stations at night. Original? A far screaming cry from it. Aside from a couple of record scratches here and there, and one of them wanting to talk about a dance party like they were at a middle school dance, it was literally just a radio set. I mean, I paid good money to see a show. Where's the show? A couple of lights, and laptop next to a turn table while some idiot is blabbing away to put your hands in the air is not a show, let alone a band. This was the set that really showed who the school kids were. I honestly believe this actually took away from the show. We're not talking about giving a break to some up and comers to try to do something like Justice Crew. We're talking about bonafide DJ's. They belong in a local dance hall, not the big stage. If they truly wanted some decent DJ's to act as a filler, I'd have recommended they take a look at EDC, Ultra Music Fest, etc to see who could actually keep the energy pumping and not sound like a radio jockey on the AM band. Not only do I give this segment two thumbs down, but a flaming bag of dog poo!

Now, on to the our headliners!

Kesha

Kesha came out first of course. Lighting was good. Sound was pretty solid. Props were good. Costumes were well done. What took away from it was the fact it was still so bright out. It really toned down the lights, glitter, props, etc. And there were a ton. Her costume revealed a lot of skin, but was still a prop in itself which is a nice change from the typical hooker look that so many go for anymore. You could tell she gained a little weight, which is definitely to her benefit as she looks a lot better with it. I hope she keeps it. What's more is that when she actually opened her mouth, you could tell it was her. You could tell when she was actually singing, opposed to her background vocal tracks. And she did try to get the audience engaged. Some dialog here, some actual engagement there, some story telling to set the stage for the next song. It was there. You could tell she's still working on fully getting the audience involved, but the effort was there. In a nice twist she'd insert something random into some of her songs, such as flat out saying what something was instead of using the metaphor that her lyrics actually used. Sometimes it hit the mark, other times not so much, yet others I think was more to try catching the audience with their guard down and shocking them. You could tell that once she warmed up though, she and her dancers were having some fun. It added some comedy when a couple of her props didn't work quite right, and when a dancer, who was probably blinded by the big mascot style head he was wearing tripped, and took her down with him. She laughed it off and was back into the song quickly, which was great. She even had good fillers while changing her costume. 

Kesha nearing the end of her set

While not her fault, I think where her set fell flat is that the audience had already used up its first wind with the disappointing opener and hadn't quite gotten it's second wind when she took the stage. Also, there were bits where she was playing guitar that just didn't seem right. To explain you had this "recording" perfect jam that seemed more like she was pretending to play over a pre-recorded track. While everyone is used to her being totally auto-tuned as well, the sound mixers had their work cut out for them trying to keep her sounding just right as well. Other than those couple of things, she did well and will get better moving forward. Two thumbs up. 

Pitbull

Now for Pitbull. The audience absolutely had its second wind when he made it to the stage. I was actually very surprised by his live performance, and have to give him big kudos for it. His energy alone actually reminded me of Angus Young's as there was no stopping him while he was out there. He was moving, dancing, jumping, the stage was a playground, and he owned it. He was all over the place. His voice was obviously not a recorded track. When he sang you knew it, just like when he rapped you knew it. And he stayed engaged with the audience. Story telling, knowing where he was, etc. He was in the moment and you could tell in was genuine, which isn't always seen in any genre of music. Lighting was amazing, lasers, strobes, LED's on the stage, props, and more. And in a bright rainbow of colors. His dancers were changing costumes faster than Las Vegas show girls, at a pace that even Bette Midler would have gasped at. Which brings us to an area of concern I had going in. As many of you know, he has few songs that are just him. Most are collaborations with other artists. Artists that are not on the road with him. The recordings of those artists spots were crisp, clear, and amazing. Sometimes he'd even have their parts from the music videos up on the Jumbotron. Other times, he'd have his actual video's playing on the screen, such as his Men In Black 3 track, but he still performed his part live, not giving over to the lip syncing. It was done so well, that you would have actually thought those artists were there. In addition, for the most part he didn't use his videos, but rather had different effects, lighting, and visuals playing instead. Confetti flew all over. And the biggest pop I could give is for his use of actual musicians. It wasn't just the dance beats that comprise so much of his work. Instead, he had a different feel altogether. A guitarist, percussionists, keyboardists, and even a sax were put to use creating a better sound than you'll find on his albums. They even riffed a few riffs paying tribute to the likes of GNR, Ozzy, Survivor, and the Beastie Boys. A pleasant surprise indeed. Two thumbs up, and a standing ovation. 

A blurred shot of Pitbull. My phone just couldn't keep up with the lighting changes and flashes.

With the lights, lasers, glitz and glam, the venue was wrong. Overall it should have been an indoor venue. Even after dark, the lights were just absorbed and lost by our desert. Had it been at an indoor venue, it really would have added that extra something to the experience. But overall the headliners did well and made me feel like I got my money's worth. Good job guys.

Unplugged Review

So recently I discussed unplugging, and my quest to settle on an mp3 player. Well kiddies, I finally got an mp3 player that meet my needs. I settled on the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2. And so far I'm pretty happy with it.

Is it perfect? Well no, but nothing is. So time for a quick rundown. It runs smoothly, and has no trouble keeping up or multitasking. As you can see I have a couple of apps downloaded to it, with is great when near WiFi. But of course, I'm breaking away from that as well. So onboard it has 8 GB's and supports external memory via SD card up to 32 GB (though some testers have had luck with some 64 GB SD cards). So I can drop a ton of music on it, and a couple of games for that down time as well. It is running on a slightly dated version of Android, Gingerbread, but that's fine. Gingerbread has been good to me, and I'm not looking to replace my computer. WiFi is strong, and the Bluetooth is as solid as we can expect. I had no trouble connecting to my Roku with either.

Sound is pretty good, though I find it to be high towards the treble and low on bass, though that can be adjusted with various apps from the market place. Typical of FM radio, it uses wired headsets as the antennae. But I have say here that it is one of the best FM players I've ever used. I don't have to position the device in a certain direction, nor do I have to fidget with my ear-buds. It just reaches out and grabs those stations, and holds them well. And volume from the two speakers on the front is solid. I actually don't have to even turn it up half way and can hear my music strong.

Here on the back you can see the rear camera, no flash. It's nothing great but works well. It also came with a few different back plates as well. Ultimately you can see which one I chose obviously. The front camera is only VGA, but it works well for what little purpose it really serves. Here's a picture of yours truly using that VGA camera.

So far I'm pretty happy with the direction I'm headed. Now it's on to the next phase. Time to decide on a basic phone that will suit my needs. So in the immortal words of the late, great Paul Harvey, "Standby for news!"