I love campy movies.

There… I said it. Now that’s out on the table and I can relax and tell you about this movie I watched last night. “Psycho Beach Party” would make an excellent choice for you to watch at your next “Inappropriate Movie Night” or other movie-watching gathering.

This film has it’s tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Its intention is the skewer 50’s beach party movies, 60’s thrillers, and 70’s slasher flicks. It hits the mark on many levels. While it sounds like a absurd premise, rest assured… it is. But it is done well.

Do not expect this movie to be gut-busting funny, nor an academy-award winner. It is a camp-filled beach-party, surf-fest, slasher flick with no gore, minimal nudity, and some of the most gloriously corny dialogue ever. Plus, throughout the movie, you’ll recognize a vast majority of the actors, but won’t be able to place the names… at least, i wasn’t able to.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie. The plot is horrendous… the acting is amusing… the music is accommodating… just go into this one with an open mind. It is B-rated camp to a tee.

Psycho Beach Party is unrated. Released in 2000. I give it 7 out of 10.

For more information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206226/

I was a little slow in downloading the new XBOX Live Arcade game this week. Galaga was released Wednesday, July 26th, 2006 to much fanfare. I waited anxiously while the 15 meg game was delivered through the interweb to my 360. I was thinking back to the good times I had playing this game in the arcade… how many quarters I had lost… how many ships I had saved.

Those good memories translated poorly once I opened the game. I was greeted to slick opening images, decent menu system, and annoying sound effects. The game touted 720p HD resolution, which succeeded in showing in crisp detail the pixellated goodness of the original arcade game. Maybe I was wrong to expected updated graphics and sound effects.

And the gameplay… you move left and right, and press a button to fire. How could this not feel right on a controller? I am not sure how, but they succeeded in doing this as well. And it seemed more sluggish than I remember.

All in all, I was not impressed with this release. I’d save your 400 points for another Live Arcade game (like Clonin’ Clyde, Frogger, or the eagerly anticipated Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting… more on that next week, hopefully.)

Review: 4 of 10.

In my never ending quest to find unique and interesting cheese-related products, I found this wonderful kids book. I have yet to read it, but the title alone was enough for my fiance to swoon and demand that we own it.

Glitter Girl and the Crazy Cheese

Once again, I read another story about rampant deaths. Who is the culprit behidn these heinous deaths? The headline says it all:

Sun kills 60,000… [Reuters.com]

I say it’s well beyond the time to ban the blasted Sun…

As I was doing my morning reading, I stumbled across this article on CNN.com. Here’s a link for your review:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/07/26/backitup.ap/index.html

To summarize, it discusses a clever business outfit called Carbonite, an online backup and recovery system. For as little as $5/month, you can have this utility installed on your machine that automatically encrypts and backs up your selected files to Carbonite’s secure data centers. This happens behind the scenes on your PC whenever it is connected to the Internet. And, the best part, is the fact that you can backup unlimited amounts of data.

This to me seems like a great idea; however, the idea of offloading my personal information to an external corporate data center seems a little disturbing. So that is an idea that I am goign to have to work through, but it may be worth it. Just think, no DVDs or CDs to keep up with and it’s available anywhere an internet connection is available.

That’s my $0.02 worth.

Head over to www.carbonite.com and check this out - there’s even a 15-day free trial. Tell them I sent you and get a sincere “Who?”…

You know, the whole Pepto-Bismal ice cream article got me thinking… what other delightfully odd ice cream concoctions would work?

The best idea that I have come up with, and am anxiously waiting to try, is a Chili-Pepper and Chocolate Ice Cream. I’ve neer seen such a blend, but I have to imagine this would be quite good. The sweet and the spicy…

Does anybody have any other ideas? If I get some good suggestions, I’ll gladly give them a try.

This is just too good to not pass along…

http://www.blogjam.com/2006/07/20/pepto-bismol-ice-cream

Seriously… Pepto-Bismal and ICE CREAM?!?! I guess there have been weirder things in life…

Here’s a helpful tip to help you avoid wasting an afternoon’s worth of work: ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR DATABASE.

This is especially true in cases where you are learning the database administration tool for the first time and creating your first database with the potential of going into production.

Grrr…

Here it is, another Thursday. the day after a Wednesday release of a new XBOX Live Arcade game. This week’s edition is: Cloning Clyde. I’ve only played the demo version of the game, but it is more than enough for me to purchase the full version, which costs 800 Points.

So, here’s the gist as I see it: You have Clyde, who is in need of cash. What better way to earn cash than to offer your body for scientific research. Clyde jumps on the chance and finds himself involved in a cloning experiment. Well, things don’t go as planned and Clyde finds himself face to face with, well…, himself. His goal now? Escape the science lab, which looks like where you might finds Dilbert and his cohorts hanging around. Along the way, you’ll battle robots, evil chickens, and other shenanigans with your kung-fu heroics all the while wearing nothing but a hospital gown. From the looks of it, there are other science experiments that will turn Clyde into a frog and other animal-like forms.

As far as gameplay is concerned, it takes me back to earlier gaming days with gameplay much like one of my favorite games of all times: The Lost Vikings. You have a sidescrolling view of each level, each requiring you to find switches, levers, and oher mechanisms allowing further progress to the exit. There are other goodies to pick up along the way, including other Clydes.

The graphics are great, with a version cartoon-ish feel to the game. The animation is fluid and entertaining. Leaving Clyde alone for a while leads to some humorous time-killing animations. The audio work is well-done, but ultimately forgettable.

I see some multi-player options, but have yet to give them a try. That’ll be for this evening.

If you have an XBOX 360, a Live account, and the unction to play a fun arcade quarter-muncher game, then I highly recommend this title to you.

Here’s a link for more information on the game: http://www.ninjabee.com/clyde.html.

Kudos to Ninja Bee for this new addition to the Live Arcade. Keep’em coming!

It looks like legislation has entered Congress to do away with the beloved penny. It seems someone tried to do this in the past, 2001 to be exact, and failed. Here are a couple of links:

http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=136546http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/18/news/penny/index.htm?cnn=yes

Ok, so Rep Jim Kolbe of Arizona has introduced this bill that will effectively kill the penny. Now, I don’t rightly care about the penny itself… because I don’t like carrying them in my pockets when I do happen to use cash for a purchase. However, what I do mind it the whole idea of “rounding” all purchases, which is the main purpose of this bill, the Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation Act. The COIN Act… clever, eh?

So, by definition of this bill, all items with a price ending with 1 or 2 cents will be rounded down to 0. Those ending with 3 or 4 cents will be rounded up to 5 cents. Those ending with 6 or 7 cents will be rounded down to 5 cents. And, finally, those ending with 8 or 9 cents will be rounded up to 0 cents. Let’s list some pros and cons of this…

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