Edwards Design Solutions

It is a fantasy/fiction novel that I started in July of this year.
You can get snippets to read and an explanation of the concept, here.

Well, what a great time! We have been going to the regular Renaissance Faire, held in the fall, for the last few years. We go and enjoy the fun of dressing up and living a fantasy for the day.

Usually, we attend the Faire as pirates -

This year marks our first ever Celtic Fling. There is a completely different feeling around the Shire on this weekend, but it is still enjoyable. I kind of miss being asked directions for things (our normal pirate attire is really good), since we get mistaken for Faire workers, but we were able to see a lot of the music and dance shows without interruptions. The Fling has many different bands, playing a variety of different music genres.

Oddly enough, my wife and I enjoyed the more traditional music over the contemporary punk/rock/fusion styles. We started our day off with Irish Blessing, followed by the Gothard Sisters. We were spoiled by the expertise shown in the dance and music of these two groups.

The rest of the day’s shows almost paled in comparison. A huge bright spot of the day was the Pipe Off competition between the Washington Memorial Pipe band (VERY good) and the Loch Rannoch Pipe and Drum band.

Intermingled between Barleyjuice, the Rovers, Albannach and the different dance schools, we enjoyed scotch eggs and other Celtic foods. I also enjoyed a few choice brews from the Faire’s Swashbuckler Brewery! Along with it all, Faire guests were able to join in the fun with a couple of friendly competition events in the Highland Games and the Haggis eating contest.

I am a HUGE Mad Max fan. I enjoy Mel Gibson as well. He made Max what every fan enjoys, a tough-as-nails rogue that takes the law into his own hands (with some hard earned juice bargained on the side too).
The first two installments, Mad Max and The Road Warrior, are my favorites. Beyond Thunderdome was OK, but it lost me in places.

There is no doubt that the supporting cast helped make TRW and BT great material, but the franchise’s fourth installment still has casting loopholes and there is no word on whether Mel will be making an appearance in the movie. It would be nice to have a “story-telling” memoir segment at the beginning of the film, to incorporate Mel as Max. Then the main story can have whatever leading man the producer can get. Sam Worthington (Clash of the Titans) is rumored as the favorite at this point. Charlize Theron has already been cast, along with Teresa Palmer (Bedtime Stories) and Tom Hardy.

The release date has not been solidified yet, but it is scheduled for sometime in 2012.

Rated PG-13 for fantasy action violence, some frightening images
and brief sensuality. 1hr. 46min.

My wife and I took my brother to see this for his birthday. I find it a little depressing when critics and review sites slam a good movie. Sure the original flick is campy and some would rather say it has a fair amount of cheese in it. The new Clash of the Titans has some humor, some romance and a good amount of action.

I think what helped sell the movie for me was watching it in hopes of seeing some things and fears of seeing other things. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the CGI for the Pegasi (plural for Pegasus) and glad that the robot owl that I found irritating in the original only had a brief cameo and that got a good laugh out of the audience! (I wasn’t the only person there that had seen the original)

I can honestly say that I think not seeing it in 3D was good for me. I have been consistently having blazing headaches when coming out of a 3D movie and that always taints my perspective on retrospect. Most review sites were saying to forget it anyway, since the 3D was more an afterthought for this film and really does more to detract from the picture quality and doesn’t really add anything in the WOW factor. Continue reading »

Well, who here has ever heard of the Argo (Yamato)? If you were a child who watched cartoons in the 70′s and 80′s, then you know what I am talking about. Anime had its television beginning in America with Speed Racer in the 60′s. It was soon followed by the likes of Star Blazers, Battle of the Planets (G-Force), Mobile Suit Gundam, and Voltron (GoLion and Dairugger XV). There were three seasons of the cartoon that were fueled by the release and success of four theatrical movies and one television movie.

Now (in 2002) after many years of wrestling in the Japanese court system, rights to the franchise have finally been given to Yoshinobu Nishizaki, the show’s original producer. He has not been idle these past few years either. There is a new movie, Yamato:Rebirth, to be released in Japan on December 12! The US release is set for straight to DVD in spring, 2010. There is even a live-action release (already in production) planned for the holiday season of 2010! Now it is speculated that this live movie will only be released in Japan, but I doubt it will take very long to be brought to the states.

One might cringe at the thought of a live-action movie to be a great way to destroy the franchise, but I was pleasantly surprised at the recent G.I. Joe movie. So who knows, this may be the “rebirth” of something great? Well for now, enjoy the extended trailer. It is in Japanese, but the CG-anime is awesome!

I like DirecTV. I don’t like being lied to. I also don’t like when a business is so large that it forgets how to communicate between departments and seniority levels. A lack of communication can cause the business to falter in its customer service and ultimately look either like employees are lying or that they don’t know something that should either be known or at least to know where to find the answer. Well what would you think if you had a problem with a service, called the appropriate support department and the person answering the phone doesn’t have the answer? What if that person’s boss doesn’t either. What if multiple attempts, speaking with a different region’s personnel, gets even more confusing when different and erroneous information is given? You might get a bit flustered, right? That is exactly what had happened to me last month. Let me explain what really happened, how the solution was found and what exactly went wrong along the way. Continue reading »