Edwards Design Solutions

PG13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material. 1hr. 30min.

Don’t waste your money. Any fan of the cartoon series should be angry and ashamed of this horrible piece of celluloid garbage. If you thought the first movie was bad, then you’re gonna hate this one.

The movie starts out innocently enough, with Sam (the lead character) being assisted off to college by his loving parents. He still has a good relationship with his girlfriend and they all really just want to put the whole alien robots incident (the first movie) behind them and move on with their lives. Of course, they can’t.

Sam is pulled back into helping save the world from the Decepticons and their ultimate leader, the Fallen. If you don’t know who he is, I will simply say that he is Megatron’s boss and a once-upon-a-time Prime robot.

So far so good, right? Well that’s were the good plot ends and the blanks are filled in with the other junk. You will find that I had a lot to say on the IMDB boards here about this movie. It just seems to me that the world has become too accustomed to low-brow, stupid toilet humor. There is too much swearing, too many fart jokes and too much doggie humping for my taste.

Well they don’t really, but they have gone up in vapor. I am referring to the advent of electronic cigarettes as the retaliation to America’s smoking ban. I am a tech geek and I personally think this is a pretty cool idea, I mean come on…..rechargeable smokes!? Once again, science-fiction becomes science-fact because of movies. Wasn’t this idea shown in Total Recall, because of the lack of oxygen on Mars?

Now get me straight here, I spent time, pain and suffering to quit smoking. It is the addictive nature of cigarette smoking, mostly as a habit, that is the hard thing to break. It’s the holding a smoke in your fingers, taking a break at work or the after dinner puff. But what about people who hate the gums and patches, because you can’t really meter your “dosage”? [Read more >>]

Most people know that I love football. That comes mostly from my father’s influence while growing up. Once I learned about what hockey was, being about 18 or 19 years old, I was pretty much hooked. That was a time, around 1990, when I was one of America’s troubled youth. I was messed up into smoking dope, I was in a bad relationship with a girl, I was in a punk-rock band and I was trying desperately to make something of myself by attending the local trade school.

Well, during this period of my life, I had spent some time living with one of the band members (Ron). He was a huge hockey fan who had even played in high school and a city league. He was also a huge Rush fan (I swear he must be part Canadian), hence my love for both of these things today! I have always been a Steelers fan and thought about watching some Penguins hockey. What a sweet time in the franchise to start watching the Penguins, I mean it was the year of their first Stanley Cup!

Unfortunately, I did enough bad crap in that time of my life to pretty much lose everything. So I decided to join the US Navy, there was nothing left to lose. I even returned to my roots, by going back to church, for the few weeks before leaving for boot camp. I met my wife at that church. [Read more >>]

Rated: PG-13 for Martial Arts Action/Violence and brief Sexuality. 1hr. 25min.

I had the pleasure of watching Iron Monkey for the first time last night. I have once again been reminded why I love everything the amazing Yeun Woo-ping touches (i.e. Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Kingdom, etc). The thing I respect most of the genre, is the un-abated display of the many actors’ and actresses’ Kung-fu. A great Kung-fu movie reminds me that I want to learn at least one style before I die. That style may most probably be Krav-Maga, for its readily accessible training facility where I live and for its relevance to today’s society and usefulness.

Of the Chinese culture, besides the highly respected discipline of Martial Arts and the complexity of its heritage, one of the most amazing things is its history. One of the greatest cultures and societies in the world, China also has some of the greatest folk-lore in both imaginary legends and real heroes of the times. Iron Monkey is a Hong Kong cinematic adaption of Wong Fei-Hung, one of the most recent and greatly loved folk heroes. There have been quite a few movies on the different aspects (and ages) of Fei-Hung’s life. Some of the most notable are the Once Upon a Time in China series, the Drunken Master series, the Eight Bandits (earliest) and many others; including Iron Monkey as the early years of his life. The total count of films that include Fei-Hung number into the hundreds!

Iron Monkey is included in the particular sub-genre of Kung-fu films being designated as “wire-fu” or “CG-fu”, but the momentum of the film and storyline kept me enthralled so that it was not as noticeable to me as some movies can be. I feel that the story is very well written, the acting is perfect and the fight scenes are impeccable. The following is a brief mash-up of the movie’s story and the history of Wong Fei-Hung: [Read more >>]

Ever heard of the United Socialist State(s) of America? Well now you have. If you live on the North American continent, then you are in the melting pot. If you live in another part of the world, you are probably chuckling at this article as something you and your nation has known for some time and can’t believe that the stupid and blindly ignorant Americans can’t see it let alone believe it is really happening. There has even been a song and a book (both parodies really) about such a thing being possible, but I feel we are now living the reality.

I remember 5th grade history, being about the birth of this country and its symbols of patriotism and power. It was also about this country’s founding fore-fathers and the documents they created to make us the greatest nation in history. I am talking about the U.S. Constitution (which includes the Bill of Rights) and the Declaration of Independence. They were all based on degrees of freedom; freedom of tyranny (be it a monarch or other federal governing body), freedom to have an opinion, freedom to protect one’s self, freedom to worship without government interference or favoritism, freedom for the people to have the last word over the state or federal government, freedom from oppressive taxation, freedom to retain private property and such.

Unfortunately these symbols of patriotism (the Flag for example) and our birth-right documents have been legally trampled and disgraced over the years. There have been ridiculous demonstrations of the burning of the Flag, wearing the Flag inappropriately, walking on it and even flying it incorrectly! There has been a recent and bold mocking of the Constitution, by electing a president that is proven to not be a citizen of the United States. What is worse, is that Congress and the Democratic Party don’t even care that he is an illegal alien, by definition of federal immigration laws. This slow and purposeful degradation of our country and the way of life for its occupants has become a stark contrast to what was originally intended in the 1700’s, let alone from what was in the 1920’s! Oh don’t stop reading yet, the points are coming hard and fast in the next few paragraphs and they are from other sources to fuel this long-awaited post of conspiracy, hidden agendas and contemptuous treason of the worst kind. [Read more >>]

Well, it appears that hockey fans are getting a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup Finals. There are a few differences from last year to this year however. One difference is that the Penguins are one year more mature, but so are the Red Wings. Another is that there are quite a few more injuries on Detroit’s starting lineup and there are quite a few more injury makers on Pittsburgh’s starting lineup!

I have watched the Western Conference finals very closely and the one thing that kept Chicago in it at all, was the injuries that kept the bigger names from playing for the defending champions. I could easily tell that my Penguins have sustained offensive attacks at speed and stronger defense from even the offense lines. There are four lines of quality players that have been stepping up during every game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. There are just two too many two-headed monsters!

I feel like bragging and saying that the Gino-Sid combo is a solid one-two punch. The Crosby-Guerin combo is another solid pair. The Fedotenko-Gonchar combo is another lethal pair. When considering the other stand out solo acts (besides Crosby, Malkin, Fedotenko or Talbot), you have to recognize and appreciate the game play of Staal and Adams as well as Marc-Andre.

The penalty killing prowess has gone way up in the post season as well, but lets not forget that the team’s success would not possible without the accurate and influential managing of Coach Bylsma’s recipe for his black and gold powerhouse that is the Pittsburgh Penguins. Oh lord, it’s going to be a great Final run….justice will be served!

Upgrades people, upgrades. No more of this broken-down, used up, out-mode junk! The Wordpress 2.6 I was using has been traded up to a newer release. The change went smoothly and the early reviews of the site show there are no harmful side-effects.

My one word of caution to anyone running an old version, never fear the change and always read the documentation. The Wordpress upgrade page was accurate and made my change go as smooth as a newborn’s rear. The backend (or rear!) of the application is also very nice. It has a sort of iGoogle feel to it, but not too tough to get around in. The only real reason I didn’t make any upgrades to the site before now, was there was nothing going wrong with the site…until this morning that is.

EDS-Online was hacked by a phisher, masquerading as a bank from the UK. It seems that one of my portfolio designs was no longer secure and my Wordpress index page was deleted. They had access to, and had placed a phishing site within, my directory. Not too malicious, just annoying. All seems to be repaired and the crack in the old armor has been patched up. Rather quickly I might add. I had securities in place within an hour (stopping all access to the phishing site) and the site was upgraded and back live in about 4 hours total. I of course had to work around my work schedule to get it done. But my boss was none the wiser, as I completed all tasks anyway! Yes, I am usually a multitasking nightmare, but not today!

Now I can go back to my blissful existence of ignorance and tube watching! By the way, my Penguins just killed the Capitals last night… 6-2! Way to go boys.

Rated: PG-13, sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content. 2hr. 6min.

I am a Trekkie from way back. The different tv series’ have always been a favorite for me. I love TOS, enjoyed much of TNG, liked the deeper stories of Voyager, appreciated elements of what Enterprise was supposed to bring (at least in the first two seasons) but the movies have always been plagued. There were things in the “Motion Picture” that I enjoyed, TWOK has always been my personal favorite and I liked parts of First Contact. Nemesis was good to bring a different feel to the extended Next-Gen series. But the offering by J.J. Abrams has caught everyone’s eye. I can honestly say that I have been skeptical up to yesterday.

Early teasers and the quite limited release of trailers made me a bit wary of what more could be done to destroy my favorite franchise of all time. I have not had the chance to catch J.J.’s Lost, but I thoroughly enjoy Fringe. Anyway, when I got to the theater, I half-expected to see no real acceptance of the film. You can usually get the impression of how a film is doing (or going to do) based on the decor. Well my wife and I were greeted with a pair of 8 foot long tables with theater help selling Trek gear and giving away swag. It was like going to a mini-con! The walls were adorned with Star Trek emblems, Saturns and various types of space craft. The movie was obviously good and being that we saw it one day after the continental release, there was time for early reactions to generate this kind of acceptance.

I became quite excited about seeing the work that J.J. had slaved over and I was glad that we were 15 minutes late to get our seats. We sat 6 rows from the screen, dead center, and had thankfully missed the commercials and only saw the upcoming film previews. The opening sequence doesn’t offer any familiar theme music, or anything else for that matter, with the exception of Star Fleet uniforms. [Read more >>]

Well, game 3 was anything but stellar from the black-n-gold. Visiting the city of sibling rivalry (commonly referred to as brotherly love) has put a damper on the Pens’ thoughts of finishing this series early. Game 4 will really tell the tale of how much the loss has damaged the frosty exteriors of Crosby, Malkin and the boys.

During game 2 in the Igloo, I heard something over the loudspeaker that rekindled a fire in me. I have always loved music and my favorite genre is hairbands of the 80’s and 90’s. One of my favorite movies about the period was made by period aficionado George Clooney. I am talking of course about Rock Star! This movie gives an intimate look into the ups and downs, and ins and outs of “living like a rock star”.

I love the song, but the visuals are even better….

Stand Up

Beware, this is not a movie for kids! This movie sends a clarion call to anyone thinking of getting into the business. Be prepared to fight the temptations or possibly lose your soul in the process. What really gets to me, is to see the lead singer “Izzy”, played by Mark Wahlberg, go through these challenges. He pushes away everything familiar, including his long-time girlfriend (played by Jennifer Anniston), just to be the man everyone wants to be. But he eventually learns his error and decides to leave the band. This choice brings healing to his mental state and brings his girlfriend back into his life.

The point is, make choices but be prepared to suffer the consequences. Make good choices and you will save yourself a lot of grief. Now getting back to hockey, lets hope we see better gameplay and better choices by coach Bylsma in Game 4.

God bless her. This woman has been gifted with a talent few have. Her talent has been easily overlooked for 30+ years, probably based primarily on her looks. One might consider this book’s cover to be plain and less than a beauty queen. I say she looks like the aunt-next-door! But everyone should know, never judge a book by the cover, or even the summary writing on the inside covers. The same is true here.

Get ready folks, if you liked the Cactus Cuties, get out your tissues…..I needed them and I don’t consider myself very emotional.

Susan Boyle’s “Dream”

I love this song and Susan has done the world a tremendous injustice for not singing it for us sooner! Move over Celine Deon (or even Elaine Paige!), there’s a new girl in town and Simon has already begun the workings of a recording contract for this 47 year old from Blackburn, Scotland. It appears Susan’s charity working days may be over, once the recording studio gets hold of her.

Imagine how beautiful the duets would be if Susan Boyle got together with Josh Groban!