Fear the Walking Dead

I've been bingeing Fear the Walking Dead through my Hulu account. I've always tried to watch it, mainly for comparison sake to The Walking Dead, but AMC doesn't give the easiest or most convenient way or way at all to watch older seasons. Not even with their 'convenient' app or via their website. Anyway...

There are similarities between the two. Most specifically: stupid writing.

I mean we won't go into the whole "How did the military, police, etc. get overrun with all their fire power?" We have to move on from that for the enjoyment of the show. I mean it's still plausible that the military could have lost because of not understanding the "sickness" but this isn't the post for that discussion.

I'm really just going to say that the show is okay if not good...enough for now, like the original was. However, somewhere along the way the writers started creating these stupid scenes and story lines. At the stage of the series I'm currently watching (season 4), most of the characters still alive are fairly well versed on how to handle the walking dead. But for some reason they end up doing some stupid things or get in some stupid situations or just...STUPID!

So, I guess that's about all I will write about this. If you have the want or time to watch it, you probably won't hate it. It is interesting at times and at others it is downright ludicrous and frustrating. Luckily for me, I watch it while multitasking. I still pay attention but I am also able to keep 'entertained' during the lull or terrible scenes when necessary.

What IS Blockbuster on Demand

I don't know how I got to this page—Blockbusternow—but apparently Blockbuster still has not realized that their business model is out-dated and over-priced although I guess it's now Dish's fault since they bought them.

Why would someone want to stream a movie from Blockbuster for between $2.99-$4.99 per movie when they can play a flat rate for Netflix, Amazon Prime Movies, or any other better-than-Blockbuster streaming service.

They were on top of the world with all their stick-it-to-you late fees and now...it's too little too late for these guys.

How much for that sandwich!?

You can barely read the prices but for the filet mignon steak sandwich you see in the photo, it costs $18.00!

Maybe next time when I attend the U.S. Open, I'll treat it like going to Six Flags and have an ice chest with drinks and sandwiches in the car in the parking lot because it did not taste like an $18 sandwich!

I did purchase it and I didn't taste anything special from it other than it tasted like a steak (meat) sandwich. It definitely wasn't worth $18 but there isn't anything cheap to eat at the U.S. Open!

Six Flags Over Texas survey

I'm on the listserv for Six Flags Over Texas. Yes, I joined on purpose when I was a season pass holder.

I was a season pass holder a couple of years ago and was for a few years. In my eyes, it's more of a value to purchase season pass tickets versus buying a one-day ticket. One reason is because you don't have to feel like you have to fit in getting to ride all the rides in one day and then feel jacked for not being able to do so because two to three rides had a wait line for an hour(s) or more.

Anyway, trust me. The season pass with season parking is the best deal becaus if you go 2-3 times the ROI on the passes costs is made back. Plus, the first time you go you can ride just five or so rides then the second time you can ride five different ones and the third five more different ones or even the same. That way you don't feel like you got jacked out of your money like you would with the one-day costs unless, of course, you got very lucky and went on a non-busy day for the one-day ticket.

My season pass days were for my kids...and me. I like to ride almost all the rides. There are some that sort of made me sick, mainly kiddie rides, because I guess I'm old(er) but all of the big rides are not a problem so far. We did season passes because my kids were younger and still wanted to hang out with their dad. But they got older. One wanted to go with just friends even though those friends liked to have me along because I'm a FUN. The other decided there was really no desire to go because of the hatred of roller coasters and anything else that goes higher than ten feet.

Six Flags Over Texas sent me a survey to complete via email. I thought it was interesting when I got to this part shown in the screen shot below.

The second sentence starting with "Below" must have been written by someone for whom English is a second language.

The questions to follow were about ideas of new rides and what I thought about them. Basically, they are querying people (well me) about things that are already being done at other amusement parks. I get it. They are trying to see if there is an interest in certain types of rides/attractions. That's what they should do.

But...can they really and truly hold me to clicking the "Yes, I promise" button? Who's going to know if it was me or someone else who spilled the beans?

Although, the best idea would be a NEW idea and not one that's already being done.

Anyway...stupid randomness, I know...

My Redbox rental blunder

I was in Lubbock over the weekend. While there, I was curious if there was a Redbox in town and if so, how close to my hotel because I had a coupon code for a free rental that expired on Sunday the 21^st. I found one but didn't really find a movie that I wanted to watch and I really didn't have much time to watch it between the activities for which I was in Lubbock. So, I just closed down the Redbox app on my phone.

Late Sunday night, I get home and think I'll use my coupon before it expires on some random but hopefully good movie. I open the app, find a movie, add to cart, enter promo code and as I hit the checkout/confirm (whatever it is) button, I realize too late that it still has the Lubbock location selected. So, I reserved a freaking "free" movie in Lubbock but I'm now in freaking Dallas!

So, that's my weekend blond moment. I've screen captured a portion of my receipt for all those that give a shit to prove my blondness. No big deal really because they send me coupon codes all the time. I just hate wasting "free" stuff and doing silly stuff like this...that's why I'm Absent-minded Jay.

UPDATED: Some of the most stupid songs

Either aired on Spotify or if it is aired anywhere else. Unless you're a freaking idiot these songs are ridiculously stupid! I hate (sort of) promoting these just by hating on them.

I'll probably update this post as I hear more idiotic songs instead of posting multiple entries.

State Fair of Texas 2014

A friend and coworker of mine asked me to go to the State Fair of Texas on this wonderfully cool day. It was the perfect weather and day to go. She had free tickets and she was paying for everything, how could I say, "No?" So not to go into too much detail, I figured I'd just post a few pictures from the day that I took with my cellphone.

I did not photograph it but I would say that the Chicken Fried Loaded Baked Potato was pretty good. Visually, it wasn't at all what I was expecting — an actual loaded baked potato that ha been deep fried — but it did at least taste like it should. I think it was around 14 tickets, which is WAY overpriced, but I made a decision to try at least a few of the fried finalists...and well, my friend was paying. Anyway...on to the photos.

Big Tex!

The Cotton Bowl

The Texas Star

Stockyard building replica

Alamo replica

Fried Sweet Texas

Fried Sweet Texas is one of the Big Tex Choice Awards 2014 Finalist (as reported by D Magazine's Sidedish. It's best described on the StateFairBlog:

“Traveling across Texas to try the best and most popular desserts gave inspiration for this fried treat. Fried Sweet Texas starts with fresh pie dough filled with crunchy pecan pie, juicy peach cobbler and creamy buttermilk pie. It is then deep fried until the crust is golden brown and flaky, and then served up with a side of Texas’ own Blue Bell Vanilla Ice Cream. A real tribute to Texans and their amazing sweet treats!"

In all fairness, the dessert is good. Is it better than Molten Chocolate Cake at Chili's (I think) or even better than the cinnamon rolls at Cici's? In my opinion, no. In fact, I think I used 14 tickets which amounts to $7.00 for the Fried Sweet Texas dessert and I wasn't satiated or my taste buds fulfilled. I can eat all I want of the cinnamon rolls with the Cici's buffet OR Death by Chocolate is like $5.00. Both you get more for your money and thinking about them right now, makes my mouth water. I don't have that reaction with the Fried Sweet Texas. The only thing I can say about that dessert is I tried it. However, I cannot recommend it!
 

Cobra Mustang golf cart

2014 Cobra Mustang Convertible

Big Tex Game Card

As labeled, the above image is a Big Tex Game Card. You MUST purchase one of these to be able to play ANY of the games along the Midway. It's ridiculous! My friend purchased two forty credit game cards for $20 each. That means we paid $40 for 80 credits. With me? Most games on the Midway charge 5 credits or more. My friend liked the water gun games...you know the ones where you shoot water into the mouth of something and it either moves stuff in a race of some kind or blows up a balloon until it pops. In my mind, these are tailored to children. As that, the games should be priced as so. However, the two that we played were 10 credits per player and some had a minimum of 2 or 4 players to play. So they get more money and only one winner. Anyway, we looked specifically for those water gun games that would allow a minimum of 2 players. Anyway, we had to play twice to win a prize. I let my friend win both times to get a 12-15" tall Gizmo. Yep! That's Gizmo from Gremlins. I told my friend that she paid $40 for that stuffed Gizmo which she probably could have paid much less for at somewhere like Amazon.com, Walmart or Target and she paid that much for a movie item from like twenty years ago! Anyway, I then won her a football in a football throw contest. That cost her $20 since I missed the first two times.

So, the main point of my mentioning the game card is that the State Fair has finally found a way to gouge even more money from Fair attendees. Coupons are used for food and rides only. Game cards are used only for Midway games. So, if you have any amount left over of cards or coupons, it makes it more difficult to use them all before you leave as they cannot be cross used.

The official 'do of the Fort Worth P.D.

Saw this on the news channel this evening. I don't remember what the news story was about —— oh wait, it was about two brothers that run a funeral home, were ordered to shut down for some reason by the city and then the city found dead bodies in the funeral home that were NEVER buried. I think those brothers are going to do some time!

Anyway, the policewoman has a pretty cool 'do...although I'd wonder if it's an unnecessary risk when she cuffing and scuffing someone.

2048 and 1024

This addictive game got owned again! It only took me another 30-ish times to win again. But this time I almost got the elusive 4096.


*posted from my mobile phone

2048 owned again...and again

 and 
Yesterday and today. This game still frustrates the hell out of me but it's addicting!!

DCU Son of Batman DVD scan

This is similar to a previous post here.

How many languages does the DVD Son of Batman need to be translated/subtitled in?

Apparently many.



Yeah, random. I know.

2048 is possibly the worst game...ever!

After about 350 losing attempts, the most frustrating and yet addictive game has been owned! I will now happily move forward with the uninstall.

 

∞
That's all I got to say about that!
 

Royal Pains versus Rush

I don't understand why the USA Network would create a show that looks to have the same exact premise as another successful show already on the network.

I've been seeing a commercial for Rush which, as mentioned, looks EXACTLY like Royal Pains. The Royal Pains doc caters to the rich people of the Hamptons. The Rush doc caters to "LA's elite."

See the similarities? I'm not sure they'll change too much between the two shows although Pains seems more of a dramedy compared to just drama.

I watched a few episodes of Royal Pains and thought it was good and funny. I didn't get to watch much more because I got too busy with life. However, if I wanted to watch one of these shows, I think I'd go back with Royal Pains. Who am I kidding? I might have enough time to watch both shows if I ever have enough time.

A Redbox reminder is already unavailable

I got this email reminder from Redbox that Thor: The Dark World is available for rental today.

I checked at 7:30 a.m. and it is not available anywhere near me!  How is that possible?

Now granted, the email reminder was sent around 2 a.m. but really? Enough people were up at that time or even midnight just waiting to rent Thor from Redbox?

Weird...and disappointing.

The many translations for the White House Down DVD

How many languages does "White House Down" need to have for its viewing audience(s)?

Will I continue to watch Sons of Anarchy?

I finally watched the season finale of SOA. No way can you make me believe that a drunk, high, 50-60 yr old woman who had heart surgery a season or two ago can overpower a sober, healthy, not-so-frail, mid-20-30 yr old woman. I liked this show much better in season one or two. Now it's gotten ridiculous, predictable and not so entertaining.

It's all this backstabbing and screwing around they do to each other. They find out. They hate for an episode or four and then they are trustworthy of each other again. It's not common sense or realistic! And yes I know it's a TV show!

I just can't believe that Jax would trust Gemma after all she's done to him, Tara and his father. I can't believe that Gemma would trust Wendy after all she's done to Jax and Abel.

Also, in this episode, I sort of get why Juice did what he did in covering for Gemma but he's still going to get his! He's on the "the-club-can't-trust-you" list which means he's probably got just a few more episodes in him. I'm sure this is his way of "getting back" at Jax for his ultimate demise whenever it may come.

Anyway, that's all I want to share about my building dislike of the Sons of Anarchy television show.

The Game of Washers

This is a little...okay, a lot...late but when I was on vacation in Taos, NM a couple of years ago I entered a Wal-Mart looking for one thing and happened upon these little gems.

This is what we poor people call the game of washers. Before they became a product at Wal-Mart, Target, and wherever else, these washers were randomly found at hardware or plumbing stores or maybe just by dumb luck.

My dad created a "course" in the backyard of our house out of the bottom of a dual burner gas grill and some washers that were like 2-3 cms thick, about 2-3" in diameter with a center hole about a 1/2" in diameter. I don't know where my dad found these washers because you can't find them anywhere nowadays. They cannot be found exactly like I remember nor can they be found similar in size and weight. They are either too thin or too light and typically none in 3" diameter. They at least can't be found at your local Lowe's, Home Depot or Ace Hardware stores.

Anyway, this is a really fun pasttime for the family. It's similar to horeshoes in scoring and play (tossing something on to something else). When I was in junior high school, the coaches made the game out of an empty can goods can. Again, the washers weren't the same in size and weight as the ones my dad had but the ones they had served the purpose. It was fun playing a game that these adults were new to that I was used to playing my entire life.

When I saw this package in the Wal-Mart, I had to buy it. Even if I didn't have a 'course' set up to play it on it was worth already having the washers because the holes are easy to construct out of just about anything. It wasn't until months later when I got back to Dallas that I saw these again at Target. However, this time they were part of a set and it wasn't exactly the same game I grew up playing. There are tons of variations but none will replace the game of old. Some of the variations are similar in set up to the old game.

There's just nothing like sliding or bouncing a washer from about 10 inches in front of the hole into the hole. Or having a washer toilet bowl the hole to either make it close or inside the hole. Some of the variations now are set up to where you have make a hole-in-one to get a point or points. That's not the fun part of it. The fun part is being able to knock the opponents washer away from the hole if it's closer than your washer OR making a sinker. The sinker isn't the end all be all.

Anyway, that's my brief walk down memory lane that only took me two years to type about. I'm glad to see it the washers game coming (or came) back. I guess we should thank tailgating and it's appreciation of any game that can be made into a drinking game.

In the news 02/26/2013

Saw this article today on Gizmodo.

Just my two cents:

If you take away the pirating issue (Argh!), I'd say the recording industry had a harder time "making money" because people were able to pick two songs individually that they liked for about $3 versus purchasing an entire album with 12 addt'l songs they didn't want at $17.99+...not to mention that the overall quality of a song these days has gone down drastically.

Even when music was (IMHO) better, there aren't many albums which I liked ALL the songs. I can probably count on one hand how many I did but even then I only purchased the album for a few songs and figured I'd listen to the other songs. 98% of the time the songs they didn't play on the radio but were on the album weren't very good and that's why they packaged it together.

Anyway, when the RIAA and MPAA start putting out GOOD or even BETTER products, I'm sure they'd make tons of money like before but more from a good product rather than shoving shit mixed in with the good.

Blockbuster Home Page Has Changed

What the hell has happened to my Blockbuster.com home page?! I go to log in today to print out my free movie coupon before it expires and the landing page after log in is weird and confusing. The page itself looks fine but trying to find the new releases is not obvious...to me at least. See image below.

When I highlight "Browse" it shows a list of options with "Movies, TV Shows, Games." When I click on "Movies," it goes to the page in the image below.

This page only shows a list of "DVD Spotlight" movies and some other genres but it doesn't give me a list of recently released movies...this week or last week. Where the hell did that option go? Did they do a survey on this and polled a bunch of idiots!?

This is very frustrating. Another stupid move by Blockbuster management. If I didn't get such a good deal at this time with the Total Access Plan, I would definitely be looking into Red Box or something!

I just want an easy way to find the new releases and add them to my queue without having to know the names of the movies that are new releases. Before, I'd just go through the new release list and add to my queue.

Is it too much to ask for ease of use these days!?

Oh and before anyone says anything, the "see more Blue Carpet releases" button takes me to the page captured in the second image above.

Cobie Smulders in The Avengers

This is Cobie Smulders. She played Nick Fury's second-in-command, Agent Maria Hill, in The Avengers.

I hate to say it but she is way hotter than Scarlett Johansson aka Natasha Romanoff and that's huge praise from "Jay" because I have always thought Scarlett was hot.

It's their natural prettiness and beauty that gets me every time! Colbie's got those piercing blue eyes! Also, I would believe her doing all those moves that Black Widow does in the movie than with Scarlett but who am I to judge.

When Agent Maria Hill got hurt in the ship attack, I was sad because I thought they killed her off! Boy was I ecstatic when she was fine (and I mean FINE) other than the bloody scratch(es) in this screen capture.

I hope to see more of Cobie in other movies and I don't just mean her pretty blue eyes!