Ryan j Budke

I was going to write this first thing in the morning, but I just couldn’t wait. Cloverfield is unlike anything that you’ve seen before. It’s truly truly awesome. I’m sure it won’t live up to the hype for everyone, and there’s going to be people that hate just because everyone else loves it (I’m sure C.K. will say it jumped the shark), but for me, it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time, probably ever (I need to let it sink in a little bit before I declare that). That’s not to say there aren’t things wrong with it (take a dramamine if you’re susceptible to motion sickness), but they are minuscule.

It’s an immense, intense movie, the scope is massive, but the perspective the story is told from makes everything going on seem that much bigger. That same perspective, however, creates and insanely personal experience. It’s a short movie by any standard (barely an hour and a half) but in that time you become a part of this close knit family. That’s in no small part thanks to the show-stealer, our cameraman Hud. Except for a few brief moments, he’s our eyes, our focus, and our frame of reference. Again, this is a very small story, and during more than a few moments there’s an almost voyeuristic feeling to everything as you watch things that you know were only supposed to be between these people.

I want to say so much more but want everyone else to experience it for themselves and not spoil anything. Go see Cloverfield, you won’t regret it.

Does anyone have any good podcast recommendations for me? I’ve been listening to a bunch of audiobooks and music while I’m at the gym, and I’m almost through the books and already a little tired of the same old songs. I’ll take any thoughts you have, but I’m not really interested in TWiT, Digg or the like. Right now I’ve got This American Life (an absolutely amazing show), ESPN’s PTI (didn’t know they had a podcast, badass), and Learn Spanish with Coffee Break Spanish (yea, I need to learn this).

If you know of anything, please don’t hesitate to send it along.

Apple unveiled their long rumored “ultra portable” laptop yesterday, the Macbook Air, and I’m far from impressed. I talked with a bunch of people yesterday, but I feel like it has a lot of good ideas, but the sum of its parts somehow less than the whole. An LED screen? Great idea; it’s bright, saves on power, but what the hell is up with the low resolution and the inch wide bevel all along the edge of the screen. A solid state drive? Great idea; insanely fast, saves on power, but it’s a $1,000 upgrade, and for all that money I only get 64gb? Five hour per battery charge? Awesome, if I believe Apple. I’m supposed to get 3+ hours on my Macbook Pro, but I don’t get anywhere close to that and I’m on my second battery. Also, I can’t change the battery myself? Lame. I think the multi-touch trackpad is pretty cool, but it feels a little tacked on. The only thing I can use it for is viewing photos? Great, that’ll be useful for like 1% of my computer time. All of that, and it’s still upwards of $3,000 just to take advantage of the best options? No thank you.

Again, these are the beginnings of trends I’m very interested in. I like the LED screen, LOVE the solid state drive, and there’s no denying it’s in a sexy package, but I think I’ll pass (not that I had any choice in the matter considering the price). I’m sure most of these features will be implemented into the rest of the Macbook line at some point this year (hopefully sooner rather than later), and maybe then it’ll be a little more polished. Shooting for the stars here, but it’d be awesome to see a dual drive option. My operating system and other files on a solid state drive for speed and low power consumption, and a traditional drive for the space. It’d be like the hybrid of hard-drives.

The Time Capsule though? Me likey.

Twitter… down
Engadget & Tuaw…. sporadic
Joe’s Goals… down
All other Weblogs Blogs… slow at best
Google Reader… crawling

Way to go Apple, you just gave the bsod to Web 2.0

I don’t like Gizmodo, I think they’re a bunch of immature spoiled brats who really represent the term blogger in it’s worst form. They have an immense audience, and are therefore invited to participate in a lot of events and products by companies that are trying to get their word out. Gizmodo obviously doesn’t care what either their audience or peers think however, since they have a history of shitting on both crowds. A few months ago, Microsoft sent Gizmodo editor Brian Lam a copy of Halo 3 complete with all swag before it was released to the public. Now, obviously, Microsoft wanted to reach out to the piece of Gizmodo’s audience that was interested in Halo 3, since it was an early exclusive however, Gizmodo stood to draw a huge crowd, increase pageviews, increase adsales, thus, increasing how much they earn. After treating the press stuff like garbage, Brian got hung out to dry by the Halo fans in the comments. He responded by doing this. Literally throwing the gifts out the window and spoiling the game’s ending. This is a touchy subject though. Just because Microsoft sent Gizmodo the package early, doesn’t and should never mean that it gets them a favorable review. It’s just a courtesy, something that Gizmodo has never shown towards anyone.

These past couple of days during CES, Gizmodo had apparently thought it funny to pull a little “prank” on those presenting there. You can read all about it here, but a quick summary is this: They had a device that can turn off any television set, so they went around turning off all the sets they could; demo units, sale items, and even those being used in presentations. Now, it’s become pretty glamorized, but CES is still a trade show. That means there are companies there who depend on being there and looking good to current and potential clients. The instance getting the most notice is when Motorola’s presentation kept flickering off. Motorola, and most of the other companies in their video, are not small companies that are going to crumble to pieces because of this, but I’m sure somewhere on that show floor, there was some small company that was just getting off the ground, had scraped and saved to buy it’s way onto the floor, and their display did go off during an inopportune time.

I’m all for mischief, I’m all for people not taking themselves too seriously, but this is messing with a LOT of average folks’ livelihoods. The shots in the video of the guys scrambling to get the sets back on, those are the guys that caught hell. Those are the guys who worked for days on setting those systems up, who woke up and prayed “Just please don’t let anything go wrong today.” And because of a few self-serving jackasses, it did. I somehow doubt Gizmodo would think it was funny if their site started going up and down next week during Steve Jobs’ keynote presentation, or anytime really.

The sad fact is that this is how Gawker (Gizmodo’s parent company) runs most of their sites. Jalopnik, with some regularity, breaks embargoes with unreleased press shots of cars. Gawker Stalker has been held to task numerous times on its shady celebrity tracking. It’s sensationalist crap that may drive up pages views, but drives down respect.

I wasn’t going to write anything about this actually, and just link to Loren Feldman’s video because I think it sums it up pretty nicely, but I had a couple of emails this morning asking me what was going on. While I’m for all intents and purposes a nobody, and I don’t have any auto maker or tech pundits read this blog, there are a few people in the media high enough up to make a difference. So for those of you that do, I’d challenge you to stop dealing with any Gawker blogs until they can make some changes. As a disclaimer, I do work for the company that owns Engadget, but that doesn’t come into my feelings about this at all. I know way too many people who have worked insanely hard to make internet journalism both respectable and high caliber for a bunch of jokers who represent the smallest vocal minority of jackasses tear it all down.

Gizmodo, you guys are pricks. Karma’s a bitch.

So yesterday was the first day I didn’t exercise at all (outside of the extra long walks Deuce and I have been going on) since the beginning of the year/my diet, it also happened to be the first day I ate like total crap. And what’d ya know, I feel like crap today. Surprisingly, my weight didn’t go up or down (with a dinner consisting of Taco Bell, and eggs benedict for breakfast, I was sure it would have gone up), but it was the first day it didn’t go down in the slightest, which sucked.

Wednesdays are normally my busiest days of the week as they seem to be when most of my meetings land on, and on top of that I spent the first five or so hours of the day down in Hollywood (including commute), but those are just excuses and I should have found time to continue the habits that I’ve been working hard to establish. Off to the gym I go!

I bought a really nice scale made by Taylor from Target last night that on top of my weight also reads out my body fat, muscle and water percentage, and bone mass. My weight was 208.4, right about where I (unfortunately) thought it was. I want to learn a little bit more about the other readouts and numbers before I report on those. Overall though, even though the number itself is kind of pitiful, it’s doing nothing but motivating me more.

There’s going to be parts that suck, but I’m actually pretty excited about this whole endeavor. Who doesn’t want a better them?

I love to drive. My family has always been into cars, and we got new vehicles at a rate that would alarm most people. Granted, we would only get a brand new car maybe twice a decade, but the cars that had reached the end of their life-cycle with friends and family would find a new purpose and home with us. So being into cars was just second nature, I was helping dad tear apart engines well before I ever got behind the wheel, and still hate paying anyone to change the oil to this day. Ironically, I don’t consider myself that knowledgeable when it comes to cars because my dad and brother put me to shame. I’m more zen when it comes to cars, and enjoy “the drive” much more than “the how”.

That’s why when others scoffed at the idea that I was driving from Cincinnati to LA, I only got more excited as it drew closer. As I talked the other day, 2007 was a challenging year, and I am so happy I was able to take that drive to clear my head and prepare for 2008. When Angry Ken and I made the drive out here last year we came by way of Route 66 and south, this time I went north and through the Rockies. It was absolutely amazing. Just me, my dog, my truck and the road. I took a ton of pictures that I’ll be putting up over the next couple of days/weeks, and I can’t wait to see what memories they stir up.

I was just telling Tom earlier that even though it’s screwed up my internal calendar to no end (it’s not Monday?) that I loved the way Christmas and New Year’s fell this year. The full week of “Christmas-time” was awesome, and has left me really jazzed to get back to work.

I do miss the family and friends back home, but have so many fun memories from such a short happy time that I’ve been more or less smiling non-stop for a week.

What’s the old saying? The first step is admitting you have a problem… I’m fat. So there, I said it. In all honesty, it feels pretty liberating putting it out in the open. I also know this is going to motivate me by allowing others to hold me accountable. I wasn’t always in bad shape, a fact I plan on sharing by putting up some photos of me from “back in the day”, but I’ve just been lazy the past couple of years. I was in pretty damn good shape when I was in the Air Force, and actually won a couple of fleet-foot awards there. I want to get back to that, I want to feel better about how I look.

I hurt my back pretty bad a few years back, and along with tons of physical therapy, the doctors put me on steroids. I gained a ton of weight quickly, and just as quickly used that as a crutch. It’s been way too long to keep saying that that’s the reason why. The stone cold fact is that I’m lazy and don’t move nearly enough. I don’t eat real bad, I certainly don’t have the healthiest diet, but I don’t eat horrible. Fruit, yogurt, no caffeine, turkey instead of beef, but I need to move more. Even walking around the strip last night I was embarrassed at how bad I was feeling (out of breath, sore, etc).

I’m not exactly sure what my current weight is (I’m getting a really nice scale as soon as I get back to LA) but it’s well over 200, and probably pushing 210. I want to get down to 180, and am shooting for a July 1st goal. I’m going to use Traineo to keep track of my progress, and probably won’t go completely full on Fat Blogging like Jason did, but do want to post here at least once a week to keep it public and accountable. I’m going to start journaling all of my food so I know EXACTLY what I’ve been eating. I also plan on getting in a pretty regular exercise routine. There’s a gym up at my apartment’s clubhouse that has a treadmill and a basic weight machine that I want to get to a few times a week, I also plan on starting up Tai Chi (took it in college) in the mornings and playing Wii Sports once a day.

I don’t expect to get insanely cut, or plan on going into underwear modeling after this, I just want to be able to go up and down the stairs to get all the groceries without being winded.