Always on the lookout for tunes to drive by, and my friend Grace Buford doesn't let me down! Here she's covering Leonard Cohen's Dance Me. I know a few musicians that are sharing their work on a new music site called TheSixtyOne. The service makes it extremely easy to post music I find, so look for tunes here soon from Grace as well as Suzen Juel and lots of others.

So I was able to get into an advanced screening of Cloverfield Tuesday night at The Palms Hotel. Bottom line view is this flick is freaking amazing! However, if you get squeamish or motion sick easily it may not be for you, at least until DVD. If you got sick watching Blair Witch Project...this is Blair Witch x 100. It's 100% handheld shaky cam, only this time the guy recording is swinging around trying to get it all in. The camera rarely lingers on a person or scene for very long.

For the amount of wiz-bang footage the trailers showed, for once it was nothing close to the movie itself. I'm amazed how the trailers got people excited about the flick but gave little away as to real story and final act. Very impressive.

This flick reminds me of M Night Shyamalan's movie Signs. So you know how Signs wasn't really about alien invasion, right? You really don't see the aliens at all except for a few very suspenseful scenes. Cloverfield was made in the same vein. It's not really a "monster movie." Rather, it's a story that happens to take place during a giant monster attack on NYC. It was a decent enough story, and it made sense in all the right spots. I was expecting MTV/Dawsons Creek style smarmy young adult crap, but I was gladly surprised to find almost none of that. Insomuch as everyone is freaking out and upset with rational and irrational decision making there is basically a reason for everything the main characters are doing. No "oh puleeeeease!" moments.

Basically, this flick didn't let me down the way many other high profile flicks have recently. About as unconventional as a big budget hollywood blockbuster can get, I imagine.

Have you seen it yet? Shoot me your own review in comments!

I spent the evening processing and uploading pics from recent trips to the north rim of the Grand Canyon and Vegas' local Mt. Charleston village. A number of them are panorama shots...not bad if I do say so myself! ;-)

I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess. Wrapping up a terrible experience with the cheapskates at Geeks.com. Here's the story.

I took advantage of one of Geek.com's recent Christmas specials...a basic inexpensive laptop for my mother. All she needs is a simple basic computer to start learning how to get around on the internet. Hey, not a bad Christmas present, right? Only thing is it arrived with the keyboard broken. I walked her through the return process and she sent it back to Geeks, of course at her own expense. I knew being Christmas time this process would probably take longer than usual, but after a week or so I started logging in to my account and keeping an eye on the support process. When I requested the RMA from the support guy on the phone I specifically asked that they replace the unit - if it was a different brand or config no problem. As long as it matches the same basic specs I would be happy. Over the next few days I saw the notes being written that testing had confirmed the keyboard was busted, and I start looking out for an email with a tracking number for the next unit.

Whoops! Turns out they’re not making good on the purchase. Apparently a company that specializes in shipping in and reselling inexpensive laptop computers and other electronics is instead claims they don't have any others handy and are giving me a credit...the exact opposite of what I asked for. The notes in the credit item claim I said it was a-ok, too. How interesting!

Best of all, I get the email with their decision. Literally 1 minute later I get their daily email offering laptops at twice the price I paid for my mother's Christmas present! Gee, what bargains!

They get in laptop shipments of all varieties, and all the time. All I wanted was for them to make good on the purchase and provide me the item I paid for instead of being miserly or lazy or whatever is keeping them from providing good customer service.

Why am I a glutton for punishment? This is my 4th purchase with them, and strangely enough, my 4th defective item. The laptop is the only one I’ve bothered to send back, though. With me footing the return shipping bill it wasn’t worth it for the other far less expensive items. I guess at this rate I was asking to be jipped. Whatever. Let this be a warning to my blogger and social networking friends and especially my IT peers to avoid Geeks.com like the plague! It's like taking a road trip to Rip-off City...

I first heard this tune watching the UK series Long Way Round. It certainly rings true. Plus, Butterfly Boucher kicks ass.

This space used to be merely a vacation home for me while I represented myself elsewhere. More and more, though, it's becoming my main identity out here in the pixel world. And like every aging home, eventually it needs a few repairs, some structural improvements, and a fresh coat of paint.

So this is the first post of the new video-oriented RoadUP website. A link to the blog will be on the frontpage, and the blog will have it's own feed seperate from the show feed.