Mill Time Productions

I have a boring Life

2003-11-21T10:57:00.000-05:00

Well it's been over 2 weeks since I've updated this bad boy.... It didn't feel that long, but apparently it is. One of the reasons I started this thing was cause I wanted a place that I can just bullshit with or without a listening audience. Of course like most of my hobbies it always seems more interesting when someone else is doing it. I see something I like, I get one of my own, and within a few weeks I'm bored with it already. It always seems to go back to the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.
At this point in the blog I'm just doing some reminiscing to my childhood, so if that bores you don't read it.
The first memory I have of this must have been sometime in the early 80's, don't remember exactly when though. I was in my parents house, and my brother and his best friend at the time, were playing Joust on the Atari 800xl. I remember walking by while they were playing it and thinking, that game is so... cool. When I finally got a chance to play, I played for around 5 minutes and was bored out of my mind. Of course I do have a very short attention span which might explain things... Or that I just stink at the game.
Done reminiscing
At this point most of you are probably asking yourself what does any of this have to do with your blog. First it is an excuse of sorts, it should help explain why I havn't updated this in a long time. Of course the other explanation is probably a whole lot more likely, I have a boring life, and had nothing to talk about...

Stupidity in J.C. Penny's

2003-11-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

It was a pretty busy weekend, and it was so memorable that I totally forgot about it when writing yesterdays blog entry's (with the exception of mentioning Alien: The Director's Cut). So on Saturday morning I go over to my brother's place to put together a stroller for their new baby girl, Jessica. I'm an uncle, and she was born on October 11, quite a cute little baby. So anyway I'm over there putting together the stroller as my brother has a hernia and can't really do much lifting. While I'm there we go out and pick up a bookshelf for the baby's room. We go and get it, I end up bringing it upstairs only to find that it's damaged and I have to bring it back down stairs and back to the store. Always a good way to start the day. The parents then want me to go with them to get a crib for their house so I can carry and put that together too. But I have other plans, so I ditch them and tell them we can do it some other time.

So what are those other plans you ask? I have to go to a house warming party for my friends Pete and CJ. Of course I need to get a gift first, cause I'm a big procrastinator and I didn't try to get one in the weeks that I knew about the party. So I decide to go to J.C. Penny's (one of the two stores that they had registered at) I figured I was at my brothers place, why don't I go to the Freehold Raceway Mall, get some lunch, and buy a present.

I get to the mall, and begin the search for a parking spot, which is always a pain in the ass, But I cut off 3 people and snagged a front spot. I head over the food court, and while making the circle to determine what to eat, I end up just grabbing 10 different free samples and that was enough for lunch. This part of my day was going much to smoothly, I was wondering when things would go wrong. With the friendly assistance of a clerk at J.C. I was quickly at the registry terminal pulling up the registry list. This is when things started to go stupid. So I print out this list, me being the person I am, I looked for the price I wanted to spend and then went to search for it.

Now there are a couple of things that I must now explain in order to truly grasp the stupidity of J.C. Penny's. A normal gift registry, has the name of the product, the manufacturer, the model number, and the cost. These things are quite useful when trying to find a gift. If it is an exceptionally good registry they even break it down into what departments the items are found in. These are the categories that were on the printout I got, Description, catalog number, price. Now catalog number does not match with anything that you can look at in the store. Let me give you an example, the first item I decide to try has a description of "French White Corningware Set", it seemed pretty straight forward. After meandering over to the housewares department I eventually came across the Corningware, "Yes mission complete!", nope.. not by a long shot. So I'm standing next to this wall of Corningware, only to realize that there were 10 different sets of French White Corningware. At this point I give up and ask for one of the people at the Customer Service desk for help. I show her the registry and say, "I want that". She of course proceeds to tell me that unless I have more information for her, she can't help me. When I explain to her that this is the registry I printed in their store, and if that isn't enough for a salesperson, how am I supposed to find it? Her response and I shit you not, "You should have ordered it online." At this point I decide to have a nice little chat with her Manager. He was much more helpful by wandering around the store for maybe 40 minutes with me trailing behind him until he finally tells me that they have nothing on the registry in stock. (How he determined this by not actually looking for anything or talking to anyone else is beyond me, but hey maybe he has psychic powers that allow him to do it.)

So now that I have wasted an hour and still no gift, I go to plan 'B' and I ask if they have Gift certificates. He assures me they do, deposits me at a register and tells me someone will be with me shortly. I'm quite annoyed at this point, but I suck it up and deal. So shortly after a very attractive woman comes to the desk to assist me. I'm thinking hey, maybe things are turning around.... it's not to be though, because I don't know whether their is a direct correlation between blondes and brains, but this girl was dumber than a doornail. I tell her I want a gift certificate and I tell her the amount. So she reaches under her desk for this big grey box. She proceeds to open it and look inside. Now from the angle I'm standing I can't see in the box, (I can see down her shirt, but not in the box). Now she is standing in front of this box, her hands moving around in it for over 5 minutes. Finally curiosity got the best of me, I pulled my eyes from her chest, and moved around so I can see inside this box. It is totally empty. Of course the absurdity of this whole excursion has gotten the best of me, so I started laughing, a deep belly laugh too. So this woman finally looks up at me and asks, "What's so funny?". Which of course generated another fit of laughter. When I finally got myself under control, I comment on the fact that she had been staring at an empty box for over 5 minutes, and that was what was so funny. She just kept staring at me as if I was stupid. The rest of our conversation went something like this. (It is quite long but I just need to get this out)

Me: What were you doing with the box?

J.C. Penny's Girl (JCP): I was searching for a gift certificate.

Me: But the box is empty.

JCP: I thought it might be stuck to the bottom.

Me: But the box is EMPTY.

JCP: I remember seeing one in here earlier today, so it should still be there.

Me: But the BOX is EMPTY. YOU MORON (I didn't actually say the You Moron part)

JCP: That doesn't explain where the certificate I saw earlier is.

Me: Why don't you just get a gift certificate from a different location?

JCP: This is the only place at this register that they are stored.

Me: Can't you just get it from another register.

JCP: Oh okay, be right back.

(a few minutes later)

JCP: Here you are. (She tries to pass me the credit card esque gift certificate).

Me: Don't you have something to put it in?

JCP: Well I didn't have any envelopes over here.

Me: Why didn't you get an envelope when you went to get the card?

JCP: I didn't think you wanted it.

Me: This is a gift card, didn't you think I might want to give it as a gift?

JCP: Ohhh sorry, be right back.
(another few minutes later)

JCP: They didn't have an envelope there either.

Me: Is there any other place that has envelopes?

JCP: Nope we are out of stock and need to reorder them.

Me: Fine, whatever just give me the card.

JCP: Well... hmmm... I do have a Gift Card box right here, would you like that instead?

Me: Why didn't you suggest that from the beginning?

JCP: Cause we are encouraged to use the Envelope's.

Me: But if you are out of Envelope's wouldn't it just be easier to suggest, you know what never mind, I'll just take the box.

JCP: What do you want it to say?
(They have these pre-printed wraps for the box.)

Me: This is for a housewarming party so Congratulations or something like that would be fine.

JCP: How about "Merry Christmas"?

Me: um, no. Don't you just have a Congratulations?

JCP: How about "Happy Holidays"?

Me: no?

JCP: We have a "Congratulations on your Wedding".

Me: no... Just Congratulations would be fine.

JCP: Okay, here is your "Congratulations", are you sure you don't want "Get Well Soon"?

Me: I'm sure.

JCP: Have a nice day, and thank you for shopping J.C. Penny's.

Well since this has been such a long entry, I'll wait till later to write up about the second half of the day, as well as my adventures in the Maize Maze

Movie News

2003-11-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

In two different movie related news. First, according to TheOneRing.Net. The running time for Return of the King is clocking in at a mean, lean, 210 minutes. Only giving us 3 1/2 hours of Tolkien goodness, sounds a little to short for my tastes.

The other movie news is dealing with a two different Alan Moore creations.
1. The Wachowski Brothers (the Matrix guys) wrote a script for "V for Vendetta" for Joel Silver
2. John Cusack has been mentioned in talks to play the Owl in a Watchmen movie, but I'm pretty sure that is pure bunk.

On a side note I saw "Alien: Director's Cut" in the theater last night and damn is that a great movie. The film quality was really cleaned up, so that you can actually see what's going on during the first 30 minutes. There are still one or two scenes that look a little cheesy that I was hoping they would try to correct, but it's still a kick ass movie. Of course when the Alien first burst out, I kept thinking of that cute little song from SpaceBalls "Hello my baby, Hello my darling, Hello my ragtime doll"

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness The Video Game

2003-11-03T10:06:00.000-05:00

Before I get started I need to give a little pimp out to Slick Deals. Slick Deals is one of those sites where they give you all the best deals currently on the web, and while I definitely save money, I find I spend way more than I would have otherwise from stuff on that site.

Well anyway back to my little tale, so Slickdeals has a deal listed for buy 2 get 1 Free from amazon. So I go take a look at there were two games I had wanted to get, so I ended up getting 3. Well the games were "Simpsons: Hit and Run" which I have yet to play, and "Soul Caliber 2" also which I have yet to play, and finally "Disgaea" which takes up my free time.

So here is a little mini review for Disgaea. First off the game play is your typical strategy RPG. Now for those of you who don't know what that is, I'll explain it to you. First a RPG or Role Playing Game is any game where you place one or more characters who are customizable in class, abilities, or powers. Specifically a Strategy RPG is a game where the battle sequences involve multiple characters on a large grid, where you can control each characters separately and need to play more of a strategy of position and move, as opposed to a regular RPG which is just "Attack" "Defend" "Spell" "Item" choices. See any game by the company Atlus for an example of a Strategy RPG.

So back to Disgaea, personally I am not that fond of the Strategy RPG genre, it's not that I dislike those kind of games it just doesn't appeal to me as much as other RPG's. Now that I got that preface out of the way lets get right down to it, I love "Disgaea", it is one of the smartest and funniest game I have played in a long time. The story line is engrossing mainly for the comedic aspect and the characters are very appealing. The actual fight parts of the game are interesting but in the end are quite boring after a while. The only thing that is keeping me very interested is the story itself. I am hoping that at the end of the game there is an option to watch the entire story fully through cause it is so good. From the demon main character Laharl, who took a nap for over 2 years to find out his father had been killed. To the angel in training Flonne who was sent to assassinate the father, who wants to be a ninja, to Laharl's side kick Etna who at the end of each episode, gives a teaser about the next episode implying the whole game is about her. To her loyal Prinny vassals who look like giant Penguins, say "Dude" when they attack someone, and explode when you throw them at enemies. This game just has it all. It really has the feel of a very funny anime series, and hopefully someone will think of making one.

That's all for this edition of the Miller game review...

Storm King Art Center

2003-11-03T09:48:00.000-05:00

Well last weekend, that would be the weekend of the 25-26 of October, I kept pretty busy. First on Saturday I was at the wedding of my Sister-in-Law's brother, Brian and Rosemary. It was a very lovely affair that was only slightly marred by the fact that the Yankee's lost the last game of the World Series during the party. Needless to say their was quite the crowd around the 3 inch black and white tv at the Valet station.
Sunday was also quite different. Craig and I went to a place called The Storm King Art Center. It was interesting to say the least. For those of you who don't know, or are to lazy to click on the link and read about it, it is a Museum, (which we didn't actually enter) that is located on 500 acres of land. Scattered across this massive property are all kinds of sculptures, which varried from 3 pavialian stands frame's, to a brick wall that wound through a forest (it looked like someone talk a string and squished the ends together), to what looked like a giant set of lincoln logs. It's was strange but very cool at the same time....

I'm a lazy bastard

2003-11-03T09:41:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long time of no updates, but I'm a lazy bastard and keeping this up to date is quite tough... but I have lots to Kevetch about this time. I'm going to be breaking these up by topics and posting them through the course of the day. So let's end this posting and I will get started...

No Roger, No Re-Run, No Rent

2003-10-24T10:19:00.000-05:00

I was reading through some yahoo news yesterday, when I came across an article about the death of actor Fred Berry. Now most of you probably have no clue who Fred Berry is... to tell you the truth neither did I. But Fred played a character on TV which I remember fairly well, considering the tv series was on when having new episodes when I was 4. That show was "What's Happening?" While this wasn't a classic, it still had it's memorable moments... Like Rerun trying to Bootleg a Doobie Brothers concert, or the "No Roger, No Rerun, No Rent" episode. To tell you the truth I have no clue what the No, No, No, episode was about, but that chant has stuck in my head through the years. It's kind of hypocritical to say this, (cause I hadn't thought about him in over 20 years), but Rerun will be missed.

Eating in Annapolis

2003-10-21T09:33:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay since my last update..... I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Annapolis MD, this past weekend, and didn't get home to late last Sunday night. With a long day at work on Monday, there was just no time for updates.
Well I personally enjoyed this one the best out of the ones I have been to. And counting this one I have been to 5 now, 1 in Penn, 1 in New York, and 2 in Jersey, mind you the two in Jersey are basically the same one, that closed down and moved to another location in Jersey.
Some of the cooler stuff at this festival were a real live jousting tournament, as it seems that Jousting is the state sport of Maryland, a sword swallowing act, and a tight rope show. Of course what really set this festival out was the preponderance of food and beer. Now as much as I enjoy food I wouldn't really spend the time discussing it, but I'm not just talking about your usual food vendor stuff, ala hot dog's, burgers, pretzels, now while all of those items were there. It's the other things that are amusing, a Renn faire staple of Smoked Turkey Legs, Scotch Eggs (hard boiled egg, covered in sausage, dipped in bread crumbs and deep fried), Fried Pickles, Cheesecake On a Stick (now this is a real triangular cut piece of cheesecake covered in chocolate on a stick), Macaroni & Cheese on a Stick (your guess is as good as mine), Deep Fried Bread, and others. With the exception of the Scotch Egg I didn't eat any of those though.. I'm fat enough as is.
One of the other good things about this trip was I finally got to use my sleeping bag outside. Now before you jump to any conclusions, this was not a camping trip. When we had went down to Md for this trip, we had all met at my friend Mike's house, and Paul (my roommate) had drove us down to Mike's. Well eight of us loaded into 2 cars, one car (the one I was in) drop straight down to Md, while the other car stopped to pick up one more person. So anyway back to the story, when we left on Sunday, the car I was in wanted to leave a little earlier then the other. It wasn't a big deal, we would just hang out at Pete's house for an hour or two (the one who drove the car I was in) until Mike got back with my driver. Now we got back into Jersey a little after 8pm, we went to a diner, then hung out at Pete's and Mike had yet to make it back to Jersey yet. So a little after 10pm, I end up getting dropped off in front of Mike's house, now I have a light jacket on, and a short sleeve t-shirt, and it is COLD outside. So there I am, outside of Mike's place, under dressed and quite cold, and no clue when Mike will show. So I unpack my sleeping bag, which is rated to 30 below 0, took off my shoes and climbed in. I proceeded to spend the next 90 minutes or so, laying on my back in a sleeping bag, on the sidewalk in front of Mike's place. It was comfortable enough that I was able to take a nap. Now for some reason the people in Mike's car thought this was exceptionally funny, so somewhere out there, there is a picture of my sitting on my sleeping back trying to put my shoes back on.
One last note, I'm thanking my lucky stars that Rich Gannon had a bad night, otherwise I might have lost again in Fantasy Football, instead I'm in 5th place...

Take Two

2003-10-18T09:08:00.000-05:00

Okay I just learned my first leasson of blogging. Always save a copy of your text before you try to send it to the web page. I wrote up what for me is quite a long blog entry... A whole three paragraphs, click on the post button and bamn, entry gone, and no post... Which probably wasn't a bad thing, it was a pretty stupid entry, but it is Saturday morning, and I'm still half asleep.

Work Work Work

2003-10-17T16:26:00.000-05:00

Well it's yet another day where I'll be working late... I don't mind working extra hours when I need to, but why does it always end up being on Fridays....

Killing Bill

2003-10-17T11:52:00.000-05:00

I saw Kill Bill last night..... kind of had mixed reactions about it... Now for those of you who don't know me... let me give a little bit of background on how I rate movies.... When I discuss movies, they generally fall into two classes.... 1) Good Movies.... 2) Movies I like.... now I do this for a very important reason... I like a lot of bad movies.... Now you must be asking yourself... "Self, if it's a bad movie, why does this idiot like it?" Of course at this point you are talking to yourself... so who's the idiot.... back to my point... There are a lot of movies out there that technically are not good... bad acting, stupid dialog, shoddy cinematography, etc.... but I usually like these... so while it would be listed as a Movie I Like, I will not classify it as a good movie... on the other hand, there are movies that I think are very well made but I don't like them.... I will give a list of each type at the bottom of this entry, to give an example....
Now that I have thoroughly confused you all... Kill Bill was an interesting little flick.... On an individual scene basis, I loved it... what I mean is that each individual scene was a lot of fun, and was really amusing... The fight sequences were totally over the top, and I haven't seen that much blood flow since I saw "Dead Alive".. but for some reason the movie itself didn't seem to gel right.... Maybe it was because it was only half a movie (Apparently the movie was too long so Quentin or Mirimax decided to cut the movie in two and release it a few months apart).. or maybe cause I didn't buy the casting... Lucy Liu, Sonny Chiba, David Carradine, Julie Dreyfus and the rest were great... but I just found that I couldn't accept Uma in the title role...
So if you want an over the top action movie, with swords and animation thrown in, catch it in the theaters... otherwise save yourself a few bucks and wait till it hits cable...
This flick gets a 6 out of 10, until I can come up with a better rating scale...

okay now for the list of movies so you fine reads can better quantify my rating decisions...

5 Bad Movies that I like (These movies are just a few examples... they are not ranked in any specific order... and I'm sure I'm missing tons)
1. Ice Pirates
2. Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon
3. They Call Me Bruce
4. The Wraith
5. Martians Go Home

Now here is going to be a list of movies that I thought were good, but I didn't like.....

5 Good Movies that I didn't like (Once again there are just a few examples, no particular order and I'm sure I'm missing stuff)
1. Apollo 13
2. Braveheart
3. The Green Mile
4. Trainspotting
5. Heat

Talkin' BaseBall

2003-10-17T10:47:00.000-05:00

It's a great time of the year to be from Jersey.... And before you all bitch that the Yankee's are a New York team.. since their is no pro baseball team in NJ, we can claim partial fanship of the Yankee's..... The Devil's just hoisted the Stanley Cup and their home opener... the Yankee's are going to the World Series... The Met's get to go home.... The Net's and the Knicks are starting their new season.. (hopefully better than the last)... The Jet's and the Giant's have 3 wins between them.... We are getting ready to bid for 2009 Superbowl....

Enough on that cheery subject... at least the Devils and the Yankee's are good... but back to Baseball... I don't know what was more satisfying last night... seeing the Yankee's go to yet another World Series or watching the Red Sox blow it, namely one Pedro Martinez, who should have been pulled an inning earlier.... I think I would have to go with the later... the former has happens almost every year so it's less impressive than in the past... I still wanted to see the Cubbies go to the series... but I think I'm just a sucker for Wrigley field...

Oh well... Go Yankee's!

2003-10-17T10:31:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to give a little shout out.... here is the link to the blog that really made me want to create my own... While I don't know him personally he updates his blog a whole lot more often than my friend Craig does...

2003-10-17T10:19:00.000-05:00

Well since its apparently the new big thing... I'm creating my own little blogger... So come on in you tired and weary masses and listen to the delusional rantings of me... Miller....