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Brave

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This evening, I went to see Brave with wife and friend, and I’ll admit that all of us went in not knowing what to expect. The previews all largely left the viewer wondering. Basically, a girl is being forced into a life she doesn’t want to live, so she wants to change her “fate”. First though, let’s step back to the Pixar “short” the movie started with.

The short is called “La Luna”, and it basically is about 3 generations of Moon “cleaners”. The idea being the moon collects star pieces (al la Mario Galaxy), and these cleaners head up there and sweep them all away, or to the side, which is what gives us different moon phases. It was an adorable little short, rather than being more humorously bent, it was more sentimental. As typical with Pixar shorts, it, by itself, justifies part of the ticket price in and of itself.

Back to the movie! So, basically, the trailers for the movie largely center around the first 20 minutes of the movie or so. The rest of the movie takes a relatively predictable path, yet not quite what one would expect. If you don’t want any semblance of spoilers, don’t expand the following. [DDET SPOILERS!]Anyway, the daughter is being fixed to be married. She doesn’t like this, runs off to change this, and ends up having a witch change it for her. This then results in her mother being “changed”, and a joint adventure ensues to get the mother back to how she was, and in the process, both grow. So basically, it is kind of similar to Shrek, or maybe some Mulan, or any other number of movies.[/DDET]

That said, Pixar gives its usual beauty and flavor to the movie, though I found the movie less humorous that previous Pixar movies (many of which seem to have a good amount of humor aimed at the adults in the crowd, which this had minimal). The acting was good, the score was well done, and the animation as usual was excellent. I am sure I’ll see it again on DVD, and I may enjoy it more, but for now, I’d rate it right around “UP”… enjoyable, but perhaps not a Pixar “classic”. Which, is a shame, given its standing as the first with a female protagonist ((actually, you could argue the 3 most important characters in the movie were female: Merida (the star), Elinor (her mother), and the witch)) ((My wife tells me this is very Wiccan/Neopagan symbology-wise with the Mother, Maiden, Crone (wikipedia) )).

[xrr rating=3.75/5]

Victorinox (Swiss Army) Garrison Elegance

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For our fifth anniversary, my wife and I bought each other ((In reality, she bought both from work (a jewelry store), and had them engraved, but, it’s the thought)) Victorinox (Swiss Army) Garrison Elegance watches, or as they’re generally known, the $125 REI Swiss Army watch. The Men’s watch features a 1.25″ face, and the women’s a 1″ face ((in all honesty, I first liked this watch when I was looking at the women’s size, since I don’t like bulky watches)). The movement is quartz, but it’s made in Switzerland. From what I’ve heard, REI and Victorinox worked together to design a watch with this build quality, and price point. Given the cost to my wife’s shop, REI can’t be making a very big profit on these watches (neither could Victorinox for that matter).

The back is screw on, which leads to a tighter water seal, but the crown (the nob that you use to adjust the date/time) is not screw down, so the claim of 100m (330ft) is probably not realistic. The band is a silicon rubber, and the biggest problem with it is sweat. In the sun, my arm tends to sweat a bit, and causes the watch to be a bit gross. I might try out the nylon band option at some point, see how that fares, but nylon is going to tend to snag more. The hands, and dots above each number glow in the dark, and overall, the glow is not obnoxious.

The real advantage to this watch is that as the name implies, it serves very well as a casual every day watch, as well as a dressier watch. No, it’s no Rolex, but at 1/20th the price of the lowest cost Rolex’s, it’s certainly more affordable ((Mind you, Rolex’s are all mechanical rather than quartz movements)). Another awesome “feature” is the affordability of parts. The crystal (quartz as well) is only $10 to replace. The band is about $10, and the whole movement is only $25 (obviously none of this includes labor). This watch should certainly last me 10+ years assuming I don’t lose it in a lake.

It’s been 10+ years since I’ve regularly worn a watch, and this one certainly doesn’t make me feel like I’m wearing a bulbous weight on my arm.

Both watches have performed very well, and I would gladly buy them again. If you’re looking for an inexpensive, analog, dress/everyday watch, this might be a good one to consider. I only wish that REI stocked them more reliably (they almost always have the women’s, but not the men’s).

[xrr rating=5/5]

Scansnap S1300

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Few months back, I got a chance to borrow a ScanSnap S1500M from work, as well as an S1100 from a coworker. I did some basic scanning at home, and found that I really enjoyed being able to quickly scan receipts and other documents for easy archiving digitally. After a bit of pre-purchase buyers remorse, I bit the bullet and purchased a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 off Amazon, and since then, I haven’t looked back.

The difference between the S1300 and S1500 is rather dramatic when it comes to pages per minute (or maybe it should be inches per minute), as well as size. The S1500 SEEMS about 2-3x as fast when scanning ((According to Fujitsu’s site, the S1500 does 20PPM, where the S1300 is 8PPM)), and it seems to show that speed in physical size (it’s about 2-3x as big as the S1300). The S1500 also uses CCFL lights for illuminating the document being scanned, which means it uses much more power than the S1300 which uses a series of LEDs (the S1300 can, in fact, be powered over USB), in case I wanted to travel somewhere and help someone else digitize their documents, or if I ever manage to get back into genealogy, may be nice to travel and scan paper records.

While I haven’t got as nearly paperless as I’d like (nor have I had a chance to digitize everything in the file cabinet), I have been using it routinely as new documents make their way into my home that I feel like I should keep. The scanner software isn’t great, but it does allow easy scanning with the button on the scanner, and saves directly to my dropbox account “inbox” where I can go and rename the file and digitally file it away.

The process works extremely well, and the scanner scans pretty darn fast when you consider having to manually scan a document one side at a time (oh yeah, hopefully it was obvious the Scansnap scans double-sided).

All and all, a great purchase. They can be had on Amazon for a decent price, and if you sign up for an Amazon Visa card at the same time (like I did), you get $50 off! =)

[xrr rating=4.75/5]

UPDATE: Fujitsu, today (6/22/2012), announced the S1300i which is largely the same device, only 50% faster (12PPM vs. 8PPM). All the other “bells and whistles” about scanning to Dropbox, or Google Docs/Drive, are things updated in software, which is free to any Scansnap owner.