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The Hunger Games

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Last night I went and saw “The Hunger Games” movie at the local theater. Let me first say that I have not (yet) read the books, but they’re on my shortlist after the Stieg Larsson books. But my understanding of the plot is that at some point greater than 74 years prior to the movie, the “country” was divided into 13 districts, with one district being wealthy and affluent, and the rest being not so much. The 12 other districts revolted against the one, and were eventually beat back down. And as penance, each year the 12 revolting districts are forced for “offer” up 1 male and 1 female for a “last man standing” game for the benefit of the affluent colony. Kinda like “The Running Man” only the participants aren’t criminals. Participants for these games are based on a lottery, that is weighted toward people who have used the most resources (seemingly). So if you need extra food, or I’d imagine medical attention, your name ends up entered again into the lottery. I’d imagine if you’re arrested this also ends up as an increased chance of being selected.

Anyway, my understanding is that the books are quite popular, and that they’re aimed at the young adult market (which makes sense, since the movie seemed aimed that way as well, though it still worked for an adult audience). I’ll say I was a bit skeptical since the last series of movies with this kind of fervor were the Twilight movies, which like the books, are pretty terrible (from my limited knowledge). But from what I know of the books, and the author, they are well written, and fairly consistently end up highly regarded on “Best of” lists.

The movie, therefore, didn’t disappoint, even for the uninitiated. The movie starts with some basic introductions of characters, evolves into showing how the main characters get picked for the games, how they get to experience the opulence of the “capital” district. The callousness of the people with regards to the people that die in the games, etc. I’d guess there is no shortage of references to ancient Rome in this regard (or the US). Filming was largely done in North Carolina, so it’s a lot of east coast style wooded areas. Costumes all seemed very, odd. The poor districts all wore clothing from the 1800’s, and the affluent district wore… something. Was actually kind of hideous, but I’d imagine that was the point. The biggest names in the movie were Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland and Elizabeth Banks (which aren’t exactly high profile actors, but are enjoyable). Acting was well done, story was well written (again, haven’t read the book, so I’m not sure how much it strayed. But I’d imagine it was adapted as “well” as the Harry Potter’s), and even to an outsider, it was enough to keep me interested the whole movie. I found some parts a bit formulaic, but it was never a problem.

All and all, without having read the books, I’m happy with it, and will probably see the sequels (I will have read the books by then).
[xrr rating=4/5]

Cucina Pro 1476 Classic Round Belgian Waffle Maker

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A few weeks ago I went to make waffles with my trusty Cuisinart and found that after 4 years of use, the non-stick coating had finally given way to something “not non-stick”, resulting in impossible to remove waffles. So, I threw it away, and went on the search for a replacement. Everyone raved about the Villaware waffle maker, but they seemed to have stopped making them. After some more looking, I found that the Cucina Pro is actually the same machine, just new name. After sitting on it for a few days, wondering if I should order one, I hit up one of the nicer kitchen supply stores in the area, Cooks, Pots and Tabletops, and found they had the Cucina Pro 1476 for an Amazon level price. Purchased, I went home, and immediately made some waffles.

First off, it’s heavy. My Cuisinart maybe weighed 2lbs. I think the CucinaPro weighs in at 4lbs. So it takes a while to warm up (and conversely, cool down). First use, it gave off a bit of smoke as the protective coatings cooked off, and had a bit of a smell, but it went away after use. The Waffle Tone is a bit odd too, but nice. You can go do something in another room, and hear when the waffle is done. With the batter I use, I have it set to 5 (out of 6) on the doneness scale, and it produces a crispy waffle. Doneness is quite good, and the waffle overall was probably one of the best I’d had. The only odd thing being the “look” of the doneness. You could see a line where part of the waffle was lighter than another. This either has to do with how I poured the batter, or the lack of an expanding hinge in the back. Either way, this is cosmetic, and didn’t affect taste.

All and all, it’s a great waffle iron. And for only $20 more than the Cuisinart, it makes a much crispier, tastier, product.

[xrr rating=4.75/5]

Drobo B800i

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We purchased a Drobo B800i at work during summer break, and initially, I must admit I was a bit confused about it’s functionality. I thought, at a block level, iSCSI device, it was basically a SAN with an internal controller. I was wrong. That functionality sounds like it’s reserved for the 1200i. The 800i, however, is more aptly referred to as a “virtual storage appliance” (or something like that). You throw drives in it (1-8), of any size, then you basically tell it you want volumes. They can be any size from 1TB to 16TB, and as many as 31 of them. They call it “thin provisioning”, and that’s an apt description. It’s much like a VM, only storage. Sure, you can have 30 volumes, all 16TB in size, but only have a single 500GB hard drive in the B800i. Would you want to? Probably not (what would be the point?).

Since purchasing it, and realizing it’s capabilities, I’ve had it take over the role of “backup”. It serves to host previous terms of class data, and our Crashplan PROe data. And by and large, it works very well for that. It’s hard to get real performance numbers that would be useful to most, since I knew it wouldn’t be used for anything needing high performance, and therefore only put Western Digital 2TB Green drives in it (5900RPM. Not fast). It works, and it seems to work well. My only complaint is the software. They MUST use discovery to find the Drobo, and mount the volumes. You can’t, for some reason, specify that there’s a Drobo at this address. Because of this, and some as-yet-unknown issue with the OS X Server firewall, it takes a while for the software to find the B800i, and mount the volumes. But I’m going to investigate this more in the future, or ask that Drobo allow manually specifying the location of the Drobo rather than requiring it be “found”. Also, the software seems to rely on the GPU rendering the interface, which causes issues when combined with Apple Remote Desktop (the software pegs the CPU). I’ve reported this to them, and they weren’t of much help.

All and all, I’m happy. And at the price per TB (weird that it’s gotten to that point), it’s hard to beat it for near-line backup storage. My rating, a full point off, is because of the software issues. The hardware seems quite solid.

[xrr rating=4/5]