Don’t ask.
Category: General
Cary and I were at the Carolina Theater in Durham last night to watch Cinematic Titanic Live.
For fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), the cast of Cinematic Titanic is instantly recognizable. The show stars comedians Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, and Frank Conniff, who were all cast members/creators of MST3K.
MST3K fans will also be familiar with the premise of the show: making fun of bad movies. Hodgson and the rest are present on stage and supply joke after joke, live, in response to the very, very bad film playing on the screen in center stage.
All of CT’s bad films are B-grade or worse. With names like War of the Insects, Alien Factor, The Oozing Skull and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (a movie also featured on MST3K), the quality of these films is not surprising. Most of them have been rescued from obscurity by MST3K and Cinematic Titanic.
The film featured in last night’s performance was War of the Insects, a Japanese film from 1968 which was originally called Genocide (not hard to see why they changed the name for the western release) involving an H-Bomb, infidelity and, of course, insects. Truth be told, the plot of the film was really difficult to follow, but that would have been the case even without the hilarious jokes from the CT crew.
Cinematic Titanic began as a catalog of pre-filmed episodes, available as DVDs or as downloadable files. Each episode features one bad film, flanked on either side by the CT cast, in silhouette (not unlike MST3K), hurling joke after joke at the movie. Soon after making the DVDs available, the crew began taking their show on the road and selling recorded versions of their live shows.
So for the most part, I knew what to expect from the live performance, having purchased all of their live shows. But as it turns out, there was about 1/3 of the show I wasn’t expecting.
I should mention at this point that there was actually another member of the Cinematic Titanic cast that I didn’t mention above. Dave “Gruber” Allen — known to most as just “Gruber” and formerly of the comedy show The Higgins Boys and Gruber, was on stage 30 mintues before showtime, helping to warm up the crowd. Before the show starts, a series of slides are shown on the movie screen. The slides vary from trivia about the CT cast to early cinema pre-show slides (like the ones discouraging cell phone use and talking during the film). While the slides are showing, Gruber would dance out on stage and lead the audience in a brief sing-along, or just generally act pleasantly goofy to the delight of the crowd.
Before starting the film, each member of the Cinematic Titanic cast came out on stage to perform. Each performance was different:
Mary Jo Pehl awkwardly (and hilariously) read from written notes handed to her by Gruber at the last minute, introducing the show. Frank Conniff performed some blue comedy. Josh Weinstein and Gruber did a couple of songs, and Trace Beaulieu read a couple of poems from his book Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children (with accompanying illustrations). So I wasn’t expecting an additional 45 minutes of entertainment before the movie began, and was pleasantly surprised by the extra helping of laughs.
After the show, a large portion of the audience remained in the theater to meet the cast and get autographs. It was a real pleasure meeting the CT gang. They were all genuinely nice folks. They thanked each fan for coming and for waiting in line, and they were all just a lot of fun.
Joel Hodgson signs my poster
A hastily-taken photo of me with Joel Hodgson
Cinematic Titanic poster signed by the entire CT cast
If you get a chance to see Cinematic Titanic Live, you won’t regret it.
Installing the Nest Thermostat is fairly simple. 
The first step is, of course, turning off the main breaker for the HVAC system.
The included tape flags can be used to identify the wires. Once the wires are labeled, the old base can be removed.
Since there were some blemishes on the wall left by the old thermostat, I decided to mount the Nest base on one of the mounting plates. The Nest
includes drywall mounting hardware. The Nest base clicks into the mounting plate. The spirit level on the base can help to mount the Nest. Two screws keep the base and the mounting plate securely fastened to the wall.
Once the base is fixed to the wall, the last step is to connect the wires by pushing down on the connectors and slipping the wires into the holes. Once all of the wires are connected securely, the Nest is ready to be plugged in.
Here’s a short video I threw together showing the basic setup of the Nest Thermostat:
In October, a new company called Nest announced the release of a new type of learning thermostat that learns your patterns, knows when you’re away from home, and can update itself and be controlled from a remote computer or smartphone.
I ordered my Nest on October 26th, a few days after pre-ordering started. Demand was high, and within a few days, the pre-order link on the Nest homepage was replaced by a waiting list. I received my Nest on December 2nd, just over a month after ordering.
The Nest comes in a simple box made with mostly recyclable packaging. Inside the box is the Nest thermostat, thermostat base, usage guide and installation guide, mounting screws, screwdriver and mounting kit.
The thermostat itself is sleek and minimalistic in appearance. The steel casing reflects the color of the surrounding wall, so it blends with just about any wall color.
A Unique Look
The center of the thermostat is a color LCD screen. There are no visible buttons on the unit itself; the only method of control is the face of the Nest itself. Turning the face of the Nest allows you to set the temperature as well as navigate through the various menus. Pushing the face of the Nest selects and confirms various settings, just like clicking a mouse button.
The Nest has been called the iPod of thermostats, a fitting description since the two founders of Nest, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, are former Apple employees who were involved with hardware and software development on the first several generations of iPods and iPhones.
I’ll install the Nest tomorrow, and will document a quick run-through, with pictures, of the installation.
In the mean time, check out my Flickr gallery for more photos.
I strapped a video camera to the handlebars of my bike as an experiment to capture video of the bike ride this past weekend. I think it worked pretty well, though there are lots of shaky parts I still need to edit out. The music doesn’t really fit, either, but since YouTube strips out copyrighted music, I needed to go with something free.
The ride itself is a 17-mile leisurely tour through downtown Durham. Riders can opt for a shorter 8-mile route. The latter half of the longer ride also goes through the Durham Tobacco Trail greenway. The ride starts at 8:30pm, so most of it takes place in the dark. This was apparently the first time in the ride’s short history that there was actually a full moon on the night of the ride.
We just returned from our first cruise, a 7-day trip on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas.
You can see the first batch of pictures by clicking the link below. More to come later.
Also included are photos from our visit to Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
This was the first time in a long time that most of NC had a white Christmas. Cary and I decided to take advantage of the snow and make a snowman.
Click the image below to view more images on my Flickr site.
The Habitat bike ride was fun. Cary and I met our friend Jason at the start of the ride, and we started at 9:00AM. It was a bit cold outside, but the sun helped. Jason is an experienced mountain biker, so he was faster than Cary and me. He waited for us a few times, but got way ahead of us after we left the rest stop at the 18-mile point.
The last 13 miles were pretty hard. At one point, we realized that we were about a mile from home. Had we really wanted to call it quits, we could have turned right instead of left and been home in a few minutes, but at that point in the ride, we only had about 3 miles left to go.
The remainder of the ride was on the American Tobacco Trail, which was a pretty leisurely ride.
After we finished the ride, it was off to Only Burger for cheeseburgers and fries. Then, after the post-ride fatigue set in, we took a nap.
Saturday night was Karen’s Halloween party. Cary wore a very accurate Gryffindor costume, and I wore my Richard Castle costume:
Which is the REAL Richard Castle?
It was a fun, but very tiring day. Cary and I will be running on Tuesday, so hopefully, the soreness from the bike ride is gone by then.
Cary and I are registered for the Cree Habitat Bike Ride on October 30th. This is a 31-mile ride, so it should be a lot of fun.
My donation goal is $100. If you would like to donate, you can do so here:
http://www.active.com/donate/habitatbullmoonride/SKimpto
Cary also has a donation page:
http://www.active.com/donate/2010CreeHabitatRides/CKimpto1
More information on the Bull Moon Bike Ride can be found here:
Cary and I just returned from a week-long trip to Disney World. Now we need a vacation from our vacation.
It was a lot of fun, and the tropical storm that swept through only really interrupted us for about an hour or so.
If you’re ever planning a multiple-day trip to the Magic Kingdom and surrounding Disney parks, it pays (literally) to get the dining plan. Our dining plan was included in the cost of or stay at a Disney Resort, and the off-season prices were very low. Overall, we saved a minimum of $400 by not having to pay for any meals or parking while at the various parks.
A quick rundown of our vacation:
Sunday: Magic Kingdom
Monday: EPCOT
Tuesday: Animal Kingdom
Wednesday: Kennedy Space Center (the only place where we actually had to pay for a meal)
Thursday: Hollywood Studios
Friday: Magic Kingdom
All in all it was a great trip.
I’ll have pictures on my Flickr account soon. So far, I’ve only posted a few favorites from Animal Kingdom. You can view them here: