Harry Potter

Got a chance to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this weekend. We debated on whether or not to take the boys (it's rated PG-13, and Chris passed out while watching the 2nd HP movie), but after talking to a couple of other people who had seen it we decided to take them. As I have mentioned, Goblet of Fire is my favorite book in the series so I was really looking forward to it.

Overall, the movie did not disappoint me. It was very well done, the special effects were incredible, and it stayed pretty true to the book for the most part. There were a few things they glossed over or skipped entirely, but if they want to keep it down to a 2-3 hour movie they pretty much have to. I'd like to have seen a little more of the Quiddich World Cup, but I didn't miss Hermoine's "save the house elves" campaign at all. Overall, I'd give it a "thumbs up" and say it is the best movie of the series thus far!

Football video

I ran across this football video on the 'net a couple of days ago. It's not the best quality in the world, but it's pretty amazing to see. I've never seen a field goal quite like this one.

Face Recognition

What celebrity do you most resemble? Check out the face recognition demo at myheritage.com to find out.

I uploaded several images of my face. The most common matches were Bruce Willis, John Voight, and Princess Di (that last one worries me a little). Interestingly, all of the kids were a strong match with Shirley Temple.

Try it out and let me know what you get.

Porta

A while ago I posted about SimpleViewer, a cool Flash photo viewer which I use on my website. My only complaint about SimpleViewer is that it is not particularly easy to set up. You have to edit a PHP file and run a script in order to generate your photo albums. Not a big deal, but not exactly user friendly either.

I just ran across another app, called Porta, which works in conjunction with SimpleViewer. It allows you to configure and create your SimpleViewer photo album through a much nicer interface. If you want to post photos on the web, I highly recommend using these programs.

Learning from the pigs...

Since the weather was so nice today (74 degrees in November!), a group of us from work had lunch today at Mr. Gene's Dog House, a little out-of-the-way hot dog stand that has the best coneys in town. Mr. Gene's has no indoor tables, so this will probably be our last visit of the year. For those in the Cincinnati area who haven't tried it, I highly recommend it (see review).

In addition to having great food (I recommend a couple coneys and a chocolate shake), Mr. Gene's has an interesting background. A few years back, the restaurant was demolished by a runaway schoolbus. It took a while, but they rebuilt it. And in a move inspired by Practical Pig, they used bricks instead of wood for the new place. Bring on those schoolbusses now!

Cool website

I was stumbling around the 'net this evening and ran across a cool website which shows the front page of major newspapers around the world. Unfortunately Cincinnati didn't make the list, but that's okay--I can see that one anytime! I found it interesting that most of the Asian papers listed are in English.

UPDATE: The Cincy Enquirer is on the site today. Maybe they're reading my blog :)

Halloween Weekend

It was a busy but enjoyable Halloween weekend. It started Friday with a neighborhood block party. We roasted hot dogs and made smores over a fire in the court. The adults drank and talked while the kids played flashlight tag. Then everyone went through a "haunted woods" that Annette set up in our back woods. Thanks to her creativity and the haunting help of a few neighborhood ghouls, it was a huge success.

After a late Friday night, Chris had an early 9 a.m. soccer game on the frost-covered fields. The team played a great game but lost to end their season. Ben then played at noon and his team won their final game of the season. Both boys have improved greatly over the course of the year and are becoming very good players.

Right after Ben's game we headed up to Fort Wayne to celebrate Ron's birthday. Plenty of family and friends were on hand for a fun time which included more hot dogs and smores, pumpkin carving, and me drooling over the incredible picture on ESPN HD on Ron's TV.

I've added more pictures to the October photo gallery on the website.