Paranormal Activity Review

All you future movie makers out there take note. Paranormal Activity is a lesson in marketing. This movie reportedly cost only $15,000 to produce, and I'm sure by this point has made its money back off one screen through its explosive advertisement campaign. The micro-budget thriller premiered back in 2007 and has been building buzz on college campuses and small film festivals. Paramount finally picked up the movie in 2008 and slated it for limited release. The movie centers around a couple Mica and Katie, a young couple haunted by demon that has been following Katie since she was eight years old. Sceptic Mica buys top of the line video gear to try and catch the malevolent spirit on tape. What this movie does, which so few do today, is not show you the monster. There is no over the top special effect creature you see five minutes into the opening credits. This movie is that thing in the dark you're afraid of. What it does best is built the intensity of each scare. Each time you know something is coming, just not what. It's not fair to say this is a perfect horror film, or even close. The whole concept of the film is nothing new. The single camera movie was done better in Rec, and even the American version Quarantine. And the whole time during the film, I kept feeling like this was some sort of Blair Witch take off, especially towards the end. Over all though, I will admit this movie did genuinely scare me, and I'll give it an 8.5/10. This movie has definitely got me ready for the Halloween Season.

Widgets and Gadgets

All the kids today are raving about the sidebar. For those of you that don't know, a sidebar is is a handy way to show information and applications on the side of your desktop. In reality you can move them anywhere, but most people keep them to the right side. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft all have their own versions of these apps. Some are very useful for the super computer savvy trying to keep tabs on their computer's performance, like this one from Microsoft. Others, are pretty silly, but who can say "no" to a hungry kitty as it chases your mouse around the screen.

I use a combination of Yahoo's Widgets, and Microsoft's gadgets. Just by glancing at my sidebar you can tell I have some pretty nerd ones, not to mention zombies lurking in the background.

Up top I have a handy little e-mail notifier. It simply tells me ow many new messages in my inbox. Since the battery died in my Casio CA53W-1, I dropped two more apps, the clock comes standard with Vista, and the Calculator comes in handy a lot more than you would think. Not to mention you can customize the colors to fit your style.

My media player also comes from Microsoft. It's a solid little music player and from what I can tell it also plays video files. The one major problem I have with it is the player doesn't respond to the hot keys on my keyboard. So when ever Yanni comes on I have to minimize all my windows to skip tracks.

For pictures I opted for this picture frame from Polaroid. It's no secret that I love old School Polaroid pictures and am disgusted by the prices for these vintage visual loveys. So this has become a close second. Say "Hi" to Tom and Wee-Wee.

And at the bottom for all us bookworms I've docked a quick link to Dictionary.com for quick look-ups.

Hit up the comments to let me know if there are any really good apps out there I'm missing out on, or if you just want to brag about your sidebar Setup

First Post

Welcome to my blog. I hope to have a layout and template done by the end of next week. I'm going to try really hard to get atleast five post a week up, and as I go they will get a little more regular. If somehow you find out about this site and you have anything you want reviewed shoot me an e-mail. Until we meet again...