Jordan Rippy

Last night This morning Kristin and I went to see the 12:01am showing of The Dark Knight with our friend Chris. It was unbelievable. I wish every movie was that good. We got in the theater over an hour and a half early and there were already a lot of people. Lots of Joker faces and Batman T-shirts! When the credits started everyone cheered and then it got so quiet. I have never heard a movie theater so quiet in my life.

10:35pm - Waiting

Sometimes you never know who your blog is reaching, but today I realized what an impact it was making right here in my own family. As many of you know, my Nana recently gave Kristin and I a car. We felt as though this gift could never be out-given, but apparently we underestimated the generosity of Arthelene Rippy. Today we received a package that contained the greatest gift we have received for quite sometime. It was a pre-release for Alive: Music & Dance the new John Tesh CD/DVD combo. This musical adventure includes some of Tesh’s greatest hits with hip-hop dancing and a Tesh-tastic stage performance.

Nana, I truly don’t know where your generosity ends. I would also like to let all of my readers know that I am considering honoring Nana with a special installment of Sacred vs. Secular entitled, “Arthelene Rippy vs. Martha Stewart”.

That’s right…Today is Kristin’s 20th birthday! It’s also her first “married” birthday. We had a fantastic dinner at The Rustic Grill. If your local or in the area you have to check it out. The food and atmosphere are fantastic. Then we decided to catch a late showing of Juno, which we both loved. Anyway, you should most definitely drop by Kristin’s MySpace or Facebook and leave a birthday wish.

Should have been called…

• Vantage Pointless
• Vantage Point me to the exit
• Vantage (get to the) Point
• Vantage disappointing
• Vant-age has not been good to Dennis Quaid

Can you tell I was a little disappointed in this movie? Someone wrote a 15 minute movie and decided to rewind it eight times and show the same 15 minutes from eight different “Vantage Points”…Thanks, Hollywood.

Once again, the DVD menus ruin critical plot points…How can a show revered for it’s excellence in continuity miss this? Anyway, here are my season 4 observations:

• Chloe is so brash and plain-spoken. I love it.
• Tony Almaida is the bees knees.
• I enjoy Edgar Stiles.
• President Logan = Horrible leader.
• President Palmer = Great Leader.
• The “new” CTU follows protocol.
• I guess they finally realized that nobody like Kim.
• Everything bad still happens in L.A.
• Michelle is “the cat’s meow”.
• Mike Novak redeemed himself.

Looking forward to season 5. I’m particularly interested in how they’re going to bring Jack Bauer out of exile. We won’t be able to start it tomorrow, since we are going to get our faces rocked off at the John Mayer concert.

Well, it would have been if it weren’t Blockbuster Total Access. July was my first full month with Total Access. The following are the stats and observations from my first month.

• Total DVD’s received through the mail: 21
• Total DVD’s received through in-store swapped: 21
• Total DVD’s received in July: 42

Random facts:

• I received one DVD that I did not request.
• Blockbuster corrected the error, and comped me a free rental.
• I received all mailed DVD’s in two days or less.
• The “swapping” process is as easy as the commercial makes it seem.
• Each month I get an extra “e-coupon” for a free rental.

Overall, I am extremely pleased. The system works great, especially since there’s a Blockbuster right near my house. This makes it easy to make swaps. The way I see it, 42 DVD’s at approximately$4 a piece would have cost about $168. The two-out-at-a-time package I purchased cost $15 a month…No extra fee’s. That’s quite the savings.

I did enjoy season 3, but I do have one gripe about the production of the season 3 DVD. When you select an episode on the DVD menu, it takes you to an alternate menu designated to that specific episode. However, the background pictures of the episode menu often reveal key plot information. For instance, in one of the episodes a key character from past seasons makes a “surprise” appearance. However, the surprise is ruined because his or her picture appears in the background of that episode menu. Since he or she had not appeared in any previous episodes in season 3, it totally ruined the element of surprise. In another instance, the menu pictures showed a key character lying (clearly) dead on the ground…Yet another surprise ruined!

• Kim is starting to seem like less of a total moron.
• Chase ruins everything when he tries to be a hero.
• I enjoy Chloe.
• President Palmer finally found the snag in his moral fabric.
• Why does the President still view Sherry as an asset?
• Sherry Palmer’s bangs look awful.
• I don’t like Ryan Chapelle, but you know…
• Tony is a beast working in his physical condition.
• President Palmer has the worst secret service detail…they’re never around.
• Michelle is the man in this season.