Category: Reviews

Having a blog means having an opinion. This category groups reviews of technology, concerts, books, food – essentially all things consumable.

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Concert Review: Ryan Adams @ The Academy of Music (Philadelphia)

Opening Act: Jessica Lea Mayfield
Date: Saturday, December 2nd, 2011
Location: Academy of Music – Philadelphia, Pa

This is the second time I have seen Mr. Adams this year. My wife and I took a trip to California two months ago when it was unclear if Ryan was going to do a tour of the East Coast, not that I am complaining, any excuse to go to California is a good one. You can check my review of the California show right here.

When I found out that Ryan was playing the Academy, I was excited. It is a place that lends itself to good concert behavior and the acoustics are fantastic. Just to get it out of the way, everything about the venue was great last night and I am always glad to see a show there.

[Opening Act: Jessica Lea Mayfield]

My friend Jack commented on how great her guitar sounded last night (really good tone). I wanted to make sure that I started off with a compliment before I got into any kind of critique. I don’t want to be overly harsh, but Mayfield’s songs all sounded similar and had a similar theme which took away from the performance (until the last song where she mixed it up a bit with little yip).

Mayfield has a nice voice and certainly wasn’t intimidated by the Philadelphia crowd, but she would do herself a service by introducing faster tempo songs about anything other than bad boyfriends, I really think she would shine with a band or at least another person on stage to banter with.

[Main Event]

Ryan came out and went right to business. The Philadelphia crowd was much more vocal than the California audience (no shock there), but at least my wife and I were not sitting in front of a group of drunk girls. Ryan definitely mixed up the set list between shows (yes, he did play “Come Pick Me Up”, now we can all shut up about it).

He knocked out excellent renditions of “Sylvia Plath”, “Dear Chicago” and “English Girls Approximately”, but the whole show was outstanding and (not to repeat myself) a love note to the fans. I thought his banter in California was great, but he turned it up a notch in Philadelphia. Adams went on this whole riff about Ghost Hunters when his guitars went out of tune and then connected it into making fun of loud audience members (you know there is always that one dude who has to be heard).
Adams left the stage and quickly came back out for an encore. He was going to play another 30 minutes but his main set went long and the teamsters shut him down. He managed to knock out a surprisingly earnest rendition of Ratt’s “Round and Round”.

Another fantastic show by one of the best song writers in the business.

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DME: MacMurray Vineyards

( @zanelamprey, #MacMurray )

Drinking Made Easy has posted another article. This one is about my trip to MacMurray vineyard in California. Check it out:

A Visit to MacMurray Vineyard

Also since the good people at Kress made this article possible, if you are in South Jersey, stop by today and during the holidays to get a nice bottle of wine by good people. You know they are good, I married into their family 😉

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Book Review: Neal Stephenson’s Reamde

( #Reamde, #NealStephenson )

I finally finished the book that would not end yesterday. It has taken me almost 2 months to read Reamde (although I have read other books during this period too), but I got it done. What is the book about? I think this was Stephenson’s attempt to tell an epic fantasy story but in the real world. It is an interesting and creative idea, I am just not sure if that was the intent.

Reamde is part action thriller, detective story, and fantasy tale. The general idea is that a guy (Richard) creates an online game that can be used to traffic real money globally. The game is huge, almost everybody plays it (essentially it is World of Warcraft, but more popular). Richard’s niece ends up getting kidnapped through a series of semi-ridiculous plot turns (I can forgive this in the vein of North by Northwest). The kidnapped niece is basically re-kidnapped by another group of bad guys and then British and US intelligence agencies get involved.

The book features as massive cast of characters that all converge at the end of the book. I suppose my main issue with the story is the sheer amount of characters, many of them were unnecessary and it seems Stephenson doesn’t know what to do with them in the end. There are several that essentially get dropped around the 60-70% mark of the book without another mention. Reamde spends alot of energy getting all of the characters to the same place for the climax. Even with the time spent, it feels completely artificial. Having gotten to the end, I think the book would have been better served killing off some of the characters before we got to that point.

I get the impression the Stephenson was trying to go for a reversal of themes. The story revolves around an epic online game, but the real world becomes much more exciting. I am taking a guess that Stephenson plotted the book out like a video game. You have the main story and the side quests. Minor characters that serve a function and need little backstory. It is a clever idea and if executed better, the book would have been outstanding.

I give Neal Stephenson (and his publishers) kudos for keeping this ONE BOOK. No trilogy, no cliffhangers. It is a complete tale, in fact it is a supersized story. I am glad I could finish this book without having to purchase more and I feel like I earned a gamer trophy getting through it.

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Movie Review: DVD Catch-up

( #MovieReviews, #TGIF )

On a recent trip to California, I watched a ton of movies on the plane and in the airport. Here is a quick rundown of movies you may have missed and might be interested in seeing.

Bridesmaids

Much has been made about this movie being a raunchy girl comedy. It is. It is a good, raunchy, girl comedy. It has one classic scene that people will probably talk about for years to come. Kristen Wiig did a great job and it is totally worth watching (Wilson-Philips cameo aside).

Horrible Bosses

The first of two Jason Bateman movies I am reviewing. Basically this movie is loaded with people I enjoy watching, but the plot is obviously not rooted in reality. The movie starts off funny with the lead’s bosses doing various things to make life horrible for our heroes. Then we end up in the ghetto looking for a hitman and the movie goes to shit (literally with dental floss…). Jennifer Aniston was pretty damn funny as the sexually inappropriate boss.

The Change-Up

The other Jason Bateman movie I came across. This one also stars Ryan Reynolds and Leslie Mann. This movie has LOTS of naked women and poop jokes. The best parts of the movie are Bateman (as Reynolds) interacting with his fake kids. The movie has typical “challenges” and there are absolutely no plot turns that will surprise you (outside of poop).

Bad Teacher

This movie was hilarious. Cameron Diaz redeems herself after a horrible string of movies. Good mix of school humor, drug humor, and sex humor. I had very low expectations going into this and I was pleasantly surprised.

Take Me Home Tonight

A Topher Grace movie that plays homage to 80’s movies. It involves a house party, a hot girl, a crazy fat friend, and cocaine. Typical speech about “what I learned from this night” at the end. Another movie that has a cast full of people that I like. It wasn’t a great flick, but I didn’t mind watching it on the plane.

Super 8

I feel like this movie went under everyone’s radar (including mine). Super 8 is about a small town that plays host to an alien and a bunch of kids that figure it out. It is a more mature E.T. – the military are the bad guys, the alien is a little scary, some people actually die, so maybe not a movie for small children, but it a good one to watch for the PG-13 crowd.

So that is my movie catch-up, I never usually watch that many movies because I can’t sit still at home, but when stuck in airports with delays, there are worse ways to spend time. I hope my recommendations save you some time and hopefully you enjoy the movies.