Maybe I need new glasses.

I was riding my bike headed toward the forest preserve where there is a crushed limestone path. When I was approximately a block from the entrance, I noticed a person coming out of the forest preserve. I had one of those internal discussions and it went like this.

“Hey look at that guy! He’s carrying his dog out of the park.”

“Wow, that guy carrying his dog has some unfortunate hips.”

“Wow (oops), that girl has an unfortunate hair cut.”

“Oh, that girl is carrying her jacket.”

“Maybe I need new glasses.”

Websites That Are Dead To Me

1. Websites that only have one item per page need to be punched in the solar plexus.

I know how it all works. Websites get money through ad revenue and the more clicks the website gets the more revenue they generate. So I can understand spreading your article to two pages but the real loser pages do something like this: “Top 10 Knock-Out Punches Thrown in UFC History” – and then when you go the website they have one page per knock-out punch. They blow that sucker up to 10 pages. It makes me so angry. I love lists, but I hate having to navigate to each separate item. Sometimes they try to trick you by making the article appear as a slide show, but in reality they’ve just dressed up a scheme to make you navigate through a new page per click.

 

2. Websites featuring full-page ads (that you are afraid to close) should all be voted off the island.

Some of my favorite websites have full page ads that just take your whole screen hostage. The good sites usually offer a quick close feature that is easy to spot and use. Some websites, however, you just kind of aren’t sure about the site in general and so that full page ad seems particularly menacing. You want to close it, but also would like to avoid being redirected to all the viruses that ever existed ever.

3. Websites that have auto play ads (that you can’t find) have no concern for the human spirit and should therefore be incinerated.

I used to use a reader. It would post me a list of links each day whenever one of my favorite websites had been updated. So I’d sit down and just open each website in a new window until all the pages I wanted to read were open and I could just go one page at a time. Then something terrible happened. Websites would put a video ad on the site, drop it in some obscure location on the sidebar, and have it play automatically upon loading the page. I would go into scramble mode trying to figure out which page had done this. If I had multiple pages open from the same site featuring the auto-play ad…well we’re no longer on speaking terms.

4. Websites with big splash pages should get a big splash karate chop to the neck.

You go to a website, only it’s not really the website, it’s an annoying splash page that introduces the website. There’s usually nothing to do on the splash page except wait for the real website to load and get your info. Band websites are usually the culprits here. Stop that, you criminals of good navigation!

5. Websites that optimized for Internet Explorer should go die in a fire(fox).

Yeah market share blah blah blah. Nobody cool (read: knows how to use the internets) uses IE.

6. Websites make you watch ads that can’t be advanced within 5 seconds should hang their heads in shame.

I remember the golden days of YouTube when there wasn’t an ad at the start of each video and then not a subsequent ad popping up after 5 seconds covering the bottom fourth of the image. There is still some hope when these ads offer a “close ad” feature that becomes available after 5 seconds. But when I have to watch a 30 second ad so I can watch a 25 second video of someone falling down I want to write an angry letter to whoever is in charge of this stuff. Or how about this one: watch an ad before watching a movie trailer (an ad). Am I taking crazy pills?

(My) Best and Worst Movies (2012)

Not all of these were released in 2012, just I saw them for the first time last year.

Best Movies

1. 50/50 (4) – The movie is funny in all the right places and serious in the other right places. If you are a fan of JGL and haven’t seen this one yet, shame on you. I especially like the scenes b/w the lead and his mother.

2. The Artist (4) – I think the cliche goes like this: “The movie says a whole lot without uttering a word.” I was skeptical about watching a silent film, but this was good.

3. The Avengers (4) – This movie was the most fun movie of the year for me. One of the movie’s greatest strengths: there’s lots of screen-time devoted to showing the heroes being heroes.

4. Moonrise Kingdom (4) – If you like Wes Anderson, this movie is a real gem. I always appreciate movies with child actors that aren’t annoying or some king of major liability.

5. Dredd 3D (2.5) – I’m serious, this movie is one awesome action flick. And you have to give props to Karl Urban for pulling off the role, not taking off his helmet, never seeing his eyes, for the entire film.

6. Looper (4) – Original sci-fi. Also, Bruce Willis.

7. Lincoln (4) – This was my favorite movie of 2012. Daniel Day-Lewis is Abraham Lincoln.

8. Waiting For Superman (4) – I don’t see many documentaries. This one is especially well done. It’s both entertaining and informative. And it will make you ask some big questions about our systems of public education in America.

9. Jack Reacher (3) – This one snuck up on me. I’m not always on board with Tom Cruise, but this was really good.

10. Django Unchained (3.5) – This may be my favorite QT movie yet. It bounces between feel-good and hard-to-watch in such major swings that I felt like I was on a roller coaster. I’m not exactly sure what to do with how the movie deals with racism/slavery, but it’s certainly unique. Not for kids.

Worst Movies

1. Soul Surfer (2) – Every now and then I’ll watch one of these “christian movies.” I’m not sure why. Maybe I just want to prove to myself how bad they are. Craig T. Nelson was pretty good, but he’s only in the movie for 3 min. Cringe-worthy.

2. Act of Valor (2) – A movie featuring real special forces teams instead of actors seems like a good idea until you realize that the art of acting is largely what makes a movie good in the first place.

3. Wrath of the Titans (2) – This movie was boring. And the titan? Did they run out of money when they got around to building the CGI for that?

4. Contaigion (1) – Just like the movie skips over the whole grieving of the wife who died suddenly, you can skip over watching any of it.

5. Iron Man 2 (2) – I’ve seen this movie twice now which means it shouldn’t be on this list. I wanted to include it anyway, just because I like pointing out how bad it is (especially compared to the first).

6. Dark Shadows (2) – I think it’s time to separate Burton and Depp for a bit. They’ve gotten stale. Oh and “I’m a werewolf  at the end. That was a joke.

7. Nowhere Boy (1) – Sometimes you watch a movie simply because you like a girl and she wants to see it. Sometimes you fall asleep five times during that movie.

8. Ironclad (2) – It has some of the right ingredients but something bad happened when they mixed them all up.

9. Swingers (1) – The dialog is so annoying I had my thumb over the remote’s ‘stop’ button several times. Finished the movie out of principle, but it was difficult.

10. Rampart (1) – Despite the terrible reviews, I thought “no I’ll like this because I really like Woody Harrelson.” I didn’t like it. It’s what my buddy Eric would call a “godless movie.”

11. I’m Still Here (1) – This is a documentary. It’s Casey Affleck following Jaoquin Pheonix around with a camera. Unless you are doing research on how to be a loser, make terrible decisions, and alienate friends, you can safely skip. It’s painful to watch such a talented actor be so stupid.

Check out my 2012 movie lists for biggest surprises and biggest disappointments.