I have been a BlackBerry user for the past 4 years and it has been the only smart phone brand I have owned. It all started with the original BlackBerry Bold 9000 in 2008 and the original BB Torch 9800 in 2010. Thus I guess I am an early adopter to their new form factors. I have been a BB user out of necessity as it is mandated by my work. There have been rumors that we were going to be allowed to use the iPhone soon so I have been holding out for a new phone even though my contract was up. My phone took a turn for the worst on Saturday so I was forced to get a new one. I was really torn. Should I go with the upgrade model of my current one (the Torch 9810) or go to a new form factor like the BB Bold 9900 or the Torch 9860? I wasn’t happy that the 9810 looked the same as the 9800 even though it had different insides. I guess I expected a change when buying something two years Iater as people expect things to improve. I immediately discounted the new Bold because of its width even though I liked my original Bold and the new touch capability would be cool. It is just not very pocket friendly. I instead leaned towards the 9860 because of its great feel, size, and it looked up to date with other phones on the market. Thus I took a plunge and went with a totally touch 9860 unit that did not have a qwerty keyboard.

A day later, I am not sure if I am going to keep this phone. For someone who actually wants to use their phone for messaging and emails, a touch screen just isn’t practical. Maybe I am old school but a qwerty keyboard is so much easier to type plus it’s more natural. If your main purpose for a phone (besides talking) is media and web browsing then a full touch is all you need. But when I travel, I rarely break out my PC and instead use my BB to answer all my emails. With this new phone, it would take 4 times as long and it is just awkward. So I have 4 weeks to make a switch. I will give it two more weeks until I make my final decision.

That brings me to another point. Why does everyone hate BlackBerry so much? Even the AT&T guy asked me why I wanted a BB. BB sure is in trouble if the company responsible for selling their product is recommending against it. At a recent Windows phone event, I had a discussion with a Microsoft product manager on why I loved BB. First the qwerty keyboard is the best in the market. Everyone is on this iPhone craze and has lost their way in my mind. A good keyboard makes it so much easier. I can type with great accuracy and speed with both hands on the keyboard without even looking at it. I just don’t see this happening on a touch device. The second is the track pad. In my opinion, every phone should have this. It is the perfect mouse like device for selecting things without zooming in. I remember reading BB users reviews on the Torch when it came out and they were questioning why the track pad was still there. I think they are crazy for not utilizing it. It is so easy to select something or go back in the middle of a sentence to make a correction. Also, with BlackBerry’s trade in program I am going to get money back to make the switch as the phone cost $100 but I am getting $160 in trade-in. I don’t understand why they would do that but I’m not going to complain about it.

That is my two cents. What do you think?

• I really need to head out to the new bars by my house on Washington Ave. Rosalita’s and Jive and Wail all recently opened. I am really impressed that Jive and Wail is offering free cover to all downtown residents that can show a 63103 or 63101 zip code on their ID. I think that is a great idea and all the places downtown should follow. I think that would lead more “locals” to hit up these kinds of areas and increase the sense of community.
• I also need to hit up the Whiz Tech Cafe which is on my street and a block away.  I am a little surprised by the location and the concept but the menu sure looks good.
• I am extremely happy to see work begin on the Leather Trades building across the street from my condo. You can read more about the redevelopment in the Stl Business Journal. This place was in the process of being built when I bought my place and was part of the Pyramid collapse. It will be very nice to bring more action to my block. The end goal would be to fill up all the buildings from my block to Pepper Lounge. It is a work in progress as that area continues to add more business and redevelops.
• I love that Charter is finally catching up to their competitors in their HD line up. I have experienced my issues with Charter in the past but they are doing really well in Customer Service in my eyes now.  They added 11 new HD channels yesterday and I have been told that they will add another 14 in March. MTV is awesome for Jersey Shore, VS is good for hockey, Nick is good too. I can not wait for E to come out in the future. It will pretty much wrap up all my tv watching in HD.

11 New HD Channels:
Versus HD (Expanded Basic): 731FX HD (Expanded Basic): 732Big Ten Network HD (Expanded Basic): 733Speed HD (Expanded Basic): 734Hallmark Channel HD (Digital View): 742Cooking Channel HD (Digital View Plus): 743VH1 HD (Expanded Basic): 744MTV HD (Expanded Basic): 746Spike HD (Expanded Basic): 747ABC Family HD (Expanded Basic): 748Nickelodeon HD (Expanded Basic): 749

14 HD channels in March 2011 (No firm date released yet):
ESPNU HD (Digital View/Sports View): 737Lifetime Movie Network HD (Expanded Basic): 738CNBC HD (Expanded Basic): 739MSNBC HD (Expanded Basic): 740Travel Channel HD (Expanded Basic): 741Disney XD HD (Expanded Basic): 750Cartoon Network HD (Expanded Basic): 717ESPN News HD (Sports View): 718TruTV HD (Expanded Basic): 724E! HD (Expanded Basic): 723CMT HD (Expanded Basic): 722Oxygen HD (Digital View): 721HLN HD (Expanded Basic): 720BIO HD (Digital View): 719

• Here is a great analysis on Blaine Gabbert. Finally, someone has watched all the tapes and realizes that this guy needs a lot of work. He might be the prototypical build for a NFL QB but he sure does need some work on pocket presence. I can really see him bombing if he is drafted as a franchise QB and thrown into a starting role in the 1st year or two.
• The Colorado upset of Missouri doesn’t seem to be that much of an upset anymore after Colorado beat K State in Manhattan last night. The Big 12 is just really strong and every road game is going to be tough.

That’s all I got. I was going to break up these posts based on Matt’s comments but I am too lazy so you will have to deal with it.

This weekend was pretty jammed pack full of all kinds of fun events. I was a little worried going into the weekend since both my girlfriend and I were both sick but I miraculously recovered by Friday.

I went to a friend’s 30^th bday part on Friday. The hype around the party was that we were going to have a pizza eating contest. This contest stemmed from a conversation over NYE about one of my friends who participated in an annual White Castle eating contest at his work. My friend ate 20 for the second year in a row and the winner ate 22. I thought that was very weak and said I could easily eat 20. Well somehow the contest we did turned into a Little Caesar’s Hot-n-Ready contest.  I really did not plan on participating. Needless to say I came very close to eating the whole pizza in the 12 minutes allowed to win the contest. I was half a slice away and came in second by only a couple bites.  I should have won it though as I thought I was far behind the winner. I also struggled because I had a huge lunch of Mexican, already had a couple beers (the guy that won had zero beers at that point), I had a fatty breakfast, plus my teeth were sore from my new braces. All I can say is that I probably ate at least 6000 calories that day. We ended the night at the Tin Can in Tower Groves.

I lounged around on Saturday and ran some errands. I still can not believe that Seattle beat the Saints. What a turn around in two weeks! We went to Café Eau on Saturday night for a 30^th bday party. I was pretty amazed by the turnout. The place was packed. They had a band who I think was called King Pin. It was awesome because it was basically a live version of PaddyO’s after a Cards game. They played all the classic 80’s and 90’s songs while also playing some of the new hits. Becki and I will definitely be going back.

We did not do much on Sunday. We watched some football games and my girlfriend got the new Evo Shift 4G. The jury is still out but I was sort of expecting more out of the Android operating system (especially since this is a recently released version (2.2 Froyo). It was my first time using Android and I was not overly impressed. I liked some of the live interaction but everything seemed a little too complicated. I keep seeing that Android’s market share keeps going up thus why I was expecting a totally unique UI. It gives me new found respect for my Blackberry OS 6 UI as I think it is simple to use while delivering all my needs.  I also watched the season premier of Californication and the series premier of Episodes. Californication was awesome and I am glad it is back. Episodes was sort of boring but I will give it a couple more chances. I saved Shameless for later in the week but I liked the early season premier episode last month. I can not wait for the start of Big Love’s final season next week!

Oh, I forgot to mention that this was the first week of having Invisalign braces. As I may have posted before, I have been toying with the idea for over a year but could not bear to spend that much money since it is not covered by my insurance. I found out about the pretax flex plan which saved me money since the money is taken out before taxes so I took the plunge. Overall my experience has been good. I do get a little choked up every once in a while but I was expecting a lot worse since I have a pretty sensitive mouth. My teeth are a little sore but I really only notice it when I take my retainers in and out to eat. The main thing that I did not realize until I got them was that my diet is going to totally change. My short addiction to soda will probably die and also my snacking since I can basically only drink water when I have them in and have to brush my teeth before I put them back in. Needless to say it is going to be a long 10 months but it will be worth the pain.

One of the things I love about Christmas is the extended time off for work. My work gives us two days each for Christmas and New Years and most of our supplier take the week off between Christmas and NY so its a big week to also take off. I normally take off the week before Christmas to have a huge break but was limited in vacation days due to the Australia trip. Thus, I only had 12 days off.

I may have wrote and said that Becki and I were going to tackle some big home improvement projects like painting base boards and refinishing her hard wood floors on her second floor but none of that happened.  Instead we relaxed and went to a lot of holiday parties with family and friends. Below is a summary of a little bit of everything.

Kinect

We got a Kinect for Christmas. We bought Kinect Sports and Kinect Dance Central in addition to getting Kinect Adventures with the device.  First off, you will find that most people do not know what a Kinect is so Microsoft is not doing something right. I know they are running a bunch of adds but they seem to not be sticking. Maybe it is the weird name. The Kinect is pretty awesome and everyone that has played it with us thinks the same. Dance Central is hard for Becki and I so we do not play it but others find it easier and fun. We love Kinect Adventures. The rafting and the 3 other adventure games are pretty fun but I can see the game getting old. The sports game is a lot of fun. It really mimics the actual sport in many ways. My favorite is volleyball and track and field. I am pretty sure you could play a game on this for an hour a day and would be a great work out. We were sore the whole first week we played. You always work up a good sweat when playing.

Sporting Events

The MU – Il basketball game was very entertaining. I do think that the IL foul was intentional but it was a tough call at the end of a close  game. The IL player should have never fouled in the first place anyway. If he wouldn’t have fouled they would have been down 3 with the ball and a lot of time.

The MU – Iowa game was very disappointing. I was expecting a slaughter knowing that Iowa did not finish good and was missing several star players. Maybe MU thought the same and did not bring their A game. Maybe MU does not get pumped up for bad bowl games when they deserve much better (the same thing happened last season). I blame a lot of it on Gabbert. He threw two costly interceptions. I find it lubricious that he is projected to be the #2 QB in the NFL draft and a possible top 5 or 10 pick. He might have the build and skills of a prototypical NFL QB but he has shown all season that he can not make it as a star even in college. I wanted him benched earlier in the season.  This must be a horrible draft year for QBs after the great year last year. I would hate to be the team that drafts Gabbert wanting to build a franchise around him.

The Rams are depressing….that is all I can say. You could say that they did much better than last year but I am not going to give them that cop out. They were in the position to win the division and choked. They had a weak schedule and could easily only win a couple games next year due to a harder schedule. I think three things need to happen. Get rid of the Offensive Coordinator. He is not getting it done in my eyes. He calls all the wrong plays at the wrong time. The second is to draft a WR in the first round. The third is to sign a big name WR. We can not wait for a rookie to pan out while Bradford is at the top of his game. Get in done Kronke!

Becki and I were fortunate to get front row tickets to a Blues game. It was awesome being on the ice but definitely not worth the $250 face value of the tickets. The tickets were all inclusive so that included food and drinks two hours before the game until 30 minutes after the game. There was only one place to get the drinks and food but fortunately it was in our section. I also caught two pucks but gave them both to kids sitting around me.

Family

I think I went to 5 different Christmas parties with both mine and Becki’s families. All were fun and I ate a ton of food. Its always nice catching up with family. It is weird because I think I get the majority of my family time visits in over a 40 day period between Thanksgiving and New Years.

New Year Eve

We went to Mango for a group dinner for NYE.  On a sort of different subject, Mango’s website was just blocked by my work’s internet filter because it said it was porn…pretty weird. We had 5 other couples. Overall, I would say the group was disappointed. The person that made the reservation specifically asked if there would be a special menu for NYE in which she was told no. Of course there was when we got there.  Thus everyone spent a little more than they wanted to but that wasn’t my problem. My problem was that the place was not full but it still took like 3 hours to get through our dinner. I thought that is why restaurants have special menus to avoid this. I enjoyed my food although I thought the portions sucked. Most of the people I talked to were not impressed or didn’t like it at all.  Thus after a bad group experience in Vegas and two years in a row of quasi service for NYE, Becki and I decided we are going to avoid group dinners and NYE dinners. It’s as simple as that! The party that Becki and I hosted was pretty awesome. We had a small gathering and basically just played Kinect all night. I was impressed as some of my friends stayed up till 3:30 in the morning and with their impressive jumping skills.

I went out with my lovely girlfriend on Friday night for our 1 year anniversary since our first date.  We went to Vin de Set which is where we went on our first date. We ate a ton of food (our bill supplemented this). We started with a mix cheese plate, then I had a three onion soup, then we both got the beef tenderloin medallions. The main entrée was awesome. It has great mashed potatoes, asparagus and the steak was so tender.  We got a cheesecake to go which we ate on Saturday which was extremely delicious.

I had most of the day Saturday to myself since Becki was hosting her sister’s baby shower.  I caught up on Dexter and all but one episode of Fringe. Fringe was very good and I had not watched a single episode yet this season. I really like the mystery in the show. I also like the crazy technology that is shown in the parallel universe. I also watched the MU Tigers basketball and football games. The basketball team has a ton of talent. Right now, they look a little lost since they have so many scorers. Hopefully they will gel and have a great season. The football game was pretty good too. Blaine had his best game throwing in a long time (in my opinion) but they still are not very consistent. They seem to forget about the crossing patterns and short throws up the middle in which they rock at. Becki and I closed out the night watching Iron Man 2. It was a pretty good flick.

We did some shopping on Sunday. I looked at the TV that I am toying with getting. Its going to be $1500 on Black Friday. I didn’t think I was sold on the LED technology but I will now only buy one with it. Best Buy had the same two 55″ platforms next to each other (one with LED and the other just a regular LCD).  The LED LCD was so much more vibrant. I also got the Kinect but its a Christmas present so I wont get till open it for another month. I watched the Rams game too. They look pretty good but couldn’t stop Atlanta. I also have no clue who that shuttle pass was going to at the end of the game.  On the tv front, I watched the season premier of The Event and Sarah Palin’s show. The Event was pretty good and I think my girlfriend liked it too so going to play catch up if I can find a place to watch the 2nd episode since I lost it in my DVR issues a couple months ago. The Palin show is good too. It makes me want to go to Canada.

I had been using a 1st Generation BlackBerry Bold aka the 9000 which was my first ever Blackberry or smart phone for about 18 months. I bought it within a month of coming out so it was pretty old.  I loved the phone but hated the battery life and memory issues. I have to use a BB for work so was stuck with it as I saw all kinds of new phones come out in the last two years. My contract was expiring and my trackball pretty much quit working so I had to make a decision. Either buy the new Torch or replace my phone under warranty and wait for the next generation of the Bold (i.e. the 9780) to come out.  I was really hesitant to buy the Torch. I read Engadget’s review and many others. All seemed to bash the phone when compared to Google and Apple phones but thought it was the best Blackberry yet. Most of the reasons for bashing were that it was not on the 1Ghz processor bandwagon and it did not have a 480 x 800 display. I also was unsure if I really needed touch. I love the speed I have with my current Bold and its form factor. I just wasn’t happy with its performance. I decided to get the Torch with the understanding that I had 30 days to return it if I did not like it.

Initial Thoughts

1. The unit seems much bigger and bulkier than my Bold even though the size difference is negligible. Maybe it is because of the protective case. I feel like I am going to drop it all the time.
2. Switching to the mini USB charger was a pain. I know the previous Bold had this too and this is basically the standard but sort of sucks when I have a charger for travel, work, home and car thus I had to buy them again. The unit also does not have a dock which sucks. Maybe one is in the works.
3. Not sure if I like touch screens. I use the trackpad a lot to maneuver.

Using it after two months

1. I still rarely use the touchscreen. Basically only for scrolling. Why would I type using the touch screen when I have a keyboard that rocks. Also, apps like Facebook have tiny buttons which my fat fingers do not like so I use the trackpad to select.
2. I am not sure why all the installed apps do not show under the all menu. I am forced to use WeatherBug because WeatherEye doesn’t show up in the main screen. Weatherbug doesn’t seem to be developed for the Torch in my opinion. It seems very cheap.

What I like better over the Bold 9000

1. Much better battery life. I can go over a day and a half without charging and heavy usage. I went about a half day on my Bold.
2. I love the track pad. I read some reviews that asked why this was even on a touch screen. I know why….because it is easier to use. I pretty much use the 9 times out of 10 over the touch in selecting things.

What I miss with the Bold

1. The keys are not as spread out. I do not mind this but the slider actually gets in the way of pressing some of the top keys. Especially when having to use the shift key to press the numbers.
2. Typing a name in the keyboard does not automatically bring up the address book. I looked through all the settings and I can not find a way to set this. I did find a way to make the middle phone entry screen come up every time when I hit the phone button. So I basically have one more step. I hit the phone button then can either select recent numbers or start typing a name to bring up my address book.

update: I wrote a good majority of this post the first week I got the phone and never posted it. Blackberry has now made two updates to the software. I jumped the gun and downloaded the update from Rogers since ATT didn’t post the first update so wasn’t sure if they were going to post the 2nd. Needless to say ATT posted it the next day.

The update which is OS 6.0.0.246 is said to improve phone quality, fix wifi issues, improve touch functionality, and some other things. It is going good now and the phone does seem a little more responsive. I was having issues with my icon layouts at first. It did not save my desktop layout and kept changing it once I left the all screen. It seems to fix itself now.

I have also dropped my phone several time and have even accidentally slammed it into a table so I am glad I went with the hard shell case. A couple of the guys at work have the new sleeve for it which I might consider if a dock does come out for the unit. I am getting use to the largeness of the phone but it does look more sexy without the protective case.

I also took a ton of screenshots the ScreenShot app but I don’t have the time to add them to this post. Maybe I will add them to an updated post later on.

• I am really torn about getting a new Blackberry. The Torch obviously has to be better than my first generation Blackberry Bold 9000 but the idea that it is not on the 1 GHz processor level and updated screen is not very appealing for a phone that I will probably have for another 2 years. I might hold out to see if Blackberry makes any new releases for the Bold.
• I think I am at the point where I am going to buy a media server. I want to be able to play music on my home theater system from my PC. Know of any good ones? I am tired of listening to my PC two rooms away when having parties.
• I have another weekend of being out of town. I am really looking forward to hanging out with the Wash U crowd for Ann’s wedding but also really want to sleep in since I am recovering from a sinus infection. Unfortunately that is not possible.
• I do not know what to think of the Cardinals. They seem to make a lot of costly errors, their hitters are not dependable (besides Pujols and Holliday), and the relief pitching is very shaky. I do not think we can rely on Wainright and Carpenter carrying us in the playoffs (if we even make it there).
• This summer’s cable show TV lineup has been pretty good. True Blood has been pretty awesome. They really made this year interesting although it is a little more disturbing than past years. Entourage has also been good. Throwing as many celebrities as they can in an episode seems to work. I am also interested in seeing the storyline for Weeds this series. Looks like they are moving again based on the Series opener.
• Lost Season 6 comes out next Tuesday. It is supposed to have a lot of extra scenes for the last episode. I’ve already moved Disc 5 to the top of my Netflix queue.
• Am I going to buy Halo Reach and Civilization 5 in September? I have not been playing games at all since coming back from Chile but I know I am getting Civ 5 and will be playing it a ton. I will only buy Reach if a bunch of my friends do so I can play them online.

• I have not played video games since I came back from Chile almost two months ago. Pretty odd considering I was addicted before I left.
• I can not get on top of my DVR situation.  I have my DVR 75% full which is about 900 GB. I have complete seasons of Chuck, Dollhouse, Tudors, Flash Forward, V, and probably others. I have over 5 episodes each of Simpsons, Parks and Recreations, The Middle, American Dad, America – The Story of Us, and many others.
• I do not know what to think about this shift from the Big 12. I thought it was a money issue but I read last week that MU has gotten around $22 million a year in the Big 12 revenue sharing program where the Big 10 programs get 20 million. Doesn’t make sense. It sounds like the whole league could fold if MU and Nebraska leave which is eerie. I read a stupid article yesterday that said KU and K State would be out to dry. Both are major sports programs so I am sure they will have no problem finding their way into a strong conference.
• I love that I somehow got new HD channels with Charter. I believe 6 in total. Comedy Central is huge and the Disney channel is not bad. Bravo is also a big one even though I do not watch any shows from there. My girl friend can now watch Drop Dead Diva in HD on Lifetime now too.
• I had a brief stroll down Wash Ave last night and saw a lot of development started back up again. The market that was started before Culinaria opened looked to be going again and almost finished. There is also a convenient store next to Lucas Park being built. Copia looks to open any day and the Vodka bar next door to Copia is open.
• The Lakers Celtics series is pretty good but I think the referees are deterring from the game. There has been a lot of missed calls in terms of fouls….more than normal on both sides. It seems life refs automatically call a foul if the player falls down but don’t call one when players get whacked in arm. The 2  minute replay review needs to be looked at because the Odom-Rondo reversal was ridiculous. Rondo fouled Odom (and it was easy to see) on a rebound that made Odom knock the ball out of bounds. The refs originally called it Lakers ball and reversed. Obviously he would not have knocked it out of bounds if Rondo would not have knocked is right hand off the ball.
• Looking forward to Vegas. More and more people keep signing up plus I can’t wait to hang out with friends I have partied with in a while.

I had been thinking of building a new PC for a while now. I built my P4 over 4 years ago from back in my Circuit City days. It was getting super loud; especially the graphics card fan. It was also super slow. I installed Windows 7 RC1 a while back and was running good but it degraded pretty bad over 7 months. My RC1 trial was set to expire so I need to install my pre-ordered copy of Windows 7 but wanted to do it on a fresh hard drive. I kept reading about how awesome TRIM and SSDs were so I decided to get one. I also got a new graphics card since mine was so loud. I was a little scared at the time since I knew there was a possibility that it wouldn’t work in my motherboard.

I bought the below items from New Egg on the first run.

1. SAPPHIRE 100284L Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
2. Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV425-S2BD/64GB

I installed both but ran into issue. Everything would boot but I couldn’t get the screen to show anything. I played around with it for a while then went to my basketball game. I came back and played with it some more to find that now it wouldn’t even boot. The only thing that it would do was light the motherboard power light. After numerous hours and not getting one bios error beep I bought a new powersupply below.

1. CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W

I got the unit and still no change. I removed all the components and still didn’t get any bios beep errors so I knew it has to be the motherboard. I priced out a system on Newegg then went to MicroCenter to compare. I was in a rush and wanted to be done with this system so I paid the extra price for MicroCenter even though both Newegg shipments I received the next day after ordering since they shipped from Nashville.

I ordered the following

1. Intel i3-530
2. GigaByte P55A-UD3
3. Corsair XMS3 2 x 2GB

These items did the trick. The install in my existing case took a couple hours. I got hung up on the 4 x4 PS connection because there wasn’t one. The box showed a picture on it and the instructions said that there was a converter cable to convert to a 4×2 if you had an older motherboard. Well they lied and instead had two 4×2 connectors which I just plugged both in right next to each other.

I was hoping to take a Window 7 experience test on my old PC and compare it with the SSD drive to see the difference but didn’t happen since I couldn’t get it running. I can see that it jumped big on my new install but the new processor and board could have something to do with that. Needless to say, above is my before and below is my after. I am a little disappointed with the SSD score. As you can tell, its not that much in difference compared to my previous setup. I also can not figure out how to “overclock” my memory. It is hows as a 1300 even though it is a 1600. I looked at the bios and everything was maxed out. I will need to do some further reading.

Overall I am extremely happy with my purchase even though I didn’t want to spend this much on it since I rarely use the machine. Plus its basically only a web surfing machine since I do all my gaming though the Xbox.  I love its speed of use and boot time.

Wow, what a fun weekend. Mardi Gras is one of my most favorite weekends in St Louis. It is #1 when it is warm but we have not seen that in several years. I also missed out last year due to my senior capstone class at Wash U so I felt like I needed to make up for lost time. I headed out to my friend’s now annual party which has unlimited alcohol (or at least we thought), heated tent, and multiple port-a-potties. It was a a fun time. I was surprised that we did not walk around as much but it was pretty cold. It was also a first that I did not go to a bar but that is because we were having that good of a time. It was also the first time I woke up without a hangover afterwards…lol. Here is the limited pictures from the weekend.

Friday and Sunday were both laid back days. Got some good Vday time in with the girlfriend along with some DVR, COD, and movie watching. Two things: (1) I am getting better and better at COD (up to a level 21). Especially since I gave up on the sniper rifle. My kill to death ration is almost always positive now. (2) I watched District 9 on Sunday. The first 25 minutes was so bad that we turned it off but I gave it a second chance since it was recommended and up for awards. I turned it off right as it was getting good. The weird thing about it is that the movie had a totally different look and feel the first 30 mins compared to the last hour. It was almost like it was directed by two different people. The last hour was very good and I would recommend it. It had a good plot which I did not see coming.