Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Monday, December 27, 2021

4k UHD Blu-Ray Review: Spectre

 



Spectre is the 24th James Bond movie and the fourth with Daniel Craig in the role of Bond. It begins in Mexico City where Bond, acting on a posthumous message from M (Judi Dench's version of the character), is trying to take down a terrorist plot. He discovers that the plot involves an organization called Spectre, led by Ernst Blofeld (played by Christoph Waltz), who has been responsible for many of the tragedies in Bond's life. I will not go too much more into the plot, but the movie has ties to the other Craig installments but mostly stands on its own. 

For those who get the 4K disc, the movie looks and sounds great in the UHD format. There are two discs, the UHD disc that just has the movie itself, and the regular Blu-Ray that has the extras. Those include a featurette on the opening sequence (which is the longest of the extras at 20 min) and then a series of video blogs, a photo gallery, and trailers for the movie. Not a ton, but what was included is good. 

Overall, the movie is good, but not great. I know Bond aficionados found it underwhelming, given that Blofeld was the "big bad" that ties all of the movies together, and found his reveal to be less than menacing. I am very much a casual fan of Bond, so the fact that Craig's movies departed from the way the other movies were set up was not a big deal to me, and thus the big reveal of the villain was not a let down for me. I would say that if you are generally a fan of the Craig films you will probably like this movie. If you have been lukewarm to them in general, then this movie is probably not going to convert you into a fan. 

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