Schlitterbahn is Sweet

I'm back at last to the pleasure of some and the disdain of others I'm sure. I had so much fun this weekend that it didn't even bother me to skip a day of blogging. I drove both ways to San Antonio (where we stayed with an Aunt's family) in my mom's Santa Fe by the way and it was an interesting experience to drive for so long continuously in a car with no pick-up. Flooring that vehicle makes no difference. Oh, I also got a new phone finally so I can actually see who's calling me. Moving on though, we only got about 5 or 6 hours of sleep Friday because we had to drive to New Braunfels in the morning and in all there were 10 of us. I'd actually forgotten how fun Schlitterbahn is and it even costs less than Astroworld! We started out with some tube rides as a tradition (Whitewater, Cliffhanger, Hillside), and then jumped in the jacuzzi area before lunch because the water was extremely cold. It has been colder in the past, but it didn't help that the sun was hiding out behind some clouds. I think we had more fun at the other park though (it's divided into three parks, the other one I'm referring to is really two of them side-by-side) with Wolfpack, the wave pool, Black Knight, and Dragon Blaster. I think we had the most fun riding the waves in the wave pool, but we learned a lot of great ways to pass time while waiting in line. You can play hot plates (hold each others hands like ovens and one person tries to slap each other), "rock, papers, scissors" with slaps, slapping each other's bare skin to start sneaky battles in which you end up pretty red, and elementary school style hand games. This parargaph was pretty useless but I felt that I should explain my "summer vacation". I took some pictures of my totally awesome car today, but my brother has to send them to me so it may be a while before they're up here.

I'm going to start out the nerd news with what I thought was the biggest thing: strong speculation that Apple may team up with Google to somehow offer iTunes in an even bigger way. With the risks Apple has been taking recently I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was true and it would be a nice experiment. There's an even more solid rumor of Google buying a company that is predicated upon an instant messenger, which would be a logical move for them. What is confirmed though is that Google has put its Google Print project on hold for now in order to give publishers time to decide if they want to participate. It could either reduce or increase (by featuring it as a Google search result) sales of their books, but I'm inclined to think more of the latter. TiVo is testing out a service to offer IFC shows for download to the set-top boxes, and it's good to see a change in the works. I think if shows like 24 were available for download when missed they'd attract a larger audience. If you have videos of your own that you want to show then you should look into YouTube. Lastly, there's a pretty interesting, but long, article over here about the future of advertising and I can't help but think of Minority Report.

The winner of the box office battle this weekend was Four Brothers at a weak $20.7 million followed by another opener, The Skeleton Key, at just a few million behind. This is, yet again, another very weak weekend for movies but hopefully The 40-Year-Old Virgin will bring the box office back to life. There's a good amount of multimedia yet again. The best is this clip from Extra showing footage from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which hopefully means that a trailer is on the way. It looks like they're farther along than most people think. Blue Tights Adventure put up another great entry in the movie's video journal featuring the achievements of the art department and it's amazing how much nitty-gritty stuff they get done. Yahoo! Movies put up a trailer for Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, and I don't think much of it but I thought I'd furnish the link for you to make your own opinion of it. IGN put up a bleep-ridden clip from The Aristocrats that made me realize how many great comedians are a part of this movie. There's a weak rumor that Haley Joel Osment will play a young Indiana Jones in a supposed series of movies following the fourth adventure, but it sounds pretty doubtful as I don't think Osment fits the right image. Lastly, Matt Damon told IGN that the Project Greenlight movie Feast will likely be released in December while the show will likely be cancelled unless they win the Emmy they're nominated for. I think the show is great but I've admittedly not been keeping up with it.

I want to really quickly mention two more things. A study in the UK found that parents generally disregard mature ratings on video games, and I think that's pretty accurate. It seems like they just don't care anymore. The other thing is actually quite more significant: the return of the 30-year bond after a four year break. We stopped making them because we didn't need the money, but I suspect that the war debt pushed the Treasury to print them and I'm interested to see what will happen with them.

Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Idiot::Dumbass
   
2. Rocket::Power
   
3. Liability::Car insurance
   
4. Harmless::Benign
   
5. Stringy::Cheese
   
6. Theater::Thespian
   
7. Gwyneth::Paltrow (duh)
   
8. Use it or lose it::Sayings
   
9. Sonic::the Hedgehog
   
10. Pucker::Pluckers Wing Factory