I’ve been going to Las Vegas for over 25 years, so I’ve stayed in every type of casino Sin City has to offer, from the high end resorts to the $25 per night temporary motel rooms behind the old Stardust when they were renovating it years ago. No matter where you’re staying, Vegas has so much to offer that you’ll always have a blast. But my recent weekend in Vegas staying at the amazing Aria Resort & Casino was a very pleasant reminder that a first class weekend in a luxurious hotel makes all the debauchery Vegas has to offer that much more enjoyable. It’s also so much easier to nurse a hangover in a comfortable bed in a beautiful room where you can shut the curtains and get total darkness with the press of a button from your bed!
There are a lot of gadgets out in the marketplace these days fighting for your hard-earned dollars, and one of the latest to garner serious buzz is the Nike+ FuelBand, a fitness bracelet that tracks your daily activity using a three-axis accelerometer inside the device. Nike is doing its very best to build hype for the FuelBand by releasing it in limited quantities and therefore keeping demand high, but at a rather pricey $150, is it even worth it? I was given a FuelBand to test out for one week and arrived at the following conclusion: it’s complicated.
Nike has done a great job with the overall presentation of the FuelBand; it’s simple yet stylish, and although the band is a little more rigid than expected, it’s so lightweight that you’ll forget you’re even wearing it most of the time. (I actually went to sleep wearing mine every night). Additionally, the band is water resistant, so you can feel free to wear it in the shower or the rain without worrying about it short-circuiting on you. Of course, I wouldn’t have risked it if I had actually paid for mine, but Nike says it’s okay as long as you’re not completely submerging it in water, so hopefully that’ll put your mind at ease.
In addition to the bracelet itself (which can be purchased in three different sizes: small, medium and large), the FuelBand comes with two extension links (8mm and 16mm) to fine-tune your fit, a sizing tool that makes adding and removing them a breeze, and a USB charging stand for when it’s plugged into your computer. I was a little surprised at how long it took for the band to charge via the USB connecter (which also functions as the bracelet’s clasp), but the battery life is remarkably good, running on a single charge for the entire week despite Nike’s claim that it would only last for four days.
The FuelBand works in much the same way as other fitness bracelets or pedometers on the market – tracking the number of calories burned and steps taken – but what sets it apart is the concept of Nike Fuel, a points-based system that represents your level of activity for the day. You earn Fuel for just about anything you do (walking, running, pouring milk into a bowl of cereal, etc.) and can even set daily goals that the FuelBand tracks with a strip of colored lights located just below the main LED matrix. As you get closer to hitting your goal, the lights progress from red, to orange, to yellow, and finally to green, celebrating your achievement with Jumbotron-style flair. And if that wasn’t enough, the device also has a built-in watch function, which I found to be really useful.
The late, great Sam Kinison died 20 years ago today. Check out our profile of Sam Kinison that we published when we inducted him into our Stand-up Comics Hall of Fame.
Illustration by Brian Smith. Copyright 2009 Bullz-Eye.com, LLC. Click here for usage restrictions.
It’s another slow week for Blu-ray fans, with only two major titles being released, neither of which is worth more than a rental. Warner Bros.’ repackaging of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and the Werner Herzog documentary “Into the Abyss” are also hitting stores, but since I didn’t receive either of those for review, this week’s column is going to be brief.
“The Iron Lady”
Every bit the listless piece of Oscar bait that everyone expected it to be, “The Iron Lady” is essentially a made-for-TV movie with an award-worthy performance at the center. Yes, Meryl Streep is almost offensively talented as an actress, but she’s also been much better in a lot of other movies than she is here playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Though Streep absolutely nails her portrayal of the controversial politician (thanks in large part to some excellent make-up work), the movie itself is a rather cold and insipid biopic that isn’t nearly as interesting as it probably could have been in the hands of a more talented filmmaker. Jim Broadbent and Alexandra Roach (as Thatcher’s husband and younger self, respectively) deliver some good work in supporting roles, but this is clearly Streep’s show. It’s just a shame that her fantastic performance was wasted in such a mediocre movie, because if the actress was going to finally win another Oscar after so many years, it should have been for something much more memorable than this.
Blu-ray Highlight: Regrettably, there is none. All of the so-called “bonus featurettes” are less than three minutes long and recycle a lot of the same footage from “Making The Iron Lady,” which is more of just a standard rundown of the characters and actors that play them. It’s a bit baffling that some kind of makeup featurette wasn’t included seeing as how the film won an Oscar for it, because it surely would have been worth watching.
“The Darkest Hour”
When I previewed Chris Gorak’s sci-fi thriller back in December, I expressed my annoyance with the fact that it was being released in a month where it had virtually no chance of success. Of course, that was when I still thought the film had potential, but in hindsight, it’s easy to see why Summit showed so little confidence in the movie. Despite boasting a cool premise and a talented young cast (including Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby and Joel Kinnaman of “The Killling”), “The Darkest Hour” is B-movie material at best, marred by terrible performances, clichéd characters and a lack of excitement. The film’s only redeeming quality is the special effects, but Gorak relies on the image of the invisible aliens turning its victims to dust so often that you wonder if it’s the only card he has to play. Because when the aliens’ comically lame physical form is finally revealed, you’ll understand why they spent most of the movie hidden in stealth mode. Spoiler alert: it’s even worse than it sounds.
Blu-ray Highlight: Though fans will probably get a kick out of the short film “Survivor,” which explores the human resistance forming around the world, the “Visualizing an Invasion” featurette is an interesting look at designing the aliens, their unique POV shots and the cool “shred” effect that happens when you come into contact with them.
