Last night I saw the new Incredible Hulk movie and a few weeks ago I saw Iron Man. With movies based on comic books I am always a bit skeptical considering that the comics were able to avoid any constraints imposed by concepts of reality. When these stories are ported to feature films the public is now watching them, and don't have the same context or even imagination that one would have after spending time in the comic book world. Having said that, I would like to thank Marvel for making my two favorite movies so far this year.

From what I've heard, the goal here is to maintain a cohesive world for all the characters in order to make possible an Avengers Movie in 2010. However in the mean time we will have the pleasure of watching Thor and Captain America to complete the squad.

Iron Man
As a geek, one of the deep desires you hold dear is the wish to transform yourself into a super hero. For as long as I can remember I have found super heroes absolutely fascinating and spent the better part of my child hood in costume. Iron Man brought all that back because he is a 'guy', a brilliant and rich guy but none the less he hasn't been infected or exposed to substances not of this world to obtain his abilities. This film is funny and action packed, Jeff Bridges makes a fantastic villain. I did remain hopeful that he would consume a white russian at some point in the film but I do acknowledge that Scotch was a much better fit for the scene.

Tony Stark is a character that you find yourself irritated by, jealous of, but somehow can't help yourself from cheering for him. Marvel set up all of the important pieces for more films including a set of really pissed off Middle Eastern villains, War Machine, and the after credits visit from the leader of the Avengers. I would recommend this film to anyone that likes a serious ride, feel free to bring a little Scotch and join the party.

Incredible Hulk
I must admit that I do like Eric Bana, and as a Bruce Banner he was pretty believable. Unfortunately the CGI and special effects really let him down in Sony's disappointing stab at the epic green creature. My favorite part about the new Incredible Hulk is that they gave me all the bone crunching, power, fury and out right ass kicking that I wanted to see in the first Hulk but never got. Edward Norton was a very good Bruce Banner and I thought Liv Tyler did an adequate job (she could have looked and acted a bit more professorish) but as a hopeless lost love she was very effective. The villain evolved slower in this version and was much more believable.

My only criticism was that at a few points in the movie it felt a little king kongish with the big monster and his soft spot for the girl -- but fortunately they kept it to a minimum and slipped it in between shots of the hulk literally ripping the US military a new one.

I liked the setup of the future villain of "Mr. Blue", I wonder what kind of brainiac evil mastermind he is going to make. Thumbs up for never having to watch the Hulk jumping for thousands of miles -- since we already got enough of that in the last movie we can just assume thats how he got in the middle of the Jungle on foot in less than 24 hours.

A final note on the Hulk is that I was very pleased to see that each time the Hulk had a major night of fighting Ed Norton woke up with a pretty serious hangover. What else can be expected from pouring gallons of acid directly into his brain! I'm looking forward to the extended version on DVD.

Side Note
Indian Jones was the biggest disappointment since the new Ninja Turtles. Spielberg/Lucas: WTF MAN.

Somewhere in-between all the moving and certifying of releases and massive overhauls of Windmill I did get some time to sit down and smoke a couple stogies. My new bedroom has a small deck off it where I can go for a midnight smoked and a glass of water to wind down from the crazy events that have been happening.

This week I had the pleasure of trying two cigars that have been sitting in my humidor since Junes cigarBQ and I finally had a chance to give them a try.

The first is the Graycliff Crystal. This cigar has a great reputation, goes for 20+ dollars a stick. I found it to be medium to moderate in terms of strength, with a very nice draw and nice thick silky smoke. The after taste was almost non existent which is a big plus in my book, because one of the first things that sours me about a cigar is unpleasant after taste. The taste was very clean and enjoyable. The burn was amazingly even. This cigar took me close an an hour and a half to smoke, and the only thing that I found faulty about it was it's inability to maintain a good burn. If I put the cigar down to go in the house to refill my glass of water, when I returned it was getting close to needing to be re-lit. Which we all know is a big no no, requiring me to take a couple pretty big puffs to get things moving again. The makeup of the full flavors include an Ecuadorian sun grown wrapper and a blend of Nicaraguan, Dominican and Brazilian tobaccos with the addition of a Grecian leaf. This makes for a very unique taste and I would recommend everyone try this cigar if they can afford it, and they have a nice chunk of time to sit down and enjoy it.

You can go get more information at their web site: http://graycliffcigars.com/

Secondly I had a chance to sit down with the Davidoff No. 2 which are highly rated and recommended by anyone who has had an opportunity to give them a try. This is a great cigar on the more mild side. Recently really super strong cigars have been having a bit more of an unpleasant effect on me, but this one was fantastic and left me without a single complaint. I have to concur with most of the other reviews out there by saying that it had a slight coffee flavor, again with very little after taste. The word "silky" again is really the only description that continually crops into my mind. The smoke is absolutely perfect, the way I like it. Nice, thick and solid but able to roll off your tongue and linger a bit, but without overpowering you. These cigars are very high quality and in most circles are identified as celebration cigars as you don't want to go out and spend $17 dollars on a cigar on a regular basis. These cigars are all hand rolled in the dominican republic, and you can taste it.

For more information head over to their web site: http://www.davidoff.com/davidoff/

In a heads up between the two, since recently I have been much more into the lighter side of cigars I would have to say that the Davidoff is my pick. However these are both fantastic high end cigars and neither of them will leave you with a reason to complain.

I will be the first to admit my inability to keep my hands off new devices, but with this one I really tried. In fact I was trying so hard, that I convinced other people to stay away from the iPhone as well. My list of personal requirements for a phone device were met by my HTC 8525, and I did everything in my power to keep from succumbing to the temptation. In one way though, that is what will make this revisited review actually valuable. I haven't forgotten all of the reasons that my initial reactions to the iPhone kept me away from it, and I am prepared to address them all.

First off as an initial justification, my family and friends expect me to buy, try and give real feedback on all the new technology that comes out. I have been an early adopter for as long as I could find a way to afford it, and that will probably continue until I can no longer afford it! Secondly, in the two weeks previous to my purchase of the iPhone I had been having problems with my HTC 8525. The most irritating of these problems was a glitch in the Windows Mobile phone application that would notify me that a call was coming in, and when I hit the answer button -- the phone would promptly decline the call and turn the screen off. It could be that I had tweaked the phone one too many times, but reinstalling Windows Mobile for the 4th time just really wasn't something I could bring myself to stomach, so I just "lived" with the excruciating unresponsiveness of the UI. The other thing was that anytime I had a long day, I found myself with a phone with a dead battery or very nearly dead battery. This becomes a problem when you are in Portland for a conference, it's 10:00PM at night and you can't find any of the people you are supposed to be with. One cannot always be running back to the hotel room after 7 hours away from a charger.

I came to the conclusion that since it is so important for a phone to be reliably usable, I had a decision to make. Do I downgrade to standard cell phone, no bells or whistles, remove my data plan and stick with something that I know will stay charged and allow me to call people when I need to, or get the iPhone and live with the fact that some of the fringe techie features I personally want as a geek just aren't there yet. Of course with my early adopter geek inclination I went and started reading. I know the waves of the geeks out there, and it had been long enough since the launch that I was able to find scripts to hack the iPhone allowing the installation of native shell programs, customization of the interface, and laptop tethering (I'll get to that later). Of course you can guess what I did, and surprisingly my monthly bill is actually cheaper now that Apple forced AT&T to make it sort of reasonable for the average consumer.

I bought the phone on a Thursday, and to demonstrate my self control and ability step back from my Apple Fan Boyism I didn't even take the plastic off the box until Sunday, and didn't actually active or use the phone until Monday morning. Now for me, this was extremely hard. The hardest part is letting yourself go into the store and purchase the thing, but holding out on actually using it is pretty much unheard of (A good example of this is my last blog entry on the Nintendo Wii). But the point is that starting Wednesday night I knew that I was probably going to falter and get the iPhone so I started a tally of how many times I found myself extremely irritated by a problem with my current phone situation. The best comparison I can come up with here is that before I bought my Powerbook G4 I was using an IBM Thinkpad running Windows and I started a reboot tally that grew over a few months into the 100's. I currently use a Mac Book Pro as my primary machine, and will not switch back to the Windows environment, ever. Here are my results for 6 days of Windows Mobile: 11 Reboots (6 freezes), 8 calls it declined when I hit answer, ran out of battery before I got home 4 days. I haven't ran out of battery once with the iPhone and it has been REALLY nice. In-fact i've gone two days without even plugging it in, how about them Apples (pun?).

Now I know the ability to idle seems really important to all you geeks out there, but I bring up a more important question. Should we really be idling ALL DAY LONG? I'm the first to admit that I like the idea of being connected to IRC and AIM 24 hours a day no matter where I am and what I'm doing, but I don't think for my mental health that I should be doing that. Honestly at this point, and instant message can wait till I get home, and I really don't need that temptation of trying to IRC while I drive. On the iPhone, anyone can email you at any time, and your iPhone will tell you and you can pull it out and look at it -- isn't that dangerous enough? I get facebook messages, txts and email's all day long everywhere I go.. and it has been working out pretty well. I don't even miss getting PM'ed on IRC while I'm at whole foods getting groceries.

Tethering, tethering, tethering. Okay yes, it would be REALLY nice if this was a supported and built in feature. But when it really comes down to it my beef here is that if I am not anywhere near an Internet connection, and I need to get my laptop online to take care of something urgent for work.. well that won't stop me from doing it: http://www.hackszine.com/blog/archive/2 ... _wire.html It's doable with an iPhone, this solution is not elegant, nice or even easy to setup.. but it does work and that's enough for me.

My other huge complaint - 3G. Edge is slow, not too slow to look at a couple web pages on the BART, or pull down email, but yes it is slow. This actually did become MORE of an issue after I bought this phone, one speculation is that the first people to buy the iPhone were geeks.. and were so focused on the Internet Communicator functionality that they forgot to heavily test the phone functionality to discover this issue. According to AT&T http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=740 there are two edge networks NOM1 and NOM2, on NOM2 you cannot receive phone calls while you use edge data (I check regularly following the directions in that link and have never found myself on a NOM1 network). I know that this isn't a problem with 3G because I regularly talked to people on the phone (speaker or headphones) while using Google Maps, or using the awkward mail interface to download and read email. This does still annoy me a bit, because I do use a lot of the data functionality and don't like the idea that I won't even KNOW I missed a call if they didn't leave a message, but I guess at this point I'm saying -- If it's real important, they will leave a message.. and if I was on Windows Mobile I wouldn't have been able to answer the call anyways! However, this doesn't completely cripple the phone, because the WIFI functionality is really well done on the iPhone and I travel from home, to work, to friends regularly and as I have gone to each and joined those wireless networks the iPhone will now automatically do that when it sees the network available. The order of operations for receiving data on the iPhone tries to use a wireless network before it will use edge keeping your phone available for incoming calls. Just remember that if you are traveling away from WIFI that while your pages and email are downloading, that call won't come through. But after some extensive testing I have discovered that if that browser bar is blue and loading the call goes the voicemail, but the second it's done loading then calls are again free to come through.

The recent iPhone update made some serious fixes that I really appreciate. Including the mail applications ability to pull down all my IMAP folders and show them correctly, including all their subsequent folders and messages. One other big comparison/complaint I had with the WIndows Mobile mail application was that I never actually got it to send emails. I spent hours over the time I had the phone and could never get it to send an email, and I think the easy entrance to using this device at least for a mac user has been seriously overlooked in the reviews. I activated the iPhone on a Monday morning around 8:30AM, and within 10 minutes all of the things I care about had been synced from my Mac Book onto the phone. I left for work at 9:00AM and for the rest of the day didn't find myself lacking one piece of data that I wished I had from my old phone. After the hours and hours I spent with Microsoft Active Sync crashing and strangely disconnecting for no reason half way through my contact sync, this was absolutely mind blowing.

I own an iPod with 50 gigs of music on it, and I usually leave it in my car glove box connected to the stereo and pretty regularly find myself on a plane, or on the bart, or waiting at the dentists office wishing I had remembered to bring it with me. But really, I don't need 60 gigs of music, I go on binges where I listen to a few of the same CD's over and over again, and always want a few playlist of my all time favorites. No matter where I go I never forget my phone because its an integral piece of my life, and now I never leave home without my iPod either.

One more mentionable is that I have owned 3 pairs of Apple head phones, and all of them were crap. All three started buzzing in my ear and had to be thrown away after a period of a few weeks. The headphones that come with the iPhone are MUCH higher quality, and much more durable and I am now using them to listen to music via my laptop during the day while I work. I went with the 4GB iPhone model, because I have a 60 gig iPod that I can bring with me if I really need to listen to more music than that, but at this point I have all my favorite music on there and still have 2 gigs left for pictures, email and whatever else I can stuff on the little device.

At this point I am still stunned by the super high resolution screen, and the ability to really browse the web almost as useably as you can on a full size screen, without crippled pages, special mobile pages or reliably crashing the browsers such as MiniMo or Opera Mobile. Ideas and comments are continually flowing through my head during the day as one feature after another responds the way I expect making the iPhone that much easier to use with a UI built for heuristic perfection.

A few weeks ago my friend and OSAF summer intern Jacob Robinson discovered a Nintendo Wii in a hot tub display at Costco in Concord CA. I have been mentioning my interest in acquiring one over the past months, so he quickly called me to inform me of the situation and I instructed him to buy it and bring it over ASAP. I have been watching the progress of the Wii, and listened to coworkers express how innovative and purely fun it is to play - so I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Somehow the Wii has managed to maintain it's "Sold Out" status at almost every establishment I'm aware of that sells gizmo's of this sort, to this day.

The Wii (and Jacob) arrived at my house around 11:30pm, and of course I had to instantly rip the thing out of the box and start playing with it. It appears that Nintendo took a page out of the Apple book of packaging and had nicely formatted, wrapped and scented the inside of the box. One of my favorite things has always been the opening of a new Apple product for exactly this reason, and now Nintendo has made it's way onto my list. The console was essentially plug and play minus a minute or two of plugging in information via the on screen keyboard that you control with the WiiMote. However you are satisfied because you instantly get to play around with the technology that makes this new console revolutionary. For those of you who aren't familiar, the Wii uses wireless remotes that you hold in your hand like a flashlight with buttons on top. As you swing them around in the air a sensor you mount on your TV picks up the motion and reflects the location on the TV. It feels as if the remote is a laser pointer that you are moving around on the TV, and the accuracy is astounding.. the QA process for this piece of the product must have been excruciating.

Now that the console has been named, the date and time have been selected and your wireless connection is all setup you are given a menu that allows you to Play the game currently sitting in the drive slot, read the news, look at the weather, look at photos, setup your Wii identity (Mii) or do more configuration. I couldn't wait to play the game that comes with the console called Wii Sports. At this point it's about 1:00am, and we are still going strong. Wii Sports satisfies the same need that Mario has satisfied for all of Nintendo's consoles up to this point, if you bought the console and didn't buy any games that day (because the thought of all the money you spent made you cringe) you can still crack the box open and start playing right now. You also get some practice, and overview of what the console can do, and it keeps you from getting frustrated and taking the sucker right back to the store!

Wii Sports gives you Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, Golf and Boxing... and this is what sold me on this new technology. The graphics are mediocre, and in comparison to the new Sony products and XBox would be an absolute embarrassment if it weren't for this new wireless remote technology that completely changes the aspects of gaming that you used to think made it fun. The mediocre graphics of the Wii fade out of sight as you realize how unbelievably fun it is to be able to swing at your competitions pitch in real time, in the air as if you were really swinging a baseball bat.

Obviously with any piece of technology you can trick it and tweak it to figure out ways to cheat. The censor looks for various motions, distances, and speeds of those motions in relation to the TV, so if you don't want to stand and swing the baseball bat like a real batter you can sit back on the couch, be lazy and swing it 5 inches with one hand and it will still work. However eventually you get frustrated with that and want to stand up and give it your full swing. The motion detection is very accurate, with golf and bowling my drive still slices to the right and my bowl still inconveniently curves left towards the end giving me too many 7/9 splits.

I spent a little time playing Mario Party which came with the Costco package, which took me a while to figure out but I have now realized that it can be pretty fun. With this game it is the more the merrier, and the fun comes from the mini games you find your self competing in as you move one space at a time around the board game seeking various objectives. I can see some very serious potential for this product, and can understand why people are so excited about it. The stripped down package gives you a console, one controller and Wii Sports for $250 dollars. This is very affordable compared to the competition who's focus seems to be on creating a computer that also plays super high definition games, the Wii is simply a game console that tries to be a game console, with a twist. If you want the two controllers and a numchuck (which you need for boxing -- two hands per person) and Mario Party, you may get lucky if you search hard enough at your local Costco. This package goes for around $350 and in my opinion is well worth it.

I remember reading that the HDMI adapter for the Wii brings the graphics quality up significantly, so those of you interested in maxing out your high definition Plasma or LCD TV should give that a look. Nintendo continues to release updates you can install over the WIFI, and with a SD slot on the front of the console you can use it for viewing photos on your TV, or install many of the available applications for the Wii such as the Opera Web Browser (For your sitting on the couch and browsing the web pleasure.)

Remember to keep the wrist band fastened tight as you swing away, and be careful -- I know this sounds pathetic but I was actually pretty sore after playing that thing till 3:00AM. Did somebody say Wii thai-bo? I'm sort of wishing I hadn't sold my Nintendo stock.. happy gaming!

1. Padron 1964 Maduro

This is the top sirloin of all the cigars I have had a chance to enjoy. It's a mild to strong smoke but you don't notice it as its so smooth and has a barely noticeable but pleasant after taste, which is very hard to find. It is the most expensive of all the cigars in my list, but if you can afford it I would recommend you give it a go just so you know how cigars should really look, smell, burn and taste.

A good price for this cigar is 15-16 dollars for the imperial or torpedo, however if you go to your local cigar shop it will be tagged at closer to 19 or 20. Additionally if you go somewhere that has any kind of decent alcohol or atmosphere they will charge somewhere between 21 and 25... so I would advise ordering off the internet.

Size: 5 1/2 x 50
Cigar Shape: Robusto
Binder: Nicaragua
Filler: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Nicaragua
Country: Nicaragua
Cigar Rating: 91

2. Rocky Patel vintage 1990, 92

As a newbie in the cigar world, smoking the 90 and the 92 made it extremely obvious to me that the 90 is a much better smoke, for not much more money. A good price on this cigar is around 8 to 10 dollars, you can easily pay 16 and I would advise you not to. The cigar I felt was a between mild and strong but stronger than the 1964. I found it to be a little thicker smoke with a little more bite and occasionally you get a hint of an after taste but for the smoke and the taste its a fantastic cigar and I wouldn't smoking these regularly. Since it has been a while since I smoked this I can't really remember exact tastes but I will update the next time I get a chance, as you see I rate it number two on my list because it was clearly a favorite of mine.

Size: 5 1/2 x 50
Cigar Shape: Robusto
Wrapper: Honduras
Binder: Mexico
Filler: Dominican. Republic., Nicaragua

3. Carlos Torano Exodus 1959

I would feel comfortable paying around 5-6 dollars for this cigar. It's a medium to full body, noticeably peppery. The reason I really like this cigar is because of the enjoyably and sold draw and it's affordable. You probably want to smoke this one with 3 fingers of rum and a piece of 87% dark chocolate. It also helps if your smoking it in a comfortable lawn chair in your yard on a warm sunny night. However it can give you a buzz if your a newbie so take it down slow and stand up occasionally so you don't wind up surprised and nauseous.

4. Olivia G series, CAMEROON

This cigar I must admit is good in the Maduro but the Cameroon wrapper is very light bodied, 5 bucks, no aftertaste and a nice relaxing but mild amount of tobacco. The draw is great, and you don't have to eat a meal before you smoke this cigar. The cameroon flavor keeps it light while allowing you to experience all the interesting and enjoyable flavors. This is a must for anyone who wants to start smoking.

Thats all for today.. as I will be revisiting and updating these as I get a better understanding of cigar tasting. I will try to maintain a top 10 in the future.

HOWEVER, I constantly hear about the Arturo Fuente Hemingway... people just raving about it. I completely disagree, I tried one and the after taste was gross, the draw was bad, and the flavors weren't appealing. Can someone tell my why this gets such a favorable recommendation?