Hey look, here comes summer

Updated 11/17/08

With less than 6 weeks left in 2008 here is the current box office report.

1	The Dark Knight	WB	$528,535,317	4,366	$158,411,483	4,366	7/18	-
2	Iron Man	Par.	$318,313,199	4,154	$98,618,668	4,105	5/2	10/2
3	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	Par.	$317,023,851	4,264	$100,137,835	4,260	5/22	-
4	Hancock	Sony	$227,946,274	3,965	$62,603,879	3,965	7/2	9/7
5	WALL-E	BV	$223,003,468	3,992	$63,087,526	3,992	6/27	-
6	Kung Fu Panda	P/DW	$215,434,591	4,136	$60,239,130	4,114	6/6	10/9
7	Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!	Fox	$154,529,439	3,961	$45,012,998	3,954	3/14	9/4
8	Sex and the City	WB (NL)	$152,647,258	3,325	$57,038,404	3,285	5/30	9/18
9	Mamma Mia!	Uni.	$143,762,955	3,194	$27,751,240	2,976	7/18	-
10	The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian	BV	$141,621,490	3,929	$55,034,805	3,929	5/16	9/4
11	The Incredible Hulk	Uni.	$134,533,885	3,508	$55,414,050	3,505	6/13	9/4

Hello friends, this is Stan Lee. Ok, not really not but it might as well be with all the superhero hype.
Yes believe it or not, the summer movie season is upon us. You certainly wouldn't know it judging from the recent weather here in the Midwest, yuk! Good reason to go the movies.

Although overall attendance is likely to be down this year due to the economic downturn, luckily ticket prices have gone up so you can expect another "blockbuster" over inflated season. Hollywood is hoping you spend some of that well deserved tax rebate on taking the family to the movies for $100 a flick.

First a quick review for anyone that actually still reads this site.

Back in October I listed out the top movies 0f 2007

1	Spider-Man 3	Sony	$336,530,303	$151,116,516	45%
2	Shrek the Third	P/DW	$321,012,359	$121,629,270	38%
3	Transformers	P/DW	$315,175,018	$70,502,384	22%
4	Pirates of the Caribbean:	BV	$309,404,152	$114,732,820	37%
5	Harry Potter	WB	$290,175,378	$77,108,414	27%
6	The Bourne Ultimatum	Uni.	$222,788,180	$69,283,690	31%
7	300	WB	$210,614,939	$70,885,301	34%
8	Ratatouille	BV	$203,360,412	$47,027,395	23%
9	The Simpsons Movie	Fox	$181,983,159	$74,036,787	41%
10	Wild Hogs	BV	$168,273,550	$39,699,023	24%

Well a couple of late comers shook up the bottom 5

6 I Am Legend WB $256,393,010
7 The Bourne Ultimatum Uni. $227,471,070
8 National Treasure: BV $219,342,259
9 Alvin & the Chipmunks Fox $217,245,159
10 300 WB $210,614,939

Well with tons of anticipation for 2008 here are my predictions
Here's a link to trailers of each in case you live in Iowa

1. Iron Man - The summer kicks off with a bang and once again Marvel will rise to the top. I'm still not sold on Jon Favreau as a director but I think the Marvel name will carry this movie as well as Robert Downey Jr's acting.

2. WALL-E - This is Pixar's next big movie and so far it looks very promising. Considering 3 of the top 12 movies were animated last summer, 4 if you count Alvin. I predict this movie to be a huge success.

3. Indiana Jones - Although some critics doubt the sheer drawing power of Harrison Ford alone, I think everyone over the age of 30 will see this movie just based on 10 years of hype.
When Spielberg, Lucas and Ford get together, entertainment happens

4. The Dark Knight - A very successful Batman comic book series and I think the sudden death of Heath Ledger will actually bring more people to the theatre as sad as that sounds.

5. Hancock - For me this looks to be the most entertaining movie of the summer. This may be wishful thinking at number five but I love Will Smith and he is still riding the success of I am Legend (see above)

The next five are a crap shoot, with at least one gem and one flop.

Speed Racer - Another attempt of TV to movie transformation. I wasn't a big fan of the TV show so not sure about this one.

Prince Caspian - Second in the Narnia series. Although I did see the first one opening weekend, it wasn't nearly as good as LoTR or the Potter franchise

Pineapple Express - Can Seth Rogen ride the success of Knocked Up and Superbad to superstardom?

The Happening - I so want this to be good, Sixth Sense, and not horrible, Lady in the Water. I love M. Night Shyamalan but he's slipping in my book.

The Incredible Hulk - People are still stinging from the horribleness that was the first big screen attempt for this but with Ed Norton in the role and character rights back in Marvel's hands I am hoping for a success.

Conclusion:

With four superhero based movies and at least three kids movies, it's no doubt where Hollywood is spending it's marketing $

Woah, and I thought my posts were cool.

Thanks to an awesome post I read over at bexhuff.com I recently learned about Google App Engine

As always I immediately turn to wikipedia for everything nerdy and yes they already have a page for it, which I hope will expand with usage but here's the short writeup.

Google App Engine is a platform for creating web applications hosted on Google servers. It´s scalabe* (up to 5 millon users per month in free acount according to Google) and has facilites for creating databases (called datastore) and managing user accounts, among other things. As of its launch date, Python is the only available language for creating applications, but other languages such as PHP and Ruby will soon follow.

* the spelling error is quoted directly from the wikipedia page so I thought it fitting to be copied here as well, if for no other reason than to show that geeks don't use spellcheck.

Hey Cordell How Did You Create This Cool Blog?

About once a week someone asks me how I created this blog, or how they can get a blog, etc etc.

Currently there are lots of options for creating your own little lane on the information super highway and with MySpace becoming more and more popular blogging is at an all time high.

I recommend reading this wikipedia article if you are unsure what type of blog you want to start with.

So, to show how easy it is to get started, the folks at blogger have created these wonderful short how-to videos.

Project Virgle SIGN UP NOW!

Ok, raise your hand if you didn't visit Google.com today? Well you should have.

They had a great link on the home page for Project Virgle: The Adventures of Many Lifetimes

This will be the very first permanent colony on Mars. Yes Mars, the Red Planet, 4th from the sun, our neighbor in the Universe.

Hopefully the link and application process are available for a while because it is one of the best ideas I have ever heard of.

Of course, I will be submitting my application very soon. Now hurry up and take a look for yourself.

*yes I am aware of the error.html page