The Avengers

I went to see The Avengers today.  I stuck with regular old 2D instead of watching it in 3D.  I'm not a big fan of movies in 3D -- truthfully, if local cinemas only offered The Avengers in 3D I would have waited to watch it on BD.

When I first heard they were producing The Avengers I wasn't too keen on the idea.  Why?  Because it's been my experience that as the number of heroes/protagonists and villains increase the quality of the film decreases.  See Spiderman 3, Iron Man 2, Batman Returns....  I have no idea why sequels feel compelled to increase the number of villains.

Anywhoo, I was relieved to find The Avengers maintained a pretty good balance between all the characters.  There was no point in the film where I was thinking, "why are they wasting so much screen time on this character?"

I've only watched Iron Man and Iron Man 2, none of the Hulk movies, Captain America, or Thor, but several times I found myself thinking, instead, "huh, I wouldn't mind learning more about this character."  I'm not saying I'm going to rush out to rent them (problematic ever since Blockbuster went kaput), but I'm definitely more open to the idea of doing so.

I give The Avengers 4 out of 5 stars.  This is a film I'm definitely purchasing on BD.

Aside.  The trailer for the new Spiderman film actually looked interesting.  At least, it made me question my decision to not see it in the cinema.

Tim Hortons Roll up the Rim to Win

The official odds for this year's Tim Hortons Roll Up The Rim contest was one in six.  Despite a slow start, where I was 0 for 9, by the end it worked out fairly close, at 4 out of 25.  Four wins that included two free doughnuts, one free coffee, and a Tim's card.

Speaking of the Tim's card, it was kind of a hassle.  First of all, naively I thought that I could go down to any Tim Hortons location and claim it immediately since, you know, they offer Tim's cards everywhere and $100 must be a mere drop in the bucket given how busy they always are.

It wasn't quite that easy.  I needed to fill out a claim form (which the Tim Hortons location provided me), mail it to some P.O. Box, and wait for up to 6-8 weeks.  Unfortunately, it didn't even turn out to be that easy.  Six or so weeks later I received a letter stating they had received my claim and requesting I send in another prize claim form. 

Why is that?  Why, it's because the prize claim form provided to me by the Tim Hortons location turned out to be for the 2011 contest, not 2012.  I don't even know why that Tim Hortons location still had year old claim forms laying around.  I wonder how many other unsuspecting prize claimants they foisted those on.

Anywhoo, this time I downloaded the 2012 prize claim form and mailed that off.  Another 6-8 weeks later I finally received the Tim's card.   I guess I'm just relieved they didn't disqualify my claim completely, but even more importantly, despite being out of pocket $20 for sending two registered letters, I still came out ahead by $80.

Star Trek Humour

Earlier this week I read a pretty funny Star Trek joke.  I don't know how long it's been around, but it was the first time I'd heard it.  It was in an article in Car & Driver or Motortrend, can't remember which.  It went something like this:

"[...] as sure as Captain Kirk has three ears, the left ear, the right ear, and the final front ear."