A Decent Performance...Finally.

Last night was the season opener for my Thursday night soccer team. Our first game and we had picked up some new players which gave me higher hopes for a successful season. Most of all, we had a new goalie who looked like he knew what he was doing. Thats always reassuring!

From the opening kickoff, we were looking good. We controlled the ball and held posession almost the entire match. Our defense still needs a little work. Despite barely turning over the ball most the first half, we went down 3-1 by half time. But this team didn't fold and give up. We fought back and managed to even the score 3-3 with 5 minutes left in the game. We threw everyone into attack mode in the final minute and almost scored a game winner on several shots. The final buzzer sounded with the game tied 3-3. Not too bad for our first game. And, not a bad performance for myself. I scored our first goal and third goal of the match. It felt good to find the back of the net again after a short goal droute. I hope we can keep up this level of play next week!

3, 2, 1... MOW!

I gotta say, my lawn kicks butt! Now, a year ago, I would have laughed a good 10 minutes straight at anyone who took pride in how their lawn looked. But now that I have one, it really is rewarding to look out the window and see a lush, green freshly mowed lawn. And Ive done it with such little effort. A little fertilizer one weekend, a bit of water a couple times a week and bam! A green lawn. Although, a couple times while I was doing the final edging around the driveway, I had to stop and ask myself.... who am I?? Definatly not the same Thorpe. Oh well. Home owner Thorpe is enjoying working on a lawn. Who'da thunk it?

Cool Announcement!

I just found out the other day that one of my favorite games, Ghost Recon, has announced a 3rd edition to the GR series. This is great news since the original GR came out in 2001 and GR2 was passed up for the PC and only released for sucky consoles. With leaps and bounds made in video gaming technology, GR3 should be quite impressive. As of now, the are predicting a holiday 2005 release. I sure hope it doesnt get pushed back! For those that dont know anything about Ghost Recon, its a tactical first person shooter type game which takes place in hot spots around the world. The Ghosts are a group of special forces US soldiers who use the latest in technology to combat their enemies. Very intense games!

Getting Settled In

Its hard to believe i've now been in my house for almost a month and a half already! In such a short time ive accomplished a lot of my small goals I set when moving in. Ive installed a ceiling fan in the living room. Ive bought a new large computer desk for the office room, so I can now have space to work and repair PC's. Ive installed a motion detecting light on my front porch. Ive set up a wireless network inside for all my computers. So much done but the list keeps growing.

I actually had to mow my lawn for the first time last weekend. A week later, its grown back up and time to mow again. Thats good though because for quite sometime it was looking pretty dead. After spreading some fertilizer and watering regularly, it really came to life! I have a respectable lawn now. :)

Oh! Big news! Two weeks ago, I entered a local photography contest. Photo's had to be taken in my city within the past year. After the deadline passed and the photo's were judged, I won 1st place in the Nature catagory. Woo Whooo! My first accomplishment in photography. It was small but I thought it was pretty darn cool. Just another reason I bought the Canon Digital Rebel... great looking photo's!

A Night at the Ballpark

Saturday night Emily and I took in the Rangers vs. Boston Red Sox game over at the ballpark. It was a great time, even though Boston spanked the Ranges 9-2. We had great seats, as you can see in the picture. I wish I had brought my Canon Digital Rebel. But the camera phone had to suffice. Either way, another fun night out with Emily. :)

Walking the Talk

If you're going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Isnt that how that saying goes? Something like that. Well all this season, my buddy Gregg who plays on another team in the Tuesday "A" Division, has been counting down the weeks until his team, Menace FC, plays my team, U Wish. Finally, seven weeks into the season it was time for our match up. The past weeks have been filled with taunts, trash talk and score predictions from Gregg. Despite his team having a "not-so-hot" season, he saw no way they could lose to us. He had two predictions. First, his team would win the match. Secondly, I would not score a goal or be effective in the game because he would be covering me. Well, 8:15pm on April 26th arrived and it was time to walk the talk.

Immediatly from kick off, it was clear his team had their hands full. With all six Menace FC players back defending, left little for any attack. Several of our shots just missed hitting the back of the net. A bit later, they were able to get the ball down to our end of the field. In a scramble, their striker got off a quick sharp angled shot that beat our keeper, scoring the first goal of the match. That sparked us to up the pressure. Minutes later, a Menace FC defender scrambles to clear a bouncing ball away from me in their penalty box. But he mis-times his approach to the ball and his arms knock it to the ground. The ref calls the foul and awards us a free kick at the top of the penalty box. In our league, this isnt a penalty shot like in normal outdoor soccer. We get a direct free kick, but they can make a defensive wall to stop the shot. They set up their wall, but only put 2 players in it! Sahal takes the free kick and easily bends the shot around the 2-man wall and into the back of the net! 1-1!

As the game wore on, Menace FC was playing a better match than I thought they would. At one point we took a 3-1 lead, but late in the first half they fought back to tie it up. The half time whistle blew with the score 4-4. We weren't worried. We pressed the attack in the early 2nd half and scored another goal putting us up 5-4. I thought that might hold, but they later scored a goal I couldn't believe got by our keeper, 5-5. Its ok, plenty of time left!

Mid-second half I was back on the field and their keeper had collected the ball. He rolled it out to their defender so he could bring it up the field. As I ran towards him to try to steal the ball, I happen to look up at his eyes. Right then he looks over at the other defender and then sends a pass over towards him. But, exactly the moment he looked in that direction, I jumped into the open passing lane. The ball was at my feet and I was off the the races, a break away!! I left the 2 defenders in my dust and charged forwards towards the lonely goal keeper. One quick fake and I pushed the ball to my left. I can see the goalie lunging at an open space where I once was as I ran by him. I fire a left foot shot which hits the far lower corner of the net. Goal! 6-5. This was the back breaker for Menace FC. We kept the pressure up and scored 2 more goals before the final whistle. Winning the match 8-5. Gregg was humble in a post game ribbing. It was all in fun though.

Door to Door Dork

Last weekend my friend James and I are just hanging out watching TV, when I see a van stop infront of my house and a lady get out. She starts walking up to my door, so I get up to answer it as she rings the doorbell. She begins to rattle off something about a contest she's in and that she just needs to vacum 25 rooms during the weekend to be eligible for a prize. I ask her to repeat it one more time to make sure I caught everything she was trying to say. Then she says that if I let her vacum a room in my house, she'll give me a bottle of laundry detergent. I thought, what the heck... have at it. I begin to turn and walk back to the couch when I see her wave to the plain white van with black windows she got out of. Suddenly, a neatly dressed guy jumps out carrying a large box and begins walking towards my door. He follows her in and introduces himself. I can't even remember his name, so I'll call him "jim". The lady that came in first then says, "Ok im going to turn you over to jim now. I'll be back to pick him up when he's finished". I suddenly thought, "uh-oh". I close the door behind her and look back at jim. With a big goofy smile he looks at me and says "Thorpe, have you ever heard of a Kirby vacuum cleaners?" At that point I was past "uh-oh" and had moved into "ooooh crap". I had been tricked into letting a cheese-ball salesman into my living room. At this point, I should have stopped him from continueing to speak and told him to leave. But I didn't, I was too nice and let him keep talking. I had hope that he would wrap things up in about 20 minutes and be on his way. That was not to be. Before I knew it, one hour had gone by. He was still demonstrating the "features" of this vacuum cleaner. He was repeadedly showing me how it created a suction between the carpet and the cleaner head. He looks at me for agreement, wanting me to be amazed and ask him what I had to do to buy one now!! Instead, I replied half jokingly "well, this thing really does indeed suck." I laugh, he didn't. But I didnt care. I was getting pretty ticked by this point.

Finally "jim" show's me his book with the contest info, vacuum cleaner sales points...... and the price. This freaking piece O crap kirby vacuum cleaner is $2000!!! Two thousand dollars!! Im sorry, but there is now way in hell Im buying a vacuum cleaner for two grand. Yet, jim would not take no for an answer. He just couldnt believe I didnt mind having a "filthy house" and that I was willing to let my carpet become quickly deteriorated by the dirt left in the padding by my inferior vacuum cleaner. It was like he was personally offended the more I said no to his offer I couldn't refuse. His sales lines turned to almost begging. Begging turned to frustration and finally, two hours from the time he walked in my door... he was ready to leave. But first, he had the nerve to ask to use my phone to call his boss to pick him up. I say, "don't you have a cell phone?!" He just says no and stands there looking at me. I say "fine" and hand him my phone. He gets his boss on the phone and begins to what sounds like break the news that he didn't make a sale. It sounds like he's getting yelled at. It takes all of my self control not to break out laughing at him. He then puts my phone down on the couter and says "now Thorpe, Im going to write a number down on a piece of paper, tell me if this is something you can afford. Its a Saturday only price!". I look at the paper... $1300. Umm.... still no, buddy. He finishes asking for his pick up ride and hangs up. Jim, my friendly piece-O-crap salesman, turns from happy and "friendly" to quiet and angery. He packes up his $2000 work of art and finally leaves. James and I are relieved to have him gone and our day back.

Lesson learned, if a kirby or any other salesman comes to my door without me inviting them, shoot first. I recommend you do the same.

Grande "Lack Of" Communications

For almost 2 years while living at my apartment, I used Grande Communications for my phone and internet. Oh how they have fallen out of favor with me now. About two weeks before moving from my apartment, to my new house, I call them up to notify them of my upcoming change. Their customer support guy takes my information and tells me everything is in and the service should go live on the day I need it to. Great! Im all set. I then tell him I will also need my DSL internet to be moved on the same day. He begins looking for my account information, but cannot find it anywhere in his records. He asks me, "are you sure you have DSL internet?" I tell him, yes... I am sure of it. Turns out, somehow my internet account got listed as a business account handled by a different department. I'll have to call back to get that changed. So a couple days later I finally get through to that department and get that transfered on the same day as my phone stuff. Now... I am all set.

I move into my house and thank goodness, there is a dial tone. I have a phone. The next day, the DSL technician is there to hook up my internet. Im online again and life is good. But things were only good for about 3 days. I quickly find out my phone features like call waiting and caller ID are not turned on! So, back on the phone with Grande customer support. He says that he can see the order was entered but somehow didnt get all the features transfered to the new address. Um.. ok. Strike one. He turns them on for me and phone-wise, im back in business.

Then the real fun starts. And with it, the start of the downward spiral of my faith in Grande Communications. I come home from work the next day to find out I have no internet connectivity. My first thought is maybe there is a problem with the Grande network and their DSL service has been interupted in my area. My system worked just fine the night before when I shut everything down. I quickly double check all my settings, modem and equipment to make sure its still set up as it should be. Everything is the same as always and should be working. So I call up Grande tech support. I ask him if there is something going on in my area and he tells me there are no known problems. I tell him whats going on and of course he tells me to "reboot my computer and that should do it". To humor him, I do it. He then walks me thru the level 1 tech routine of resetting the modem and removing any routers that are connected. Oddly enough, I can connect at a slower speed when hooked up directly to the wall thru my modem, without the router in the mix. I tell him this and he say's he'll have to get a field tech to have a look. Finally they get someone out there on the next saturday afternoon. Actually 2 techs show up. They go over everything Ive already done and then run a few more tests. He gets on the phone with some special people from Grande and they try to figure it out. None of them can figure out why I suddenly cannot connect to my DSL service through a router. Finally he tells me the problem isnt on my side, its on the Grande equipment side of things. They recently took over internet service in my area from another smaller company and now the equipment and information transfer between the 2 companies has made things messy. He then goes on to tell me, the network bridge in my section of the city is flakey and it could be 8 to 10 weeks before its replaced!! Then, he says something to me that was Grande's nail in its coffin as far as im concerened. He turns to me and says "well, do you really need to use a router?" I clench my jaw and fists trying to remain calm... I look around my at the 3 other computers that share my internet connection and then back at him and reply "yes, I really do need to use my router". He then says "well, I'll have to talk to some people and I'll call you back on Monday with more information". Monday has come and gone, no call from Grande, still no connection through my router. I am now shopping for a new ISP. Goodbye Grande. You failed.

Gulf Gettaway

This past weekend Emily and I hoped on a Southwest Airlines plane and visited our good friends Mike and Cheryl in Galveston Texas. I always like going down there. The ocean, palm tree's and warm weather are an easy tropical gettaway from the rather dry, scenic-less area I live in. Not only was this just a normal visit, we were also there for a mission. Two missions to be exact. We were up early saturday morning and in the car, headed back up to Houston where Cheryl and Emily were going skydiving!

We arrived at our scheduled time of 9:30am so they could check in and go watch the instructional video and meet their sky-diving instructor. Turns out, the place was so far behind with other reservations, they didn't even get on a plane until 3:30pm. That left us with hours of watching the same plane take off over and over and watching wave after wave of jumpers land in the designated landing field. Lucky for us, the weather was great all weekend. With temps in the upper 70's and cloudless skies, it was kind of nice to just hang out in the shade and watch the action. I took the opportunity to bring along my Digital Rebel and take some action shots of all the sky-divers as the landed. Finally it was Cheryl and Emily's turn. They suited up, boarded the plane with their instructors and took off! The plane climbed for about 15-20 minutes until it was no longer visible from the ground, which is about 14,000 ft. I just laid on the ground scanning the sky for any signs of falling people. Suddenly, parachutes begin to open far in the distance. Slowly, people from their flight begin to reach the ground. I notice thought its all solo jumpers. The tandum jumpers went last. Finally I can see Cheryl and Emily, attached to their instructors, drifting back down to earth. First Cheryl lands, then Emily. Both skidding gently across the grass for fairly soft landings. They did it! Mission one, complete! See this link for pictures from the day! ---> SKYDIVE HOUSTON

The second mission of the weekend was planned out long ago by Emily. Her entry form had been picked to allow her to try out for the game show Jeopardy! For weeks leading up to this trip, I had helped her study questionaire books, state capitals, presidents and information on foreign countries. Now it was time to take their test. The first level she had to get through was a quick fire round of questions. Ten questions with 10 seconds to answer each question. No multiple choice, you had to write it out. So either you know it or you don't! From what she told me, she was immediatly asked a couple questions over topics we had studied, so she easily got them correct. When that phase was done, and scores were graded, she didn't make the cut unfortunatly. The few that did, were taken to another room where they would compete in a mock Jeopardy show. This was to see how they did under pressure and on camera. That would have been interesting to see.

Later that afternoon Mike and Cheryl took us back to the airport for our flight home. The flight to and from Dallas and Houston has to be one of the shortest ive EVER been on. The plane takes off, reaches altitude and then begins the decent to the next airport. The flight is barely an hour. It was a great trip and I really needed the get away. Thanks to Mike and Cheryl for having us down. It was a lot of fun! I look forward to a summer trip so we can hit the beaches and swim in the hot south Texas weather!

Its Official!!

As of Friday, March 25th I am a new homeowner! After months of watching the construction and then signing a sky high stack of papers, the house is mine. Good bye apartment. Good bye paying overpriced rent. Good bye noisy neighbors and their dogs. Good bye having to park a mile from my door when I come home late. Hello tons of space and front door parking! Ah yes, these are good times.

FireIE

About 2 months ago I conducted a computer experiment. I was wanting to switch from Internet Explorer (IE) to the new Firefox web browser. But I wanted to find out if all the rumors were true about it being able to avoid spyware and adware so much better than IE. So I first ran a cleaning scan with Adaware and Spybot - Search and destroy. Each one found about 15 suspicious or malicous items living on my system, which was currently runing IE as its web browser. Once the system was clean I loaded up the latest version of Firefox. I continued over the next month and a half to surf the web as I usually would. I just finished running my first Adaware and Spybot scan since that last one a month and a half ago. Adaware found one (1) suspicious item. Spybot found ZERO! It seems the punks that design the spyware just arent targeting Firefox, yet. So, the verdict seems to say that if you want a solid browser that wont clog your system with adware and spyware... grab Firefox over at www.mozilla.org. And, Fire IE.

Almost...

The countdown is nearing an end. T minus 3 days. Then and only then will the official announcement be made. Stay tuned.

Sunday Action

Today was another paintball Sunday and the weather was a perfect 65 degrees and sunny. We had a decent turnout of 8 players which made for even teams. We got things started off at around 10am. The action was slow to start but heated up fast.

A couple games into the day a funny thing happened. Well I'm sure Tod didnt find it funny, but the rest of us did. Tod was on the defending team and had been almost surrounded by my team, as the rest of his team was getting eliminated. Derrick, on my team, laid down surpressive fire which allowed me to move wide left to Tod's right flank. With Tod clear in my sites, I fired off about 8 to 10 quick shots from my Tippmann. He quickly put up his gun to signal he was hit and stop the 3 way barrage he was getting from me and the others. But as he puts his gun into the air, one of other teammates rounds, clips the lid on his paintball hopper (the container on top of the gun which holds all the paintballs). When this lid is clipped, it's spring loaded design flips it wide open into reload mode. This causes all of his remaining painballs to flood out and over his head. To make matters worse, my shot that tagged him out, hit him just below the protective area on his mask, on his neck. It looked like a giant red hickie! LOL He went on to tell us later that he has an important meeting at work on tuesday and now he has to explain the giant neck welt. Too funny!

Later in the day, we had switched to a game type we call "Rush N' Attack". Two teams start at different ends of the wooded field. When both teams are ready, the signal is given and we rush in to attack the other team. The team who covers the most ground the quickest, usually gets the upper hand and the best wooded cover. Well this time, my team got the jump and took a good position. Quickly 2 of the other team were eliminated. We knew this just left two players. Derrick and I found one of them, left without support and pinned down in a pile of logs and brush. I worked my way around to behind his position and gave the signal to Derrick to pour on the covering fire. I moved in and fired as fast as I could to prevent him from turning towards me. By the time I could see him, he was curled into a little ball trying to stay low and avoid the hundreds of rounds of paint being fired at him. Finally a couple of my rounds hit him in the back and he was out.

We knew there was just one guy left. John, the new guy was hiding out still. We knew he might be in the thick brush and small trees just behind where Brandon was just eliminated. Derrick approached from the high trail, I came in from the lower trail to prevent any escape. Suddenly, I see puffs of the white smoke and the popping sound of a paintball gun being fired directly at me. I couldnt see a person though, he was burried so deep in the tree's and brush. I hit the ground to take cover and yell to Derrick to direct him to John's location. Derrick begins advancing into the brush. I sit up and stay low as I move down the trail. Im moving while firing back at him. Figuring I can draw his fire while Derrick gets right up on him. I can hear the paintballs zinging over my head so I try to keep moving and firing fast. Derrick is so close, just a few second longer! I slide down behind a small shrub on a slope in the small trail. Im now closer than ever to Johns position and the paintballs are getting very close. I begin firing my gun in full auto mode, hoping one will get thru the brush and find him in there! All of a sudden my gun stops firing!! CRAP!! It mis-fires, leaving the bolt closed and no shot in the chamber! I give the gun a shake to get paintballs to fall into the chamber again and reach up to pull back the bolt to clear the jam and chamber another shot. Right then I look up from my gun. Its too late. I see it coming but I cant think to move fast enough. Splat!! My field of vision disapears and is replaced by bright pink paint. Im hit right between the eyes on my facemask. I yell hit and drop to my knees to catch my breath. Seconds later Derrick tags out John and my team wins the match. If only i'd held out for 4 more seconds! Oh well, such is the fun of paintball. :)

Belated Bday Announcement!

Happy birthday to the greatest girl in the world, my Emily! :)
Don't worry babe, you look great for 26.

A Surprise Vacation

I got a call last week from my buddy Roger, the one working as a contractor in Afganistan. Which in itself I found odd. But when I looked at the number, it was from a local cell phone number. Huh? He was supposed to be there for a full year before coming home. Did he get fired? Did he quit? Well, neither. He gets a one month paid vacation back here in the States. Must be nice. So last night I ventured over to his house across town to hang out. Emily came along because I wanted her to meet his sister Melissa and see where he lived. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived was Roger had dropped probably 20 to 30 pounds. He was a real Stay-Puff marshmellow man when he left 6 months ago. I guess it's a good thing the food at his base in Afganistan sucks. LOL He then showed me something pretty interesting. He took out 4 or 5 CD binders and handed them to me. I opened them up to see each of them filled completely with DVD movies. Upon closer inspection, I saw these weren't retail versions. Turns out, over in Afganistan you can buy new release movies for $2.50. Of course they are illegal burns from store bought DVD's. But for some reason, I dont see the Movie Picture Association sending agents into Kabul Afganistan to put a stop to the problem. Roger tells me he has bought 80 or 90 so far. Nice!

We left Rogers house around 11:45pm and headed home. I was stuffed from all the snacks Melissa put out. There were several other people there too. Neighbors along with Brotha James who showed up just after we did. It was a really fun time and it was nice to see Roger before he goes back to work overseas.

The Countdown

Big news is on the horizon. I can't announce it yet, so stay tuned. :)

Spare Yourself

That is, spare yourself paying $8 to see the movie "Constantine" in the theater and wait for it to come out as a rental. The special effects were decent, the plot and topic... somewhat interesting. But the movie just had WAY too many "drag on forever" scenes that really slowed things down. It turned a decent 1.5 hour movie into a 2 hour 10 minute marathon. I give it a 5 out of 10. Good rental, not worth full movie price. Ah, who am I kidding... skip the rental and download a pirated version from online. :)

The Day From Hell

Normally my work days are pleasant, busy and fulfilling. Yesterday was a day where all of a sudden the reason why people go postal at their place of work, became all too clear. For certain reasons, I must be vague about certain details. But you'll get the picture.

Its Wednesday morning and my co-worker Karl and I are in one of our buildings setting up whats called a VLAN. Basically this requres us to move all the PC's and printers in that building to a new IP range on the network. For instance, everyone connecting to 10.1.x.x will be moved to 10.7.x.x. Ok, enough techie talk.... you get the idea. When we move them, they temporarily lose connection to the network and any printers. We then quickly get them back up and running while on site.

In this building, are certain "special people" who believe they are too important to be bothered by my work. One in particular, who already despises anyone and anything to do with I.T., computers or networks. This person who I had forgotten about was a timebomb awaiting our arrival. About 30 minutes after moving a printer to the new network settings, I get a call from another co-worker. I could immediatly hear the panic in his voice as he told me I need to get to that persons office ASAP and fix their printing. He then told me this user was now irate and "freaking out". Great. Just what I needed to have happen. As I begin climbing the stair back up to the offices where this oh-so-special user resides, I could already hear screaming echoing down the hallway. The user was on the phone with someone and was screaming at them about this printer being down. And I dont mean controlled anger, venting frustration. I mean screaming at the highest level possible. Voice quivering, bordering on tears-screaming. My first thought was, "this can't be caused by a missing printer... can it?" I stop outside the users office to wait for them to hang up the phone and calm down. I hear them scream into the phone, "these IDIOTS of screwed everything up!!". This persons admin assistant looks at me and says, "I dont envy you right now". Gee.... thanks. The irate user hangs up the phone and I enter the office with a smile and say "hello, I'm here to get you up and printing again". Immediatly I'm met with more screaming. The user tells me to get out of the office and since they are on a deadline, this mess will have to wait till tomorrow. By now we've spent almost 20 minutes waiting for them to stop screaming at people, get off the phone and calm down. To fix the users problem would have taken me no longer than 1 minutes and 30 seconds. This was ridiculous. So I turn around and walk out of the office. The screaming begins again. Later I find out this user callled all the way up the chain of command screaming and crying to anyone who they could make listen. This was simply an attempt to make my department look bad. In the end, it didn't but it did put a heavy dark cloud over the rest of my day. I really feel sorry for anyone who has to work around this person on a daily basis. They only have two personality modes, quiet and working.... or enraged and screaming. What was that line for The Wizard of Oz.... something like "Careful, someday someone may drop a house on you too".

Movin on Up!

My Thursday B league soccer team scored another win last night to move us up into a solid 2nd place. I scored 2 goals in a 8-4 victory. This was our first game with our new goal keeper since our last one had the melt down and recieved 4 red cards. Needless to say, he's out for the season. The new keeper did fairly well. Except for early in the game when he tried to dribble the ball out and then lost the ball allowing the other team to put the ball into an open net. Luckily we bounced back and won the match!

So Much Potential, So Little Quality

After a huge advertising blitz on TV and in the theater, I finally get my chance to go check out the new movie "Assult on Precinct 13". Yes this is a remake of the 1970's version where a big city gang assults a police station to free some of their buddies. But in this remake, the bad guys are cops trying to kill a big time mobster who is in Precinct 13's jail. Now, I'm all for a good shoot'em up action movie. And I can even overlook most gaps in reality, plot or continuity to get through and enjoy a movie. But this one was just too much. Call me a nit-picker. One of the first plot fall-outs that bothered me was.... well the premises. So, Im supposed to believe that when the countries top mobster is finally captured and sent to jail, the police would only assign 2 officers to ride with him on a lone bus thru a snow storm? No heavily armed guards riding shotgun, no escort units following the bus, just a driver and one guard transporting the most dangerous crime boss in the country. Strike one. Then, they are forced to make an emergency stop at Precinct 13 because of the snow storm. Knowing Precinct 13 is about to be closed down and is on minimal staff, the police department sends no one else to help out. Later, when the bad cops "jam" all the radio's in the area, it seems no one from back at the police station ever tries but fails to contact Precinct 13 for any type of a status report throught the night. If they had, cops would have been all over the place.

Once the siege starts, the bad cops surround the building with snipers on all the surrounding factory buildings. Yet, throughout the movie they all sit infront of the windows looking out for an up-coming attack. Im thinking this would have been a determined snipers dream. To have your targets continuously sitting infront of all the windows with the blinds up would have made for a short movie I guess.

Then, at the end of the movie, the action moves from in the police station into what appears to be a dense forrest. Yes, a forrest near downtown Detroit. What next, the characters become un-phased by hours of exposure to the subzero temps of a Michican snow storm? Oh wait... they did that too. This movie is barely a rental.