With Avatar opening in a month, many Hollywood analysts and journalists are preparing and publishing stories that focus on the bloated budget, the troubled history of 3D movies, and the likelihood that Avatar has the potential to be the biggest bomb in cinema history. Now, all of this sounds very familiar, as I heard and read all these stories when the subject was instead Titanic, which proved itself the most successful movie ever made.

Having seen the exclusive 15-minute 3D preview several months ago, I can safely say that whatever experience you’ve had with 3D in the past has no bearing on what you are about to witness on the big-screen. Judging the visual quality of the movie based on 2D trailers is futile.

Related: My 16-Minutes of Avatar: Did Cameron Deliver or Crash and Burn?

Now we have Kim Masters of The Daily Beast droning on about Hollywood concerns, going the extra mile to say that because Robert Zemeckis’ latest 3D movie, A Christmas Carol, tanked at the box office that there is great cause for concern when it comes to Avatar. How these two movies relate is beyond me. The only thing they have in common is “3D” and even there they use two completely different processes. That, and very few people give a crap about Charles Dickens or A Christmas Carol, or Robert Zemeckis’ sloppy version of a classic tale.

From The Daily Beast:

Still, she describes Avatar as “iffy.” And that may not be the adjective that executives at Fox and their partners on the film want to hear. Given that it’s taken 12 years for Cameron to produce a follow up to Titanic, and considering the immense cost of the technology, the industry and the media have been guessing at Avatar’s budget, with the Los Angeles Times recently putting it at $310 million with additional marketing costs of about $150 million. Other estimates are even higher. (Fox co-chairman Jim Gianopulos told Reuters earlier this week that rumors the movie will cost $500 million are “ridiculous,” acknowledging nonetheless that it was “quite expensive.”)

Lately, everyone has an opinion about the Federal budget, executive bonuses and government spending. In fact, everyone seems to think they are an economic genius and have the answer for everything, despite the very real likelihood they don’t have a clue of what they speak and are probably just repeating some talk-radio mantra from either side of the political fence. Now you can literally put your money where your mouth is by playing Budget Hero, a new flash-based game that is surprisingly detailed and, don’t panic, educational.

Budget Hero is created by American Public Media, a nonprofit organization that supplies and distributes public broadcasting content.

Play the game by clicking me!

NASA has come under heavy fire from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO has released a report that spotlights budget and time overruns, shedding light on systemic failures at NASA HQ. While it’s expected that hardcore technology will seldom play ball with initial estimates, the report makes it quite clear that NASA is being mismanaged at the very top, a fact the new administration will hopefully address.

Want some gory details? Try these on for size:

• Ares 1 Crew Launch Vehicle: costs and schedules not final
• Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle: Official costs and schedule not final.
• Global Precipitation Measurement Mission: Official cost and schedule not final.
• James Webb Space Telescope (infrared telescope): cost and schedule estimates not final
• Landsat Data Continuity Mission: cost and schedule not final.
• SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy): Baseline reflected near-quadrupling of original cost estimates, cost increased only 3% after baseline set. Nine-month delay; first test flight in April 2007.
• Glory (climate satellite): 53% increase in development cost, at least 6-month delay in launch (planned for June 2009, may be delayed by launcher problems after loss of Orbital Carbon Observatory)
• Mars Science Laboratory: 26% cost increase; 25-month delay (missed launch window)
• Kepler mission (planet transit search): 25% cost increase; 9-month delay. Due to launch on Friday.
• NPOESS Preparatory Project (Ozone and climate measurements): 19% cost increase; 26-month delay (late delivery of key instrument)
• Orbiting Carbon Observatory: 18% cost increase, 5-month delay, launch failed on 24 February.
• Herschel Space Observatory (infrared telescope): 13% increase in development cost; 20-month delay
• Aquarius (Global water cycle satellite): 6% cost increase; 10-month schedule delay.
• Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (now the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope): 5% cost increase; 9-month delay, launched June 2008
• Solar Dynamics Observatory: 1% cost increase; 17-month delay (launch scheduling issues)
• Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: On budget, 6-month delay expected. May launch planned.
• Dawn (asteroid mission): on budget, on time when launched September 2007
• Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (map infrared sky): 1% cost decrease; no slippage expected in November launch.

If you’re anything like me, you know next to nothing about cars. As such, Jiffy Lube is a constant source of money drain and you’re never quite sure what it is they claim they did. Well VehicleFixer.com has an interesting solution, presenting instructional videos for basic repairs and tune-ups for a wide-variety of popular makes and models. Simply input the car you’d like to know more about and you’ll get a nice list of available maintenance options. A great way to save some money, assuming you’re more brave than I when it comes to self-repair.

I want to be a gearhead!