The Giant Fighting Robot Report

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T23:44:00.000-08:00

I am quite glad to see the end of 2007. It was a horrible year for many of my friends, though it did have a couple of good moments.

2008 has a lot to answer for in regards to its older brother. At the very least I expect an end to my current project at work, an end to the war, an end to the writer's strike, and a return to normalcy.

Just as soon as we figure out what normal is.

Even Stephvens

2007-10-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday recently, and Comedy Central gave me a present: almost every single segment on the Daily Show, going back ten years.

So here is one of my favorite segments, which is more than six years ago now. Damn.

Fascinating

2007-09-16T02:21:00.000-07:00

I saw this on the Group News Blog the other day and it's hypnotic.

The Blogger Play site is a live feed of every image that's uploaded to Blogger. A never-ending glimpse of vacation photos, pet pictures, food, and general life events.

There's a voyeuristic quality to it, but it's also a little like speed-reading every blog as it's posted, particularly if you enable the information overlay--you get a profile of the author and the entry.

So far this morning I've seen travel pictures of Finland, some network diagrams, a bunny investigating a vacuum cleaner, stir fry, vacation photos, and somebody's 3D artwork. I'm curious to see if the types of images change as different parts of the world wake up and go to sleep. Though Australian and Polish vacation pictures are pretty interesting.

A small but significant portion of these appear to be linkfarm blogs, judging from the product names and the like that keep showing up. Blogging is the new spamming but the old phishing, I guess.

My work is kinda boring

2007-09-13T09:52:00.001-07:00

Because at no point have I done anything as cool as what's illustrated in this news story.

The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, is a key step in the creation of ultra-powerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers.

Think about that. Gamma-ray annihilation lasers. The name just rolls off the tongue. I fully expect that to be a new weapon in Supreme Commander or EVE Online.

Yeah, I'm still playing that damn internet space game. A friend of mine asked me the other day what my character is like and I was confused. You never really see people in the game, just spaceships. Sometimes a floating corpse in space (fun fact: everybody in the future weighs like 240 pounds and is six and a half feet tall, you can tell by the stats when you pick one up) but that is about it.

There are rumors that a version in the future will have walking through space stations, but I really don't see the appeal. It would be like a grimy Second Life or something.

I don't want to tell you how to do your job

2007-09-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

But could you make the logo bigger?

You may have seen this before, but recent work events have caused me to look it up again.

Make the logo big—two minutes and 36 seconds of rocking out design.

Other songs I would like to see:

IE 6 Is Screwing Me Over Again
Hey Guess What? It's Rounded Corners Time
I Wanted This More Vibrant (Primary Colors)
All Of This Should Be Bold
Leverage Our Synergy

Ack, time to go find a way to trick IE6 into recognizing a max-width limit AND not fuck up on floats. I think this is probably a lost cause.

No wonder I am getting a headache.

Gort, please stop this crazy thing

2007-08-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

I think it's pretty much a given that Hollywood is out of ideas.

Not only are they making an CGI Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, now there is this... this... thing:

Twentieth Century Fox has set Keanu Reeves to star in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," its re-imagining of the 1951 Robert Wise-directed sci-fi classic.

There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to start. This film doesn't need or cry out for a remake. It certainly doesn't need CGI effects and there is no way that Keanu can approach how good Michael Rennie was in that role.

Does anyone else find this disturbing?

2007-07-06T15:49:00.001-07:00

Item the first:
Robert Murdoch is going to buy the company that publishes the Wall Street Journal. Now granted, the opinion section of that paper has always been batshit insane, but now the rest of it is going to match.

Item the second:
The FTC has decided to abandon Net Neutrality. Now granted, there may still be time to save the Internet as we know it, but it's not looking as good as I thought it might.

So the future looks like it's going to look more and more like Fox News. (Though if you blank out the logos in the bottom I usually cannot tell the difference between Fox and CNN right now.)

These two events are bad enough, but combining them in one day seems like a horrible idea. Not that has ever stopped anything from happening before.

Special Comment

2007-07-05T09:15:00.001-07:00

There have been two massive losses to the blogging world in the last month.

Steve Gilliard passed away on June 2nd, and I'm still reminded of the loss every time I look at the linkbar in my browser. This week I find that Jim Capozzola, caretaker of Mildred and the proprietor of the eponymous Rittenhouse Review has also left us as well.

How I wish both of them were around to have seen this, the latest Special Comment from Kieth Olbermann:

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental compact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens — the ones who did not cast votes for you.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States.

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President... of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party.

Read all the way to the end, it's well worth your time.

Things have been extraordinarily weird for me personally for a while, but they may be getting better towards the middle of the month. In the meanwhile, enjoy today's Achewood—we must make this vision a reality.

Running faster to keep in place

2007-05-31T11:12:00.001-07:00

When we compare strictly common, everyday, basic user tasks between the Mac Plus and the AMD we find remarkable similarities in overall speed, thus it can be stated that for the majority of simple office uses, the massive advances in technology in the past two decades have brought zero advance in productivity.

This is the summary of the Old Mac Plus / AMD Dual Core shootout. Huge surprise: the continued code bloat of modern computing isn't really improving our day-to-day experience.

Really, I'm struggling to remember what the last really new feature in Office was that I have used.

LEGO + Star Wars + Wii == Awesome

2007-05-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

Just spotted this on Ars Technica while looking for other sources posting about the latest fuckup from CCP (Long story about EVE Online which I'll blather about later):

Lego Star Wars to come back with all six movies in one game

Traveller's Tales is also tailoring the game to take advantage of each system's features. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions will have online gameplay with drop-in and drop-out capabilities, while the Wii and DS editions will make use of those systems' unique control interfaces.

Lightsaber battles with LEGO guys? Count me in.

Power Overwhelming

2007-05-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well, they finally did it--in case you were living under a rock, Blizzard announced StarCraft 2 over the weekend. As one guy on the SA forums, it's the announcement that launched a thousand reinstalls, as people play through the original games again.

There are those who think the screenshots and video make the game look too cutesy. I will agree that Siege Tanks now look a little strange (Tomy should launch a follow-up line called My First Battle Tank as a tie-in), but the Zerg now look a whole lot more like cockroaches than they ever did in 16-bit 800x600 resolution and that is cool.

I never really uninstalled the game, so I was able to launch immediately into the opening Terran campaign.

What still works:

Game is extremely balanced
The storyline of hicks in space fighting aliens continues to amuse
Irradiating your own Siege Tank to kill off attacking Zerglings
Dark Templars
Four words: Spawn Broodlings on Templars

What looks a bit dated:

The TINY resolution
Can't assign units under construction to a group
Still no cow level
No command or unit queues

No idea when the new game will be out, though I am eagerly awaiting it. I am also curious to see what the GNP will do in various countries when it arrives.

Free Comic Book Day

2007-05-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, so I went on down to my local shop. It's been too long since I was there, sorta like how it's been too long since I posted in here.

Funny how ever since I actually have things to do at work, my personal posting goes way down. There's got to be a balance somewhere. Right now it's more in favor of blowing up fake spaceships on the internet.

Comics in this haul included a Rocketo trade, a some free comics (including the awesome Canadian book that had both Scott Pilgrim and Dinosaur Comics), and a signed Spider-Man book written by Kurt Busiek.

The other nice thing is that somebody finally recognized the characters in my Oddica sweatshirt. I guess not everybody played Dig Dug as a kid.

Plugged in

2007-04-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Since I can't get over the laziness of the American media, I find that I have to go abroad for a lot of news coverage. The BBC news page is a frequent stop, and I've noticed they have a new way to measure the zeitgeist—a live world map indicating which stories on their site are most popular, broken down by continent.

The top three items are ususally are constant across all continents, but after that it mixes up quite a bit. Somebody spent some time working on the dynamic movement of stories as they shift position--it's a nice little touch and it makes me wander around just to see what will move.

I've gone from never even knowing about a film to wanting to see it very badly in the space of about five minutes.

Danny Boyle's new film, Sunshine, sounds like he may have made it with me in mind. This Guardian review hits most of my major touchstones, from 2001 to Alien to KARL HYDE DOING THE FREAKING MUSIC.

It's also got Cillian Murphy and Michelle Yeoh in it, so I cannot see a downside. Unless it's the mentions of Event Horizon, because I want the two hours of my life back that I spent watching that thing. Gah.

Life, the universe, everything

2007-03-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

First off this morning I see that there's another really cool example of science, and how it works, bitches. (Third t-shirt down)

The Bad Astronomy Blog notes how scientists were able to map an asteroid and predict its increased rotation through something called the Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack effect. Times like these I wish I were better at math.

It's not every day that a comment in a blog gets you to thinking, but today has been one of those days. As some of you may know, Steve Gilliard (of the News Blog) has been in the hospital for quite a while, had surgery, and is still under sedation.

One of the comments in the most recent post mentioned how the commenter was scared, and then this popped up.

It is important Cee, not to be afraid of what you can not control. Fear is a biological response to prepare you to fight or run when danger is present. There is no danger present here for you. This is out of your control. Allow it to be out of your control. Be present to the sensation of fear and to your lack of control over the outcome, and I promise the fear will go away.

Reading it again it's the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, only coming from a doctor and in a way I'd not quite thought about it before.

If later posts start talking about how the spice must flow, I will know that I really am unstuck in time.

why are paints named after foods?

2007-03-15T08:31:00.000-07:00

DSC00297.JPG
Originally uploaded by GiantFightingBot.

While painting the house we've looked at a lot of paint samples. I can understand the need to be appealing in a color names, and you have to do something to differentiate between 30 shades of white. On the other hand, do paint manufacturers have to name every single shade after food? Paprika. Cocoa. Shiitake.

Perhaps instead of looking at colors I should have figured out which items would have made the best meal, and picked those colors for the walls.

I'm beginning to think that I need more storage. My attempt to catalog everything in the house with Delicious Library sorta fell by the wayside when I lost access to a scanner gun. I suppose I could get another one or switch to LibraryThing, but you know, effort.

The early transition to Daylight Savings Time is hitting me pretty hard this week. Of course it probably doesn't help that I'm going to bed at the "usual" time, just getting up an hour earlier. But hey, the internet doesn't click on itself.

Color schemes

2007-02-20T15:16:00.000-08:00

Spent the weekend at the coast, reading nautical fiction and eating fish and chips. Lucked into a garage sale at the Rogue Brewery, where I picked up a pair of cases for a song.

I must remember this for future holiday weekends. There have been a few changes since I was last there--the brewery is now covered a bit so you can't see the brewers going about their business from the bar. Which is fine, as I'm pretty sure I would be annoyed as hell if somebody sat above my floor watching me hack at Web pages.

Also painting the living room this week, at least with sample colors from Devine.

Devine colors are interesting in that they're designed for the Pacific Northwest climate. In the winter grey, they really pop. Our exterior is done in the same colors and it really does stand out during the perennial rains. Still not sure which colors for the walls but we really want this one color called Devine Merlot for an accent wall. Now just what does it accent?

One of my friends has been borrowing comic trades lately. This next round includes Spiral Bound. If only the summer camp I went to was as awesome as the ones these kids go to.

This is what happens when you kiss a stranger in the Alps, Donny

2007-02-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

One of the things that intrigues me about EVE is the metagame. Not only are pretend spaceships being built and destroyed, but real people are creating alternative characters to infiltrate pretend corporations.

The latest scandal goes beyond that, where it has come to light that one of the pre-eminent groups, Band of Brothers, has had help from developers. In June 2006, he created many Tech II blueprints (recipes for making equipment) and gave them to the corporation, where he also had a character.

In World of WarCraft terms, this would be like somebody spawning epic equipment and giving it to his guild, only moreso. Those blueprints are a license to print money. Plus, as an added bonus, the guy who figured all this out had all of his paying accounts terminated.

Meanwhile, because of various factions, the entire EVE world is at war right now. I cannot help but wonder what this news has done, whether it's the Archduke Franz Ferdinand incident that leads to the Somme, but this weekend has been lagtastic in fleet battles as corporation fleets march to war.

I really hope CCP gets their act together on this--they've bungled the investigation and their handling of the facts. They may be distracted by their recent merger with White Wolf (I'd expect to see an announcement about a new World of Darkness MMORPG any day now). Still, these shenanigans predate any negotiations between the two companies.

Coming down with a cold this weekend and I have a major release at work on Thursday. I'm going to continue to try more frequent updates, though.

Pretend internet spaceships are the best

2007-02-05T09:18:00.000-08:00

So I was all fired up in January to resume a regularly MWF blogging schedule, and then life happened.

Let's try this again.

I totally missed everything Super Bowl related this year, as I was helping a friend build shelving units. Then we drank tiki drinks and had nachos, so I think I ended up the winner.

The new year is also about the time I start playing MMORPGs, at least for a while. Last year it was Maple Story, which is full of 12-year-olds. This year, it's EVE Online, which is all about SERIOUS BUSINESS involving fake internet spaceships. OK, the people who call it serious business are probably 12 years old as well.

Mostly it's an excuse to run around going pew pew at each other in a giant game of tag, only it's on a global scale because there is one single server that handles all players. Given how awful the lag is during some of the fleet battles I've been in, I really don't know how good of an idea this has turned out to be, though. Anything more than about 40 spaceships fighting turns the whole thing into a slideshow.

(Of course, each spaceship is flying, shooting multiple weapons, running special equipment, sending drones to kill each other, dropping warp bubbles, etc., so there are hundreds of variables to keep track of in any engagement.)

Valentine's Day is approaching. Have you kept the economy going, citizen?

Push the button

2007-01-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

I have mostly given up on The Simpsons, but now and again they manage to come up with something that makes me laugh.

Crooks and Liars has this clip of Lisa and the global warming simulator that reminds me of my young days playing with the Coralville Reservoir Dam simulation. Do they even make dioramas anymore? They must, as the last time I was in Vegas, they had an elaborate mockup of what the pool at the Golden Nugget will eventually look like.

Somewhere, somebody has a job of making models of small buildings. I am probably in the wrong industry.

It's a new year and hopefully I will be resuming a regular broadcast schedule. I read a report a while ago that theorized this is the year blogs start slowing down. After all, most of the people who would want to blog have done so already, and new blogs are abandoned soon after creation.

There are also several long-time blogs that have ceased publication. Billmon hung 'em up recently. I still miss Counterspin, and that's been silent for two years now.

Line Rider 2

2006-12-23T23:17:00.000-08:00

The original Line Rider was a simple concept that went from a small Flash file to a worldwide obsession.

Now the company (InXile) started by one of the guys from Fallout (yes, Fallout, possibly one of the best games ever) has the rights to the new version. Here's a sample from the new version, which includes acceleration:

Oh, I forgot the best part!

It's coming to the Nintendo DS and the Wii!

Chili peppers: is there anything they can't do?

2006-12-16T23:39:00.000-08:00

Researchers in Canada have discovered an interesting aspect of pain cells in the pancreas of diabetic mice.

There's an article in yesterday's National Post about researchers curing diabetes in mice "virtually overnight" through the injection of capsiacin.

I also had this story pointed out by my friends who hold a hotluck every year. (Every dish at a potluck is spicy. Last year I made peanut-butter-and-habanero-jelly sandwiches.) Some growers in England produced a pepper that measures 923,000 Scoville Units. Considering the hottest pepper I've ever had—the Scotch Bonnet—measures a mere 100K-350K, that's scary as hell. I can't imagine actually using one in a dish.

the cylons have a plan, which evidently involves algae

2006-12-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

Burning an album I bought the other day (BT's Movement in Still Life, if you're curious) and finishing up listening to the latest podcast about the last Battlestar Galactica episode.

These podcasts are interesting in that they're a half-glimpsed vision of what goes into the making of a show. Sure, there are narrative reasons why X and Y happen, but there are also financial reasons. You save money by making a bottle show because you blew your budget on episode 3. That sort of thing.

I do wish that the producer of the show would spend some money on a better microphone, as the last couple of podcasts are excruciating to listen to. The one for last episode had a high-pitched beep every couple of seconds that was maddening. (Sorely tempted to find a copy of Pro Tools or the like to even it out. I used to this kind of thing back in the day with Sound Edit 16; don't tell me the Sci-Fi Channel is too poor to spend an hour on post-production.)

Had a friend over the other night and I realized just how out-of-sorts my comic book collection is lately. I've been accruing them, but not doing much with them in terms of storage. She borrowed a bunch of trades so it's a little bit easier, but I can see that my weekend is going to be spent taking a look at sorting.

How to get sued:

2006-12-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

So I know that both Yahoo maps and Google maps have little disclaimers that you should always check your routes before traveling anywhere.

However, it looks like they may need to beef up their language, based on the experiences of a family here in Oregon.

Authorities say the cyber-savy[sic] family may have plucked the route from Grants Pass to Gold Beach from an online mapping service, unaware of the elements.

Despite its impassable snowdrifts and single-lane, Bear Camp Road is offered as the preferred route on some Web sites and on-board-directions software available on some new cars. And most of those have no business in those mountains in the winter.

Yahoo and MapQuest offer Highways 199 and 101 as the preferred route. A Google map search, however, suggests the Bear Camp route, a series of federal forest roads used mostly in summer.

Evidently the father wandered out looking for help and they're still looking for him. I really do hope they find him.

Also, sorry for the delay in service--it has been extraordinarily busy for me lately and I haven't had a lot of energy to do much of anything. Like Roast Beef, I may suffer from SAD.

a solution to the Wikipedia problem

2006-11-08T09:58:00.000-08:00

T-Rex is right. There is a solution to the Wikipedia Problem.

Simply direct all Wikipedia vandalism to the article about chickens, because DUDES ALREADY KNOW ABOUT CHICKENS.

Think about it, won't you?

Also, I see that the Democratic Party made gains in the House, the Senate, and state governorships, but this will somehow mean they are a party of losers, at least according to the mainstream media.

Now to keep eyes on the prize for 2008.

It's election day.

2006-11-07T15:09:00.000-08:00

VOTE.

Good news, everybody!

2006-11-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

They're going to do the Hubble repair mission!

Tons of new optics, new gyroscopes, a new lease on life for one of the best astronomical platforms we have.

I'm off to the Midwest for a vacation this weekend, so here is a life lesson from Patton Oswalt. (Who incidentally is starring as the voice in next summer's Pixar film. I wonder if that was because of his comedy routine about the gravy pipe.)

CARING IS…

According to this sign I saw at a middle school in San Francisco,
“Caring is thinking with your heart.”

It’s true! Here are some other interesting facts about emotions and feelings:

Jealousy is hating with your asshole.

Sharing is letting your heart act like a faggot.

Paranoia is screaming through your vestigal tail.

Terror is getting an erection with your liver.

Joy is dreaming with your taint.

Patriotism is making cupcakes with your nutsack (yes, this also applies to you, ladies).

Boredom is yawning with your farts.

Excitement is farting with your eyes.

Confusion is your bladder having an argument with your confidence.

Happiness is your brain masturbating about how good your hair looks.

Election 2006: important information about every race

2006-10-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

Based off an idea at MyDD.

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

one message with one received fax

2006-10-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

One of the things that surprised me in this job is our telephone system is smart enough to detect an incoming FAX and save it. Then it can print it to wherever you want it to go.

However, it will still let you listen to the FAX message if you want, which is about like volunteering to hear shreiking metal bits grinding against each other. YES, SIGN ME UP FOR THAT.

(Somewhere along the line my work phone was a FAX line, so I get to listen to this all the time. And all of the messages are FAX spam, which strikes me as an even worse spam market than e-mail...)

The reason I mention this is that it's one of those features that SOUNDS cool but ends up not being all that spiffy. For example, downloading ringtones for your mobile phone. Perhaps it's better in other parts of the world, but when my choices are some pop song I've never heard of or a selection of spiritual songs I never want to hear, that's not really a choice at all.

There's a new feature in iTunes that lets you browse the album covers of your playlist. This is... um... theoretically good for something. However, if you do not have hardware acceleration or up-to-date video drivers, all you get is an incredibly cryptic message how iTunes cannot display album covers on your computer. At least on Windows.

How this got out of development is a mystery to me. It adds nothing at the expense of taking away useful (to me) functionality, such as hotkeys for the equalizer (which were in just one revision ago) and display of the number of people currently sharing your playlist.

Those features, I would have used. Instead, it's incomplete and broken pawing through album covers. Yeah, that was time well spent.

from the maker of MUFFIN FILMS

2006-10-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

You may or may not remember Muffin Films, films about one of the most important foodstuffs known to man: muffins.

The same creator has a couple of other projects: Big Bunny Films and Making Fiends.

I am particularly fond of Making Fiends, the terrifying tale of Charlotte, friend-maker extraordinare and Vendetta, the witch-child who terrifies the rest of the school. We have started to ask, "Your family, do they have all their limbs?" around the house. (You can find the source of this in Episode 4.

I may have chosen the wrong career path

2006-10-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

At no point does my job involve writing about sick vests, chronicling the life of cartoon cats, or building an orrery out of LEGO.

Of course, the first two are right out because I can't draw for crap.

The latter is probably right out since my math is still the crap and science requires a little bit of that kinda stuff.

I've been preoccupied with work and family visits, so I'm not even caught up on Battlestar Galactica from last week. I somehow doubt I can sit through three hours of unrelenting darkness this weekend, but I might be able to with the help of my friend sweet booze.

National Novel Writing Month approaches again. I've had two years in a row where I've missed completing the thing. Not sure if I want to chance it again this year, but it might distract me a bit from other things. There are at least three ideas in my head about what to tackle--not sure which is the most interesting to do.

To hell with work, this is SCIENCE

2006-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite early sketches from Late Nite with David Letterman involved Paul wandering around the NBC studio, wondering where Dave had gone to.

Then he wanders near Letterman's dressing room, and pops out with his hair full of shampoo lather.

"Dave, what about the show?" asks Paul.
Dave replies, "The right side is tingling. IT IS TINGLING!"
"But Dave, the show?"
"To hell with the show, this is SCIENCE!" shouts Letterman, and closes the door.

I'm having a similar moment today, as scientists have evidently made breakthroughs in teleportation while I was sleeping...

The mind boggles at the implications for quantum computing. Deep Thought is maybe not far off anymore...

Back from Las Vegas

2006-09-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Miss me?

This was my first trip and I have a couple of thoughts:

Thought the first:
It is not an accident that there are no places to sit in Vegas that are not in a restaurant or in front of some sort of gambling apparatus. You must walk. You cannot sit at the bus stop and wait for the bus, you must walk until you want to sit down, at which point you must gamble or eat.

Thought the second:
Everybody has a roulette system that will not work.

Thought the third:
Los Angeles must have been empty of LA Kings fans over the weekend, as I think every single one of them was packed into the MGM Grand Arena last Saturday. One of the more drunk fans was sitting behind me—it's bad when you can smell somebody's breath 10 seconds after they yell, isn't it?

Thought the fourth:
The bartenders at the Mon Ami Gabi restaurant in the Paris hotel are really, really good sports. All I can say is do not ask them to make a mojito.

Let's see, what else is new? It's Friday and I'm unstuck in time. I'm sure I'll think of something.

Whoa.

2006-09-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

O'Reilly, despite being on my Naughty List for continually updating books right after I buy them, has a new feature.

Code search.

Find any example code from over 700 books.

Granted, some of them are without context and it doesn't appear to have the upcoming publications yet. But, man. Just, whoa.

OK, I may be the only one who cares but it's been pretty cool to play with so far. And a fantastic ad for their wares. Buy two, get one free.

Holy crap, has it been almost a month?

2006-09-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

There's a saying in one of the Pratchett Discworld novels.

Early to rise
Early to bed
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead

Not sure what it means that I'm more of a early-to-rise, late-to-bed kind of person lately. Been working like crazy lately, which has led to a severe decrease in "typing blog entries at work" time. Funny how that happens.

Currently reading:
Just finished the new book by Alastair Reynolds, Pushing Ice. I've been a huge fan of Reynolds since Revelation Space, so I was surprised that I was a bit disappointed in this one. It's a hell of an idea—a cometary mining ship is the only vehicle in space capable of intercepting one of Saturn's moons when it breaks orbit and is discovered to be an alien artifiact instead of the ice moon we all thought it was.

The plot is interesting but the characters were somewhat nebulous—I never really figured out why some of them did the things they did, and the deus ex machina bits got old as they continued to pop up.

Some fascinating ideas and I strongly suspect there is a sequel or two to the book, but I'm not quite sure how interested I am in them. I may have to reread this later and see if I'm more in a mood to make sense of the seemingly arbitrary shifts in attitude that show up in the book.

Currently watching:
The second season of the Venture Brothers is almost finished, and I'm somewhat sad. This has been a heck of a show and I really hope that Cartoon Network sees the light and orders more seasons of this. Rumor has it that they're very likely to do so, and I am glad. I wasn't sure how they'd top last year's finale but almost every episode this year has been a riot.

Currently playing:
It struck me the other day that I'd never played Fallout or Fallout 2, so I went looking on eBay for copies of them. Found both for fairly reasonable prices, so my evenings after work have been spent crawling the California post-nuclear wasteland, shooting mutants and dodging radscorpions. There is a pair of fantastic "Let's Play" threads about these games in the Something Awful forms, and I blame them for triggering my itch to play old games.

Next up is Homeworld or Homeworld 2.

Although the Wii comes out Real Soon Now and I'll probably be sorely tempted by that as well.

Let's see, what else is new? I'll be off on vacation so probably not much until Monday.

Meet the new blogger same as the old blogger

2006-08-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

Google is upgrading their installation, and while I suggested that I might want to upgrade, their process only lets me get so far and then it does.

Also, when you try to log into the new system, it logs you out of Google's other stuff, so it's a real clusterfuck.

(Edit: they appear to have fixed that behavior but they're still asking people to migrate their blogs and then telling them they can't do so at this time.)

Busy as hell right now. Talk to me at the end of the month. I don't even know what day it is--I think it might be Thursday.

t-shirts t-shirts t-shirts

2006-08-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

I already own too many t-shirts, but I am sorely tempted by these that I found at Oddica:

Wax On, Wax Off
Sith Abandon Ship 2
Can't Beat 'Em, Sell 'Em

Found these through the blog of Chris Prederick, creator of the best Firefox extension ever.

I've already toyed with downloading the Dig Dug theme song to use as a ringtone for my Sidekick 3, so having a t-shirt to go with it would either be really awesome, really nerdy, or both.

Culinary perfection has been achieved

2006-08-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

Somebody has made the ultimate foodstuff:

Meat cake.

No, seriously, a meaty cake. A cake of pure meatiness. Beats mincemeat pie into a cocked hat. Decimates bangers and mash.

Okay, see, this bears some explanation. A coworker is getting married next week, and we were talking about wedding cakes (I had just done one for two friends of mine). He asked if I could do one for him - totally joking of course. "Oh, sure, what kind of chef are you that you can't pump out a wedding cake on just two weeks notice??" He went on to describe his ultimate wedding cake. "I hate that wedding cakes are all girly. There should be like a groom cake to go with the traditional wedding cake. A guy's cake. Like..made out of meat."

A lightbulb went off in my mind. "I could TOTALLY do that," I exclaimed. "A meatloaf! With mashed potato frosting! OH MY GOD!"

And so she did. Well played.

In other news, the new season of Battlestar Galactica promises to be even darker than before, or so the rumor mill has told me.

Given how dark last season was, each episode this season should include a dial-in number where you can state your name and get a shipment of Valium delivered to your home.

Electronic Entertainment Expiration

2006-07-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

The announcement has come forth that the Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3, or Mecca, for some) has been cancelled. Penny Arcade summed it up thus:

Acting as their own outlets, publishers get much more reliable data about the efficacy of their marketing payload. Trying to project their unsullied, carefully manicured marketing message at E3 is essentially like putting a choice morsel in the bottom of a burlap sack, and then filling the bag with cats. You swing the bag around and around, at which point dizzy felines emerge. Did it work? Hard to say. Oh! Also, the sack costs forty million dollars.

I can understand the reasoning and yet, like many other people, I have to admit a bit of disappointment. E3 was about more than the spectacle, it was like the Super Bowl and Christmas all rolled into one. Of course, it probably cost double what either event did.

One hopes that gaming schedules will even out after a while. I remember when working on projects about three jobs ago that getting something ready to E3 was itself a milestone. No matter what else was going on, you had to have something to show no matter how ready it was. Given the extended development cycles on modern consoles, and the difficulty of getting any project approved with so much cost, I can see why the industry as a whole would want to remove such a stumbling block to getting products out the door.

It used to be that there was feast or famine: lots of stuff around E3 and Christmas, diddly squat for the other ten months of the year. Which is stupid and leads to a lot of games being swept under the rug.

So while I never went to E3, I knew a lot of people who did. I used to get buckets of swag from their trips, too. Somewhere in my desk is a set of Metal Gear Solid dog tags, now that I think of it. The Pod Racer 64 t-shirt long dissolved into nothingness.

Currently listening to the soundtrack to Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. I'm trying to be really good and avoid any and all spoilers for the upcoming season. All I've heard is that it will be "darker than anything we've done before."

This from the show that produced Lay Down Your Burdens. At this rate every viewer is going to require extensive therapy or massive doses of Cute Overload just to get through the day.

Global warming? What global warming?

2006-07-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend in San Francisco for a wedding and to beat the 100 degree weather in Stumptown.

This plan backfired when it was hotter in SF on Saturday than it was at home. Still, it was a pretty good trip, even if there was almost more driving than actual visiting.

I did discover something most excellent--Michael J. Nelson has a new project called RiffTrax. Take a movie, download his commentary track, and then watch a sort-of MST3K experience. The best part, of course, is that they don't have to license the movie and this allows them to create commentary tracks for pretty much anything.

The current selection is Roadhouse, which I think I've seen perhaps ten minutes of. However, it's now rocketed to the top of my NetFlix queue. Next on the list is The Fifth Element, which is a big shiny dumb movie that is just crying out for... something. I liked it, but I wanted to like it much more. You can vote on the next project, too.

Currently reading new books by both Vernor Vinge (Rainbows End) and Alastair Reynolds (Pushing Ice). Oh yeah, and Karl Schroeder's new book Lady of Mazes has been fairly enjoyable so far.

Nerd Prom

2006-07-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

I am not at San Diego Comic-con, but other people are:

Latest Flickr photos

Live feed from the Dumbrella booth

Comic-Con homepage

It's going to be 100+ here in Stumptown for the next three days. I am going to California but for other reasons.

I wonder if the other people in the car would mind listening to Kylie's album Fever on continuous repeat for the entire trip...

Why try harder

2006-07-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

(Title courtesy of the Fatboy Slim compilation I bought on my lunch hour today.)

While I was walking the far-too-trendy mall thingy today, I was again reminded about how awesome this image from Peet's looks:

There's just something about this product photo that I really like. Whether it's the shaved chocolate, the condensation on the glass, or something else, I cannot say. It's very well done.

Signed up for an iStockphoto account earlier this week, if only for the access to artists and photographers far more talented than I will ever be. It's cheaper and less frustrating to find something cool online than be confronted with my poor hand and general lack of drawing tablets at work.

Though really, I'm not sure they want a user interface that looks like it's for Teen Girl Squad. (Which is new this week, by the way...)

Login!
Reset password!
Call me now!
Chat live with a customer representative!

(OK, it is probably more fun if you hear that in Strong Bad's voice.)

Allow me to say, "Poppycock"

2006-07-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite comics of 2002 was the Amazing Screw-On Head by Mike Mignola. It had everything young minds need to grow and develop: secret histories of the world, zombie emperors, vampires, cyborgs, etc.

The Sci-Fi Channel, bless their little hearts, has taken this and made it into an animated series, and you can watch the pilot online.

It's a beautiful piece of work. The story from the SA forums is that the Sci-Fi Channel is on the fence about the show, there are four episodes in the bag, but they're not sure it will work.

Take a gander. It may be the best 23 minutes you spend this week, unless you happened to TiVo the Venture Brothers from Sunday.

Searches, statistics, and crushing writer's block

2006-07-13T13:16:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to balance life and work, with mixed success as of late. My own creative output has gone way down as workload has increased. Of course, I did spend an hour trying to create a humorous picture of one of my coworkers in Photoshop, so that's creativity of a different sort.

Interests wax and wane as summer progresses. Early on, I was all about the Maple Story. Then there was the enjoyable week or two I spent replaying both the Arm and Core campaigns of Total Annihilation. For a while I was playing a lot of StarCraft. Then it was reading.

Currently trying to play through games in my Gamefly queue—I had one or two games out for almost 8 weeks, still sitting in their packaging. One of them got maybe a half hour of playtime before I decided it wasn't for me.

Senator Ted "Comedy Goldmine" Stevens wants you to know: The internet is full of tubes. It's not a big truck.

Why do I pay for cable again?

2006-07-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, it's so that I can watch the Venture Brothers on a big screen. That and Univision's soccer coverage. And COPS. (I tend to watch that when I'm online since it doesn't require much thought and it's the TV equivalent of going to a convention for me--at the end I feel like my life is kinda normal.)

TV got another nail in the coffin with the upcoming release of Brisco County Jr on DVD. (Though wow, that site does open 3 pop-up windows and is extraordinarily loud, so maybe try looking on Amazon instead.

I'm not sure I really like this trend of releasing whole seasons on DVD for $100. That's a pretty high price point, at least to me. The Doctor Who set (season 27 with Christopher Eccleston) is about the same, but it does come with a ton of extras. On the other hand, compared to the highway robbery that is Farscape, that's not that bad.

World Cup hiatus

2006-06-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

Now that the round of 16 is over, I'm at a loss for what to do during my day for distraction. If nothing else, the Guardian minute-by-minute replays have been a great read even when the matches have sucked.

I'm hearing mixed reviews of Superman Returns. Could be good, could be bad. I'm about 99% certain there's no Krypto in it, which is a huge strike against it. Krypto makes anything better--he could have saved the awfulness that was the last couple of films.

Still, it seems weird to decide to stay in continuity with the Christopher Reeve films when most folks haven't seen them in years. On the other hand, one could watch the later Dirty Dozen films without having seen the first ones.

Bit of insomnia lately, caused by multiple concurrent crises at work, and anxiety over campaigns going out. I'm a little gunshy on those lately.

The new season of The Venture Brothers premiered over the weekend. There's still a chance to go out and watch the first season before the next episode this weekend. You'll be glad you did.

Go Team Venture, indeed.

Presented for your amusement...

2006-06-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

This panel from Kawaii Not, which may be one of my new favorite Webcomics.

Found via Lore Sjoberg (oh, wait, his Wired blog) via Penny Arcade.

Speaking of Gabe and Tycho, I am quite glad that they finally got through their awful legal battles and were able to release their books. I have one of their early Penny Arcade: Year One books, but it's a tiny tiny subsection of their work.

Flashback only without the constant smell of popcorn

2006-06-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

It's World Cup time again. I can't listen to any of the live feeds--none of them can punch through the proxy here at the printer mines--but I have been trying to keep track as best I can.

Google has a live update on their personalized homepage, but it's dropped out for most of the first half of the Poland - Ecuador game. Instead, I've been viewing their constantly-updating World Cup coverage. For example, here's one of their comments from today's game:

49 mins: Krzynowek wastes yet another corner, this time swinging the ball over everyone in the box and behind for a goal kick. Very disappointing so far for a man with a supposedly cultured left-foot.

I've also learned fun facts, like the stadium in AufSchalke has 5 km of piping to bring in beer. Truly, this is a magical world we live in these days.

Between World Cup fever and the incredibly long REM playlist I just uploaded to my work machine, I'm flashing back to college, sitting in my apartment above a movie theater and watching the 94 World Cup on Univision.

Plugged directly into my inner 8-year-old

2006-05-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

This is probably the best ad for a MacBook ever, at least for a certain demographic:

This magic brought to you through MacSaber and the built-in motion accelerometer.

I wonder if this can somehow be combined with the sensors in NikePlus to emulate the Flintstones running noise while walking. Or maybe personal soundtracks like in I'm Gonna Get You Sucka.

Busy busy busy

2006-05-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Funny how moving from the library to the printer mines has impacted my blogging time.

Today involved two meetings and three presentations, one delivered by e-mail. Oh, and somehow I found time to drink too much soda and get a haircut.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Gone and Forgotten has come alive after its long hiatus with two stories. One is about Jimmy Olsen, another about super boxers.

Yeah, I didn't get it either.

Maple Story is a year old now, and they're celebrating with double XP days and double drop days. I'm busy during all of these events, but perhaps I'll make it during this weekend.

Videogames are mostly Old Home Week at our house, as I'm working my way through Total Annihilation and StarCraft. New games? 3D rendering? Not for me.

Careful, next I'll be digging out TADS and Inform again.

Spiritual successor

2006-05-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've blathered about it before, but I'll do so again.

Back in the day I was quite fond of Total Annihilation. Gas-Powered Games (led by Chris Taylor, designer of TA and Dungeon Siege) announced a successor a while back, under a different name as Atari still owns the the rights to TA.

E3, land of candy and sunshine, has some footage from Supreme Commander:

Um, wow.

I know that demos at trade shows are never quite how it will be in the end, but that's still pretty impressive.

Haven't watched last night's episode of Lost yet, but I did get a pointer to subLYMONal.com, a Hanso Foundation site. If you click on things the right way, you'll get directed elsewhere, and if you poke around, you can find a PDF with a phone number on it.

Not sure I'll call it or not, though. The NSA is watching.

Gravitas-off

2006-05-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

Colbert has been in the news a lot lately, but this clip (from either his first or second show) is still one of my favorite things ever.

Stephen Colbert vs. Stone Phillips in: GRAVITAS-OFF 2006

He's got the biggest/ Balls of them all

2006-05-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

So last night Stephen Colbert, he of the eponymous Report, stepfather of Stephen Jr., formerly of The Daily Show and Strangers With Candy, went to Washington DC to speak at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. A corporate affair designed to engender warm feelings among the oligarchy, with light entertainment and some forced humor.

Instead of delivering a "Gosh, isn't saying 'strategery' funny," speech, he delivered the most amazing speaking-truth-to-power speech I've seen in years.

You can watch the video in lots of places.

There are also several sites with complete transcripts. DKos has the most complete one.

My favorite moment, one that will stay with me for years, is this one:

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

In other news, Achewood is totally Airwolf today. I cannot get that theme song out of my head now. Thanks, Chris Onstad!

Damn trees

2006-04-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Northwest is a wonderland of tree hormones as of late. All the trees are flowering, leading other on with a deft wave of a branch, spreading pollen through the air in voluptuous clouds.

The side effect of all this is that I am sneezing pretty much all the time. And when I'm not sneezing my lungs out, I have a sinus headache.

Originally I thought this was a side-effect of imbibing too much Collaborator Pre-Prohibition Lager, a fine beer and an example of what American beer was like before the evils of drink were discovered, banned, and later re-established.

Currently reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which feel a bit like Jane Austen writing Harry Potter books, with a side-trip into Little, Big.

Hard to believe this is her first novel—I'm really looking forward to many more.

I'm all out of B

2006-04-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

Metafilter has some fascinating maps about religious beliefs in America today. That explains why Good Friday was so quiet at work, though. Everybody in non-heathen Stumptown evidently had the day off.

OMG. NEWSFLASH!

Tom Cruise and his receptacle Katie Holmes have spawned!

How have I lived without knowing the origins of the name Suri before this? (As Olbermann put it on Countdown this evening, "If you picked 'Suri' in our pool, you are the winner.")

There was a thing on The Daily Show the other day about how most of the President's sentences follow the following construction:

We are here to A B. We are B A'ers.

Given his weak-ass defense of Rumsfeld today, there was a silent thing today. "I am the [thing] decider. And I decide what [thing] is best."

Nah, it still sounds pretty weak.

Most incompetent unpopular President ever. Hoover should rest peacefully knowing his position as worst ever is now firmly in second place.

Design driven by lawsuits

2006-04-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

First off, just for fun.

This totally needs to be on a t-shirt. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

If you're the kind of person who still uses IE and you've noticed that things are starting behave weirdly today, you've just been given another reason to switch to Firefox.

Microsoft is in a patent lawsuit, and today they released a "patch" to ActiveX, which basically breaks every embedded player for Flash, QuickTime, WinMedia, etc.

The ActiveX update makes a very simple change. It prevents you from automatically interacting with an embedded object - like a flash movie. You have to activate it first.

In general, and contrary to what many people have speculated, it only prevents interaction with embedded content. If you add a flash movie to your site, it will play, but you cannot interact with it. That includes any mouseOver effects.

This was supposed to go out in June 2006, but it was released today with very little fanfare.

Safari, Opera, and Firefox users remain unaffected by these shenanigans.

The Wayback Machine

2006-04-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I decided to start playing StarCraft again this weekend. (Mebbe it was the Blizzard April Fool's Day prank about playing Wisps in the World of WarCraft expansion...)

Oddly enough, the install discs constructed in 1997 or so didn't do very well when I tried using them on OS X. Thankfully Blizzard had forseen my problem and invented a Mac OS X installer, thus saving me from having to boot into Classic just to play a game. (I still do that with Total Annihilation, though.)

Anyway, the game has held up pretty well. I find that missions that I once found impossible are not too bad, and I have this disturbing tendency (born of many LAN games, no doubt) to have "kill everything that isn't you" as the only victory condition in my mind. So while I could have rescued General Duke in like fifteen minutes, I instead built enough Goliaths to wipe out every Zerg on the map.

More as it develops, if you're interested in that kind of thing. Or even if you're not.

In other news, Daylight Savings Time is upon us. Remind me why we do this again?

He's at your command

2006-03-31T19:35:00.000-08:00

Looking around the Internet today, I see lots and lots of links to the Chevy make-your-own-Tahoe commercial, which reminds me a bit of the Bush-Cheney sloganator.

They've been fairly underwhelming to me from what I've seen, but I haven't spent a lot of time looking at them. OK, this one from the mighty Norbizness is good.

It's not too late to start saving up for your very own Gigantor. It's a thing of beauty, but four figures seems a bit steep.

Because it's Thursday

2006-03-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of this as I was watching old episodes of the Colbert Report on TiVo.

Speaking of Mr. Colbert, I hear he has a book deal in the works. (Please, please, let it be Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad Seven: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure. PLEASE.)

Bear Holding A Shark

2006-03-29T21:35:00.000-08:00

Jeffrey Rowland finally figured out how to make Larry the Cable Guy funny.

Bear Holding A Shark Fever! Catch it!

This shirt is so popular that the Brothers Chaps (of Homestar Runner fame) have to go make some more. It's either a Mysterious Myth or Legendary Legend, but either way, good for them.

Nah, what you really need is more bitching about cameraphones

2006-03-27T18:36:00.000-08:00

John Rogers could save the movie industry if only somebody would listen to him.

Because I will tell you right now, right here, how to get people to go back to seeing movies in theaters. Without disruptive technology. Without theater upgrades. All for, oh, $4.65 an hour per screen.

I will now save your industry:

Hire. Fucking. USHERS.

It goes on from there and you should read the whole thing. He's a wise man.

I would also mention that maybe making movies that didn't suck might also help. Larry the Cable Guy, for example. WHY THE FUCK DID THAT GET MADE? I believe that may be a worse score than Catwoman, which is quite an accomplishment.

Finished watching the season finale to Battlestar Galactica over the weekend, which was simultaneously painful and glorious to watch. Though how I will wait for October for Season Three is a bit of a mystery--on the other hand it's almost April right now.

I think I may have missed the two-year anniversary of this blog. Either that or it's coming up again. Huh.

[Edit] I continue to confuse Mark Rogers (author of the Samurai Cat books) with John Rogers (author of many things, one of them cat-related)

You asked. They answered

2006-03-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

Evidently the buzz behind Snakes on a Plane is so big that New Line is reshooting a bunch of it to push it from PG-13 to R territory.

n any event, "Snakes"-ophiles already were hard at work. Chris Rohan of Bethesda, Md., created an elaborate, R-rated audio trailer that lovingly mocks the title and movie. "It's a genius title," Rohan said. "It's so stupid it's great. It invites satire, but it's something you just love. It's something I can't explain. You either get it or you don't."

The audio bit uses a Jackson sound-alike shouting, "I want these motherfucking snakes off the motherfucking plane!" Soon, the growing legion of fans added their voices as they demanded that that phrase also appear in the movie.

Apparently, the studio got the hint. When Ellis assembled Jackson and others for the recent shoot, the filmmakers added more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes. And they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded.

If only we could have used a similar process to get Lucas to shove the entire cast of the new Star Wars movies into the trash compactor.

Fly the Friendly Skies

2006-03-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

OK, ever go from not knowing something exists to absolutely wanting it RIGHT NOW?

A model of the dropship from Aliens. Done by Japanese companies that get it right.

Also, if you look at that picture, there's an Eagle from Space:1999 in there. One hopes a decent Starfury model is forthcoming.

A special thanks to Cassandra for the tip. Introducing me to this site is going to be hell on my wallet, I can tell!

In other news, the first Queen and Country novel is a doozy, and I'm sorta faced with the same problem I have with Battlestar Galactica. Just once I'd like something NICE to happen to these characters. Tara Chace gets to kill a lot of people in new and interesting ways, but her life is... not a happy one.

And no, I still haven't seen the BSG season finale, so don't talk to me about it until I can watch it on TiVo. Today has been very busy, what with my massage and drinking coffee and reading The New Frontier again.

But hey, tomorrow may kinda suck so at least today's been good.

Better than Free Slide Whistles and Brass Knuckles Night

2006-03-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

The Los Vegas Wranglers, a semi-pro hockey team, had Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night. The first 1000 lucky fans to show up received a bright orange safety vest.

Evidently the vests were so popular they are now for sale to the general public, emblazoned with the logo Don't Shoot, I'm Human.

Clearly the ideal gift for the hockey fan, hunter, or general person who does not want to be shot in the face by the Vice-President.

They interviewed the owner of the Wranglers on Countdown, and he said that their original plan was to give the fans the vests after an 18-hour delay, but they thought that might be a little bit too much.

SNAKES ON A PLANE

2006-03-17T19:51:00.000-08:00

Forget the t-shirt.

Forget the fake trailer on YouTube.

Marvel at the insanity that is...

SNAKES ON A PLANE

Snakes. On a plane.

It's making me think my dream of a movie about Brian Blessed and John Rhys-Davies fighting crime has a shot at making the bigtime.

Also, I found my Visor. It was in my bag the whole time, right where it was supposed to be. I love it when I do that. Love it.

Here Visor, Visor, Visor...

2006-03-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in either my office or my car is my Visor. It appears to have vanished in a puff of smoke. Odds are I've left it somewhere clever at home, since it is nowhere to be found in my office this morning. Of course, somebody could have helped themselves to it as it was sitting in my cube. Which would suck, b

Oh, the comics I purchased yesterday. Though oddly enough, I didn't read many of them when I got home. I did read part of the marvelous DC Showcase Presents: The Superman Family, but mostly the story about Jimmy Olsen being Superman's x-ray vision dog.

An idle thought: What was Jimmy's health deductible like? I mean seriously, if you knew a guy hung out with the Man of Steel all the time, would you insure him? Let alone the cost of property and casualty coverage in Metropolis...

Spending some time at work becoming acquainted with ISO 9001:2004 certification. On a BBS I once frequented, there was a joke forum called Continual Improvement Through Total Quality. Now that's my day job.

I got potion!

2006-03-09T18:47:00.000-08:00

Japanese commercial for a Final Fantasy XII-influenced beverage. (As seen on the SA forums...)

Tool-using monkey

2006-03-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

My stereo died the other day, victim to some heat-sink issues on the power supply. So I was left with a huge paperweight, which just happened to have five CDs of mine buried in it.

Last night I pried the case apart and removed the CDs from the mechanism, which was a bit easier than I thought it would be. So now I have my Renaissance Mix Collection CDs back, which I've been missing quite a bit.

Talking with friends the other night, I was reminded that I don't have a single Babylon 5 DVD set in my collection. Which is weird in a lot of ways, given how much I loved the series. (I still dream about it sometimes, where my subconscious has plotted out events in seasons 6,7,8, and 9. Yes, my subconscious evidently writes fanfic.)

Currently reading Thraxas, which appears to have invented a new genre: fantasy noir detective fiction. Good stuff.

You read my mind // Oscar bitching

2006-03-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

Flipping back and forth between the Oscars and the St. Louis / Vancouver game.

(As I type this, Ang Lee just won Best Director for Brokeback Mountain.)

Tired of endless fapping about Disney on Boing Boing? So dp other people.

So do you hate Cory or something?

Not really. I’ve read Boing Boing for a long time and only recently realized that I wasn’t really interested in it at all. And Cory’s posts are the worst. It seems like everything he writes is either about his DRM crusade, his book signings or Disney. I figured I could write a simple algorithm to quantify how much each post sucked, so I did it.

I wonder how long before xenisucks and marksucks comes out? Because every goddamn post Xeni has is about when she's gonna be on TV/radio/some soft-core cheesecake site.

I have no money riding on the Oscars at all, and I think I've seen maybe 10% of the films up for nomination. I keep meaning to see Good Night and Good Luck, as I love Murrow and am a huge fan of Clooney...

Gilliard's blog has a great post about Oscars and how they really don't mean all that much. The breakdown of what won as opposed to what's probably the better film is quite interesting.

Worst person in the world

2006-02-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

One of the new picks TiVo has been instructed to record at all times is Keith Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC. Luckily I've been able to see the showdown between Falafel Bill and Olbermann. (The former is evidently annoyed that his ratings are going down at about the same rate that Countdown's are going up, so he's got a petition out to cancel Countdown and bring back Phil Donohue.)

Friday had a 9-minute montage of some of the greatest hits from Countdown's coverage of O'Reilly's mistakes of the last few months. And tonight, Bill won the coveted "Worst Person in the World!" award, his 20th or 30th such victory.

Sorry I've been quiet lately--work has bee kind of crazy lately.

The internet just broke me.

2006-02-23T15:43:00.000-08:00

A Fatboy Slim video done entirely in kittens.

Imagine if the Land of Make Believe decided to go all-feline, all to a cover of a song that probably will stick in your head for ages.

Um, thanks? (Found courtesy of CuteOverload.)

Also, I noticed that Andreas Katsulas passed away the other day.

Goodnight, sweet G'Kar, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. I will miss him.

Citizen G'Kar: The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.

A Late Night world of love

2006-02-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

Dave Letterman, is there nothing you can't teach us?

After giving us Larry "Bud" Melman, bubbling fountains of mail, the viewer mail theme song, velcro walls, jumping in guacamole, and innumerable Top Ten lists, he's now breaking news about Dick Cheney shooting a guy in the face.

Cheney's press conference
The White House's new commercial

Just a big bowl of bad.

Finished Ilium by Dan Simmons, the writer who makes everyone else look bad. Mostly since he's won just about every genre fiction award there is, and he does it by writing some really interesting stuff. OK, sure, Hyperion's second half is padded it out but that was mostly the publisher making him split his novel into two rather than anything else.

This book involves the Gods re-enacting the Trojan War on a newly-terraformed Mars, while Earth is filled with illiterate eloi, Odysseus, and a sleeper from our near future. Jupiter has half-biological androids who read Shakespeare and Proust, and they encounter Little Green Men for whom communication is lethal.

There's a ton going on and it's a satisfying read. I read Odysseus in college, but never got around to the Iliad. I wonder what effect on publishing this book has had, as it's making me want to pick up Proust, too. But maybe not to summarize him.

It always has something to do with the Tri-Force.

2006-02-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a DVD extravaganza at our house recently. Valentine's Day brought in several things, including the Serenity, Wallace and Gromit, and The Vicar of Dibley discs.

OK, who the hell is that supposed to be on the Serenity movie site? River? She's got airbrushed skin and pneumatic breasts, so maybe it's Barbie Dress-Up Psychotic Walking Plot Device. It's certaintly not any character I recognize from the series. Man, for a series with such great production values I am confused as all get-out by this bizarre image. Is that a drop-shadow on her face? Did they bevel it?

As an aside, Kevin pointed me at round II of kids reviewing old video games. (The first installment is also a hoot...)

(Talking about the original vector-graphics Star Wars game)
EGM: What do those TIE Fighters look like?

Anthony: Stars.

Garret: Fireworks.

Bobby: Fireballs.

Parker: Psychadelic snowflakes.

Dillon: It's snowing up.

Rachel: This looks like a game out of Willy Wonka or something.

Bobby: It's like, "I'm Willy Wonka. I've created a new Star Wars."

EGM: Are they scary?

Anthony: No. It feels like they're trying to give me flowers.

Dillon: But flowers that you're allergic to, so you're trying to blow them up.

I pre-ordered the third Rebel Strike game just to get an adaptation of the vector Star Wars game, so this is kind of sad to here. But funny at the same time. This may be my favorite quote, from a discussion of Street Fighter II, which I remember sucking mightily at...

EGM: What do you think of that guy's hairstyle? [Points to Guile]

Parker: I think it's extremely 90s.

Bobby: He's a commando.

Dillon: That's very very, very retro, in his own ugly kind of way.

EGM: If you saw a guy like that at the mall...

Parker: I'd leave the store.

Bobby: I'd run away. I'd be afraid of getting his bad taste.

EGM: What store would he be shopping at?

Dillon: Hot Topic.

Bobby: Commandos R Us.

There may be hope for the future after all.

Avengers Assemble!

2006-02-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

... a made-for-DVD animated film.

It looks to be about on the level of the GI Joe vs. Serpentor film from a while back, you know the one where Don Johnson's shotgun fired laser beams.

Oh man, it looks like they're playing Giant-Man for laughs, too. Whee! Guess he's not gonna get into a fight with the Wasp in this one.

Rules of gun safety

2006-02-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

Tuns out that Dick didn't just wing a guy by accident, he totally blew the guy away while hunting in a canned hunt.

I grew up in a hunting family, and these "hunts" are not hunting. They're open-air butchering grounds, the equivalent of shooting into cages. Think skeet with living creatures. That the Vice-President patronizes such clubs while others watch from the side of the road is bad enough, but then for him to violate the very basic rules of gun safety? Well, I knew this bunch was a group of fucking incompetent wankers, but they continue to surprise me with how colossally dumb they are. This all assuming, of course, that it was an accident and not Dick "Fuck you, Leahy" Shooting a guy in snarling, drunken anger.

Rule #1 of gun safety: don't point a gun at anything you don't want to remove from the face of the earth. Doesn't matter if it's unloaded. Doesn't matter if you're just joking. Doesn't matter if you think the safety is on. You could fill a small city with the number of American kids killed each year from screwing around with an "empty" gun.

To borrow a phrase from another blog, this administration is the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Literally. The VP shoots a guy (and it was way closer than 30 yards--look at that dispersal pattern) and they cover it up for 18 hours, sorta like how they decided that it was more important to eat cake than it was to help the citizens of New Orleans when the levees broke.

They interviewed the reporter who broke the story for the small Corpus Christi paper that got the call. She's the health and living editor and was working on a weekend. She gets the call? Not the AP? Wow.

I'll miss you most of all, Mr. Bananagrabber.

2006-02-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

Fox had this great show which won a ton of awards and had a dedicated cult following. So instead of promoting it at all, they cut their order for more episodes and bury the last four episodes on a Friday night.

I'm speaking, of course, of Arrested Development, which got a really shitty send-off by the Fox powers-that-be last night. They played all four episodes with no fanfare (I only found out because TiVo has my back and I'd read Lyle's blog).

It's been a busy day. Had the car washed, watched a bit of my Strong Bad DVDs, and had a great lunch. Currently watching last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica before heading out to a hotluck. It's like a potluck, only with hot food. Last year I took pepper-pineapple salsa for ice cream--this year I'm making peanut-butter-and-habanero-jelly sandwiches. My test sandwich was excellent, so I'm looking forward to this evening.

I need sleep

2006-02-01T22:25:00.000-08:00

Kevin and I were talking about Essential Super-Villain Team-Up.

DougBot - All that Namor and Doom lack is a third comic foil. Paste-Pot Pete, for example. Then they could have a WACKY SITCOM.
Dougbot - DOOM: Join me, Namor!
Dougbot - NAMOR: What part of "I am the Avenging Son" do you not understand?
Dougbot - PETE: I glue things!
BeaucoupKevin - He gets renamed THE TRAPSTER later!

This, along with a Bendis-themed Twinkie ad, has been your Marvel moment for the day.

Over the Hedge

2006-01-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

DreamWorks appears to have had a can of paint explode all over their logo. It's now... rainbow-colored for some reason. Only not terribly interesting colors. I mention this as it's plastered on their trailer for their new film, a CGI adaptation of the comic strip Over the Hedge.

I'm not really sure this film needed to be made, let alone a version starring Bruce Willis. On the upside, Shatner is in it. SHATNER!

Also, some of you may have seen this on Yet Another Comics Blog, the secrets of Gifted and Talented Programs. Brings back memories, that does.

Late to the party

2006-01-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

Dorian started it. I should probably pay him a royalty.

Lesser of two weevils

2006-01-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

Finally, two years too late, I get around to watching Master and Commander. I read the first one a while back but have not read any of the others. Still, this is a fantastic recreation of the novels, way more visceral than the Hornblower made-for-TV films. (Though I also like those, too.)

It's raining and I'm catching up on my Netflix queue. Good thing I didn't have any other plans this weekend.

Cute overload

2006-01-29T00:04:00.000-08:00

I am sorry that it's taken so long for me to get around to updating my blog. There's a phrase I am vaguely remembering called "blogligation," which I think I first saw on Progressive Ruin.

There are new blogs started every few seconds, but I wonder how many of them make it past the first month. Blogging is what you make of it, of course, and some folks are content to post every few weeks. However, I've been slipping from my usual habits. Mostly it's that I am exceedingly busy at the New Job, which leaves mental energy reserves low for anything other than watching episodes of Cash in the Attic.

One thing I've been really into lately is a blog called Cute Overload. It's an idea whose time has come: make people go SQUEEEEEEE with cute animals and products and the like. They're in a bit of mourning over there this weekend, alas. One of the regulars, an incredibly awesome hamster named Baruchito, went to the great pile of newspaper in the sky. He was a clear successor to the much-missed Oolong. (An English explanation of Oolong's greatness.)

50 loathsome people of 2005

2006-01-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

I used to read the Beast regularly, but it kind dropped off my radar for a while. It's back in my radar this week, though, with their list of the 50 Most Loathsome People in America.

A sampling:

43. Rush Limbaugh

Charges: Rather than engage in the admittedly difficult task of justifying GOP policies rationally, the key to Limbaugh’s success is attracting an audience that actually yearns to be lied to. It doesn’t matter how many righteous fact-checkers assail him in print and on the web, because dittoheads don’t care that he’s lying, as long as the lies justify their prejudices. Limbaugh’s program is not just hypocritical; it is a celebration of hypocrisy for ignorant crackers, angry at smart people and strung out on the dwindling sensation that they are better than everyone else by virtue of their race, sex, nationality or level of bluster, because their character and accomplishments don’t warrant such feelings. If political discussion were sex, the Limbaugh audience would be a horde of virgins beating off to deranged rape fantasies.

Exhibit A: Started out in sports radio; hasn’t changed his approach one bit.

Sentence: Starved to death in full view of glazed ham; ACLU mistakenly bestowed entire estate due to barbecue sauce stain on last will and testament.

- - - - - -

25. Paris Hilton

Charges: Won’t go away. A head so empty, the rails of coke that sustain her must dissipate in clouds around her ears; this residual high the only explanation anyone would come within five feet of her. Brainless, her spinal cord defies physics, like an Indian rope trick. Her Carl’s Jr. commercial, while an uninspired approximation of eroticism, was still hotter than her actual “sex” tape, in which she only made noise when she wasn’t screwing—that’s not hot. Squints inexplicably for photo ops, suggesting even minimal focus is beyond her. Her continued success as a celebrity famous for nothing, despite the eerie resemblance she bears to the inbred banjoist from Deliverance and a lack of talent so profound that others become duller as they approach her, indicates that something is fundamentally wrong with humanity.

Exhibit A: Somehow, everybody in America knew that this completely pointless person had lost her dog, and we are all diminished by the experience.

Sentence: Locked in a room with a high steel ceiling which lowers a centimeter per hour, until she either solves a Rubik’s cube or is crushed; whichever comes first.

There's also a new patch out for Maple Story, introducing some improved UI, a bunch of new outfits, new quests, etc. It's getting so I want to throw some money at Wizet just for making a game where it's possible to smack a stump with a briefcase and receive a tangible reward for it.

Though every time I see how they deny access to anybody using a decent (i.e., non-IE) browser, I change my mind.

My Neighbor Totoro

2006-01-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

I'm not Disney's biggest fan, but their deal to publish all of the Studio Ghibli films is one of the smartest things they've ever done.

They're doing an interesting thing this evening—they're playing the new English dubs of Whisper of the Heart and My Neighbor Totoro on Turner Classic Movies, a month and a half before the domestic DVD release.

The new translation of Totoro is pretty good, though it's weird to hear Tim Daly as the dad. I'm used to the old voice, plus Daly is the voice of Superman on Justice League.

I've only seen a fansub of Whisper of the Heart, though it made me cry like a little girl even in translation. They're also throwing in Porco Rosso, which has some of the best flying in any film, live action or animated. The only film that does it better might be Castle in the Sky, with the rescue sequence and the sky pirates. Again, Miyazaki. The dude loves flying.

Went to the comic shop tonight and grabbed about five weeks' worth of comics. Lots of stuff to do this evening.

Preach on, brother Al

2006-01-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

I've always thought Al Gore got a raw deal. Somebody talked him into picking Lieberman as a candidate, mister I-hate-video-games-and-fun himself. And then the right wing media had the narrative they wanted, that he was a boring liar, and refused to run any story that challenged their fiction.

Today being MLK day, Gore lit up with a barn-burner of a speech.

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President went out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

But surprisingly, the President's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was true, but also declared that he has no intention of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA's domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

There's a lot more in the transcript, but man, Al, where the hell were you six years ago? This is the Al Gore I wanted to vote for.

Couldn't tackle the bear

2006-01-15T10:17:00.000-08:00

Watching last week's episode of House. I had no idea talking about curry could be such a great metaphor.

There are two good sources for discussing House. Television Without Pity, for the snark, and Polite Dissent for the medical diagnosis. This is a pretty good episode, at least in the human interest bits. The actual diagnosis is a little out of left field, but that sort of comes with the territory.

Currently reading Essential Supervillian Team-Up, which treats Doctor Doom sorta like Spider-Man. Which is somewhat weird as Doom needs nobody, as he's Doom. However, there are some good bits and I'm liking it quite a bit.

Haven't been to my shop in a while, as my new job involves me driving a lot and it's just not as easy to get there as it used to be. Maybe some time this week.

Watching progress bars

2006-01-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

I have a bit of a lull at work today since, as my friend Lucy says, this is what happens when Mercury is in retrograde.

OK, I'm not actually sure if that's even astrologically correct at the moment, but many computers were having trouble talking to one another around the place. Maybe it's that Windows .WMF bug that was announced the other day. (Look for more shit like this in Vista in the near future, I guarantee it.)

So what have I been doing? Let's see...

Apple's got a new PowerBook. Er, MacBook. Whatever. It's the same size and form as my current machine, only way faster, built-in iSight and a dual Pentium processor standard. In a notebook. Huh. A lot of other annoucements at MacWorld today, too. Macintouch has the skinny.

Oregon liquor laws are weird, so I dunno if I'll ever see this, but there's an interesting story on Maine's favorite drink, Allen's Coffee Brandy.

Also, this is interesting though I gather some of the photos may not be safe for work: a Flickr photostream from a photobooth in SF. (As seen on Overcompensating.)

Zoidberg has friends! Hooray!

2006-01-06T18:29:00.000-08:00

Variety points out that Futurama may be making a comeback.

Hey, it worked for The Family Guy, so much so that they made the awful American Dad as well. Meanwhile, Fox continues to be all weird and leaves Arrested Development the red-headed stepchild of the network. Even people who love the show forget that it's on Monday now.

cough wheeze

2006-01-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

I seem to have come down with the death flu that's going around.

I've had a fever for the last two days, so I'm staying home watching old episodes of Arrested Development. (Thanks, TiVo!) It hurts to laugh as I keep coughing, so the sight of George Michael in a rocket pack fighting off his uncle Tobias in a giant mole outfit while destroying a model village—hilarious but man, did I pay for that one.

I was thinking of trying a new cold remedy—Zicam—but it's starting to worry me a little bit. Evidently some people (OK, a lot of people) are suing the company as they've lost their sense of smell from taking it. I don't think reducing the severity of a cold is worth losing the ability to taste.

What you don't have you don't need it now

2005-12-31T19:00:00.000-08:00

Off to a party later this evening.

I hate to do one of those year-end reviews, so I leave you with these reviews from John Rogers and Steve Gilliard, who are far more talented at this sort of thing than I am.

This year has been OK for me personally, but very bad and the last year ever for quite a lot of people. Disasters all over the world, earthquakes, hurricanes, elections, the continuing airing of multiple versions of CSI, it all kinda sucks.

On the other hand, I have a new job pushing pixels in the Printer Mines, I kinda sorta helped cure a computer of its miggly, and my cats are all doing well. Plus, one can work out aggressions by smacking things on Maple Story.

I mean, seriously, it's cute and free. What more could you ask for, other than their site not demanding that you use IE?

Happy New Year. Peace, goodwill, and universal healthcare for all of us.

Memes: easier than thinking of something to write...

2005-12-29T20:57:00.000-08:00

Seen a couple of places: looked like fun

Four things

Four stupid things you've done for a living:
Detasseling
Burger slinging
Data entry
Photocopying

Four places you've lived:
Across the street from the house in Bloom County
Above a movie theater
In a small town of 600 in Iowa
The City of Roses

Four movies you'll never watch:
Saw
Squanto: A Warrior's Tale
Most anything starring Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider
Valiant

Four bands that people say are great, that actually basically aren't:
Coldplay (Actually, I've not sure I can pick them out of a lineup...)
Chicago
Metallica
Guns N Roses

Four foods that you like, that other people are appalled by:
Unagi
Peanut butter and liver sausage sandwiches
That Voodoo Doughnut that's a maple bar with bacon on it
Cool Britannia ice cream from Ben and Jerry's (that's gotta be why it's discontinued)

Four TV shows that you've never seen but are vaguely familiar with, from folks talking about them all the damn time:
The Shield
Desperate Housewives
Everybody Loves Raymond
24

Four Web sites that you don't understand why a lot of people read them:
Drudge report
Slashdot
BoingBoing
CNN

Four places you've been on vacation:
Nebraska
England
Colorado
California

Four things you enjoyed that you never want to experience again:
Watching the film "Grave of the Fireflies"
Singing in show choir at a retirement home
Knowing all the episodes of Star Trek and being able to name a show within 30 seconds of dialogue
Hapkido

Four hopes for the New Year:
See friends in California again
Vacation in Vancouver, BC
Pay off debts
Blog redesign

Live without a net

2005-12-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

I've been offline for a few days on vacation.

The new work is going well, and today I finally got a lot of the tools I need to actually do work. So my productivity should go up some more.

A friend of mine has introduced me to Maple Story, which is sort of like if World of WarCraft got together with Legend of Mana and had an 8-bit MMORPG kid. The game is free and I gather it has some annoying players as a result. Say what you will about pay-for-play games, there aren't as many annoying l33t h4x0rs without credit cards.

The business model is also interesting. The game is free to play, but you can spend money on extra clothing, pets, etc. Not sure how much that impacts the game, but it's kinda interesting.

One nice thing I noticed over the weekend is that Creature Comforts already has the first series out on DVD. Might be a good thing to pick up for a long weekend.

Triumph of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

2005-12-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

Pirates and noodle-lovers around the world celebrated yesterday's ruling that smacked down the Intelligent Design people with great authority.

(I'm more of an incompetent design person myself. I mean, really, does anyone think our knees are the high water mark for joints? If so, I have some bridgework in New York to sell you. Now that they're striking, it's a license to print money.

Sorry I've been quiet lately. Trying to get up to snuff on working in the Printer Mines. I can't even remember the last time I cracked open a comic book. But when you spend 90 minutes driving 20 miles like I did last night, you lose enthusiasm for doing a lot of things. Smegging traffic.

Little red book

2005-12-18T19:27:00.000-08:00

Be careful what you ask for from Interlibrary Loan. A student was visited by the FBI for requesting a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's book. Evidently that's the hot summer beach reading for terrorists, a book from atheist communists of the last century who have nothing in common with modern religious terror movements. Then again, perhaps I should listen to the wisdom of Fafblog. We'd be in anarchy without vigilance in the stacks.

Also, the Bush administration has basically admitted they've been spying on Americans illegally for years. The madness of King George should scare the shit out of everyone, liberal and conservative alike. Evidently there isn't enough time to go through proper channels to get a warrant, but there IS time to go directly to the President to ask for an exemption they just made up. (This is still a nation of laws, last time I checked. It applies to all of us equally. At least that's what I grew up believing.)

Been very busy closing up projects at my old job last week. Starting new work tomorrow, assuming that any place is open after the snow we've had this weekend. (The city does not deal well with frozen precipitation of any sort.)

If work were like the JLA

2005-12-14T10:21:00.000-08:00

Been reading a lot of the DC Showcase Presents the JLA book, which is awesome reading for the bus.

The cold and the dark-at-4:45 stuff isn't quite so bad when one can count how often Superman and Batman are out hitting the bars while the rest of the Justice League fights the Weapon Master.

"Oh, last week? We were... um..."
"We were fighting the Joker."
"That's right, Batman. We were fighting the Joker."
(Sounds of suppressed giggling)

The JLA bylaws are a little weird, I must say. Nobody divulges their secret identities. There's a set of bylaws that stipulate in the absence of crisis-generated meetings, the JLA must meet every 30 days. They celebrate the birthday of the organization, but none of the members.

Man, the Secret Santa program must suck, too. What do you get Superman and what do you wrap it in so he can't see it? (There's an awesome Alan Moore story about this, come to think of it.)

Sorry that posting has been intermittent lately. Transferring jobs during the holiday season takes a lot out of you.

If only it was always this cute

2005-12-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

It's always easier to destroy than it is to create. For example, it takes time to walk to plant a seed, wait five to ten years for it to grow, chop it down, drag it back to the house, throw some lights on it, and watch the needles fall on the carpet.

On the other hand, it goes up quite a treat if you let it dry out.

But content generation can be fun! Found this page on the Web site development process on BoingBoing today. Cute little figurines show you how to develop ideas, create prototypes, revise ideas, etc. Fun stuff.

Went to the comic shop the other day. The DC Showcase Presents Justice League of America is great stuff. Watch the JLA beat the snot out of Starro, Doctor Light, the Weaponsmaster, and more! Plus the magic of Snapper Carr!

Speaking of the Justice League, there's JLA Classified: Cold Steel. It's like Shogun Warriors had one night of passion with Hasbro's toy line. I still can't decide if it's worth picking up or not. Probably not. Do Superman and Wonder Woman even NEED a giant robot? Batman, maybe. In fact, I almost expect it of him. Wayne Industries totally needs a giant mech division.

More on the rest of my haul when I finish reading it. Spent yesterday evening at the fifth annual impromptu holiday beer festival at the Horse Brass. It was enough to throw me off all day, so more later.

Showcase presents

2005-12-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

Superman in the 60s ran into crazy aliens bent on world domination, beings who couldn't quite figure out these crazy humans, and tons of refugees from the ex-planet of Krypton.

However, as strange as some of these stories are (I'm thinking of the "Superman's New Power" storyline, where Kal-El becomes jealous of his own powers when they take the form of a small imp that can do everything he can...), none of them involved looking for aliens like SETI@Home. The old project closes down next week, so if you're still running it, consider running BOINC. I must admit, the user interface is kinda bad, but the new project is far more flexible. You can model weather, look for gravity waves, or cure diseases, all with the same program.

But anyway, back to comics... I've got some of the other DC Showcase Presents titles. Missed out on the Jonah Hex trade so far, but I do have the Green Lantern, Metamorpho, and Superman volumes. I'll probably pick up the Justice League of America title.

Hey, Green Lantern in January! I don't think it has the classic "My ward is a JUNKIE!" line but should be fun anyway.

Now this was unexpected: House of Mystery in February. I've also heard rumors of upcoming Superman Family volumes, which would be a great way to pick up those hard-to-find Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane stories. Well, by hard-to-find I mean expensive.

Speaking of expensive, gold and oil are near record highs this week. At the same time, old school Hasselhoffian entertainment is $1.99 a pop now that you can buy old episodes of Knight Rider at the iTunes Music Store.

(They really need to rename that thing now. Media Store, maybe. That would even allow downloadable art installations or something, should iPod technology progress that far...)

I'm not fond of the Vox Network either

2005-12-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

Finished playing Ratchet: Deadlocked last night. The game is very, very short. I think I finished the whole thing in maybe 12 hours of play, and much of that was pretty repetitive. If you've ever played any of the multiplayer in Up Your Arsenal, you've already experienced everything in this game.

The good
The levels are big, and you have two companions to help you out. Two battledroids are salvaged by your pal Al (who you may remember from the first and third Ratchet games), and they go through every level with you, watching your back and doing some of the tedious grunt work. New villians, higher bolt counts than ever, a couple of new vehicles including the Landstalker tank. There are 150 skill points to pick up for your OCD gotta-catch-'em-all pleasure. Each weapon has 10 levels and multiple upgrades. The voice talent is its usual high caliber.

The bad
There's a lot of running around, no puzzles to speak of. The Ratchet series has always been a great hybrid of platforming and shooting, with some great writing. This one? Just shooting and capturing nodes so you can open up another level to capture some more nodes to open up another level to capture some more nodes, etc. The only gadgets are the swingshot, charge boots, and gravity boots. This game is out less than a year after the previous release, so it's rushed schedule shows a lot in this respect. They're really pushing the limit of the PS2: some of the levels feature so much stuff the framerate slows to a crawl. And despite the beauty of the levels, they are nowhere near as interactive as they were in Going Commando. (Still my personal favorite of the four.)

The ugly
The weapon load has been vastly reduced. While previous games have had at least 12-14 weapons, Deadlocked has a mere 10, most of them recycled from other games. (Again, the rushed schedule is probably to blame...) Clank and Ratchet don't even share the same screen—Clank goes from a co-star to a cameo in this game and it's poorer for it. Gone also are the Easter Eggs like the Insomniac museum, which could only be reached by a weird combination of jumps or playing at certain hours of the day. The writing appears to have been farmed out to some interns or something There are some half-hearted attempts at parodying the Fox Network, but they don't really go anywhere. The series has had some great writing, but this one feels... tired.

I'm not sure that the rushed schedule is really to blame for my overall disappointment with this game. I finished it, but I didn't really play any multiplayer. Mostly since I hate playing with strangers online—I used to play a lot of StarCraft and Myth back in the day, but that was with coworkers when I was trying to avoid traffic jams on I-5 by staying at work an extra hour. If you're a fan of the series, it might be worth a rental, but I would not recommend buying it. I hope that Insomniac is working more on a PS3 title and this is just an attempt to cash in on the current holiday season before the new platform launches in spring of next year.

Lostzilla vs. King Mob

2005-12-02T11:05:00.000-08:00

I gotta get me one of those anti-curiosity fields, or whatever it is they're using on the island in Lost. One of my main frustrations with the show is the inability of any character to ask a question or follow up with additional questions.¹
Evidently I am not the only person to notice this: witness the Lost Unanswered Questions thread.

I decided to reward myself this week for a feat of extraordinary magnitude. So I'm picking up Kung Fu Hustle, which I loved in the theater.

Also, I got the best piece of spam the other day:

We apologize and hope you will take a jaundiced view at medicaments we sell. Again, let us introduce our drugs at attractive prices which may be urgent needed.

I totally take a jaundiced view at medicaments.

¹ - In this respect, they may be taking a cue from the White House Press Corps.

Fancy some scumble?

2005-11-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

One of the things making it to my inbox this morning is an interview with Terry Pratchett, where he talks about his childhood, winning the OBE, and inventing the integrated circuit.

My parents got me a telescope. I think it was special kind of telescope—produced by the Kind of Telescope Your Parents Get You Without Reading the Book About Telescopes Telescope Company. So everything you could see had a halo round it. You could just about see the moons of Jupiter, and that's that. But you got to stay outside. I got to be really expert on the moon. And then a few years ago I bought myself a Meade LX2000, and then we had an observatory built—a purpose-built one. Because our house is a thousand years old there's all kinds of planning things involved in that. In fact, we nearly had a thatched observatory at one point!

Curiously enough, the science fiction came from astronomy. I wasn't really an astronomer, because astronomers have to take it seriously and do mathematics. I just thought it was really cool 'cause you could stay up all night.

I'm reminded that I still haven't picked up Thud. I used to be quite the collector of the British editions, as the American copies don't have the Josh Kirby art. Kirby has passed on, of course, but I am a big fan of his interpretation of the Discworld. His Death looks like Death, to me. The American covers are mostly pretty lame, unfortunately.

Hey, it's been a fairly interesting week. Firefox and Thunderbird have new versions today, too. Plus a new Web site!

What's new so far:

Sweet disk icon on OS X
Movable tabs (with icons, too)
Better security
Self-patching capability
Seats!

(OK, so that last one is an in-joke that maybe one person will get. Sorry.)

I'm surprised they didn't get Corman to direct...

2005-11-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

Via MetaFilter, the long and fucked-up saga of Superman V.

Crazy beyond belief. For example, here's a bit about Tim Burton's vision for Superman...

So what was Burton’s vision? Not much different from Peters’, in fact. Burton hated the flying FX in the 1978 film, too, so he didn’t want Superman to fly. Instead, he put Superman in a Supermobile. (Seven years later, AICN revealed that Burton and Peters had also planned on having Superman teleport from place to place in lieu of flying.) He also hated the classic costume, too, hence the oddball designs he proffered in its place, all of which would have featured silver-relief versions of the ElectroSupes S-shield and armored, treaded boots similar in design to what Michael Keaton wore as Batman:

1. A partially translucent suit that would allow full view of Superman’s internal organs, as reported by Cinescape in late 1997 as Burton’s plans for the film kicked into high gear. (Although word from within the Burton camp confirmed that Burton was indeed hoping to do this, the design was apparently never committed to paper—leaving some people following the project wondering if Burton was really going to use the translucent suit or if it was just a hoax. Nevertheless, Burton’s diehard fans adored the idea, praising it as total genius and the height of coolness. Superman fans, on the other hand, were left scratching their heads over it.)
2. An all-black, alien-looking suit that would have resembled a "cool cross" between Edward Scissorhands, the WB movie Batman, and a Borg. (At one point, this was what Burton’s Superman would have started the film off in.)
3. A metallic silver healing suit/body armor with details that would have made Superman’s body look robotic. (An action figure prototype of Nic Cage as Superman wearing body armor was made, but it looked nothing like the design as described and featured the usual red/blue/gold Superman color scheme.)
4. An all-dark blue suit with a "blood-red" cape. (This would have been the standard Superman suit used in subsequent films.)

There are Matrix rip-offs, Batman rip-offs, pretty much a ripoff of everybody, but most notably the studios, as they're $30-50 million in the hole at this point without a single usable script, set, prop, costume, actor, or idea.

Even if it's the worst thing since Catwoman, Superman Returns is already better than it could have been.

Back to the grindstone

2005-11-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

First off, let me welcome any CIFA readers. Tax dollars at work.

(Read more about CIFA if you dare. I hope they're interested in my blathering about comics, TV, movies, and video games. Maybe I should get a tax rebate for entertaining them.)

Back to work today after a couple days off. Finally got caught up on the latest Top 10. Hey, now as I'm looking for a link, I find that Jess Nevins has started annotating the issues. I have yet to really sit down and go through his annotations for the second series of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

It's cold today here in the Pacific Northwest, and I find that I have acclimated to the local climate. The 40s are now actually cold to me, when before they were quite balmy, bracing even.