Letters from the Left

This Is Steve For Real This Time

2011-02-24T09:10:00.001-05:00

Help... I'm stranded in a foreign country and need money.

Conveniently, I was able to get to the Internet and...

Just kidding.

It appears as though my e-mail was, according to Google, hijacked by someone in China.

I've since updated my security settings.

Sorry to everyone who got my spam e-mails.

The ironic thing... I didn't see e-mails from anyone who tried to let me know because Google put them in my spam folder.

It wasn't until I got a text from someone that I was tipped off.

-Steve

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2011-02-24T08:15:00.001-05:00

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When Apple Went Wrong

2007-06-28T13:53:00.001-04:00

MSNBC has an AP story about Apple products that went "wrong." Now, as a recent convert over to all things Apple I'm well aware of a few things they've flopped on. However, this article was, how you say, a bit underwhelming. I mean, they really had to stretch a bit here.

The list of flops are as follows:

1. The iTunes Phone (aka ROKR), 2005
2. The one button mouse (1983)
3. The Cube (2000)
4. The Newton (1993)
5. The iMac (1998)
6. EWorld (1994)

Now, I'll give them 3, 4, and 6. However, I've got a problem with 1, 2, and 5.

First of all, the iTunes phone wasn't even an Apple product really. It was from Motorola, and they just licensed being able to use iTunes on the phone. I would hardly call this an Apple flop. The phone sold well, it was just not what people wanted, so, they discontinued it.

Second, the one button mouse is not a flop. If it was a flop it wouldn't be in existence anymore. I hardly call something that has been around 15 years a flop. Sure, you may not like it, but that's your problem. If you want two buttons, stay with Windows.

Third, the iMac? WTF? Their argument for this one is that it's no longer "exciting." Give me a break. It's their consumer desktop, no different than a Dell. Actually, it's closer to a Dell than ever before, the only real difference is case design and OS.

Anyway, give the article a look yourself.

-Steve

Stupid Lawyers

2007-03-29T10:07:00.000-04:00

Lawyer: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?

Doctor: No.

Lawyer: Did you check for blood pressure?

Doctor: No.

Lawyer: Did you check for breathing?

Doctor: No.

Lawyer: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?

Doctor: No.

Lawyer: How can you be so sure, Doctor?

Doctor: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.

Lawyer: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?

Doctor: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

Tale Anything You Want

2007-03-15T23:08:00.000-04:00

I have no idea what this is but I fell on the floor laughing.

Enjoy.

-Steve

Cheif of Staff General Peter Pace Thinks Gays Are Immoral

2007-03-13T14:01:00.000-04:00

So Joint Chief of Staff General Peter Pace told the Chicago Tribune that he, "believe[s] that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral, and that we should not condone immoral acts. News flash sarge, who gives a shit what you think is immoral?

First and foremost, the military needs to get their heads out of their asses. Gays have been serving in the military since it's inception. It's likely that some of our best soldiers have been homosexual, both male and female. It's likely that a portion of our troops over in Iraq and Afghanistan right now are homosexual. Don't ask, don't tell is a joke. If you're so worried about showing confidence in your troops, how confident do you think they feel after they hear something like that?

Second, why does it matter what you think is immoral? If it isn't against the law then your opinion of morality doesn't figure into the equation. You also think that "military members who sleep with other military members' wives are immoral in their conduct." I ask, why do you give a shit what two other consenting adults are going with their lives? I know adultry is prosecuted in the military, and I think the military needs to mind its own business.

Here is the catch 22 with the military, they're hypocrites. They want the best, as long as the best fits their definition of what "the best" is. I'd much rather have a gay man who's got his shit together watching my back than a high school drop out who happens to be straight. You're lowering the qualification requirements to get in, but giving shit to perfectly fine people because of who they find themselves attracted to.

The only way any of that is fair is to require all members of the military to be chaste. You can't say that having sex one way is okay, but having sex another way isn't. I mean, where does that stop? Is the military going to dictate what it decides are the morally appropriate sexual positions? What are their views on anal sex? Is that immoral?

This is what I don't understand about a society that says "privacy is paramount" yet tries to dictate what you do in your private life. As long as no one is being harmed, does it matter what you are doing in your private life?

There is nothing wrong with gays in the military. You may have a problem with gays. You may not feel comfortable around them. You may not like the idea of them. However, that's your problem, not theirs. Maybe the military needs to figure out how to deal with certain issues themselves instead of trying to push things away so they don't have to deal with them.

This reminds me of the crap their giving our boys that come back with PTSD. Instead of dealing with it, these guys get called pussies and sent to the brig. Sounds like a crock of shit to me.

That's my view, but I'm open for discussion.

Enjoy.

-Steve

A Bikers Wish

2007-02-28T07:46:00.000-05:00

This one comes from Bill:

"A man riding his Harley was riding along a California beach when suddenly the

sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, the Lord said, "Because you
have TRIED to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish."

The biker pulled over and said, "Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over
anytime I want." The Lord said, "Your request is materialistic, think of the
enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required
reaching the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take! It
will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is hard for
me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think
of something that could possibly help mankind."

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, "Lord, I wish
that I and all men could understand women; I want to know how she feels inside,
what she's thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, why she cries, what
she means when she says nothings wrong, and how I can make a woman truly
happy."

The Lord replied, "You want two lanes or four on that bridge?""

Enjoy.

-Steve

Re: Life Moves On

2007-02-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

My aunt is out of the coma and breathing on her own. This is amazing, as her prognosis didn't look good and her organs had been failing. It's touch and go for right now, and the prognosis is still uncertain, but as of now she is alive and breathing on her own.

-Steve

Life Moves On

2007-02-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

My aunt will most likely pass away today. My father told me that, “At 8:30 A.M. EST tomorrow the doctors will turn off her ventilator. If her heart fails, she is a no-code. If she goes into convulsions they will start a morphine drip. She could go on for a few minutes, hours or days.” Most likely she will have some sort of withdrawal or convulsions, and then, slowly and peacefully, she will pass away.

It’s odd knowing what time someone will die. You sit in your office, doing your work, reading your web sites, knowing that with each passing minute another tick one someone’s life clock passes by.

I can only imagine what my cousins must be dealing with. My uncle Al passed on about six years ago. So, three boys in their thirties will have lost their mother and father within a decade of each other. It’s sad, but part of life.

I don’t know if it’s fate, destiny, coincidence, or whatever, but when certain events occur I find I seem to pick up on seemingly non-related mentioning of it that seem to surround me. Details that otherwise would pass by without notice. Yesterday in my car NPR had a story about someone passing away, who’s only fear was that they wouldn’t leave an impact on the world they leave behind. They were worried that not being remembered would make their life trivial, as if they never existed at all.

I’m not sure what my feelings are on an afterlife. I just feel there is so much more to this world (and by world I mean the all encompassing plain of existence, not specifically the planet Earth) that is beyond the concept and comprehension of our mind. I’m scared of death, just like most others, but I too fear that I will pass on without leaving a mark. Whether that mark be children, music, art, history, or what have you, something, something that will bind me to the place I lived and the life I had.

I think that’s why my mind can never settle down, why I’m always coming up with magical stories, things to write down, opinions to express; I’m worried about my own place in this world. Some people probably never find it themselves, and they die lonely desperate lives. I don’t want to be one of those people.

That’s what I think dreams are. Dreams are the ideas we think will help us feel like we matter, like somehow we made a difference on this world, to the lives around us, to history itself. It’s important to have dreams and ambitions, without them it would feel like a cog in the wheel of life is missing, and I just don’t think things would work the same way.

I hope my aunt passes away peacefully and that her sons can move on form this. Anticipation is the worst thing in the world because it never ends. Until the event happens you just constantly prepare yourself for it, and you can never beat anticipation, you can only beat the event itself.

Its 8:30 right now as I write this…and one more person moves on.

-Steve

Anger Management

2007-02-15T07:33:00.000-05:00

I got this from Bill, but I don't know where he got it from. Either way, I thought it was pretty funny:

When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it out on someone, don't take it out on someone you know, take it out on someone you don't know.

I was sitting at my desk when I remembered a phone call I'd forgotten to make. I found the number and dialed it. A man answered, saying "Hello."

I politely said, "This is Chris. Could I please speak with Robyn Carter?"

Suddenly a manic voice yelled out in my ear "Get the right fuckin' number!" and the phone was slammed down on me.

I couldn't believe that anyone could be so rude. When I tracked down Robyn's correct number to call her, I found that I had accidentally transposed the last two digits. After hanging up with her, I decided to call the 'wrong' number again. When the same guy answered the phone, I yelled "You're an asshole!" and hung up. I wrote his number down with the word 'asshole' next to it, and put it in my desk drawer.

Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills or had a really bad day, I'd call him up and yell, "You're an asshole!" It always cheered me up.

When Caller ID was introduced, I thought my therapeutic "asshole calling" would have to stop.
So, I called his number and said, "Hi, this is John Smith from the Verizon. I'm calling to see if you're familiar with our Caller ID Program?"

He yelled "NO!" and slammed down the phone.

I quickly called him back and said, "That's because you're an asshole!"

One day I was at the store, getting ready to pull into a parking spot. Some guy in a black BMW cut me off and pulled into the spot I had patiently waited for. I hit the horn and yelled that I'd been waiting for that spot, but the idiot ignored me. I noticed a "For Sale" sign in his back window which included his phone number, so I wrote down the number.

A couple of days later, right after calling the first asshole (I had his number on speed dial) I thought that I'd better call the BMW asshole, too. I said, "Is this the man with the black BMW for sale?"

"Yes, it is", he said.

"Can you tell me where I can see it?" I asked.

"Yes, I live at 34 Mowbray Blvd, in Vaucluse. It's a yellow house, and the car's parked right out in front."

"What's your name?" I asked.

"My name is Don Hansen," he said.

"When's a good time to catch you, Don?"

"I'm home every evening after five."

"Listen, Don, can I tell you something?"

"Yes?"

"Don, you're an asshole!" Then I hung up, and added his number to my speed dial, too.

Now, when I had a problem, I had two assholes to call. Then I came up with an idea. I called Asshole #1.

"Hello?"

"You're an asshole!" (But I didn't hang up.)

"Are you still there?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Stop calling me," he screamed.

"Make me," I said.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Don Hansen."

"Yeah? Where do you live?"

"Asshole, I live at 34 Mowbray Blvd, Vaucluse, a yellow house, with my black Beamer parked in front."

He said, "I'm coming over right now, Don. And you had better start saying your prayers."

I said, "Yeah, like I'm really scared, asshole," and hung up.

Then I called Asshole #2. "Hello?" he said.

"Hello, asshole," I said.

He yelled, "If I ever find out who you are..."

"You'll what?" I said.

"I'll kick your ass," he exclaimed.

I answered, "Well, asshole, here's your chance. I'm coming over right now."

Then I hung up and immediately called the police, saying that I lived at 34 Mowbray Blvd, Vaucluse, and that I was on my way over there to kill my gay lover. Then I called Channel 9 News about the gang war going down in Mowbray Blvd, Vaucluse.

I quickly got into my car and headed over to Mowbray. I got there just in time to watch two assholes beating the crap out of each other in front of six cop cars, an overhead police helicopter and a news crew.

NOW I feel much better.

Anger management really works...

Jesus Is Watching

2007-02-12T09:51:00.000-05:00

This one comes from Curt, who I'm sure got it somewhere on the internet:

A burglar broke into a house one night.

He shined his flashlight around, looking for valuables; and when he picked up a CD player to place in his sack, a strange, disembodied voice echoed from the dark saying, "Jesus is watching you."

He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight off, and froze.

When he heard nothing more after a bit , he shook his head, promised himself a vacation after the next big score, then clicked the light on and began searching for more valuables. Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, clear as a bell he heard, "Jesus is watching you."

Freaked out, he shined his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice.

Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight beam came to rest on a parrot.

"Did you say that?" he hissed at the parrot.

"Yep," the parrot confessed, then squawked, "I'm just trying to warn you."

The burglar relaxed. "Warn me, huh? Who in the world are you?"

"Moses," replied the bird.

"Moses?" the burglar laughed . "What kind of people would name their bird Moses?"

"The kind of people that would name their Rottweiler Jesus."

Two Big Juggs Pass Away

2007-02-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

Anna Nicole Smith died. Big deal. A woman who was best known for her large breasts and marrying an 89 year old billionaire for, ahem, "love" has passed on. She leaves behind a train wreck of a life, one dead adult child, and a baby who may never know who it's real father is.

Why should we care about her again?

Anna Nicole meant absolutely shit to this country. Yet we were fascinated by her. Well, some people were, I certainly wasn't. While I wouldn't say I'm glad that someone is dead, I am glad that now that she has passed on I won't have to see anything more about her in the news ever again.

She was annoying. She was fat. She was skinny. She was drunk. She was sober. She was pregnant. She wasn't pregnant. This woman even managed to somehow wind up in the Supreme Court. THE SUPREME COURT! JESUS! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY?

Sorry about that.

It's not Anna's fault. She's the victim here. She didn't ask for this "celebrity," she just reveled in it. She was a celebrity just for being a celebrity. Sort of like Paris Hilton, but heavier, and with a few kids and at least one soft core porn to her credit. Paris went straight for the hard core stuff.

Wow, how do I even close up a post like this? I shouldn't even have written it to begin with because even by covering it I'm acting like a hypocrite. Oh well, I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too. Or in Anna's case, eat two or three of them. Throw them up. Sign a weight loss deal, and somehow manage to make it into some sort of important event.

-Steve

Telly Savalas Tells It Like It Is

2007-02-04T09:24:00.000-05:00

I saw this on BoingBoing and just had to share:

Barbaro passes away

2007-01-30T07:21:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that this isn't news. Barbaro was a horse. He's been euthanized. He ran in the Kentucky Derby and won. He broke his leg in the Preakness and it was all down hill from there. End of story.

However, I had to sit through something on NPR today that made me gag. They made him out to be this underdog winner who fought against the odds and inspired a country.

First of all, he's a horse. No one is inspired by a horse any more than they are inspired by a giraffe.

Second of all, he's a horse. He ran in circles so rich people could make money.

Third of all, HE'S A HORSE! He didn't bring attention to AIDS. He didn't bring attention to poverty. He didn't work to balance the wage discrepancies between men and women. He didn't work to protect us against nuclear proliferation. He didn't work to further the work of Dr. Martin Luther King. He didn't travel the world teaching kids about tolerance. He didn't support saving the rain forests. He wasn't even a member of PETA. He didn't do any of the above mentioned things, all of which could arguably require some sort of remembrance with his passing. No, he was a horse. He ran in circles. Now he's dead.

I don't understand why people put so much time an effort into trying to make a story out of this. It's a horse people. It's owners aren't even that remarkable, nor did any of them partake in any of the activities I mentioned in the paragraph above.

There is no touching story about a boy and his horse. There is no benefit to be had from studying Barbaro's life. There's nothing. Just a horse who ran in circles for money.

Instead of spending time covering something that has zero impact on any real person's life, go knock on the White House's door to find out why the price of gas has barely budged even when oil continues to sink. That's a story. A story that the average person could get something out of.

-Steve

Iguana has penis removed after week long erection

2007-01-29T13:27:00.000-05:00

I saw this on BoingBoing and thought it was hilarious:

"Iguana erection update: vets at a zoo in Brussels have chopped off the penis of an iguana called Mozart, so he can walk again after suffering with a permanent erection.
...

Zoo officials decided on the operation after keepers called in experts when they saw the iguana was in some discomfort, and having trouble walking because of the permanent erection."

I wish I got that kind of attention when I had an erection.

Read the original story here.

Link to the BoingBoing story here.

-Steve

The Show With ZeFrank

2007-01-23T12:39:00.000-05:00

I don't know if anyone else has come across this site but it's freaking great.

The Show With ZeFrank, check it out.

-Steve

So today is the big day...for Apple

2007-01-09T07:32:00.000-05:00

So today is the big day for Apple. The big keynote speech. The day Steve Jobs changes everything. Or so the hype would have you believe.

I switched from a Windows based desktop to an Apple based laptop back in August. Let me tell you, best thing I could ever do. My home computing is just much better now, and significantly more fun. Also, I use the term "based" above on purpose. You see, I also run Windows on my Apple laptop, when I want to. It's a nice plus. You can't run OSX on a Windows computer. I get the best of both worlds. Luck me.

At any rate, back to my original statement. Today is the big keynote statement by Steve Jobs at Macworld. I've been waiting for this for a while now. I always get geeked up about it. All his keynote speeches have a certain vibe around them. It's am amazing little media frenzy Apple has created for itself. For each person who craps on Apple for being so secret I offer you this one argument. Tell me the last time HP or Dell had hype introducing a new item. Now, tell me when they did it twice in a row. Okay, now three times in a row. Can't do it, can you.

The point is, Apple created this hype machine years ago and it does wonders for them, WONDERS. It's at the point today where Apple doesn't even need to add to the hype by dropping little hints here and there. Nope, the media and financial firms do it all for them. Everyone loves to speculate, talk up, say they know, and otherwise speculate on what might be announced during the keynote.

Fact is, this is simply the best hype machine for any tech company there is. HP, Dell, Gateway, Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, LG, and anyone else out there should take note. This is how it's done. Financial analysts hate it. They say public companies need to make it know what they're working on, for the sake of the stock holders. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE STOCK HOLDERS!

The only other show that used to generate this amount of hype for new tech was E3, and now that's gone. Once a year Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony would have their big presentations, setting the stage for the upcoming year, and maybe the year after that. It was the only thing that compared. And not it is gone.

I'm excited, but I don't think anything Earth shattering will come out today. I'm interested in the possibilities of an Apple branded cell phone. So far I'm the only one out there saying that they'll have to models. One named the MacPhone, the other, more upscale and smart phone version, the MacPhone Pro. But hey, that's me, and what do I know.

Now, I could be wrong about there not being anything earth shattering. Apple's banners and image say "The Last 30 Years Were Just The Begining." What could this mean? I think it means that Apple is going to start offering a whole line of consumer products. Phone, Computer, TV, Media Center, Radios, iPods, Alarm Clocks, Toasters, the works. I mean, Apple could do to appliances what it did to computers, make them sexy. If they do, watch out Cuisinart.

I'll have a full run down later tonight after work with a Podcast, both in generic MP3 as well as SUPER ENHANCED M4A FORMAT. In other words, it'll have pictures that display if you play it in iTunes or on your iPod, no big deal really.

I'll be tuned in to all the blogs that cover the presentation and I'll watch it myself later today. Should be fun. Glad I take lunch from 12:00-1:00 EST, just in time for the keynote. Whoopie!

-Steve

Site Relaunch 1/5/2007

2006-12-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

Just an FYI, the site will officially relaunch on 1/5/2007.

I've been playing with another site and I've decided while I like the features, the site is a bit too restricting for what I want to do.

In the mean time, Happy Holidays.

-Steve

Observations: Scary short story

2006-09-21T12:39:00.000-04:00

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google

Los Angeles, 2026

Ted got busted because we do graffiti. Losing Ted was a big setback, as Ted was the only guy in our gang who knew how to steal aerosol spray cans. As potent instruments of teenage social networking, aerosol spray cans have "high abuse potential". So spray cans are among the many things us teenagers can't buy, like handguns, birth control, alcohol, cigarettes and music with curse words.

I tried hard to buy us another spray can. I'm a street poet, so really, I tried. I walked up to the mall-store register, disguised in my Dad's business jacket, with cash in hand. They're cheap, aerosol spray cans. Beautiful colours of paint, just screaming to get sprayed someplace public where everybody has to see what's on our minds. The store wouldn't sell me the can. The e-commerce system simply would not allow that transaction. The screen just went gray and stayed gray.

That creepy "differential permissioning" sure saves a lot of trouble for grown-ups. Increasing chunks of the world are just... magically off limits. It's a weird new regime where every mall and every school and every bus and train and jet is tagged and tracked and ambient and pervasive and ubiquitous and geolocative... Jesus, I love those words... Where was I?

Right. We teenagers have to live in "controlled spaces". Radio-frequency ID tags, real-time locative systems, global positioning systems, smart doorways, security videocams. They "protect" us kids, from imaginary satanic drug dealer terrorist mafia predators. We're "secured". We're juvenile delinquents with always-on cellphone nannies in our pockets. There's no way to turn them off. The internet was designed without an off-switch.

So my pal Ted, who stupidly loved to tag his own name on the walls, got sent to reform school, where the security is insanely great. Me, I had a much higher grade-point average than Ted, but with no handy Ted to steal spray cans, the words of the prophet have vanished from the subway walls. So much for my campaign to cover the town with graffiti street-stencils of my favourite teen pop stars: George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.

And Shakespeare. I used to hate Shakespeare, because the teachers would park us in front of the webcam terminals, turn on the Shakespeare lessons and leave the building. But then, somehow, they showed us Macbeth, a play which actually MEANS something to us. Grown-ups don't understand that (or they wouldn't be teaching it) but Macbeth is the true authentic story of my generation. This is Macbeth's world, and us teenagers just live in it. Dig this: those "Three Weird Sisters", who mysteriously know everything? They can foretell anything, instantly, like Google? Plus, the witches make it all sound really great - only, in real life, it totally sucks? Well, those "Three Weird Sisters" are the "Internet of Things", they're "Ubiquitous Computation", they're "Ambient Findability". The truth is written all over the page (or the screen - my school can't afford to give us any "pages"). Just read that awesome part where they're boiling pseudocode in their witch-cauldron! They talk like web designers!

"The words of the prophet have vanished from the subway walls"

Macbeth stumbles around seeing ghosts and virtual-reality daggers. That sure makes sense. Every day of my life, I see people with cellphones yelling eerie gibberish in public. The world of Macbeth is totally haunted and paranoid! You can't get one minute's privacy, even inside your own bed!

So, I did my class report about Macbeth, and every kid in my English class instantly agreed with me. I'm not the most popular guy in school, but they started CHEERING me. And Debbie, this wacky Goth chick in my class who identifies with Lady Macbeth... After my class report, Debbie sleep-walked out of the classroom and pretended to hang herself! Of course the teen-suicide subroutines in the school jumped onto Debbie immediately. Debbie broke the software rules, so Debbie is toast, just like Ted.

My Dad - he's still alive, apparently - he sent me an email from China and said I ought to "recruit" Debbie into my "social group dynamics of online identity production". My Dad always talks like that. I haven't seen Dad face-to-face in six years. Look: I am a 17-year-old male, okay? I don't want to send Debbie any hotlinks and digital video. I want to take Debbie out! Maybe we could take some clothes off! But there isn't any "out" for me and Debbie. There isn't any "off", either.

Okay, I admit it: Debbie is insane. The fact that Debbie really likes me, that just proves it. Debbie ACCEPTS this sick state of reality. She EMBRACES it. We are doomed.

Imagine that Debbie and me somehow go out together. We want to network with our peer group, teenager-wise. I need to figure out what's hip and with-it and rebellious, and Debbie needs to know what the other cyber-Goth chicks are wearing. Is that okay? No!

It's not that we can't do it: it's that all our social relations have been reified with a clunky intensity. They're digitized! And the networking hardware and software that pervasively surround us are built and owned by evil, old, rich corporate people! Social-networking systems aren't teenagers! These machines are METHODICALLY KILLING OUR SOULS! If you don't count wall-graffiti (good old spray paint), we have no means to spontaneously express ourselves. We can't "find ourselves" - the market's already found us and filled us with map pins.

At our local mall, events-management sub-engines emit floods of locative data. So if Debbie and me sneak in there, looking for some private place to get horizontal, all the vidcams swivel our way. Then a rent-a-cop shows up. What next? Should we go to Lovers' Lane? There aren't any! They eliminated all those! They were tracked down with satellites and abolished with Google Maps.

Okay, sure: I know I sound pretty depressed. Us teenage poets depress easily. You know what they tell me whenever I rant like this? "Get a hobby." Play imaginary fantasy computer games! That is allowed me! Wow, thanks! When she nursed me as a baby, my Mom dropped me right on my head to play Wonder-World of Witchcraft. I sure know where that story goes. If "religion is the opiate of the people", then immersive multiplayer 3D virtual worlds are hard-core Afghani heroin. My Mom will never make it back into the labor force: Mom's way too busy building herself up to 146th-level SuperMasonic Tolkien-Fantasy Ultra-Elf Queen. Like that helps! Look, I can show you Mom's gaming environment, right on the screen here. My Mom's a Welfare Elf Queen (CR) (system crash) (hard reboot)

Debbie: why do you access me, when you know that makes things hard for me? Why do you tag, and link to me? Why do you telephone? And why, why, why do you write me silly notes on paper? I am so sick of you, Debbie. Why, why do you hack me? It is just to see the things that you know I am writing about you...

Debbie, you believe in us. You think we are the future.

I am so miserably happy, just now.

Original link.

-Enjoy.

Stock News: What the heck is going on with Delta?

2006-09-19T10:07:00.000-04:00

So, I bought 200.00 worth of Delta stock around a year or so ago at .75 cents. After the 14.99 trading fee that got me about 246 shares, yay me.

Then, it just sort of floated around .70-.80 cents for a while, dipping all the way down to .30 at one point (where I wish I had 100 bucks I could have bought more stock with), before returning back to the .70-.80 mark.

Then, all of the sudden last week it got hot, and I don’t know why. As of when I write this, the stock is at 1.69, which is more then double what I bought it at. Now, I’m in this for the long haul, hoping it gets back to a reasonable level so I can start a college savings fund with the proceeds from my 200 dollar investment. However, I smell something fishy. This thing has been gaining 20-50% each day, which can’t be sustained obviously.

Where will the stock go? Up? Down? Who knows?

I hope it stays up, but I can’t help but suspect some sort of market correction sooner rather than later.

If you want to see the monthly trend click here.

-Steve

Video Game News: What Are You Doing on November 19th?

2006-09-14T12:46:00.000-04:00

Well, if you've got 250 bucks and someone to stand in line for you, you could be playing the Nintendo Wii.

I'm excited to finally know when I can get my hands on one of these. I've already got the 360, and had no real incentive to get a PS3 (especially at 600 bucks) since it's basically just a Sony 360.

The Wii on the other hand is different and offers something the others don't as far as game play is concerned.

We'll see if Nintendo can turn around the misfourtunes of their business follies of the past ten years and once again be taken seriously on the home console video game market. If the Nintendo DS is any indication, I think this Wii thing might just get over and be a hit. Look for it to be THE HOT item for kids and adults alike this Christmas.

-Steve

Where are the posts?

2006-09-11T08:11:00.000-04:00

My posting has been lack luster as of late. The reason? I’m working on a new format for the blog. It’s a project that’s going to take a few weeks, but I hope when I’m done it will better reflect the look and feel of what I want my blog to be.

I’ll still put up things as I see fit, or commentary on events I want to talk about. However, postings won’t return to usually until after I get done with the project. You’ll know it when it happens since things will look a lot different.

-Steve

A Day of Remembrance

2006-09-11T08:07:00.000-04:00

September 11, 2001…I’m not going to go on about what the day means to me, or lessons we’ve learned. I’ll leave those thoughts up to you. Today is a sad day, and a day of remembrance and dignity.

2,973 people passed away today.

I don’t know if I ever really got over the sadness of that day. Tears still well up in my eyes as I watch footage, listen to stories, and remember the events. Every person deals with issues in their own way, and I’ll continue to deal with this in mine.

-Steve

TiVO News: The Origins of TiVO

2006-09-06T08:12:00.000-04:00

I'm sure some of the readers out there have a TiVO. I probably would too if I didn't already have a built in DVR with my cable box. Evidently, someone has found leaked footage of the origins of TiVO. Before the Feds cover this up again, I share with you the YouTube video:

Crazy stuff, huh?

Who knew?

-Steve

Transformers The Movie News: Funny Comic

2006-09-06T08:08:00.000-04:00

Being that I won't be posting much about Transformers anymore, since I do the podcasts each Saturday, I'm saving the posts for really big news.

Although this doesn't fall into the "really big news" category, I thought it was funny enough to share. PVP is an online comic strip I read each day, and thier most recent comic pokes some fun at all the hoopla on the Transformers message boards on like AintItCoolNews and stuff, and all of their complaining about how various robots look and whatnot.

Here's the comic, enjoy.If you want to check out the PVP site, which I suggest you do, go here.

-Steve

Podcast: Weekly Transformers The Movie Podcast

2006-09-05T10:55:00.000-04:00

A neat thing about getting a Mac is that it comes with some cool free software from Apple known as the iLife suite. The program that I like the most from iLife is Garage Band, a prosumer sound mixing program. It allows you to mix your own music as well as other audio projects. Garage Band was also engineered to be used for making podcasts, and that's just what I've been doing.

I participate in a Transformers the Movie message board on a website called Below Top Secret. I was recently asked by someone to fo a weekly podcast for the board recapping everything Transformers the Movie related. So that's just what I've done.

This is the first podcast in what will be a reocurring series. I'll probably post them every Saturday until the movie comes out, as long as there is new for that week. In the weeks there isn't news I might just toss around ideas and whatnot, or just post a podcast that says there isn't anything to report. Who kows?

This is around 20 minutes in length, since it's the first podcast, and should catch everyone up to date on all of the info so far. The regular podcasts should only be around 5-10 minutes each week.

Click here to take a listen.

-Steve

[Edit: On the message board I'm "The Big O," which is why you hear me refer to myself that way]

Fantasy News: Draft Time

2006-09-05T08:11:00.000-04:00

So I had my first fantasy draft this past weekend. Actually, it was my second, sort of. Last year at my previous job we had a fantasy league, but I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, missed the draft, got stuck with computer picked players, and still managed to place 4th out of 8. Back to this weekend, I have my first “live” draft this weekend, and I don’t think I did bad…I didn’t do good, but not terrible either.

Fantasy Football is an odd game, since I don’t really understand the “fantasy” thing. Playing in a Madden League is fantasy, since you control a team and play in a league and stuff. Fantasy Football, or any fantasy game for that matter, is really all about math, which I don’t find myself fantasizing about often.

For those who don’t know, the premise of fantasy sports is that you “draft” players onto a “team.” Depending on the performance of the players on your team in the respective games they play they earn points. Each week you are matched up against another team in your league. The team with the most points at the end of the week wins. While there is skill required in knowing how to draft and how to manage players (i.e. what players to start what weeks, managing bye weeks, etc.) there is little to nothing the actual player can do to effect the outcome of each week.

Which brings me back to math, odd isn’t it? You see, fantasy sports is about knowing percentages, and figuring out how to give yourself and your team the best percentages. What the best of the best fantasy players are able to do is figure out a “worth” for each player, which is a statistical value that player represents, or in other words the amount of points that player will earn each week. This is more than just who is the best player, it involves knowing what teams that player will face, the defenses they’ll come across, and the offensive technique their team uses. In other words, more than I’m willing to take the time to get into. However, a lot of people do, and it can be a very interesting hobby to be in.

I compare it to the statistic junkies of baseball. For years, baseball fans have had a plethora of statistics to look at and drool over. They can tell you how a pitcher does against left handed batters on the third Tuesday of every month when the humidity is over 80% AND under 80%. Some of the stats out there is just crazy. Football never really had something like this until Fantasy sports came along. Then all of the sudden there were people looking at how a running back performs against a 4-4 package, or how certain wide receivers do against nickel packages. I mean, sure, some people KNEW how these backs performed, but you didn’t have the stats somewhere, and now you do, and much much more.

Once you get your percentages on players down, then you have to figure out how other members of your league value those players, and then navigate the draft process to make sure you don’t waste draft picks earlier than you want to get the players you want. This was the area I didn’t know much about, and it didn’t help that I was the last person to pick in my league. Actually, I don’t think it would have mattered since I didn’t know what I was doing, but you get my point.

Some people are really really good at the draft process…I was not, but I knew that going in. So I did some homework. I did research. I basically copied what “professionals” said I should do. Yeah, so, I didn’t do the real nitty gritty work myself, but that’s what these people get paid to do….I get paid to write manuals and functional specifications. I took a few rankings sheets, put them together, and had a list of 200 players ranked by position. I drafted based on my list, not on who I liked or whatever.

My team isn’t bad, it’s not great, but not that bad. I’m gunning to finish in the middle of the pack, around 5th or 6th, since we have 10 people in the league. If I can make the playoffs (the top six teams move into a playoff at the end of the season) I’ll be very pleased, even if I’ll get whooped up on. I think those expectations are realistic. I’ll leave the real playing and fighting and complaining to the guys who are really into this stuff, like Ryley, who just happens to be the commissioner of the league I’m in. Me? I’ll check in, manage my team, and partake in some of the fun antics, but I’ve got to many video games to play to have time to really get into it. I know, priorities, right?

-Steve

Transformers The Movie News: Prime

2006-08-31T10:12:00.000-04:00

This is reportedly legit and of a movie poster that will be coming out soon. I like the wya Prime looks here. Not the same as the cartoon, but good enough for me.

There are going to be 5 posters in all, all of the Autobots. Don't know if this is true or not, but time will tell as they get leaked like this one did.

However, I don't think this one is a final product. Looks like a mockup to me...so who knows.

-Steve

First Impressions: Windows Vista hands on

2006-08-31T07:02:00.000-04:00

I've been busy this week, thus the lack of posts. Sorry. My work schedule has been wierd and thus I haven't been able to put up the type of stuff I typically do in the mornings.

Since I've moved from my PC to the Macbook, I've got this little beige computer sitting under my "computer" desk in my loft. It's just sort of sitting there, doing nothing. I thought, "you know, it's still got some juice left in it, lets play around and do the stuff to it I wouldn't have dreamed of when I was still using it everyday."

Working in IT for a state agency has some perks when it comes to Microsoft stuff. First, we get to take part in the Home Advantage program. This lets up buy Office softare at severely discounted proces (19.95) that comes with one license. So, basically, we can put it on one computer and that's it. Second, is an MSDN subsctiption. I asked one of our guys to grab the July Beta of Vista and burn it to DVD for me. I was going to put it on my currently unused PC this weekend. Or so I thought. Since I found myself home for quite a bit yesterday, so I decided to put it on early.

Now, the recommended specifications to run Vista Premium (all the Premium means is that it can use Vista's new "Aero" interface) are as follows: 1 GHz Intel-compatible processor, 1GB RAM, DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor, with 128MB graphics memory, 40GB HD with at least 15GB "free space." My old Compaq has an Athalon XP+ 1700 (running at 1.47 Ghz), 512 MB of RAM, a Radeion 128 MB 4x AGP card, and a 80 gig HD. So, looks like the only area I don't measure up in is the RAM department....hopefully that wouldn't cause a problem. And it didn't. The problem, as it turned out, was with my HD.

I don't know when it happened, but something bad went down with my HD a few months back. It was part of the reason I decided on getting a laptop sooner than I wanted to. While the PC continued to run, it didn't operate as smoothly as it should, and the HD made weird sounds. Well, during the Vista install Vista told me that my HD was going to die soon, and it wouldn't install on that drive. 2 points for Vista with this one.

My hopes and dreams crushed, I walked down the stairs from the loft dejected and depressed, when I heard a voice. "Wait, there is another," it said to me. Then I remembered, Bebe has the same PC just sitting in the spare bedroom. Yes, that's right, we had two of the same PCs in the house. She got hers on sale at Best Buy a few years ago...and I needed a new PC at the time, saw the deal, and got the same one sans Monitor and Printer. I went back up stairs, took her PC out of the room, and plugged it into my stuff.

The installation started all over again, duh, and after around 45 minutes or so, the PC started to turn off, reboot, do stuff, turn off, reboot, do stuff, lather rinse repeat. This was all part of the install process as Vista did warn me before hand that "during the installation process your computer with restart several times." 2 points for the heads up there.

Eventually it booted up for real. I set up a user account and was off and running. I was unimpressed, at first. Then I realized I hadn't put in the graphics card, and thus wasn't getting the bells and whistles. So, I turned the PC off, removed the card from my old PC, put it in Bebe's PC, and booted up. Vista knew what to do, changed my screen size to fit my widescreen monitor, and said I was able to run the Aero interface if I wanted. Why thank you, I replied.

I figured the Aero and screen stuff would be where I expected it, right clicking on the desktop and selecting Properties, and I wasn't wrong. Yay for Microsoft for being consistant here. I turned Aero on, changed my desktop and did a few other things. The interface for Properties was a bit different but i was able to find what I was looking for.

So, Aero...no big deal. It's cute, I mean, windows seemingly "appear" out of nowhere and then disappear in cute ways, minimizing does this woosh thing into the taskbar, but other than that it's nothing big. I can see why Apple said MS had copied them, because it all did seem very OSX like. It was significantly more pleasant to use than XP though, I'll give them that. I wouldn't call it gorundbreaking or anything drastically better than what XP has.

The Start menu has been changed, and I had trouble finding what I was looking for. I still haven't found some things yet, but I figure a few more days and I'll get it down. The doesn't seem intuitive to use to me, but that might just be me, other people may find it's categories simplier to use.

Installing things still takes 5 steps when the same action in OSX takes two. That was a bit of a bummer. Also, as others who have written made note, the constant "Please Verify This Action" box gets annoying fast. I wanted to turn it off but couldn't since it's part of the new security stuff. Oh well, live with it I guess. I've had problems installing some drivers. So, my USB Wifi card isn't working and thus I can't get on the net. Vista has Explorer 7 and Media Player 11 installed with it, but since I can't connect I can't really take them for a true spin. I'll see what I can track down driver wise as well. Speaking of drivers, Vista doesn't like my wireless keyboard and mouse either. Nor did it like the USB 2.09 expansion card I put in. I'll have to trouble shoot all of this as well. Not to fair to knock Vista on these things though as this is still a Beta and may not have all the stuff within it that it needs to for these items to work and install themselves.

Final thoughts: All in all, I wasn't really impressed. I mean, it looks nice, and is very "chipper" but still felt like the same Windows, but maybe that's not a bad thing. A new PC user might be confused, but how many of those are left? Typical Windows users will run into the same confusion on the Start menu I did, but otherwise will figure out how to navigate the system pretty quickly. I'd say this is a worthy upgrade from XP, even if it's taken forever. However, I'm still glad I made the switch to OSX as playing with Vista hasn't made me regret that decision.

-Steve

UCF Football: Pre Season Breakdown

2006-08-28T07:15:00.000-04:00

You can smell it in the air, taste it on your lips, feel it in your bones...that's right, it's College Football season again. I've never been a big pro football guy, I feel the game has strayed too far from what makes it special. Too many flashy players, to much bling so to speak. Or, maybe it was the fact that my Detroit Lions didn't give me much of a pro team to root for most of my life. Who knows?

Anyway, I typically watched college football cheering on University of Michigan, or Michigan State, or any other Big Ten team that happened to be on. Hell, I've rooted for Notre Dame at times. But I never really had a team of my own. Then I went to UCF.

By no means a "football school," UCF has made great strides to change that in the past ten years. Quarterback Dante Culpepper is our greatest contribution to the Pros. UCF got serious on the coaching front two years ago bringing in George O'Leary, who took our team from 0-11 his first year to 8-5 last year, getting us to the C-USA Championship Game and the Honolulu Bowl (or whatever it was called, hey at least it was a bowl game).

This year the buzz on campus is high. With our brand new stadium being built to be ready for the home opener against Texas next year, people are excited. Can we do it again this year? Can we take the Conference title and get to a better bowl game? Could it be possible that we peek out heads into the top 25 once or twice (albeit at the 24th or 25th spot)? These questions will all be answered soon. We've got Villanova on the 2nd, and then it's off to Gator land on the 9th (yikes!).

Here's the breakdown of what to expect from UCF this year, care of USATODAY.COM:

INSIDE SLANT

Ever since Central Florida put the finishing touches on the nation's most impressive turnaround last season, UCF coach George O'Leary has been telling his players to forget all about it.

"Last year is over with. It is gone," O'Leary said after his team opened preseason practice on Aug. 5. "We have a new season and whatever happened last year is over. It is a new football team with new personalities and new chemistry."

Despite improving from 0-11 to 8-5, winning the Conference USA Eastern Division title in UCF's first season in C-USA and returning 18 offensive and defensive starters, the Golden Knights are showing every sign of buying into O'Leary's message.

"Last year was just one year," senior quarterback Steven Moffett said. "We enjoyed it, but we have a lot more to show everybody. We aren't finished yet."

The Golden Knights don't have to look very far for motivation. After all, 2004's winless finish isn't all that far away.

"Just the thought of having a bad season swirling around in our head is gonna make us continue to work hard," Moffett said. "We know what it's like to be down, and I know I don't want to go back to that."

The Golden Knights also know if they can start the season picked to finish fifth or sixth in their division and then win it, that other C-USA teams can do the same.

"We know we ain't gonna surprise anybody," fifth-year senior center Cedric Gagne-Marcoux said. "I would be worried if we didn't have a good offseason, but the offseason we had was incredible. We're bigger, we're stronger, we're just ready to get out there."

NOTES, QUOTES

KEY EARLY-SEASON GAME: vs. USF, Sept. 16 — A Sept. 9 game against Florida is big for the UCF program, especially following last year's success, but the Golden Knights often find themselves compared, for better or worse, to USF's rapid Division I-A rise. The winner of this game climbs another notch on the Florida football ladder.

THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS WILL SUCCEED IF: They continue to win close games as they did last year; they continue to run the ball effectively, take pressure off quarterback Steven Moffett, force turnovers and win the kicking game.

THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS WILL FAIL IF: The young players who played such a decisive role last year start taking success for granted; the Golden Knights forget what it takes to win close games; the defense struggles to fill holes in the front seven.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "Last year, we felt good together. Coming through spring, I think we all improved together. Now it seems like things have come together even more. The first day of practice, we were out there communicating well. We know how one another are going to play and that makes it easier out there." — UCF right tackle Josh Sitton, one of five returning starters from an offensive line that has combined for 93 career starts.

STRATEGY AND PERSONNEL

HEAD COACH: George O'Leary, third year at UCF, 8-16 with the Golden Knights

MOST IMPORTANT PLAYER: C Cedric Gagne-Marcoux — Gagne-Marcoux is the cornerstone of an offensive line that returns five starters and gives the Golden Knights a solid, physical foundation up front.

BREAKOUT STAR: FS Jason Venson — Venson did some positive things as a freshman in 2005 but an improved defense and the presence of cornerbacks Joe Burnett and Johnell Neal could allow Venson to get involved in more tackles and more big plays in the passing game.

NEWCOMER TO WATCH: WR Keith Houston — With the loss of starting receiver Brandon Marshall and the uncertainty surrounding starting Mike Walker's knee, Houston has a chance to come in and play right away this fall.

PROJECTED STARTING LINEUP: Offense — QB Steven Moffett, TB Kevin Smith, FB Jason Peters, WR Mike Walker, WR Rocky Ross, TE Mike Merritt, LT Patrick Brown, LG Dominic Ignelzi, C Cedric Gagne-Marcoux, RG L.J. Anderson, RT Josh Sitton

Defense — LE Emeka Okammor, LT Leger Douzable, RT Keith Shologan, RE Chris Welsh, LB Jordan Richards, LB Cory Hogue, LB Ronnell Sandy, LC Johnell Neal, SS Sha'reff Rashad, FS Jason Venson, RC Joe Burnett

ROSTER REPORT: The Golden Knights came out of spring practice with some health concerns but entered the preseason with only one major concern, middle linebacker Steven Baker (knee). With Baker out for an indefinite period, senior Ronell Sandy is once again making the move from his more natural position at outside linebacker to the middle. The Golden Knights will also be looking for immediate help from freshmen Chance Henderson and DaQuwan McNealy.

Senior Mike Walker, the team's leading returning receiver, appears to be making a positive return from surgery after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee late in the 2005 season.

-Steve

Planetary News: The Big Boot

2006-08-24T13:33:00.000-04:00

And then there were eight...solar system dioramas all around the world are not out of date and incorrect.

The people who control what is and isn't a planet have spoken, and they decided that Pluto is no longer worthy of the Planet status.

First things first, I didn't even know there were people who were in charge of this.

Second, wow...that changes everything and yet nothing at the same time. There are now only eight planets, but is anyone really effected?

Third, I guess there is going to be some new subplanet type thing/classification that Pluto is going to fit into, along with some other stuff floating around out there just waiting to SLAM into Earth and end it all.

It's been an exciting day in astronomy...I mean, to astronomers, this is like winning the Super Bowl huge.

-Steve

Observations: Automobile Tastes

2006-08-24T08:23:00.000-04:00

Having grown up in the greater Detroit metro area for the first 17+ years of my life I've always been a car guy. Now, what I mean is not that I can tell you the difference between engines, or why one model year car is better than another, what I mean is that I've always had an interest in the car business and how that business effects out country, and more importantly to me, my family back in Michigan.

I've always had a preference to Chysler and their other brands (Dodge, Jeep, and the defunt Plymouth). My grandfather worked for Chrysler for most of his adult life, eventually retiring from there in the mid eighties. My whole extended family drove Chrylers...Jeeps, minivans, sedans.... Cherokee's, Grand Voyagers, Stratuses. I prefered the look of a Chrysler over a Ford or Chevy too. That's not to say the Chrysler wasn't lacking in many areas, it was. But for me, I was a Chrysler guy, and that's just the way it was going to be.

Until I discovered German cars in high school. Man, did those Germans know how to design and engineer something or what? I'd never really looked at BMWs, or Mercedes...luxury in Detroit was a Buick, Lincoln, or Cadillac. Only yuppies drove cars from Germany...but boy did those yuppies have nice cars.

It was BMW really, and later Audi, that a truly fancied. Their clean lines, hard edges, smooth contours, that was what appealed to me. Mercedes never really did it for me as much as Bimmers and Audis, and even to a point VWs. I still thought there were nice though, so don't get me wrong, Mercedes are indeed very very nice cars.

It was sort of a best of both worlds feeling when Chrysler and Daimler/Mercedes "merged" to form Daimler/Chrysler. Chrysler had been hurting and needed some help, Mercedes saw a brand that could really help them take a greater share of the American, and ultimatley world, market. Things started to look up almost immediatley, as the PT Cruiser was a smash hit, and still sells well to this day.

Chrysler, while not in the clear yet, has continued to rebuild their brand and created cars that have become icons in America. The Chrysler 300c is the flagship sedan of the brand, and very well should be. It's elegance demands respect, and it truly looks like the car of royalty...albiet the royalty of Auburn Hills. The Dodge Magnum, allowing dads restricted to driving wagons have a little fun while doing it. The Dodge Charger, taking the 4 door American sedan to new heights. The Crossfire....um, yeah...that one was sort of a miss. Anyway, they've got three strong hits, a great line of Dodge trucks and SUVs, and the whole "Hemi" thing.

Good stuff.

However, I've been troubled by the problems with GM and Ford. As much as I know Chrysler is in my blood, in a way Ford and GM are too. Afterall, they've helped fuel Detroit as long as Chrysler has. I remember what happened to Flint when the plants closed. That city is a shell of it's former self, a true lesson is putting your eggs in one basket. However, Ford's and GM's problems are different than Chrysler.

I can't think of a car that I want to drive from either of them. Sure, the Mustang is nice, but I've never really liked Vettes. Giant GM SUVs, please. Ford F-150, not a pickup guy. Buick Lesabre, gag me. Chevy Montecarlo, do people still buy these? Ford 500, not a bad start, but no one else seems to think it's good enough to buy. How do you fix a company that makes a TON of cars no one really cares for, and then has to give away at employee prices? How do you fix a company without causing thousands of people their jobs and livelyhoods? I'm glad I don't run either of those companies. The only job worse than that is running the Detroit Lions...oh wait, the Ford family has F'ed that up too. Coincidence?

There are continued rough times ahead for Ford and GM. I wish them the best...even if I have a slight grin knowing that my guys are in the best shape.

-Steve

Internet News: SPAM!

2006-08-23T11:06:00.000-04:00

I thought this was interesting...Microsoft released some "patch" that resulted in a bunch more zombies being created. As of last week or so "spam [is] making up 81 percent of all mail volume".

THAT'S JUST CRAZY!

Funny thing is when they describe the spam: "They are mostly Rolex spam and porn spam." Hrmmm...could this be the spam they're talking about:

You can click on the image for a larger view, but that is just a snippet of what is sitting in my junk mail box for my gmail account. I just want to know who click on that stuff and actually goes to the sites? Seriously....

-Steve

Internet News: BellSouth and Verizon are Jerks

2006-08-23T10:38:00.000-04:00

Okay, so, the Fed removed the Universal Service Fund for DSL lines. This fee can vary depending on your service and subscriber, anywhere from 1.20 to 4 bucks, give or take. Well, the USF fee doesn't have to be applied to DSL anymore...so you think that Verison and BellSouth DSL customers would see savings on their bills.

WRONG!

They're not seeing a lowered bill. Instead, both companies put some made up jack off fee on their bills for the same amount. Talk about cheap bastards. In essence, they're keeping your bill the same amount and pocketing the difference, hoping you won't notice.

Verizon even said they're going to keep charging the extra amount to offset their loses with naked DSL. Naked DSL is when you have a DSL line but don't pay for the phone companies regualr phone line as well. Typically they cahrge you like 5 or 10 bucks more a month for this. So, basically, Verizon is making REGULAR CUSTOMERS subsidize their losses.

This just goes to show you that when free market forces get to do what they want, what they will do is rip off the little guy...period. If anyone things they won't F us over without net neutrality thing again. They're just aching to charge us more for "premium" internet, and then charge internet companies for "premium" bandwidth.

You can read more about it on this article on cNet.com.

-Steve

Computer News: SNES Emulator on the Mac

2006-08-23T07:17:00.000-04:00

I was very pleased to find a OSX version on ZNES last night. For those who don't know, ZNES is the premier Super Nintendo computer emulator. It isn't universal binary though, so I was a bit worried it might not work on my Intel Macbook. I figured I'd give it a shot.

It downloaded fine. It booted up fine. Now was the tough part...would the ROM load. I think the grin on my face stretched from ear to ear as Sim City scrolled up my screen. It hauls ass on the Macbook too, none of the little stutters I experiance on my desktop PC. I think that has more to do with the faster chip than the OS though.

I'm looking forward to getting some Sim City on, playing a bit of Secret of Mana, and maybe going through Final Fanstasy 3 (or 6, depending on what numbering scheme you use) one more time. Should be some good days ahead.

-Steve

My Life: Hard Drive on the Way

2006-08-23T07:07:00.000-04:00

Looks like my hard drive shipped out last night. I ordered it from OtherWorldComputing.com Monday night. After a day of processing, their tracking site said UPS had picked it ip. So, I checked the UPS site and sure enough it says "Sched. Delivery: 08/24/2006," which is a day sooner than I thought I'd get it.

I paid the extra two bucks in shipping to get two day air. Why? Well, OWC is located in California, near the same area the warehouse I order my protien from is located. I know that when using regualr UPS to ship the protien it can take like 5-7 days to get here to Atlanta. I wanted to be able to take care of all this HD stuff this weekend, so, I paid the extra couple of bucks to make sure it got here by this Friday. Looks like I'll get my wish.

I would have liked to have gotten the 7200 rpm HD, but for a 120 gig HD that was like eighty bucks more. I figure I've used 5400 for this long, would I really notice the difference? If it's a big deal I can always go back in a year or two and get a bigger faster HD. I'm sure by then they'll have 200 gig 10,000 rpm notebook HDs.

I'll take some pictures this weekend as I put the new HD into my Macbook. I'll also make note of how the movement of files went from my Macbook, to my external HD, and then back to the Macbook. I guess, worst case, if things go wrong I can just put in my old HD and I'm up and running again until I can figure out what went wrong.

-Steve

My Life: I hurt my foot somehow

2006-08-23T06:54:00.000-04:00

I hurt the heel on my left foot somehow this weekened. I really have no idea how I did it, all I know is that it just hurts. This is odd, really, since it's not like I didn't anything extravagant this weekend. I did do a lot of walking though, and most of that was in flipflops, so maybe that had something to do with it. I'm not sure though.

This is the worst kind of foot pain too (well, honestly, that's up for debate...I mean, it's possible there are other more severe foot pains that I don't know about that make this pale in comparison...actually, I'm sure there are, so take what I said with a grain of salt), the kind that you feel with every step. Each step I take, BAM, there's my heel hurting.

I think it's gotten a little better, and since I don't do any high impact stuff I really only feel it when I walk around. The bad part is that none of my work shoes really have much going for them in the cushion department. They're all flat soled, and have that hard rubber crap at the bottom of them that make the "clop clop" sound when you walk. Seriously, I sound like a horse sometimes when I wear these black ones I have. Maybe I should get some jell insoles or something, that might help. Then I could be jelling.

"Are you jellin?"

"Like a felon."

How does a felon jell? Hrmm.....

-Steve

Engrish: Watch your step series #2

2006-08-22T07:59:00.000-04:00

Here is the second picture in the "Watch your step" series. You gotta love "drunken walking!" However, i myself prefer "Caution Tripping," it's really the only way to trip nowadays.

-Steve

Observations: Day two with my Macbook

2006-08-22T07:43:00.000-04:00

Day two with my Macbook has come and gone. I brought it into work yesterday, mainly to show my coworker John. However, just my luck, I forgot he's out for the week training at a client site. I sent him an e-mail and he said he was bummed out and asked me to bring it in on Monday. So I said I would. I should have a nice case by then anyway.

Things are going well and I'm find it easy to move my files over from my desktop PC. I picked up a firewire cable yesterday which made moving my filed SO MUCH FASTER. I wish I had firewire on my desktop, but it's kind of old, because movingfiles from it to my external backup drive used to take forever. Fortunatly, my backdrive has firewire. So, moving that stuff to the Macbook has taken just minutes instead of over an hour. Bebe, who has a firewire port on her Dell, had no idea it was that much faster either, so she'll be using it to backup her stuff as well.

I'm almost out of HD space on the Macbook. This is mainly due to my music collection. The standard HD on a Macbook is 60gig, not small but not big either. Unfortunatly, I have a decent sized music collection and I like to rip my songs at a high bit rate, so my collection is about 50% bigger than it could be. I've got about 10 gigs left to spare, which actually would be okay if not for what I plan to do in the next week or two.

You see, I'm going to get a program called Parallels that allows me to run XP virtually on the Macbook. I could use something Apple provides called Bootcamp to run XP natively, but I'd prefer to not have to shut down and reboot each time I need to use XP. Anyway, back to what I was saying, to do this seriously, I'm going to need a bigger HD that I can partition for XP to use. the 10 gig I have left wouldn't cut it for that. To get around this issue I ordered a 120gig HD notebook HD which should get here later this week.

The people on the Macworld message board gave me a cool program that allows me to make a copy of my Mac to an external HD, or secondary drive, and then simply move that copy back over when I put in a new HD. Talk about nice. While I'll have to put OSX on the new HD once installed, restoring the copy will put back all my programs, files, setting, and everything else just the way it was before the new HD was put in. I'm going to look at this a bit more this weekend when I move the stuff over.

Other than that I'm just trying to get the hang on OSX, which has been pretty easy to pick up on. Stuff that takes 5 steps in XP takes like 2 in OSX. The interface is great as well, just much more pleasant to use than XP. I look forward to putting some more RAM in it in a few more weeks. It's only for 512MB right now, which does okay, but I'd lie to max it out at 2gig. That will set me back around 150-200 bucks or so, depending on where I get it. I figure I'll put 100 bucks aside this payday, and another 100 next payday, then i'm good to go.

One last thing...which I didn't know, OSX boots up faster each time. Evidently, OSX constantly moves the files you need more when you boot up to the parts of the drive it can get to quickest, or something like that. So basically, after about 5-7 of your first boots, each time after that it will get incrementally faster for the next 15-20 boots. After that the improvements trail off until that aren't noticiable anymore. I went from booting in about 30 seconds at first (which has me freaking out) to about 13 seconds now, which is amazing.

Have a good one.

-Steve

Observations: Dead Tired

2006-08-21T13:31:00.000-04:00

Man, I am so tired. My body is just dragging and dragging and I have an hour and a half of work left. This sucks. I'd like to be more productive but I just can't be, not like this.

It's a real pain too, because I have things I need to get done. For example, I could be writing my "Master Payroll Procedure Guide" right now but instead I'm writing to my blog. Oh priorities.

On the other hand, a cup of coffee might do the trick right now. However, that would require me to get up, go somewhere, buy something, come back, and sit down again. It's significantly more convienant to just sit here and complain.

Mabye I just need to get to bed earlier on Sunday nights.

-Steve

Engrish: Srippery When Wet

2006-08-21T10:45:00.000-04:00

I mean, come on...did they even try here? "Carefully slip and fall down," seriously...I mean, cooooome oooooon.

You gotta love it.

The best part is the little picture of the guy losing his grip. All I can think of is "hope you did that carefully, and that black line below you is a mattress or somethin."

-Steve

Observations: Enter the Macbook

2006-08-20T22:24:00.000-04:00

Well...I made the switch. Aaron probably thinks I'm a fag for this, but I'm okay with that...thats his issue, not mine.

Anyway, this thing is pretty nice and its cool to finally not be stuck up in my loft on my old desktop.

On the flip side, it's going to be a pain in the ass to migrate my files and stuff to the Macbook. My 300 gig backup drive is not readable by Mac, nor would it be readable by PC if it was formatted for Mac. So, I'll have to figure something out.

However, a lot of my software won't be too big of a problem. I'm ording Office for Mac tomorrow. I only have to pay 20 bucks for it through work due to some program we're in with Microsoft, which is nice. I put FInal Draft on the Macbook too. Actually, I'm taking a bit of a break right now from writing so I can do this entry.

I ended up getting the 2 gig Macbook. It's only got 512 megs of RAM, which is okay for now, but I plan on upgrading that soon. The harddrive is okay, at 60 gigs, but I'll probably upgrade that as well once I get a chance to get my 300 gig back up formatted correctly.

This thing is sexy, I'll tell you that. Right from when you open the box you realize you're not dealing with a PC. Now, I'm not going to get into the OSX vs Windows thing, and which one is better. Each camp has valid arguments and I'm just not going to go there. I simply wanted a change. After a decade of Windows it's over. Now, I am going to put Parallels on here and probably do a Windows and Linux install just for shits and giggles. That's a project a few weeks away though. For now there are bigger things at hand.

You know, one thing that's nice, Bebe hates Macs. HATES THEM! That means that I don't have to worry about her using mine, although I do see her eventually coming around to it. She doens't like change, and she says "Windows is jsut the way it is, people need to learn to deal with that." I know...I know, that's just the way it is.

-Steve

Observations: Mornings with Robin

2006-08-18T07:26:00.000-04:00

I've nver been a big morning person. I usually hate smiling in the morning. To me, mornings shouldn't be about bright and sunny, but about the dread of having to leave your warm comfortable bed and go to some place you'd rather not be. I mean, lets face it here kids, no one likes getting up, and I mean really getting up. If you could you know you'd lay in bed for a while...just warm and snug in your sheets, perhaps with someone else, perhaps by yourself. Unfortunatly, most of us don't have the luxury of staying in bed, so we get up.

That's the start of our day. Wake. Coffee. News. Sometimes in a different order than that, but usually with News as the second or third item (doens't make much sense to get news and then wake up). I'm not a big "happy happy morning news show" person. As a matter of fact, the more dry and emotionless my morning news the better. The last thing I want to hear or see are people being chipper on my TV screen or through my radio speakers. I want dry monotone voices that won't disturb my crankyness. And come on, none of them are fun to listen to, and are almost immune to the obnoxiousness of their own voices. Then, I found Robin.

For those who don't know, Robin is the anchor of the morning news on Headline News. Actually, it's her show...Robin & Company. I don't know who "the Company" is, nor do I care, I watch it for her. I've always sort of had a thing for news anchors (I used to think Ashley Banfield was smoking, but oddly enough only with her glasses on). Maybe it's the woman in charge thing. Maybe I just like their hair. Who knows. But man, does Robin do it for me.

She's chipper, but not in that obnoxious sort of way. I don't even know if she's any good at what she does. She's pretty and a face I don't mind seeing in the morning, and that smile....man that smile is to die for. I think the thing I dig the most is that somewhere, in this huge city we call Atlanta, she's around, looking hot. I could go down to the CNN Center and wait for her. That's how I saw Zane (a hot anchor on regular CNN, she's from South Africa and it so sexy). Actually, i don't work too far from there, so I could go for lunch...hrm...better not.

Anyway, Robin, if for some reason you read this, you've got a fan. Keep it up. Sorry to see that GIANT rock on your hand though, lucky guy.

Now, if only Sumi Das could get her own show.

-Steve

Transformers The Movie News: Last set of pictures

2006-08-17T20:16:00.000-04:00

There is a Q and A with the writers tomorrow where they say they will answer questions on the "final" list of Transformers in the movie, and how they may or may not relate to G1 characters from the show. I'm not going to even talk about that until next week.

As I said, here are the two pictures I promissed. The first is of Ironhide's something, or so it's said. Not a lot to go on. THe second is an onset shot of some guys dressed as guards and whatnot. This is from the Hoover Damn sequence in the film, but I have no idea what happens there. Also, the futuristic vehicle in the background I talked about is there. Its sort of dune buggy looking. So, who knows.

Enjoy.

-Steve

Transformers The Movie News: Clarifications, Prime CGI Verified Authentic

2006-08-17T10:36:00.000-04:00

I don't know what TheMovieBlog is or who does it, but time and time again people keep saying that this guy is "the bomb" when it comes to calling "real" or "fake" on stuff.

So, he was able to verify that the Prime CGI pictures I posted were indeed real. You can see the story here. In addition, the fan cencept art of Prime is posted as well. He said Paramount could not confirm if that was real, and if it is, it doesn't look like they are using it for more than just scale and general proportions.

In addition, I've been able to find out more on who the tank was in my last post. His name is Devastator. Megatron, at least according to the script, will be a futuristic looking jet, unlike everythign else that has a "Earth" look to it. Megatron is said to still look like he's fresh off the boat from Cybertron. On the other hand, Starscream is an F-22 Raptor, so that's sorta cool. I still would have liked to have seen Megatron as some sort of cannon or something.

-Steve

Transformers The Movie News: Pictures Gallore!

2006-08-16T22:28:00.000-04:00

Okay, so here is the last round of pictures I was able to find. If you checked this blog at all last night then you saw this post without text. I'm not sure what happened, so I'm putting some words up again.

At any rate, I don't know who this tank is, but I suspect it might be Megatron. I know he's been a tank in some of the comic books, but I don't really know too much else about that. For physical reasons they simply couldn't make him a big ass hand gun anymore. Not to mention a realistic looking toy that looks like a hand gun couldn't be made and marketed the same way it was back in the 80s, although the original Megatron was wicked cool.

I think this tank looks pretty neato, even if it doesn't turn out to be Megatron. Although Bay has said he wants to stay as true to the Transformers series as he could, hes never said what transformers series that is. There are different generations (i.e G1, G2, G3) and comic book universes and even a Japanese version called Convoy. All of these are based on the same Transformers we all know in love, but each has it's own style and substance.

In the end I don't know how close it will be to the cartoon, how close it will be to verious comics, or whatever. It could turn out to be another Masters of the Universe, or it could turn out to be a Hellboy or Sin City. There's just no knowing until the next trailer comes out or we learn some more.

Back to the tank, it certainly looks impressive. It's also very big. You can see it in relation to the cab of the big rig pulling it. Big rigs are big, and this thing is easily three or four times that size. That means one big robot. This makes sense though, because Prime's truck is big, and we'd need the main villian and hero roughly the same size for their battles to look any good.

Now, I have no idea who "Bonecrusher" is or who's side he's on. I'm going out on a limb here and saying that he's a Decepticon, but I've got nothing to back that up right now. He just...I don't know, looks like a Decepticon. Her certainly doesn't look like any truck I've seen before. I'm not too sure what that "arm" thing is that's on the side of it. The truck certaintly looks modified with extra parts that look functional but are probably there so that when he transforms he's got a weapon, or something.

The Bonecrusher logo looks gay. Well, not gay, but sily at the least. It does have a very military look to it, as if some grunts painted it on, so maybe it wasn't by his choice. You can see the graphic on the back rear panel of the truck on the image to the right. Below is a close up of the logo itself. I don't know, maybe it's not to bad looking. I've heard that this logo shows up on more places than just on this vehicle.

"Where else?" you ask? I'll have more on that later. There is reason to believe that there are some non Autobot or Decepticon Transformers in the movie. I know, I know, that sounds dumb, but think about that for a moment. In the movie and time and time again in the series new robots were found that didn't fit the typical "Autobot" or "Decepticon" mold, so this really isn't THAT out of the ordinary.

Take the Dinobots for example. They weren't exactly Autobots at first. As a matter of fact, I think they fought with the Autobots the first time everyone met. I know Grimlock was a pretty tough cookie, he was always one of my favorites.

These non Transformer transformers might be man made creations. Wouldn't it be cool if while all the stuff is going down, the real shit is hitting the fan, out army guys are like "General, here is our line of defense, I give you the "Armybots." These four robots walk up looking all cool and stuff but are obviously man made, and thus really just glorified computers. Then, they're sent out on the battle field to take on the Autobots, because, you know, the Army ALWAYS gets it wrong in the movies and attacks the good guys first. Then, the Decepticon's show up and beat the hell out of the Armybots, showing up we have no idea what we're doing. That'd be pretty neat.

I'll have the pictures of the "futuristic" vehicles that lead me to believe something like this might be happening later. I've got to go back home and get the images off my local PC first. Also, I'll put up the image of Ironhide's shoulder/leg/back (we really don't know). It's not as dramatic as the Prime stuff, but it's still neat. In addition, there is some fan art of Optimus that shows that even with the "Bay" version of the transformers they can still look like Transformers. Much like the Bumble Bee concept art, it helped to calm me down. They even have coloring that is similar to the red, blue, and flames stuff.

-Steve

Transformers The Movie News: Bumble Bee concept art, FULL BODY

2006-08-16T22:21:00.000-04:00

Okay, we all saw the Bumble Bee stuff from a few weeks back. Unfortunatly, he was laying on his face. Well, here is his concept art. As you can see, he does indeed look like a transformer.

The only thing that bothers me is the face, but other than that it seems to match spot on with the other picture (the one of the real anamatronic robot).

I've found this on a site with a TON of stuff that I'll be posting little by little.

-Steve

Transformers The Movie News: Prime's Arm and Face

2006-08-16T22:02:00.000-04:00

Now, I will admit I've been on the fence so far with the Transformers stuff. Some of it is cool, some of it isn't...especially the Optimus Prime with flames stuff.

Well, I check AintItCoolNews.com and lo and behold there is Transformers news. I click on the link and see these images.

First, the arm. I like it, a lot. Bay said he's going to make the Transformers appear as though the parts they have can actually come from a car. IN other words, no size changing suer neat transformations like in the cartoons. These guys will look like vehicles. Wires, egines, exhaust, wheels, you name it and it's going to be there. This could be more apparant than the Bumble Bee robot shoot from a few weeks back. Seeing how the flames thing will look on the transformed Prime arm, I think I'll let it slide. He looks blue and red, which is good enough for me.

Now the face. This is the money shot right here. This will calm down all the hoohoo nannys that were getting in a fuss. Sure his eyes are blacked out, but the important part is that his face guard is there. No lips, no mouth, just a face guard, as it should be. I'm not saying that at some point it's going to be removed and we'll see his mouth, but at least for the time being we know that it is indeed there, and it will be used (or so it will seem).

Supposedly these shots have been "leaked" on purpose to calm everyone down that's been hating on Bay lately. He wants to show that while he is doing some of his own things with the source material, he's keeping it real.

While this give me hope, I won't be satisfied until I see Megatron. If he's going to be an M1-A1 tank, he's going to have to look bad ass, or I'm going to be pissed.

-Steve

Amazing Invention?

2006-08-16T09:40:00.000-04:00

This could be the most amazing invention ever.

Or it could suck ass.

I figure this works out well for people who a runny nose, or for someone who's breath smells like ass.

-Steve

Engrish: Cat-Smack

2006-08-16T07:26:00.000-04:00

Everyone loves little baby kittens. Everyone loves little baby kittens that are fed "Enough Nutrition." That's why I feed my little baby kittens "Cat Smack."

Once they're hooked they always keep coming back for more!

-Steve

Comments back on

2006-08-16T07:25:00.000-04:00

I've turned the comments back on. However, there is now a word verification process that is required. This should prevent some of the comment spam I've been getting.
-Steve

Entertainment News: Kate and Some Guy Get Divorced

2006-08-15T07:07:00.000-04:00

Kate Hudson and some guy she's married to (reportedly some person who once sang in a band that was moderatley sucessful at best) are getting divorced. My question...does anyone care?

Ramdom Fact: Chris Robinson (the "person who once sang in a band" I was refering to above) graduated from the same high school Bebe just started teaching at. Imagine that.

-Steve

Observations: Express Yourself

2006-08-14T19:52:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned a few times that I'm an aspiring writer. Sometimes it's a quick short story. Sometimes its a blog post. Sometimes something completely unrelated. My passion, at least at the moment, is in writing screenplays.

Sure, there are a billion people out there who write screen plays, some of those people are actually good too. Most of those people would like to write screen plays professionally, and actually make a living off of it. However, the likelihood of that happening is about as good as it is for someone to make the NFL, or NBA, or some other such professional sports league. It's not that you're bad, it's that there are other people that much better and there are only a certain amount of spots available. Catch my drift.

While my dream would be to "make it," the reality is that I won't. However, that doesn't stop me from keeping on at it. You see, I have the luxury of writing for fun, something a professional doesn't always have the chance to do. They have to write to make a living. I don't. I do other boring stuff with computers to get my money. For me, this is a hobby, a glorified one, but a hobby nonetheless.

I've always been someone who likes to express themselves. Whether that's with images, drawing, pictures, painting, talking to much, whatever, I do it because thats the type of person I am. It doesn't hurt that I actually have talent when it comes to doing some of those activities. Writing, for me, is just one of those outlets. It allows for me to create a story, a whole world, that I can control. I'm able to say the things I want to say the way I want to say them. Its something that I find few other mediums allow me to experience.

I've been "writing" of some sort for a long time. I remember competing in grade school in a short story competition. I was one of three finalists in all of the second grade. I finished second to a girl who wrote a story about a magical bird who could talk. My story, on the other hand, had to do with David and Goliath, sabotage, intrigue, excitement, action, drama, and good triumphing over evil. Her story had a bird who could talk. I had dialog between several characters. She just had narrative prose with no conversations. I was pissed. To this day I still think I came in second because I had some sort of violence in my story and she didn't. Plus, the look my teacher gave me when they announced the winner just screamed "this was fixed." Nonetheless, that was my first experience writing, I never really stopped.

Right now I'm adapting a short story I wrote into a screenplay. I'm sure eventually I'll talk more about it, if I haven't said something on a previous post, but I really think I've got something. As I import scene by scene into Final Draft i just keep saying, "I can't believe I wrote this." Whether that means anything or not, its a big step for me. This story was a leap, from immature to mature. It's a story I had to work at to find. I knew what I wanted was hidden in the depths of current events, waiting and crying to get out. I took my time, letting it simmer, milling it over in my head, doing the proper research to figure out who the characters would be, how they would react, and most importantly why they would react. Then, I started writing.

Unlike in the past I didn't jump right into the script. Instead I did this as three separate stories. At points these stories do cross, but for the most part that are independent of each other. Each story has it's own characters who have their own difficulties and reasons for doing what they do. I didn't know how to combine that all together form the outset, so I did it the way I knew how, separately.

Once complete, I merged them together. Some of the times it fit nicely, other times it caused problems. There were continuity problems, contradictions, and other such issues, but I kept at it, still working on those problems in shorty story form. It took three drafts but I finally got it right and started to import it into Final Draft last week.

So far I've got 70 pages in script form. Based on how it's transfered over from short story so far I anticipate this coming in around 120-130 pages, big for a script, but not big considering its first draft and it's a pretty complex story. Its been fun to see how things change once I put them into script form. A scene loses extra lines, I've got to point out what characters are speaking what languages, and to whom; things you just don't need to worry about when writing in another form.

It's been rewarding so far, and something that makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. I won't rush it, actually I won't even write tonight. Instead I do it when I want to, when I feel the need to, and not simply two hours every night like I have in the past. I'll most likely get it finished this weekend and print it out Monday next week. It should be interesting to see what the overall product comes across as when someone else takes a look.

Until then, take it easy.

-Steve

Movie Review: Appleseed

2006-08-14T08:27:00.000-04:00

Seems kind of wrong to go from Hotel Rwanda to this movie, but what are you going to do. I've seen a few episodes from the Appleseed series here and there. I'm not very knowledgeable about the series, other than there was tough chick who hung out with her "lover" who had been turned into a machine when he was severely damaged, thus ending their physical relationship.

fortunately for me Appleseed The Movie was a retelling of the origination of the series. This made things much easier to understand since it introduced all of the characters and the overall situation the world is dealing with. Before going into that, I want to take some time to set a few things up.

I've always been a fan of Japanese animation. Maybe it first started with Voltron, perhaps it was Robotech, but whatever the reason I've always popped for it. Let me justify that statement, I've popped for the more mainstream stuff. As with any niche product there are weird subversions of Japanese animation I just don't get, nor do I want to get understand. This stuff is created for the Japanese culture, and with that are things that don't translate into American culture. That can sometimes be no more evident than with their animation. Some of the stuff is just plain weird. While I don't consider myself an expert, I'm pretty well versed in several major series and movies and can usually "hang" with the anime dorks when need be.

Appleseed is the story of Dunan Knute and her introduction to the post apocalyptic utopian city known as Olympus. Evidently there was this big war (which they hint was WWIII), and most of the world is just in shambles. They don't mention nukes, but one can assume to some degree those were used. The war is still being fought although there are no "winners" but due to it's length it's degraded to nothing more than small skirmished between heavily armed guerilla forces. Dunan is one of these guerilla fighters, and the best one at that, and her skills are well known and admired.

Unbeknownst to her, as well as other guerilla fighters, there has been a city constructed to act as a new utopia, or a harbringer of change, for humans on this planet. It's called Olympus and although it's location isn't pointed out explicitly (if it was I missed it) one can assume it's a refuge from the fighting and likely terraformed from a large mountain. Olympus was constructed with a giant computer named Gaia, and all the generals and whatnot that run the place have various Greek names (i.e. Uranus, Nike, Athena).

In Olympus theses "wise men" have designed this race of artificial humans called bioroids, who are sort of controlled by Gaia but yet are independent at the same time. Basically, they're genetically engineered humans that have certain thoughts/emotions prevented, such as love and hate. They are also not allowed to reproduce and they have a limited life span before they must be "recharged." If they're not recharged they will age super fast and die within a week.

Obviously, there are people who resent these bioroids and want them destroyed. That's where the conflict comes in. Dunan teams up with E.S.W.A.T., the cities special police force who has these neat mech suits they wear. The bad guys are the Olympus regular Army, which I assume are actually there to protect the city from the war outside, although they seem more interested in concentrating on what is going on inside the city instead of leaving that up to E.S.W.A.T.

This anime uses a new technique that seems to be getting more and more popular. Basically they use motion capture suits to capture the movements of actors and then populate that into a CGI program with prerendered characters and backgrounds. The character are not shaded with textures like Final Fantasy or Shrek, but are instead cell shaded so they look like regular animation. This leaves a neat looking color palate and style that seems familiar yet new at the same time. It takes a few minutes to get used to since when you first see you your head wants to assume it's regular animation but your eyes pick up on things that tell you that it isn't.

The sound track includes well known producer Paul Oakenfeld, and a Japanese group called Boom Boom Satellites. The music is techo/industrial and fits the mood of the film quite nicely.

The action sequences are great, almost on par with Final fantasy Advent Children. The mechas punch and kick with the force you want to see them use. The final sequence with these giant land walking cannons is great, with the look and feel of the machines seeming very realistic.

The art direction of the flick is very cyber punk, but with heavy industrial and neofuture elements that brings it all together. The parts that are supposed to look dark look dark, and the parts that should look light look light. The director uses this to show "good" and "bad" parts as well as "despair" and "hope." I could go into this more but I think you get what I'm saying.

I'd give this a 8 out of 10. Good story. Interesting characters. Great action. A worthwhile rent, or if you're into it purchase.

-Steve

Movie Review: Hotel Rwanda

2006-08-14T07:58:00.000-04:00

I actually saw this movie last week. It's a movie I'd been wanting to see for a while, but just never picked up at the rental store. Now that I have Netflix, that really isn't much of a problem anymore.

I sat down to start Hotel Rwanda on Wednesday evening. I figured I'd get an hour or so into the film and then call it a night before bed. I really didn't know what the film was about, other than the fact it had to do with genocide in Africa in the mid nineties.

Here's the summary for Hotel Rwanda from IMDB.com: "Ten years ago some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda--and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees, by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages."

The story follows Paul Rusesabagina as he protects his family, and the family and friends around him, as best as he can as the genocide unfolds around him. This was a very touching story and something I couldn't help but feel very guilty about. When this was occurring I was only 14 or 15, and not plugged into the news and internet like I am today, but still...how could I not have known this was going on? In an era of CNN, 24 hours news, and the fledgling internet, was this simply ignored or was it still just out of the reach of the information age?

Nick Nolte's character Colonel Oliver summed up the lack of aid best when he said, "You're black. You're not even a nigger. You're an African." That summed it up for me. No one helped because no one cared. It was just a bunch of primitive Africans killing each other, not my problem. That was the mentality of the age. The Europeans created the mess when they colonized, and now that they were gone they weren't going to clean anything up, they were just going to leave it as is.

The movie is presented with an amazing clarity that leaves it easily accessible to even the most ignorant to world atrocities. You don't need to know the history for each tribe to know why the hatred is there. One tribe was held back (the Hutu) by the Belgians, the other (the Tutsi) was hand selected to rule over the country. That was it. Everything else in the movie was black and white. The carnage and violence played out for the viewer in the most basic sense of human nature, unadulterated hatred and death.

The scenes to show the carnage an aftermath must have been chosen carefully from the true like experiences of Paul. Although I'm sure the visuals barely compared to what he really saw, the director must have selected the right ones to show so that the carnage was easily accessible to the viewer. There would be no sugar coating in this film, just the truth.

I found this movie amazing. It's beyond what my movie reviews can do. I'm not good at the serious stuff, and this is one serious movie. I suggest you pick it up if you haven't yet.

-Steve

Observations: Who Babies Look Like When They're Born

2006-08-11T08:52:00.000-04:00

Bebe and I have some friends who just had their first child. It happens to look just like the father at the moment (crisis avoided).

Another pair of friends of ours had their first child around a year ago. It too looked significantly like the father at birth. However, shortly thereafter it "changed" and started to look more like the mother.

During the course of a conversation on the newborn baby of our friends, Bebe mentioned that all babies look like their fathers when they are born. I thought this was a bit of a generalization, so I called her on it.

"I've never heard that before," I said.

"It's scentific fact," she said. "They say that they look like the fathers because it reinforces to the dad that it's their child and makes them bond with it. The mother has carried the child, so there is no need to reinforce the bonding there. If the baby looks like the dad, the father is more likely to want to help take care of it."

"That's a theory, you can't prove something like that," I said.

"It's fact, I read it somewhere."

"Where?"

"I don't know, somewhere."

"I don't remember ever reading that during sex ed in school, or learning about it on any of the nature shows I've seen about child birth and whatnot. I've seen kids that look like their moms when their born."

"It's a fact."

"Okay, if it's a fact, how do you prove it?"

"They did."

"How?"

"I don't know, studies and stuff."

"Babe, there is no way to prove something like that unless they were to interview God Himself and ask, 'so, child birth...are you trying to make the baby look like any particular parent when the baby is born?' I mean, seriosuly, in common society today there is no way to study something like that effectivley because of social norms that require fathers to take care of their kids now."

"It's fact."

"Fine, whatever. I've just never heard that before."

"Well, that's your problem."

The conversation was effectively ended on that note. There was no further discussion. She was right, and I was ignorant. That's why way things are in our house.

For the record, I've looked on Google today and haven't found anything about babies looking like fathers when they're born. If you find something please let me know. While I'm not saying that Bebe is wrong, I certainly want to see some evidence of this theory.

-Steve

Animal News: Contagious Dog Cancer

2006-08-11T06:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was up in the loft writing when out of no where Bebe comes up and says, "I don't want you letting Casper sniff other dogs butts anymore. Actually, I don't want you letting Casper sniffing any dogs at all anymore." For future reference, Casper, is her dog and, since we live together and will be married soon, my dog too.

Now, I had a few issues with her statement. For one, it implies that only I let Casper sniff other dogs butts. This couldn't be further from the truth. When I am taking Casper out on walks I rarely stop to let him even aknowledge other dogs, let alone the dogs in out neighborhood. In reality, its rare that I'm even the one taking him out on a walk. Second, this implies that she never lets him sniff dogs butts, which is also a fabrication of lies. She stops quite often to chat with other dog owners. Naturally, this incolves butt sniffing between the dogs and perhaps light rough housing. Finally, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out why on Earth this long held practice of dogs was now outlawed in our pets life.

Bebe has a habit of only needing to hear a perfect stranger (either in print, on television, or in real life) mention something once and she takes it as the unwavering truth. However, if I tell her something I need to back up my statement with charts, facts, figures, various scientific studies, and the like before she asks someone else the same thing, they give the same answer I did, and she takes their word for it without even asking. I had my ideas as to where she got this littel tidbit of info from. So I gingerly asked, "Babe, why would you all of the sudden not allow Casper to sniff another dogs butt?"

"I just read that dogs can contract cancer by sniffing other dogs," she said. Bingo.

"Where the hell did you read that?" I asked.

"It's on MSNBC. Vets are really worried about it. It's quite a big deal."

Naturally, I didn't believe her. Not so much because she said it, but because it sounded so asinine that it couldn't possibly be true. You don't just catch cancer, it's not contagious. Something causes cancer. Maybe she left something out, maybe there is a virus dogs can catch that can possibly cause cancer, and it's caught from sniffing butts. That had to be it.

"Are you sure they just catch cancer? It's not a virus they catch that can cause cancer?" I ask.

"No," she said adamantly. "They just catch it from sniffing each other. So, no more sniffing butts for Casper."

I should have dropped everything and immediatly asked to see the article online but I was busy, and I had other things to get done before bed. I left the conversation where it stood and decided to follow up on the next morning.

Well, here I am the next morning, and so far I haven't found anything on MSNBC. Sure, there are articles on MSNBC.COM that have to do with dogs, cats, and other animals and cancer, but nothing that can be transmitted from dog to dog by sniffing each other. I turned to Google. Not much their either. I did find something that was sort of close to what she said. The Texas A & M College of Veterinary Medicine has an "article" on this website that describes somethign similar.

It says, "In cats and dogs, the most common "contagious" cancer we know of that can be spread from animal to animal is caused by the feline leukemia virus (FeLV). FeLV can cause lymphoma and several kinds of leukemia in affected animals and is transmitted between cats in saliva.
The only known contagious, virally-induced neoplasm in dogs is the papilloma (wart) commonly seen in young dogs and caused by the canine papillomavirus. Multiple, small, cauliflower-like growths may occur in the mouth or on the skin after infection with this virus, usually 4-8 months after exposure. As many as 50-100 tumors may be present at one time. The dog's body mounts an antibody response to this virus, however, and the tumors usually regress spontaneously in a few months. Transmissible venereal tumor is a tumor that can be spread from dog to dog by implantation of tumor cells onto a mucous membrane (vaginal lining, penile surface, oral cavity, rectal lining, etc.), but actual tumor cells are required---no virus has been implicated in this tumor's spread, and the tumor cannot be transmitted to any other species."

Okay, the first paragraph mentions cats. I already knew about feline lukemia, but that wasn't the topic of discussion, so that couldn't have been what she "read." Nothing there.

The second paragraph mentions dogs. Although virally-induced neoplasm sounded bad, I realized it was just a form of herpes that can cause tumors on a dogs mouth. Wow, she was right...or was she. The paragraph states, "The dog's body mounts an antibody response to this virus, however, and the tumors usually regress spontaneously in a few months." So this doens't appear to big a very big deal. The dogs get rid of the tumors themselves.

Then I got to this sentence, "Transmissible venereal tumor is a tumor that can be spread from dog to dog by implantation of tumor cells onto a mucous membrane (vaginal lining, penile surface, oral cavity, rectal lining, etc.), but actual tumor cells are required---no virus has been implicated in this tumor's spread." So it IS true. Your dog can technically get caner by sniffing another dogs butt that has cancer on it, only if some of the cancer cells flake off, get into their throat, implant, and then cause their own cancer. I would be concerned about this but I think I'd notice if a dogs ass has tumors falling off it.

I'll have to ask Bebe if she can find this article on MSBNC again. The Texas A&M piece didn't make it sound like this was a big deal. Hell, the dogs get rid of some of the cancer themselves. If I can find anything else out I'll keep you posted.

-Steve

Car News: Look For This Ride in the Greater LA Area

2006-08-10T12:43:00.000-04:00

Behold, the Cock Car!

This sweet ride can been seen rolling around Santa Monica and parts of the greater Metro LA area.

It's a converted Oldsmobile of some sorts with a rooster head and tail added to it. It should have some sweet yellow gold rims, but the owner appears to not have opted for that option.

Either way, that thing would have been sweet to roll up to the prom in.

-Steve

Terror News: CODE RED ALERT!

2006-08-10T07:26:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning to a CODE RED ALERT! Actually, it’s not, well it sort of is, sorta, but not really. The Brits, those silly wankers, foiled this big terrorist plot to, as Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said, “be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” Sounds pretty serious to me, especially when the British say something like that. They just have this way of talking that makes everything seem more proper and serious, maybe it’s me.

Evidently the plot involves using some sort of liquid explosive on carry on luggage to detonate planes in mid air, I’m assuming over the Atlantic. DHS has put a “RED ALERT” status on all planes coming to the US from the UK, which is the first time “RED ALERT” or “CODE RED” or in the case of my image “ELMO” has ever been used. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here and say this is pretty serious.

This opens up a lot of questions. First, what sort of liquid explosives were going to be used? We’ll probably never know the answer to that. Second, what sort of containers were actually going to be used to hide the stuff? I find it hard to imagine it was in little glass nail polish bottles. Third, what was going to be used to ignite the stuff? Is it chemical reaction? Was it an electronic device? There are too many possibilities for that one.

Airports in the UK are chaos right now, as one would imagine. Airports here are a bit different. Long lines, people complaining, garbage pails filling up with water bottles, cologne, the aforementioned nail polish, eye drops, soda….any and all liquids have to be dumped. NPR said they were allowing on formula and breast milk, but only if the mother “drank it first.” That makes me wonder how they test breast milk still in the breast, interesting scenario there.

Sarcasm aside, jolly good show to the Brits in foiling this plot, they saved a lot of peoples lives. Officials seem a bit freaked still about this, which makes me wonder how close to “d-day” they actually busted this thing. I’m sure more will come out as the day progresses. Until then, if you’re planning on catching a plane today, well….sucks to be you. Be safe.

-Steve

Personal/Movie News: The Hammer Comes Down

2006-08-09T21:27:00.000-04:00

Well, if you wanted to see the Transformers footage from Access Hollywood it's too late. YouTube busted me over this. Here's the e-mail I just got:

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification claiming that this material is infringing:

Transformers on Access Hollywood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC_8UtaFom8

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, to be effective it must be a written communication provided to our designated agent that includes substantially the following (please consult your legal counsel or see 17 U.S.C. Section 512(g)(3) to confirm these requirements):

(A) A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber.

(B) Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.

(C) A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.

(D) The subscriber's name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that the subscriber consents to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if the subscriberis address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found, and that the subscriber will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) or an agent of such person.

Such written notice should be sent to our designated agent as follows:

DMCA Complaints
YouTube, Inc.
PO Box 2053
San Mateo, CA 94401
Email: copyright@youtube.com

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

Oh well...don't really have a say in the matter. It's is technically their footage, which I stole from someone else. I have a soft copy of the file on my computer, since I thought this might happen, so if anyone really wants to see if I could send it to you. I don't think that's against the law. It'd be the same thing if I recorded it on a VCR and gave it to you. Now if I was selling it, that's a different story. Can't do that.

Anyway, I wondererd what happened when someone posted "copyright" shit onn YouTube and now I know. And knowing is half the battle.

-Steve

Movie News: Halo Director Named

2006-08-09T17:27:00.000-04:00

I'm excited about the Halo movie. Not because I think the games are great (they're above average at best) but because the universe that was created for them has such posbilities for an amazing sci-fi thrill ride. If done right, this could be one of the biggest movies ever, EVER. Howeve,r it could also turn out to be like Resident Evil or Aliens vs. Predator, which is completely crappy.

First I heard that the same guy who wrote 28 Days Later, Alex Garland was writing the script. Okay, off to a good start. Supposedly he's a big fan of the series. Nice shot here.

Second, Microsoft/Bungie said they're keeping creative control over the film and are looking for a partner to produce it, not just selling the rights to the film. Evidently they've figured out that all video game to movie translations have sucked so far. Good for them.

Third, none other than Lord of the Rings himself Peter Jackson is on to produce. Way to go on this one. If there is one person who knows about how to make a large scale epic film it's Peter.

Fourth, and this is the new news, Neill Blomkamp is directing. Who the hell is Neill Blomkamp> AintItCoolNews.com is breaking the story, you can check it out here. This is his IMDB page. Not much to go on with this. He looks like an effects guy and he's only 26. Talk about your big break, sheesh, he's going to be loaded and banging models soon.

We'll see how this goes for the Microsoft/Bungie crew. I'd like to see them do some sort of thing like they did for King Kong and Superman, video diaries and stuff. I mean, we all know the characters, so there isn't much point hiding stuff. Hide story stuff, sure. Hide surprises, fiar enough. But Master Cheif, Cortana, the Flood, and the Convenant should all be shown in some shape or form just to get us salavating while the film is in preproduction and production.

-Steve

Observations: Bad Bumper Sticker

2006-08-09T17:17:00.000-04:00

Note to the jack ass that came up with this one, the "Who Lit the Fuse on Your Tampon"bumper sticker is neither cute nor funny. It also just reinforces the dumb red neck sterotype when it's plastered not once, but twice on the back of a jacked up Ford F-250 pickup.

You know why the tampon is lit? It's because a jackass like you is riding the ass of her Hondo Civic because she's only drive 72 in a 55 and not 90 like you want her to. You know why else the fuse is lit, it's because a jack ass like you is driving your behemoth of a vehicle in and out of traffic bobbing and weaving like you're driving a Ferrari.

News flash butt fuck, you're driving a truck, and unless you're hauling something (which most of you NEVER do) you should be in a car like the rest of us.

-Steve

Political News: Lamont and Reed brothers?

2006-08-09T08:59:00.000-04:00

Take a good look at this picture. Tell me if you see anything scary. Done...Anything? Nothing huh...Maybe it's me. At any rate, I think its downright disturbing how much Ned Lamont looks like he could be Ralph Reed's older brother.

Now you see it, don't you. Thought so. At first I thought they could be the same person. I wanted to get a picture that shows Reed and Lamont from the same angle and this is as close as I could get. Unfortunately, according to pictures, Ralph Reed hasn't aged since he was 25, Ned evidently has. Seriously, Ralph Reed still looks like he's 25, the guy has amazing genetics.

Anyway, I thought this was just a bit scary. I wonder if anyone else has picked up on this yet. Probably not, I'm sure they have actual "real world" issues to go on about. You know, covering the Pam Anderson Kid Rock marriage and stuff like that.

-Steve

Election Coverage: Primary Night News

2006-08-09T07:10:00.001-04:00

Could this guy be the new face of Conneticut politics? You bet your kiester mister. JoeJoe went down last night in his primary, losing to Mr. Lamont here 52 to 48 percent (not technically a large margin by any means). This is pretty big, at least I think it is, because it may possibly be a harbringer to come of what the Democratic party of the future is going to look like.

I use the word may in that last paragraph very specifically. This by no means is a guarantee that the Democrats are going to start putting together more candidates that have testicles (men and women). However, it might be nice to have a few more in office that don't blow whatever way the wind is. Fact is (well, not technically a fact, more of an opinion), JoeJoe has been a big pansy the last few years. He's become buddies with Bush and company. Unfortunately for JoeJoe, many of his constituents don't feel as warmly about Bush as he does.

This primary was about one thing (more or less), the war. JoeJoe is for the war and continues to defend it, Lamont was against the war and countess to lament it. That's what this was about. JoeJoe lost. Maybe it's because he's bland. Maybe it's because he's Jewish. Maybe it's because he has a weird smiles. Those are all maybes. The one thing for certain is that JoeJoe lost because he's for the war. That's what this boils down to.

Now he's going to run as an independent. Bad more JoeJoe. No one likes losers, especially not three time losers. You lost as a VP candidate. You lost as a Presidential candidate. Now you've lost as a Senatorial candidate. You have the losers stigma. People don't like a losers stigma. If anything, you running as an independent might have a similar effect as Nadar did running as a Green in '00. He took votes away from Gore. Maybe enough to cost him the election, maybe not. He did take votes though. That's what you're going to do, take votes. You may very well make a big enough split in the election that Lamont's Republican challenger gets 50% of the vote, and thus wins the Senate seat. You do understand that by doing this you'd A, lose again, and B, use your losingness to make someone else lose who's already beaten you once. That's not fair JoeJoe, that's selfish.

Now for Cynthia McKinney....Ah Cynthia. How I'll miss you and your craziness. While I could have went for a much more dramatic and traditional "crazy Cynthia" picture, I chose one that was much more reserved. Cynthia lost last night in her primary race. She didn't just lost, she got whooped by Hank Johnson 59 to 41. That's a Mandate right there.

The story of Cynthia is a real shame. She used to be half way decent. Then she went crazy. The rest is history. This will mark the second time she's lost this seat. First to Denise Majette. Now to Ned Lamont. Both of these people are black, but I'm going to assume that Cynthia will somehow use the race card to say that white people some how had something to do with this.

Oh well...We're done with her, I think. Cynthia had a habit of not showing up to vote in Congress. I mean, I don't have a problem that she's off gallivanting around for whatever causes she supports. That's her right. However, she does need to be in D.C. on occasion to vote for her constituents in Georgia's 4th congressional district. She's done now, finished, stick a fork in her, blammo, done.

D.C. security staffers all over the belt way are rejoicing.

-Steve

Huh?

2006-08-08T09:21:00.000-04:00

I really don't have any idea what this thing is trying to tell me. I think it has to do with making an amazing phone call about a red blinking light, but I could be wrong.

-Steve

AOL, You've Been a Bad Boy

2006-08-08T07:42:00.000-04:00

AOL has been very bad lately. Evidently, they released a bunch of data on their users search results to the public. I don't know exactly if this was in a study or whatever, but one way or another it doesn't appear to be something they meant to do, or at least meant to disclose it to as many people as ended up seeing it.

Thus, AOL pulled the information. Unfortunately that was done a bit too late and the data had already been mirrored on other places around the web. CNET.COM found one such website, or whatever, and started to look at the information. Here is a snippet of one section of the article:

"It's possible to guess that AOL user 710794 is an overweight golfer, owner of a 1986 Porsche 944 and 1998 Cadillac SLS, and a fan of the University of Tennessee Volunteers Men's Basketball team. User 710794 is interested in the Cherokee County School District in Canton, Ga., and has looked up the Suwanee Sports Academy in Suwanee, Ga., which caters to local youth, and the Youth Basketball of America's Georgia affiliate. That's pretty normal.

What's not is that user 710794 also regularly searched for 'lolitas,' a term commonly used to describe photographs and videos of minors who are nude or engaged in sexual acts. "

This is someone who lives near me in my county in GA and probably works at one of the public schools in the area. That's some scary stuff. However, most of the data the CNET article talks about is more of the harmless and bizarre commodity. You should really check the article out which can be read here.

If anything, it lets you take a glimpse into just what sort of stuff people are looking at on the Web, and how many pissed off women there are out there.

-Steve

D-Day for JoeJoe

2006-08-08T06:48:00.000-04:00

Well it's D-Day for JoeJoe up in Connecticut today. That's right, it's primary day for a lot of the states here in the good ole U S of A. Connecticut, Colorado, Missouri, Michigan and Georgia all have primaries. Actually, this is the second go round for Georgia and they're all just run offs.

Most people will be watching JoeJoe and his race though. You see, Joe has made some "mistakes" over the past two years or so, well really four years. First, he thought he could run for President by himself. Not so much Joe, no one likes you that much. Second, he decided that the war in Iraq was a good idea. Again, not so much Joe. But finally, and probably above all else, he's become buddy buddy with W. That's not going to win you votes in Connecticut JoeJoe. As a matter of fact, that's going to piss people in Connecticut off maybe even enough to run against you.

Well, that's just what Ned Lamont has done, and done quite well. I'm not going to get into the middle of a pissing match in a race in another state. While I don't care for JoeJoe that much I don't hate the guy. Lamont hasn't really done much for me either. The issue at hand though is whether or not JoeJoe represents the feelings of his constituents anymore. Evidently, at least according to the polls, he isn't.

Now there is a lot going on here in this election that have nothing to do with JoeJoe. First, it's showing whether or not the liberal blogesphere has enough stroke to get someone out of office. They're the ones really pushing for JoeJoe to get beat, and are at least partly responsible for Lamont's fund raising success. Second, this is showing how the Democratic party might start treating those that have stood with W on issues they don't care for. Up until now they're just gotten a furrowed brow, but in the face of finally being able to do something about it these same people are on the verge of getting to boot.

Do I think it's a good idea to kick out JoeJoe? Maybe not. As was the case with Tom Daschle in South Dakota, sometimes your kicking out someone who has an awful lot of stroke for your state. That may be the same thing here. JoeJoe has a good amount of stroke in the Senate. If they give him the boot they're going to have someone in there who is starting all over again, which could come back to bite them. On the flip side, this could get rid of a pansy Democrat in favor of one who isn't scared to go against the grain, which might be a good thing.

Do I think JoeJoe will win today? No, no I don't. Even if polls are showing JoeJoe closing the gap on Ned I don't see it being enough. JoeJoe said he'd run as an independent if he loses. If he does that he'll have as much success with that race as he did with his Presidential race.

JoeJoe, maybe your time has come.

-Steve

Comments changed

2006-08-07T21:15:00.000-04:00

I've been getting a lot of bot comment spam and I need it to stop. So, for the time being I've made it so only comments from current Blogger.com members can post.

Since most of the people who look at this aren't members, I don't expect to see many comments.

However, a lot of these commebt bots stop posting to a blog once they have a problem, so in a few days I'll turn comments for everyone back on and see how it goes.

-Steve

This Fucking Sucks

2006-08-07T12:26:00.000-04:00

Pardon my French but this fucking sucks. I go from all sort of Transformers stuff this weekend to waking up to hear our friends at BP have shut down an Alaskan oil pipe.

Traders are going to have a field day with this and send iol up one or two bucks, which means gas is going to go up too. This is just getting crazy. I mean, shit, I drive a small sedan, a 2001 Hyundai Elantra. It's nothing to look at and the ride is subpar but I get 30 miles to the gallon. With a 13 gallon tank that's roughly 400 miles give or take. You know how much it cost me to fill up yesterday? 40 bucks, 40 fucking bucks. That's bull shit man.

I do my part, I drive a small car, I try to avoid driving when I don't have to but man...when do I get to catch a break? When does the little guy get to have it a bit easier as the oil companies post record profits? What the fuck, you know?

Every time I see a mom driving her Toyota Sequioa and her one kid I want to scream! Look at the SUVs and big ass trucks, look at the people driving them, its usually one, maybe two people in them. They have like 30 gallon tanks. You want to know why the little guy is getting screwed? It's because the fat guy is driving a bog of a vehicle and taking twice as much gas up as I do. There's your supply and demand right there.

You can read the article at CNN.com here.

-Steve

Movie News: More Transformers Vehicle Pictures

2006-08-06T15:35:00.000-04:00

Okay, this took me a bit to track down but I've got set shots of Bumble Bee and Brawl in what appears to be a car chase. You'll notice that this is a shot of the old model Camaro, which backs up my theory on him getting whooped up during this sequence and having to be repaired (more on that a little later though). All in all this looks pretty neato.

Here are some more shots from the apparant "chase sequence." A couple of things to note here. First, if you click on the shot of Bumble Bee you can see that there is no driver. This also backs up my theory that this chase sequence involved Bumble Bee saving someone. No one is in the car yet, let alone trying to "drive" it. Second, this are appears to be somewhat "deserted" or at the least an industrial area that is currently under contruction. Why would I say that? Well, for one the streets look dusty. Also, in the above shots you can see fenced areas and buidings in the back ground not akin to a more commercial or residential area.

Now for some more close up shots of Brawl and all his Decepticon glory. I think I know why I thought he was a Charger at first. The new Mustang and Charger have a very similar profile look. Sure, the Charger is a four door but it's styled to have a coupe like exterior. At any rate, you can clearly see the Decepticon logo I mentioned in a previous post. What I liked the most was the "To Punish and Enslave..." wording right behind thhe B pillar. That's just a nice touch. I also dig the black rims.

Now, here is the real evidence as to what I was talking about earlier as being reason for why Bumble Bee gets whooped up. This shot of the crane thing, that's a Decepticon, and most importantly a Constructicon. From the Access Hollywood shots we know some sort of crane thing is attacking that guy on the hood of the BMW. I bet this is the same crane. So, by adding together what we know and working under the assumption that all of these shots and the Access Hollywood footage is all from the same scene here's what I think is going down... First, Bumble
Bee has to save someone, possibly Spike, from the Decepticon Brawl. One way or another the two get involved in a chase (the two being Brawl and Bumble Bee). I don't think Spike is involved because no one is seen in Bumble Bee from the shots above, but I could be wrong here. So they chase each other around and Brawl tricks Bumble Bee into following him into the construction area. This is where Bumble Bee drives out and tail sweeps the legs out from underneath Brawl. Bumble Bee transformers and has BRawl at a disadvantage, or so Brawl leads him to belive. Then, behind Bumble Bee the Constructicons roll up, trnasform, possibly into Devastator, and put a whoopin on Bumble Bee. He somehow manages to escape and gets repaired and turned into the new Camaro.

That's my theory anyway. I guess we won't know until more stuff starts to come out. He's to waiting with baited breath.

-Steve

Movie News: More Transformer Pictures!

2006-08-06T15:01:00.000-04:00

That truck to the left is non other than Iron Hide from the new live action Transformers movie. I've been doing some digging on the internet today and found some pictures I thought were interesting. Mainly of note was that I was not aware that Iron Hide was going to be in the movie. To be honest, I can't really remember what Iron Hide was like in the cartoon but I figure a picture from the show might help jog your memories as well.

Obviously, the picture to the right is what Iron Hide looked like in the cartoon. He was somewhat or a minivan, and evidently a good friend of Prime's. On a side note, that may turn out to be something bigger, Iron Hide was also voiced by Peter Cullen (the voice of Prime). Therefore, it is possible that Cullen may also do the voice for Iron Hide in the movie as well, but this doesn't seem likely to me. There's no reason for it, other than to save money, and having someone else do the voice really won't cause anyone to get all upitty about it like they were going to get if someone else did Prime's voice.

Now, GMC truck from the movie and minivan from the cartoon don't look anything alike. I have no idea how the new Iron Hide is going to look transformed, but I assume it's only a matter of time before that comes to light. What I do like about this "new" Iron Hide is that they didn't go with a future truck or anything. It looks like a very real truck you could see driving on the road.

Also of interesting note is that you can see the Autobots logo on the truck gate. THis is the first time I've seen that on any of the pictures I've come across. It might be an indication that the logo will appear on all the autobots as well. I haven't seen anything on the Prime picture or on any of the Bumble Bee stuff, but I do know that on the Dodge Charger (or I've been told Ford Mustang) decepticon police cruiser the decepticon logo is easily seen on the door panel. So, who knows? Personally I think this truck looks pretty tough and I'm interested to see what they do with the transformation.

I'm going to do some mroe digging to see if I can find the decpticon police cruiser shots I've seen. It will help when looking at the Access Hollywood footage to see if my theory on what robot is in that shot would hold up or not.

-Steve

Will Ferrel Mac Ad Spoof

2006-08-06T01:06:00.000-04:00

Everyone knows the new Mac ads "I'm a PC...I'm a Mac." There is a big community online that makes mock versions of these ads. Being that Aaron HATES Macs, and Bebe also DESPISES them, I thought I'd pop up this Will Ferrel Mac Ad spoof that I thought was funny.

This is from the switch campagin though, not the current one, so it's not exactly the same stuff as what's on TV right now.

Enjoy.

-Steve

Movie News: Transformer Footage

2006-08-05T20:39:00.000-04:00

Okay, got the link to this stuff from AintItCoolNews.com, which lead to another site, which lead to Michael Bay's official web blog. Evidently, Access Hollywood was allowed on the set and more importantly allowed to see some animated story boards for the film. Most of the clip is live action stuff, but I want to point a few things out.

First, you'll notice that there is a yellow Camaro in this shot. That is Bumble Bee. Yes, I know, Bumble Bee is a VW Bug...but in this, it's going to be a Camaro as I've posted earlier. Now, this confirms a few things that have been reported about the movie. The movie opens with a kid and his dad shopping for a used car. People have been saying that the used car is Bumble Bee, which I think is a good idea since Spike and Bumble Bee in the cartoon had a great relationship, Bumble Bee might have been a VW Bug but he was tough so I like that's he's going to have a big role in the movie. At any rate, my pictures of the Camaro and Bumble Bee robot were of a new Camaro. How could this be? There is something in the movie that dictates why this occurs and its supposed to be important.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's something similar to what happened in the first episode of the cartoon. Most people forget, but in the first episode the Autobots ship crash lands on Earth in the past. Then, when the Decepticons arrive there are these machines that wake up and go out and find bits and pieces of vehicles of the day and use them to reconstruct the wounded and sleeping Autobots. That's why they look like out vehicles. Once the Transformers series moves back to Cybertron you got to see Transformers who didn't have Earth parts on them and they all sort of looked quasi futuristic and stuff.

Anyway, back to my point. I'm going to go with the idea that Bumble Bee gets hurt somehow and these same robots repair him. Except this time, the parts they need are from the new model Camaro (the one that's not actually out yet) and rebuild him that way. Why do I think this? Because he's involved in the shots here where he saves some person from a Decepticon. More on that later.

The second thing I noticed in this footage is when the guy jumps on the hood some sort of construction equipment pins him down. I'm going to go out on a limb here but I think this is our first indication that the Constructicons are going to be in this. Maybe it's just one of them, maybe all six of them are present, but this is defiantly some sort of construction equipment so it only makes sense.

Third, in the animated storyboards you see a car transform with some guy cowering below it. Then the camera come buy and tail whips the legs out from under it. I believe this transformer is the Decepiton cop car that's a Dodge Charger. I don't know the name of it, but I've seen shots of the car and know that it's a bad guy. I believe the overall scene here is Bumble Bee coming to the rescue of some human who's about to get taken out by the Decepticons. Then, for whatever reason Bumble Bee is stuck in car mode and thus can't really fight. He saves the human but gets whooped pretty badly, which is why he's repaired and then looks like the new Camaro.

Without further ado, here is the footage. I don't know if this will get yanked from YouTube or not, but I'm going to watch it when it's on TV.

-Steve

Ping pong rally! GO! GO! GO!

2006-08-04T20:49:00.000-04:00

I'm by no means a ping pong fan. However, I do respect the people who can play it...I guess. I mean, I've never been able to really get the whole hitting the ball rhythm down. Although I did play the Rockstar Table Tennis demo on my XBOX 360 today, which was sort of cool. At any rate, I was checking out Break.com and saw this amazing clip of what is the most incredible ping pong rally I've ever seen. Check it out for yourselves.

Crazy shit, aint it?

Oh those crazy Chinese...it's always communism and ping pong over there, seriously.

-Steve

Tilt Shift Photography

2006-08-04T16:19:00.000-04:00

About three or four months ago I was reading an article somewhere on the internet about this guy who was using this "new" type of lens for these hypersureal photographs. The one that I really liked the most was of the Santa Monica pier, a place I've managed to visist. The tecnique is called Tilt Shift and it involves a special type of lens that allows the photographer the ability to shift the depth perception of the image. Thus, as you can see on the left, the real image looks more like a minature than reality. I assure you, this is a very real picture of the actual Santa Monica pier.

It's actually the same image I remember and its taken me this long to locate the image. On the NYTimes website today I read and article about High Dynamic Range photography, which basically blends three different exposures into one image and creates a depth of color unimaginable with a single shot. This made me remember the picture of Santa Monica, and the technique that was used. The problem was, I couldn't remember the technique. After about two hours ot searching Wikipedia and other such sites I was having no luck. So I tried something different. I thought, if I look for someone who does High Dynamic Range photography, I bet they've messed with this other type of photography too. So, I pulled up Google and did my best.

Sure enough, after about thirty minutes of looking I found the site AutoMatt. Not only did he do High Dynamic Range, but he had also experimented with Tilt Shift. The picture to the right is the one I liked that he did the most. Its the town square somewhere in Paris. THe guy lives in San Fransico, and he's got a ton of pictures of San Fran, but I liked this one the best.

I don't know what it is about Tilt Phase. Maybe its te feeling that at any second Godzilla will come trampling over the picture I'm looking at. Maybe its that something that looks so fake can be so real. I don't know. Regardless, I'm happy that I found that picture of Santa Monica again because I'd been searching for it for so long.

-Steve

[EDIT] For those interested, I've managed to find the original article I remember reading. The artists who shot the Santa Monica pier is Olivo Barbieri. You can view the Santa Monica picture and several others at this link to the article about him in Metropolismag.com.

Big Time Hobby in Arkansas

2006-08-04T14:59:00.000-04:00

I have no idea what this picture is of, but this kid looks tough. Would this be a double or single leg takedown?

The kid looks like he's busting his ass. The sheep on the other hand looks like it's cracking a slight grin.

-Steve

The End of Wire Frame

2006-08-02T19:20:00.000-04:00

For those who don't know, wire frame is the use of a harness with two thin wires on the side to lift, spin, rotate, and otherwise move a person in a manner that is not physically possible. Wireframe came into use in Chinese Kung Fu Action Cinema, allowing the characters to do super natural actions in front of the camera. More recent movies such as the Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Kill Bill Vol. 1 have also used wireframe.

However, wire frame sucks. It's over used. It's just to obvious now and doesn't have the impact it once did. The fact is, it looks cheap now, even when it actually costs a shit ton to do well.

Fortunatley, wireframe doesn't need to be used like it once did. Actors such as Tony Jaa have taken modern stunts to a new level. Just rent the movie Ong Bak, or rent Tom Yung Goon, to see stunts that are mind blowing, and all real.

I found this clip on Break.com that shows some Russian kids stepping up to the challenge as well. This stuff jsut looks neat because it's real.

You tell me what looks better. Wire frame or this?

-STeve

Science back in Kansas?

2006-08-02T10:58:00.000-04:00

According to CNN, care of an AP story, "Conservative Republicans who pushed anti-evolution standards back into Kansas schools last year have lost control of the state Board of Education once again."

It looks like Connie Morris, the former teacher and GOP chair, who once described evolution as "an age-old fairy tale" and "a nice bedtime story" unsupported by science," got the boot. Good for Kansas. Now less people will laugh at them.

In addition, this will help prevent other school systems in the country, such as some here in Georgia, try the same stuff Kansas tried to pull.

I'm all for freedom of religion, but seriously, on this evolution thing, I mean, come on. An age old fairy tale? That sounds like the story of creation to me, not evolution. Sure, it's not a perfect theory, but people are working on it. We've been able to show how DNA changes from one species to the next. We've been able to show how closley related species are. What's really left? You can't really observe evolution "live and in progress" because it takes hundreds or thousands of years.

I'm not saying there isn't a God. I'm not saying some sort of higher power didn't create everything. However, maybe the Diests were right when they said that "God created Earth and let it be." Evolution doesn't disprove a God, it just shows that he/she/it made something that can improve upon itself in a manner of speaking. It's not much different than creating a computer program that learns from it's mistakes. Will the programs one day say that there were no "users" and that they are all mythical?

-Steve

Shitty Engrish Week

2006-08-02T09:25:00.000-04:00

In honor of "Shitty Engrish Week" I offer up the current picture from Engrish.com.

It's really a great site and you need to go there, just hilarious stuff. This week it's all Engrish that's "Shit" related. This usually goes to the adult only section, but this is a special week and this stuff is getting on the splash page before being sent to the adults section.

Typically, the stuff is fine for the whole family, so don't be discouraged if it's not your cup of tea right now. At any rate, be sure to check back next week and give the site a second chance if you don't find this stuff funnny. Me? I think it teases all and suits together. But that's just me.

All your base are belong to us!

-Steve

The truth is out?

2006-08-02T07:26:00.000-04:00

So it turns out there are pictures of Mr. Mel Gibson on the night of his DUI. Evidently, he was boozing it up at some local watering holes. Nothing wrong with that on it's own merit. Heck, even good old God fearing Christians get a chance now and then to let lose a bit. However, I don't think they get to let loose with random women, which is what Mel seemed to be doing. For example, take a look at the picture to the left. It looks like Mel is looking up at God almighty himself and saying, "God she's hot!."

Then there is the picture to the right here...Mel with a slight less attractive lady. He sure looks drunk if you ask me. Maybe that's why he doesn't have a problem downgrading in the looks department. Then again, he really shouldn't be letting some broad hang all over him, he is married and has like 500 kids.

Unfortunatly, Mel decided that one woman wasn't enough for him, so he went back to the first chick, introduced her to the second chick, and tried to get some triple play action going. Mel, don't you know that two broads don't make a right? I mean, seriously, even in Hollywood. Again, he looks very drunk in this third picture. The blond in front on the other hand looks like she's in a great mood and doing just fine. I guess if Mel Gibson was hanging all over me I'd look the same.

After falling short on his first triple play attempt (something about old man balls), Mel seems to regroup and try his hand at some "older women," or at least ladies who might have seen Mad Maxx when it originally appeared in the theaters. He has also movied from blondes and into the red hed category, also fancying himself with a more exotic "Asian" women. Lord knows I love Asian chicks too Mel, so good going there. He's also got that same green bottle in his hand so either he's really nursing it or he's had like tewnty of these things over the course of the night.

Either way, it doesn't look good for Mel. Why do I care? I don't actually, I just like making fun of other people since it helps me fell better about my own insecurities. I feel bad for his wife though, and how hes going to explain this to her. Evidently, ABC cencelled some holocaust miniseries he's been talking to them about for a few years. I wouldn't be surprised if he got wind of that a few days ago and that's the real reason for his bender, who really knows though.

Oh well...I guess there's little chance of Lethal Weapon 5.

-Steve

Poor Katherine Harris

2006-08-01T14:18:00.000-04:00

Looks the the Republicans have told poor poor old Katherine Harris that she can not win against Bill Nelson in Florida. You see, its very hard to get elected when NO ONE LIKES YOU.

Seriously, no one likes Harris, not even people in her own party. Oh, they made her think they liked her when she was Florida's secretary of state during the 2000 election. They needed her in their pocket, and she delivered. They also made them think they liked her even more when they got her into the US House. They needed a guarantee vote in their pocket, and she's delivered.

However, this is the Senate, and there is a difference in one district and a whole state voting. Turns out most of the state of Florida doens't care for Kathy much. Actually, her own party tried to get her to bow out of getting into the September primary, but she went and got on the ballet anyway.

This is probably for the best. Nelson is a decent guy, and lord knows the Democrats need to be able to spend their fininte resources in races that are actually close. Thus, its in their favor is she keeps at running and hopefuly wins the primary.

You can read the AP article care of CNN.com here.

-Steve

Weird Posts

2006-08-01T13:01:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I stated some of my posts I was sending from work hadn't been making it up on the big blog. Well, evidently they've all decided to post today...so if you see some weird posts, pictures not showing up, and other such odd things this is why.

-Steve

Movie News: The New Joker

2006-08-01T12:44:00.000-04:00

I had a picture to post with this but for whatever reason Blogger.com doesn't seem to like me right now. At any rate, Hollywood Reporter is stating that the role of The Joker has been cast for the new Batman movie. It's the gay cowboy himself, Heath Ledger. I like Heath, he seems like a decent actor, and although he'll be no Nicholson, it will be interesting to see the spin he puts on Joker.

Actually, Aint It Cool News stated they had good input that Heath was going to get the part but couldn't get a second source, nor did it seem to make sense at the time. However, turns out that they were right on the money, as they are quite often.

We'll see how Heath pans out as they are supposed to start on the film early next year, although I don't know when actual shooting will start.

-Steve

[edit: Obviously I ended up getting the picture to work.]

Getting Into the Women's Dressing Room Just Got Easier

2006-08-01T07:46:00.000-04:00

Scientists. The wonderful guys who brought us visco elastic memory foam, Viagra, the Toyota Prius, and the Nuclear Bomb, have now come up with a way to become invisible.

Being the science guy I am I try to stay on top of these sort of things. So it was of little surprise when I came across this Reuters artciel on Cnet.com.

Turns out Scientists think they can make people invisible. Well, you wouldn't actually be invisible, you'd just appear that way to people looking at you. Wait, if perception is everything, then doesn't that make you invisible? I'll leave that up for later generations to discuss.

At any rate, this was some pretty neat stuff. It seems much cooler than that Japanese guy who has the jacket that makes hin see through. If you want to see that just Google "Invisible Man" and look at some of the pictures that pop up. He's the dude with his arms stretched out and a sort of green see through jacket on.

Well, lets hope this sort of thing is only used for the power of good, because, you know, I'm sure that's all it will be used for.

-Steve

Lohan Nasty Gram

2006-08-01T07:24:00.000-04:00

I usually hate celebrity gossip, but this one was too good to pass up. This is the actual letter that Lindsey Lohan was sent by James Robinson of Morgan Creek Productions.

You can see it at TheSmokingGun.com as well.

What a slut.

-Steve

My name is Mel Gibson, and I'm a hypocrite

2006-08-01T07:06:00.000-04:00

Mel Gibson, the "Hollywood Holy Man" himself, was arrested the other day for a DUI. I waited to make a comment on this whole ordeal until I had a chance to get his mug shot. I mean, talking about Mel Gibson just isn't the same without his mug shot just slightly to the left of what you're saying.

I like Mel Gibson, I do, or better yet, I did, or used to...whatever you want to call it. Mel had some fun parts. Who doesn't like Lethal Weapon? Gibson, Glover, you can't go wrong! He played a whack job in The Pelican Brief, that was fun too! Then there's Braveheart, a classic in any DVD collection, and the first movie in a long time that makes it "cool" to look at men in skirts.

Then Mel went and did "Signs," started to get really vocal about his devotion to religion, and decided he wanted to make "Christ: The Movie." You see, this is the where the problems start Mel. If you are in Hollywood, or Politics, you can't go getting all vocal about your religion. Not because you're not allowed, or because you should talk out about it, or whatever....nope, leave that for common people. You shouldn't talk about it because it will only come back to bite you when you do something completely hypocritical!

Mel, you're a man of God. You have like 47 kids because you don't believe in birth control (he's Catholic). You're a devout Christian. Heck, you made a movie about Christ himself (and it just killed at the box office, who knew?). But, if you're going to talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk, and you my friend, certainly can't walk the walk, let alone in a straight line.

It's not so much all the supposed antisemetic remarks Mel made (he does know Christ was Jewish, right?), or the fact he wanted to know if the cop was Jew, or that he said Jews ruin everything and start all the wars...no, it was that he was driving while under the influence of alcohol. Granted, he's "presumed innoncent" until proven guilty, but come on, a DUI is a DUI guys, this isn't suspected robbery or tax evasion we're talking about here. You just don't drive drunk, period. How would you feel, Mel, if you'd hit a kid out late on his bike, huh? How would you feel then Mel? How would you feel if you'd hit someone who was out getting formula late at night for his kid? Would you explain to the child why itwas more important for you to be driving than for them to have their dad?

I'm glad you're in rehab Mel. I really am. Take a look ar your life, where you're at, and what you did. If you're going to say what you say, then its time to live the life you talk about so much. Otherwise, you're going to the same place you think everyone who doesn't believe the same way you do is going, "Christ Movie" or no "Christ Movie."

-Steve

The Purity Of A Woman?

2006-08-01T06:49:00.000-04:00

I don't really know how I stumbled upon this picture but I thought it was funny. Although the marriage sign would by hilarious to take to some sort of rally, I think the "JESUS HATES BAD SIGNAGE" would be especially funny to take to an anti-gay rally or something.

You know the rallys I'm talking about, the ones with that guy from the Westboro Baptist church, Greg Phelps or whatever, and his crazy family that show up at the funerals of dead soldiers with signs like "God Hates Fags, That's Why He Killed Your Son," you know, shit like that.

Actually, I saw a hilarious video of this guy standing on a corner with a sign that says something about sinning and a big cross on his back. So, some kid walks up and stands next to the guy and holds out a sign that says, "I'm a Satanist." The first guy looks at him and gives him a dirty look and then takes a few steps away. So, the second kid moves closer again, flips the sign over, and it says "I'm With Stupid" with an arrow pointing at the first guy with the cross. It's good stuff. I'll post the video later today if I can find it.

-Steve

The benefit of dual monitors

2006-08-01T02:49:00.000-04:00

I think I’ve mentioned a few times on here that I work in IT. More specifically, I’m a Business Analyst, which “talks to the customers so the engineers don’t have to.” I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS DAMN’IT! Anyway, I just recently picked up a second monitor for my workspace, and boy let me tell you its F’ing great.

Sure, I’m a bit of a douche to get exited over something like this, but until you do the type of work I do on two monitors you don’t really realize the benefit of it.

A lot of the time I’m analyzing two separate documents in the same format, say two Excel spreadsheets. Usually, I’d have to print one out and have the other on the screen; otherwise I’m flipping between multiple windows. Now, I just put one sheet up on one screen and another sheet up on the other screen. This is much quicker and simpler to do, plus I save paper. It’s the little things in life like this that really make stuff worth while, you know?

-Steve

Its a buyers market baby

2006-08-01T01:38:00.000-04:00

Well, it’s official…it’s a buyers market.

-Steve

Air Quality in Atlanta

2006-07-31T23:39:00.000-04:00

Supposedly, we have a significant chance of getting into a “code purple” situation with air quality here in Atlanta. It’s like a Category 4 hurricane….one more level until it’s as bad as it can get. Currently, as of 12:00 P.M. EST the AQI (Air Quality Index) is at 130, that puts us into the middle of Category Orange, which is “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.”

Category Orange is rated 101 to 150. In this range the outdoor air is more likely to be unhealthy for more people. Children, people who are sensitive to ozone, and people with heart of lung disease should limit prolonged outdoor exertion during the afternoon or early evening when ozone levels are highest. In other words, the air blows.

The next level up is Category Red, is rated 151-200. In this range even more people will be affected by ozone. Most people should restrict their outdoor exertion to morning or late evening hours when the ozone is low, to avoid high ozone exposures.

The level after that is Category Purple, is rated 201-300. In this category increasingly more people will be affected by ozone. Most people should restrict their outdoor exertion to morning or late evening hours when the ozone is low, to avoid high ozone exposures.

The last level is Category Black, rated over 300. In this category everyone should avoid all outdoor exertion.

I’ll let you know how high we get. Our peak is usually around the 4 or 5 o’clock hour. So, there are a few more hours left.

-Steve

Kevin Nash, wow...what happened man?

2006-07-31T22:15:00.000-04:00

I was browsing PWInsider today and came across a little snippet on Kevin Nash. Some of you know him as Big Sexy, some of you know him as Deisel, I know him as a guy who can’t really wrestling and cuts so-so promos.

Well, it looks like he needs a little help to stay in shape now-a-days. Check this story out and see for yourself. “Fast rising Hollywood career,” yeah right.

-Steve

Election Night Hang-Over

2006-07-31T19:53:00.000-04:00

I don’t know if it was because I was up too late watching the election night results, or because I had too much wine, but I woke up with a terrible hangover today. Actually, I didn’t sleep well at all last night, tossing and turning, never really getting into a deep sleep. I must have woken up like ten times to pee. It sucked.

What also sucks is that my girl, Cathy Cox, lost to “The Big Guy” Mark Taylor in the Democratic Gubernatorial Primary last night. While I really didn’t care too much about the other primaries, with exception of Lt. Governor (give ‘em Hecht”), I had a personal stake in this election as I have been an early Cathy supporter and volunteered time to her campaign. I really liked Cathy’s platform and believed she would be, hands down, the best candidate to take on incumbent Sonny Perdue.

I volunteered a Saturday a few months back, and met up with many other Cathy supporters at the state capitol building here in Atlanta for a commercial shoot. I was asked to wear a nice suit because I was going to be playing a “young professional.” Instead, they made me into an “evil lobbyist.” I had a good time and was going to be used prominently in two or more ads. Unfortunately, I’ll never see those ads as they were shot to be used against Sonny in the main campaign leading up to the election in November, not during the primary race.

I’ve never been this attached to an election before. Sure, I felt like ass the day after Bush was reelected, but it wasn’t personal. The connection with this election was different. I was actually part of it, I had worked with others toward a goal, and I stuffed envelopes for crying out loud!

I don’t know why Cathy lost, as I thought her message resonated well with voters, and opinions of her were high. Maybe it was the plethora of negative ads that Mark Taylor ran. They weren’t “John McCain has an illegitimate black child” bad, but they weren’t good either. Cathy defended herself well, but evidently not well enough. Maybe I’ll get an e-mail later today, the final of the Cathy for Governor mailing list, giving a few theories (supposedly she wants to run again in four years, and she’ll likely get the chance as I don’t see anyone, even her, beating Sonny this year) but until then I’ll just sort of mope around work.

I’ve got a terrible head ache today and really do feel like crap. If this doesn’t improve I might go home half way through the day. Who knows?

On the flip side it looks like everyone’s favorite congressional crazy lady Cynthia McKinney will face a run off election against Hank Johnson. I can’t say I’m surprised, even with the cult like following Cynthia has. She’s been less than stellar as of late, and her strategy of laying low during the primary race seems to have worked. I don’t know much about her opponent Hank Johnson, other than that he is from her district originally, meaning he grew up there, and is a lawyer. We’ll see how many people turn out for the run-off, which I feel will favor Cynthia since her constituency is significantly more energetic and determined than Johnson’s.

In additional news, thank you Jesus, Ralph Reed was defeated in his primary race for Lt. Governor by State Senator Casey Cagle. Reed, founder of the Christian coalition, former roommate and groomsmen of Jack Abramoff, and all around political hack, just looked too snarky to get the Republican nod here. Cagle seems to be a stand up guy, with a good record, and while I don’t see eye to eye on his politics there could be far worse in the office of Lt. Governor. Reed, in typical arrogant “I’m better than you commoner!” fashion refused any comments or post race interviews, so who knows what he’s thinking. I’m sure he thinks Casey is going to hell.

-Steve

Windows Vista Speech Recognition Demo Gone Awry

2006-07-31T12:40:00.000-04:00


Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all. This could be the next "All Your Base Are Belong To Us!" The guy introducing the video does a good enough job setting this thing up. But if your curious, it's a tech demo for Vista's new voice recognition software, and it doesn't turn out too well. -Steve

Stranger Than Fiction

2006-07-31T09:18:00.000-04:00

Just caught wind of this new Will Farrell movie called “Stranger Than Fiction.” It looks really cool. Cool enough that this might be his “Truman Show” so to speak.

Check out the website to see the trailer.

-Steve

300+ pounds!

2006-07-31T07:52:00.000-04:00

I was at the gym on Saturday doing an arm workout. Afterwards I was farting around talking with one of the people I see there a lot and we decided to see how much weight we can put up on the bench press.

I haven’t “maxed” in years, so I had no idea what I could do. We started at 250 (bar, 2X45, 2x25, 1x10, 2x2.5), we both put that up no problem. Then we went to 275 (bar, 4X45, 2x25), we put that up with a bit more strain. Then we moved to 300.

Now, I’ve never put up 300 pounds in my life, I just haven’t ever tried it, so I was a bit psyched. We put the weight on (bar, 4X45, 2x25, 2x10, 2x2.5) and I got ready. After a moment to concentrate I strained and put it up 300 pounds!

I was surprised that I felt like I still had some strength left too. The guy I was with put it up with a bit more ease. We decided to go up a bit higher. We put on the weight for 315 (bar, 6x45) and I barely got it up. I called it quits on that one, since I knew I couldn’t go any higher. The other guy got up to 360, which was pretty cool.

I’m pretty proud of myself. I’ve worked hard this past year and although I don’t worry about my strength as much as how I look, it was nice to know I’ve got it if I need it. Now, if I could just get that jar of jelly open.

-Steve

Minimum wage increase linked to “Inheritance Tax”

2006-07-31T06:51:00.000-04:00

The Democrats decided to take up the fight to raise the minimum wage a few months back. Now, I’m a card carrying member of the DNC (it’s true), but even I know an election year cause when I see one. Fortunately, I couldn’t have suggested a better cause than that. While I’d have loved to see them take this up much earlier, this isn’t something that the Republican’s can really fight against. It would positively affect hundreds of thousands of people, and mainly the ones who most need it. Of course, it was defeated by Senate Republican’s a few weeks back.

So, we go to The House. The Democrats decide to try again there. I mean, how can you argue against raising the wage? It’s been ten years since it was raised to 5.15 an hour. Hell, I was in high school. I remember making the 4.25 it was before that. The Senate Republican’s took a bit of heat for voting this item down, so the House Republican’s needed to figure out a way to defeat it while turning this on its head to make the Democrats look like the bag guys. Well, they succeeded.

The Republican’s have an affair with the “Inheritance Tax,” or what they call the “Death Tax.” The Inheritance Tax is a tax that is placed on an estate when the person who owns it passes away. This tax was created specifically for the wealthiest of the wealthy, regardless of how many small farmer sob stories that are invented to contradict that statement. They want this tax abolished because most of their big donors are wealthy and they want to keep all their money. So, they’ve renamed the inheritance tax (since the word inheritance is associated with wealth, and most people don’t care about the well being of the wealthy) the death tax (a negative word, and since inheritance is absent it makes it sound like something that can effect everyone). The House Republican’s attached the minimum wage increase to the permanent repeal of the “inheritance tax,” which is something the Democrats are against.

This leaves us with the Democrats threatening to kill the bill, since they don’t want to repeal the “inheritance tax,” and therefore this can be used by Republican’s to say “we wanted to raise your minimum wage, but the Democrats killed the bill.”

Mind blowing.

This is politics folk, pure and simple.

-Steve

Movie Review: Battle Royale

2006-07-28T08:58:00.000-04:00

The other day I was in the kitchen getting some Arizona Diet Green Tea (it’s god shit) when Bebe asked me, “Are you watching one of those Asian flicks again?”

I smiled a bit while opening the fridge and said, “Yes.” Netflix sent me Hard Boiled that day, a movie I’d wanted to see for close to ten years, and I was very excited to pop it in the DVD player and get started.

“Why do you watch so many Asian movies?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “there’s a whole planet out there making movies.” I closed the fridge and walked over to the counter to grab a cup. “Why should I limit myself only to the movies that are made here?” I pour the iced tea into the cup as I waited for her response. “And besides, it’s not just Asian films; I watch movies from Europe, Africa, Australia, and South America too.”

“You know that you’re weird, right?” she asked me.

I laughed as I put the idea tea back in the fridge, “Call me what you want. You’re the one missing out.”

I’m glad that I’m “weird” because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to watch Battle Royale last night. This is a movie I’d heard about for the last few years, but thanks to severe limitations on what Hollywood Video and Blockbuster carry, I’d never had the chance to see it. Well, thanks to my new Netflix subscription I had to wait no longer.

Usually I pop these in my nice A/V set up in my loft. 48” HDTV, Dolby and/or DTS 5.1 surround, progressive scan DVD player, futon, fan, and some comfortable pillows. Just the sort of stuff to help you relax after a hard days work and an hour or two at the gym. However, I’ve been trying to spend more time with Bebe lately since she will only sit in the bed room, with the little TV on, and her laptop buzzing. Usually, I’m upstairs in the loft and she’s in the bedroom. Thanks to Cobb County Public School System, we’ve got a spare laptop in the house now, so I popped the DVD in that and decided to watch while sitting next to her. Of course, this is the one day she decides to do something upstairs, so it was all pointless. I still started and finished the movie on the laptop, since once it started I couldn’t put it down.

Battle Royale is something that couldn’t be made here in the states, or at least made correctly. Just yesterday there was a story about New Line trying to do an American Remake of the film. I don’t have a problem if they take the premises, change it, and call it something else, but don’t try to “remake” Battle Royale, because you’re not going to be able to do it. Even Quentin Tarantino himself would fall short with a remake.

Wow, I’ve written a bunch and haven’t even set up the premise yet have I? Okay, here goes…At the start of the millennium society in Japan is on the verge of collapse. Unemployment is around 15% and people are just in the pits. This, of course, leads to the youth of society rebelling and basically paying no heed to adults or authority as a whole. Students decide they just take days off because they can, or that they don’t have to do anything the teacher says. It’s utter chaos to put it lightly.

Then, Japan passes the Battle Royale Act, which states that a class will be chosen in a random lottery to fight it out, to the death, on some sort of controlled environment. This year it’s on a deserted island. All the students enter, but only one gets to leave, the lone survivor, proving to society that they have “what it takes” to be an adult. The 9^th grade class chosen this year has no idea they’ve been selected, they think they’re going on a class trip…until they all awake in the middle of a broken down classroom as soldiers yell at them.

After a somewhat comical briefing on the rules and what it takes to win, each student is sent out onto the island with the bag they arrived with, and a bag with supplies and a “weapon.” However, this “weapon” could be an axe, gun, bullet proof vest, or GPS device, or something else altogether.

I’m not going to go into details on the characters, since there are 43 in all, but sure enough things get very lord of the flies. This movie is violent, and I mean ultra violent, but it all works perfectly. Some of the students decide to team up, others kill without remorse, you get small snippets of about 10 characters or so, and some events in their lives that explain why they’re doing what they’re doing. The rest are just fodder for these ten kids.

The movie centers around the budding relationship of Shuya (played by Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko (played by Aki Maeda), and what they do to survive. However, I wouldn’t say that the whole film follows these two as there are several other plots and subplots going on. In the end, well…I won’t spoil it, but needless to say it’s very bloody.

I really enjoyed this flick and think it was one of the most original titles I’ve seen in a long time. I give it a solid 9 out of 10. Evidently, this was based on a book which goes much deeper into many of the characters, so I might check that out. Some people might recognize Chiaki Kuriyama from the movie “Kill Bill Volume 1,” where she played the character Gogo, the Japanese school girl with the big ball and chain that gives The Bride all sorts of trouble. Kuriyama plays Takako Chigusa in Battle Royale, a minor character but one that does get a decent amount of face time in one of the scenes.

-Steve

Movie Review: Final Fantasy VII – Advent Children

2006-07-27T09:45:00.000-04:00

I’ve been a fan of the Final Fantasy series since its day on the NES. Hell, you could say that I’ve grown up with it.

I was really excited a few years ago when Square announced the all CGI movie, “Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within.” I’d been a fan of the CGI work coming out of Square’s game studios for years, often bragging to people who were in awe of stuff like “Toy Story” that there was even more amazing stuff out there, they just hadn’t seen it since it was in video games. Finally, I thought, everyone would be able to see what Square has been hiding away.

Boy was I disappointed.

Sure, the movie looked nice, but it sucked otherwise. This wasn’t Final Fantasy; this was Crappy Sci-Fi CGI Movie. There were no wizard, no swords, to magic, no cyber punk motifs, there was just bland voice acting with an even blander story. Sure, Final Fantasy can get a little bizarre at times, but for the most part the stories are second to the action, which was also missing.

Fortunately, Advent Children didn’t follow the same mistakes that Spirits Within did. THIS was a Final Fantasy movie. THIS had swords. THIS had magic. THIS had cyber punk. THIS had action for crying out loud, oh the action!

Now, on the flip side, if you’re not a fan of Final Fantasy VII, you’re probably not going to dig this movie for more than the action sequences. There is no background on the characters, or explanation as to why they are doing what they are doing. It’s a continuation of the Final Fantasy VII story, and it expects the viewer to be familiar with it. IS this a mistake? No, not really, when you look at the intended audience for this film. It was created for Japan, and only for Japan, where it was displayed theatrically. Square knew that there was a US audience for it, but they would have to settle for a DVD, which is fine with me as long as I got to see it.

Basically, the storyline picks up two years after Final Fantasy. Cloud and Tifa are “living together,” although there doesn’t appear to be any type of relationship happening. Cloud is still hung up on Aerith, and apparently still hasn’t moved on. Although Sephiroth and the threat of Jenova is gone, there is an affliction hitting people called geostigma, which is related to some sort of infection caused by the Jenova cells infused into some of the citizens of Midgar. Then, these three guys show up with gray hair looking for their “mother,” which is the remnants of Jenova that the head of Shinra Corp. still has hidden away somewhere. Turns out these guys are part of the same cloning process that created Sephiroth, which is why they look so much like him, and want their own “reunion” with mother to bring Sephiroth back to this world.

Blah blah blah, there is a TON of action. I mean, this movie is jam packed with some great fights. Square really showed what can be done with photo realistic CGI. They combined traditional motion capture animation with frame by frame animation to put together some amazingly choreographed sequences. They also managed to work in a lot of Clouds signature moves as well, but in a clever way, so you really need to look for them to catch them all.

The sound was good. I watched the Japanese audio since the American dub voices sucked. The music was cool as well, especially how they worked in different versions of the regular battle, boss battle, and special boss battle music in when the action was going down. It was a nice touch that any fan should pick up on.

As I mentioned before, the story was fine for fans, but leaves a lot to be desired for non fans. Don’t expect any type of real set up or explanation if you’ve not played the game. Just enjoy it for great looks and great battles.

All of the characters are worked in, each with their own looks. Heck, even Bahamut shows up for a big battle, which was really neat.

All in all, I’d give the action and visuals a 10 but the over all rating a 7.5. There is just too much lacking in the story department for it to be higher than that.

-Steve

Posting

2006-07-27T09:40:00.000-04:00

Its come to my attention that many of the posts I’m sending from work are not making it to my blog. I typically sent between 2 and 5 submissions a day, needless to say not all of those are making it.

Thus, I am shifting how a post so that all of them make their way to the blog. This is probably safer for me anyway, since the last thing I want to do is get in trouble for misusing my corporate e-mail, which I probably am doing.

I figure, this way, I’m not breaking any more rules, and everyone in the end turns out happy.

-Steve

Watermelon News

2006-07-27T08:06:00.000-04:00

Evidently, room temperature watermelon (70 degress F) is better for you than chilled watermelon.

Who knew?

-Steve