and in my absence...

you've grown weak and weary, and find yourself unable to go on...

where i've been, a.k.a. windows vista ultimate x64

yes, it's true, i've gotten myself a retail copy of vista ultimate... and, surprisingly, i'm really enjoying it. i know i'm a fairly anti 'new microsoft software' kinda guy, but it's hard to argue with the price tag of free, and even harder to argue with my nerdy nature.... so, here i am running build 6000 of vista.

now, for you mac fanboys:


here's what i will say, when you look at it, the new version of windows aren't that complicated, and, to a degree, i enjoy the separation between the versions, making it easier for consumers to pick and choose based on things like price and features. i can't tell you how often i've seen people pay more than they need to for a copy of windows xp pro, completely oblivious to the fact that the 'pro' does not make it better... i'm sorry, but if you have one or two computers in your home, you don't need xp pro, thanks. however, with 4 consumer versions, it can be a bit of a headache to figure out which version you need...

think of it this way, if you'd like, home basic is 'xp home', home premium is 'xp media center edition', business is 'xp pro', and ultimate is has all all of them rolled into one... check out the various review sites to find out exactly how each version differs, but, this is a basic rule of thumb.

more mind boggling than the new options for windows is the new options for office. i'm blown away by the 259 new 'packages' of office, which basically take all the different office programs and makes combinations out of them... literally EVERY COMBINATION. office pro, office business, office small business, office premium, office home, office student, office overweight, office lavender premium rev. 3... the list goes on and on.

really though, all they've done is updated the 'suite' to include the late comers to the office family as well as the new 'groove' which is basically a 'collab' software for project-ers... what happened to ms project? i think it's still there... so's visio... so... whatever.

for everyone, though, the big this is that microsoft finally recognized that all regular consumers are buying the $150 office 'student & teacher' edition... or just pirating it. they finally sucked it up and stopped trying to get regular consumers, who just want a way to do their word processing without the bundled 'works' that came with their cheap wal-mart e-machines, to pay more for their office software than they did for their computers, and now they have office 2007: home and student edition. a version that's meant for non-commercial use. welcome to the 21st century microsoft, worried about losing everyone to openoffice.org? you should be. (p.s. i really wish the average home consumer would stop deluding themselves into thinking that word and photoshop make them better people... seriously, you don't (know how to) use 95-99.9% of the features of these software packages, why do you think you need them?)

anyway, back onto vista, and my experience with it so far.

it's pretty tight. microsoft has left a lot of the xp functionality in, which is to say that a lot of the core of the system harks back to windows 95/nt, but, they've made a lot of functional changes that make the system a bit easier to use, and a bit harder to 'fuck up'.

i've used about 3 versions of vista over the last few years, and this version does not deviate much from the rtm, although, there's a bit more support out there now, as companies panic to make their software compatible. the WOW64 compatibility layer is working a bit better now, too. (which is good, because honestly, if i'd had to endure the nightmares that was the old xp 16-bit compatibility layer, i would have probably stabbed someone). perhaps at a later time i will try and explain what all of that means, but for now, either just keep reading, or go to google and do some searching (hell, just hit up wikipedia, their computer articles on basic structure are pretty solid).

anyway, there's a lot about the new windows that has been borrowed pretty heavily from max os x, which is good, imho, because mac os x has done a lot of things right, at least in terms of ease of use and operability.

i have a few gripes, but i will save those for another time, i'm just going off of first impressions.

now, i will be honest, i have a fairly decent system and vista runs pretty damn well, though, on 2gb of ram, vista is eating about 35% of that all by itself, and while i can run xp happily with only about 28 processes, vista is running with about 55, and that's at boot. of course, as time goes on, i will be looking at how to slim that down, but for the time being, at least to see how it works, it will do.

on to software, i've installed some, without much incident. adobe creative suite 2 installed well, after i spent some time looking up HOW to make it work. as i mentioned before, i'm running the x64 version which has support for 32-bit software, it's relatively seamless, except that adobe was too smart for vista's good and built their installer on some strict rules (one's that made sense for xp). this means that installing creative suite, it wouldn't allow you to put it into the 'right' directory (X:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\), because of the characters it uses, so you actually have to go back to the OLD SCHOOL LEGACY naming structure and install it to (X:\Progra~2\Adobe\). if you don't install it where it belongs, launching any of the cs2 titles will cause it to panic and run away.

now, once installed, photoshop and illustrator run BEAUTIFULLY! i was amazed at how smooth it's running, to be honest, large files seem to actually handle better under vista, causing the system to do less of that silly 'dotted line sticking' and 'ghost gui hangover' and other annoyances you can find under xp... so, circle takes the square.

that's one example, another, however, is the inability to install alcohol 120%, which is very disheartening. the only info i found on their site was in regards to old rc1 (5300 builds) and such, which seemed to have mixed results. people seem to be of the mind that microsoft 'blocked' the software... meh, daemon tools will do.

the last thing i'll mention is that my favorite free anti-virus software, AVG, does not support the x64 version of windows. you have to pay for their 'commercial version' to get 64-bit support. so, i've been forced to migrate to avast!, which, actually seems to be pretty darn good anyway, so, i'm alright there.

so, those are a couple of examples...

so far we have... nice interface, smooth operation... oh, and i didn't mention it before, but a really simple install. however... on to something that really matters...

GAMES!!! alright, so, i've only installed one. i figured it would be a good chance to see what this system could do. i'm talking about... rainbow six: vegas! here's why i tried it... one... it's the most system intensive thing i have, and two... i really like it.

i expected that, with the system eating my ram for breakfast, and putting my cpu under a lot more stress than xp, and with all the shit that goes on in the background, that it would stutter and lag. however, it installed and plays BEAUTIFULLY! now, i've read that a few games still don't run under vista, battlefield 2 among them, but support should exist sooner or later for most current games, and really, i'm dual booting with xp for a reason... as i try more games under vista, i'll report my findings, because, i know everyone out there cares about what i have to say.

anyway, that's enough about that, i'll move on a little bit.


in other, fairly earth shattering news...

i'm quitting smoking. this is something i really need to do, for myself, for my daughters, for my wallet. i'm trying to ween myself off of them, and it's working, so far. i've gone from a pack to a pack and a half down to 5 per day, and i'm hoping that before the end of this week i'll be down to 3 or less, and shortly after that, i'll be completely done with it.


music!

one of my favorite forums, filled with grumpy jerk offs with unnecessarily high opinions of themselves and an odd sense of elitism, had a thread about some 'new' music.

these are the youtube videos, which, are of a band called 'muse'.





they are really tight band from the u.k., who, while desperately not wanting to be, are quite literally the 'new radiohead'. since i love radiohead, it's all good. now, it's amazing to me that this band, which has actually been around since the late 90's, hasn't already caught on here in the u.s., but it seems like that is odd about to change. one of the tracks on one of the three cd's i now have is something i'd heard a while ago and vowed to follow up on, better late than never, so, i'm digging it right now, you should check it out too...


omg... racial slurs nsht!

an obviously satirical site, blackpeopleloveus.com is actually pretty amusing... i really enjoy reading their 'your letters' section, which shows the depths to which some people's stupidity actually plunges.


werewolf nazi babe

a screen cap of the upcoming fake trailer for 'werewolf women of the ss', by rob zombie, it will be in the middle of grindhouse... man, i would love to see the movie actually made. it couldn't be wrong.


do you like pictures of owls?

do you also like them with funny internet lingo and such on them? then you better go here and have a look... cause, it's been on fark.com for about 27 years, it's time you checked them out too!


charlie brown anime?

yep, these have been around for a while, but they're still pretty entertaining.


bahahahahha

watch! (nsfw if people are sensitive to drug use for any reason...)




i don't really understand this...

do you? bacterial orchestra? mmkay... moving on.


linux nerdery!

if you care to read about linux in 2006, this is the article to do it.



... and i'm spent...

that's it for now. in closing i would like to say... what the fuck is wrong with you people!?!?!?


good night!

logan!!!!

i apologize...

i've been playing a lot of rainbow six: vegas lately...

i know... in video game terms, this one's a bit old, but i can't help it. i've been a big rainbow six fan for many years, and now that i've got the video card horsepower to run it, i gladly grabbed onto this title and dove in.

all i can say is... WOW! i know, i say wow a lot, but this is incredible. first of all, ubisoft has been neglecting pc'ers for years with this franchise. r6 was originally a pc game, and i remember playing the hell out of it, and it's various add-ons many eons ago, i believe i first played it on a pentium 233 mmx with a monster 3d PASS THROUGH card. as the game evolved, i went with it... until it evolved to the console land.

don't misunderstand, i love console systems. i have a few... but, i don't like using a gamepad to play first person shooters, which is what i'm forced to do on a console. but, thankfully, r6 vegas, while clearly intended for the next-gen console, it is incredibly, intricately, and beautifully ported to the pc.

the only real drawback is that the story isn't great. it is like 'playing a movie' but, the dialog is pretty pathetic, and it's very straight forward video game fare. also, i hear rumors that the ending is very disappointing... i'll let you know when i get there....


speaking of the beautiful art of first person shooters...

ign.com ran a preview of the new 'french' game... crossover.

this game looks like it will be... amazing... if they can pull it off.

here's the concept: a fusion of singleplayer and multiplayer. it's hard to explain in basic terms, and it's best to read the article, and perhaps watch their video preview, which does a decent job. you play the game from 2 angles, either as an 'elite' singleplayer, or you can play as a 'skirmish' player, typically playing against the 'elite' player or players.

there's a lot of mix and match going on, but the concept is that you progress through the game, playing against various a.i. players, except that those a.i. players are typically inhabited, ala agent smith from the matrix, by a real person.

the story, however, is a little silly, where apparently, you are living in our reality, but are being phased in an out of another reality where the knights templar survived the burnings of 1307 and grew to take over france. you are in paris, yep, paris.

besides that, though, the concept looks pretty solid, and they seem to be working hard on implementing it right. again, if they can pull it off, this will be great. i wonder how good the game will be in a year and half when the servers are merely a skeleton crew of it's former glory... like almost every game on the planet.

it's being devoloped on the source engine, and by the art director of half-life 2, so you know it's pretty without looking at a single screenshot.

i'm curious how well it's going to work, what factor lag will play, and how they are going to keep the servers going strong if it's not pay-for-play...

i'll be waiting... and watching.


and in other pc news...
is enough ever enough???

oc team italy has managed to push a pentium 4 631 to 8Ghz... yes, EIGHT GIGAhertz! all they had to do with get ahold of a p4 631 and an asus p5b mobo. they modified the mobo... then, all they had to do with cool it with liquid nitrogen... yep, just liquid nitrogen.

of course, liquid nitrogen is responsible for all the great overclocking milestones, i don't know if anyone remembers the HUGE 5Ghz!!! project a few years ago... but this one definitely takes the cake.

now, the only real question... what's the point? i mean... is this really useful? now, i'd like to see them pull this off with a core 2 duo... maybe a 5 Ghz per core powerhouse.


for anyone looking....

to shove some i-told-you-so's in some peoples faces... livescience.com does some 'myth' debunking.


and, if you were wondering...

here's how to solve a rubiks cube (without taking off the stickers). this would have been really handy in the 80's... but, better late than never. now, i just need to find myself a rubiks cube and try it out.

just a few things...

before i get back to some long needed video gaming...


a quick story about exploding video cards...

i hated my ati x700 pro. from the day i got it, i've had lock-up problems, and it's been nothing but a headache. however, because i got it, albeit new in box, from a 'person', i've had no support from ati on it. i've had to limp along, under-clocking the card, and putting on a 3rd power video cooler... which still didn't really help much.

i was replying to am email, and my system just shut off. it's been running for about a week straight, and i haven't made any changes to the system at all. i cracked the case, and sniffed around... didn't smell much of anything... so i blew out all the dust and checked all the connections.

tried to turn it back on... it ran for about 20 seconds and shut off again. then when i hit the power button, it does absolutely nothing... it doesn't even blink.

so, i'm thinking maybe the power supply is shot... i opened it up again, disconnecting all of my peripherals, and unneeded stuff... it turned on, but i got the flashy led of doom on the front... so, i pulled the video card to try and reseat it and that's when i saw the burn mark.


i'm guessing that there's been a manufacturing flaw in the card that i got, and it just took this long to blow up.

i was pretty pissed... i went out and bought a new pny verto nvidia geforce 7900 GS 256MB GDDR3 card... i was going to buy a crappy $60 card, but i figured it would actually be better just to buy something decent and be done with it.i'm also rocking a new 500 watt antec truepower 2.0 power supply, just to be safe.

i'm very happy with the GS... if you aren't familiar with video card release schedules, over the last few years, nvidia and ati have been releasing high end chipsets, then afterwards, have been releasing new cards with almost the exact same power, better heat management, and a much lower price tag. this card is one of those... the original would be a 7900 GT, which retailed about $350, my GS has the same power and features, lower heat, and retails for under $200.i'll take it. now i can play rainbow six: vegas... yays!


it was inevitable, but i still have a hard time believing it...

being a zune owner, i like to keep up on the goings on in the zune world. endgadget has this article which states thatsony and universal have removed the ability to share their music via the zune's wifi.

now, to help you understand that. universal gets money for every zune sold, just so we can share their music, and both companies were involved in the agreement for the 3 days / 3 plays rules.... now their pulling out and saying, NO SOUP FOR YOU!

it's ridiculous, i wonder how long until they require you to swipe your credit card before you listen to the radio....

good thing no one else owns a zune, or i wouldn't be able to share most of my songs with them...


i like google... but...

this article is a compilation of many thoughts aboutgoogle's plans for the future. it seems to be based on all of the rumors that have been going around. but in this case, when we say rumors, we mean educated guesses.

basically, however, the story is in regards to the fact that, if google doesn't already control the internet, it will very very soon... and in the future, there may not be any internet without google...

it's a very good read... less dry than you might expect.


star wars...

i remember a few years back when everyone was talking about space being the new place to be for countries in the know... people were all concerned about spy satellites and weapons in space...

guess what... it's happening, little by little. and now china is prepared to shoot satellites out of the sky... as a matter of fact, they already have.

the end is near!



if you haven't seen this yet...

fix that right now! watch:




and since we're watching stuff...
these are rated: NSFW - for language... so, just turn the volume down moron!














man survives 16 story fall...

wow. just WOW.

just a few words...

a horrible article...

this is an article by a man who thinks he's far funnier than he really is.

i don't get it. i mean, i understand the concept, but it's no more than a 'news' article based on one of the oldest comedy bits in history.

it's not news... not even a little bit.


sunshine....

alright... mike sent me a link to on joblo.com to the trailer to the new movie sunshine...

the concept is that in fifty years, 2057, the sun is dying, and we send a ship from earth to reignite the sun.

i'll give you mike's take on things

"I don't know if this looks like an action-packed thrill ride, or the single most appalling defiance of science in the history of film. I mean, I love me some Danny Boyle...but I foresee a need for some serious suspension of disbelief in this flick. In 50 years the sun is dying?! That's about 5 billion years too soon. Also...2007 or 2057...our species can't even control global warming. Forget about "re-igniting the sun". The trailer makes it look like a good time, but seriously...re-igniting the sun? Putting aside the fact that the sun is 93 million miles away and you couldn't get within 5 million of those miles without being torched by radiation, how are you going to fix a star? It's a massive ball of Hydrogen fusion. Whose completely lame-ass idea was that? Oh...I see...Alex Garland's."

i responded my simply pointing out the word 'fiction' that is so adeptly tagged onto the end of the term science fiction. my thought is that, while it's seems completely implausible that man kind could advance as far as this story would suggest in 50 years, it's still fiction and merely a story meant to entertain.

he replied thusly:

"I don't know, brother. Re-igniting the sun is the most preposterous
undertaking I can think of in recent movie history. Especially when you
consider that the flick is set in 2057. I really don't think that 50
years is going to produce much advancement in human space travel. In
the last 50 years, we've gone from compound rockets to shuttles and
we're moving towards smaller vehicles. The space shuttle travels at
about 8,000 mph in orbit. At that speed, it would take about 1.3 years
just to get to the sun. Not a terribly long time, but certainly plenty
of time for any number of mission-ending problems to occur.

Also, the sun is the single largest body in our galaxy. It makes up
more than 99% of the mass in our solar system. An object with that
amount of mass has some serious gravitational pull. You couldn't get
anywhere near the sucker without being drawn in to it. And that's
assuming that you're not long-dead from the extremely high levels of
radiation bombarding your ship.

Turdly, how the FUCK are you going to re-ignite the MOTHER FUCKING
SUN?!!! It's just a big ball of nuclear fission. What are you going to
do, throw more hydrogen at it?! And where are you going to get more
hydrogen than what you find in the MOTHER FUCKING SUN?!!!!

Fourthly, I don't know for sure...but I'm assuming that if you were, in
fact, able to revive the sun...how are you going to make sure that you
get the "batter" just right so that the fucking thing doesn't explode
and toast the entire solar system?! I mean...It's not like making
mashed potatoes and going..."hmmm...to wet, add some more flakes. No,
no...too thick now...more water." You gotta think that when you're
adjusting the make-up of something as large as a star, that anything you
do to affect it's chemical compound will have an exponential effect.

Fifthly, I don't have a fifthly. But if I did, it would probably have
something to do with the fact that re-igniting the sun is completely
impossible. We will master time travel before we're able to re-ignite a
star. I mean think about it. Even if you shot a nuke the size of Earth
at the thing (which would be impossible because you would need a couple
of chunks of enriched uranium that equal the size of Earth, which is
ridiculous because...well...the Earth isn't made of Uranium)...but
anyway, it wouldn't do a damned thing because the Nuke would still be
less than a 1,000th of a percent of the total mass of the sun.

Either way, I bet Cillian Murphy will look oddly creepy in the
flick...and Chris Evans will flash his pearly whites at the camera so
chicks can cream their pants while he rides a nuke in to the sun."

it's clear from this, and his flat out telling me, mike will not rest until someone is as upset over this movie being created.

i respect his decision... but i think it's a fruitless endeavor. i will likely see this movie, and it's just as likely that i will laugh at the silliness of the it all. i will not, however, become enraged over it.

please note, the man doesn't seem to have any issues with the star wars series, which actually takes place 'a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away'... even if they built 'the death star' and have the ability to travel through hyperspace.... oh, and lest we forget light sabers?

but i digress....


pan's labyrinth...

i watched this movie the other night. it's phenomenal! however, it's far less of a 'kids' movie than i'd expected. as a matter of fact, there are some very brutal, stomach turning scenes that i don't think that i am old enough to watch yet...

it's definitely worth a watch. i can't wait until it gets released here.

spider ship

this is just cool!


i'm a little drunk...

so, i hung out with mike tonight, which was a nice change, because he and i don't actually get together all that often. we went up to boston's to get a couple beers... but, mike lost his license (physically, not in the 'bad way'), and so, all he had was his old expired, clipped, license... which meant that he couldn't order. it's stupid that they don't except them, but, i guess they think that it might keep 'youngin's' from getting booze...

oh well, so, i drank a huge blue moon while mike watched the wild winning... i don't know if they won out in the end, but it was 3 nothing when we left there, so i imagine they took it no problem. anyway, we left there, stopped off at the liquor store to pick up some beer, then we took it back to mike's place and hung out in his dungeon (i.e. basement office he just set up), and reminisced over old comics and watched some movies, discussing what are good and bad movies. mostly i think movies are good for what they are... he seems to be a bit more demanding.

we did agree that the wicker man has to be one of the worst movies ever made... it helped to see the 'best scenes' which make the wicker man the comedy of the year on youtube. at one point, i put on what i thought was his daughters head gear, only to discover it belonged to his girlfriend, who has a freakishly small head. it's a tiny tiny head. wow.

after which... it was obvious that the night couldn't get any better... i took some random pictures and drove home....

good times, but i'm ready for sleeping.... :)

there are so many things...

... i wish i had the courage to say...

but, i'm pretty much a coward...

oh well, on with some linky goodness...

crank

i finally got around to watching this one... it's substantially better than i expected. as predicted, it was merely an hour and a half of 'action movie'. it had blood, guts, bombs, guns, boob, sex (in public even), asians, mexicans, amy smart's left breast, and jason statham sporting a 'raging hard-on' (i believe those were the words from the film...).

it's pretty much one of the most implausible plots ever, but it was entertaining... to say the least. i was a fan of the transporter movies, and this one did not disappoint. come to think of it, i don't think that i have seen a jason statham movie i didn't like... honestly. the italian job, lock stock, snatch... well, at least where he was in a leading role (ahem... cellular).

the concept of the film is that chev chelios (statham), a professional hit man working for a large crime syndicate, his attacked and shot up with a drug called the 'beijing cocktail' which blocks his 'adrenal receptors' (or some such fiddle faddle...) and he'll die if his heart rate drops. the movie follows him trying to find an andidote while exacting his revenge...

that's pretty much it... but it's entertaining for those of you into 'action' flix.


the internet is NOT a big truck, it's a series of TUBES!

addesso system, inc. hopes that sen. ted steven's immortal words will help drive customers to their new internet based application called.... tubes.

it's actually a pretty interesting concept. you install a small application, then you can drag and drop files into your 'tubes' which you can share with other people. those files are automatically placed on the computers of those people you've shared the files with. each tube can have up to 2gb of content. the idea being that it's easier than 'email' attachments, which can be too large to send, and too slow to upload/download as well... also, it could be useful for sharing your own files between multiple computers, and of course... piracy might be high on the list as well... but that's just a guess.

the service is reportedly free to 'users', and they will make money by charging for premium services for corporate customers and the like.

i haven't tried it out yet, but i probably will before too long... if i can find a willing 'victim' to be the recipient of something i might want to share... i'm sure i have 'something' that people might want... ;) (insert evil laugh here...)


hold your wee for a wii...

wow. this story is sad... in that how stupid and tragic sort of way.

a woman from sacramento, ca. died during a contest where contestants were given water over a long period of time (a contest akin to the 'keep your hand on this car and win it' type competition). the last person to 'wee' would win a wii. she was apparently a mother who was trying to win the contest for her kids. she died of hyperhydration... which basically means she drank herself to death... with water. no one seems quite sure how it happened, but it did.

another story says that the morning show for the radio station was cancelled and ten employees were fired for the stunt. i just wonder how far up the chain this went, and why no one was aware of this being a deadly thing... apparently, during the course of the show, a nurse had actually called in on air and informed them of the dangers, but the 'contest' continued anyway.

not a good way to go for sure. hope her kids get a wii...


think you know where the best/worst phone support is?

here's an article that lays out their 10 best and worst company's phone support lines...

i'm sure we all have our own horror stories...

mine still give me nightmares.


welp...

i've got to work in the morning... so, if you'll excuse me... i'm off to bed. g'night inter'tubes'. ;)

wow, it's been a few days...

but, i'm here... so deal with it!

news of me at the end, after the links...

martin luther king jr.'s birthday

that's right, america's most prominent civil rights leader's birthday was today, celebrated because of his tragic assassination. i just got done trimming the mlk jr. tree and we lit off some bottle rockets while singing 'we shall overcome'...

really though, the man made huge strides in the rights of 'african american' equality, and in terms racial barriers, he brought down a great many walls.

some suggest that his death came far too soon, though i often wonder if his death came at the right time to make him into a martyr...

someone suggested that his (and malcom x's) deaths actually split a lot of people and may have contributed some to the current state of affairs, the negative stigmas, and various 'crime rate statistics' etc... all because of the heavy fragmentation of the various civil right factions. i think that it's plausible, but it's all speculation.

i do wonder if, and how much better this country might be had he not died.

would his philosophy of civil disobedience have taken precedence over the 'black power' concept?

who knows, but it's definitely worth thinking about. there will never be colorblindness, as if often suggested. among the people of various colors and ethnic backgrounds that i know, our race is always there. the point is that we just live. together.

martin luther king, jr. rest in peace sir.


the house votes to increase minimum wage.

now, i live in a state which has already increased minimum wage, however, slightly. i believe minnesota is at $6.15/hr for large businesses. however, the democrats pushed through a bill to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15/hr to $7.25/hr.

it will come in stages. there are no offsets yet for small business to help cushion this increase in operating costs.

now, i'm somewhat torn over this. there are actually so few people in the country that make minimum wage. as a matter of fact, i know that most local fast-food restaurants actually pay more than the proposed increased wage already as a starting wage.

do people at the bottom of the scale deserve to make more? well, a better question is: is a blanket minimum wage right for everyone in every situation? in my opinion, the answer is no.

let me explain.

the people that make minimum wage typically fall into one of only a few categories. high school students. the uneducated. the 'immigrant'. and the 'unmotivated'.

of course, i say typically for a reason. i understand that there are exceptions. but... we're talking about a class of people, which make up a VERY small population of the country. in most markets, the pay is higher than federal minimum wage because of competition, in others, it's at base line because the economy is poor. this is economics.

i don't think that the government should be rewarding those for doing the base minimum to make money. at the same time, i remember working day labor between jobs because it was all i could get at the time and needed some income to get by. even then, however, where i live, i was usually paid well above $7/hr, it was just really shitty work.

i know there are those struggling, and we need to do something to help stabilize and bridge the massive gaps that exist. we need to help people get equal footing. (da komrade!), but i don't know if just increasing pay across the board is the right thing.

also, a diagram was drawn on one of the sites i frequent (possibly fark.com but i'm not positive), and it laid out something where he lived where he could see this becoming an issue. it was the idea of a grocery store. imagine 3 employees of one store. you have a bag boy, who makes $5.50/hr to bag groceries and do general sweeping. you have a cashier that makes $6.50/hr to ring customers and handle money. you have a lead cashier, with seniority / authority, more training and authority who makes $7.50/hr. now, with this, the bag boy, and the cashier are on the same level without changing their roles in the business, while the lead cashier, still do more critical work to the operation is making merely 25 cents more than her subordinates. it doesn't make a lot of sense.

is this a huge deal across the country? no, of course not. but it's something to think about.

a bump was needed, seeing as how the cost of living has dramatically increased over the last decade of republican rule, but minimum wage hasn't budged a cent. i guess i'm just not sure if this much of a bump makes sense.

i'm eager to see the economic impact this will have as businesses likely raise prices to 'cover' the cost of doing business. the cost of living will increase more, and those that have just gotten the bump in pay will find themselves in the same boat they've been in, and the rest of us will be sinking ever more slightly with them...

perhaps. perhaps not...


those piratebay.org guys never stop.... do they?!?!?

thepiratebay.org (wiki... not aforementioned url), operators of the worlds largest public bittorrent tracker, purportedly the 362nd most frequently visited site on the interwebs... and anti-copyright group extraordinaire. recently, they made a bid for political powers in sweden in the light of increasing copyright laws that had, up to now, been in their favor. they failed, but not as miserably as you might expect, the pirate party actually garnered a near percentage of voters... pretty astounding if you think about it.

now, however, they are in the market to buy themselves a country. more aptly, they are looking to aquire sealand. sealand is merely a tower sunk into some sand off the coast of england. it has a very interesting history, but the bottom line is that it is, more or less, and independent principality with it's own currency and government... (and soccer team, slot car racing team... and more!! read the wiki link above...). anyway, it has come to pass that the 'micronation' of sealand is up for grabs. while you can't technically 'buy' it, you can pay them a lot of money to transfer custodianship.

the piratebay wants in on that. or at least some small island where they can claim their independence.

they are accepting donations (from the people who are stealing every form of media you can think of through their services...) so that they can 'purchase' said island. in return, they are offering citizenship to all those that fork out some change for the cause.

it's interesting to read their forums, where everyone seems to have opinions about what they should do with said country, whether they should even buy a country, or whether pr0n will rain king.

god, what will those silly swedes think up next?!


the google effect

so, slashdot linked this post on javalobby.org...

i don't care who they are, the post was interesting. it's not the first time i've read something like it...

apparently, they had some 50,000 spam posts just after christmas. before they had a chance to remove it, google indexed their site, and apparently somewhere in those spam posts, google decided they didn't like javalobby.org.

now they don't exist.

nearly.

basically, they've been removed from google's index. which means they have lost some 70-80% of their traffic. this is devastating. it means that you lose 70-80% of your ad - revenue, or it means that you lose 70-80% of your potential customers. or, if nothing else, it means you lose an ass load of potential readership...

now, i'm all about having an automated system in place to make sure the 'net is reputable, but this seems a little overzealous.

and i can't begin to imagine how many sites are legitimately indexed by google that are merely scams and such that they don't know about...

i'm just curious... for a search engine with the clout of google, does this seem right? shouldn't they be smart enough to recognize that this is a problem...

maybe i'm off base.

(hehe... the google effect... i like inside jokes...)


a technology i've been keeping an eye on...
and interesting business tactics...

SED, an interesting new display technology type. surface-conduction electron-emitter display is very neat...

from the wiki:

"The surface conduction electron emitter apparatus consists of a thin slit across which electrons tunnel when excited by moderate voltages (tens of volts). When the electrons cross electric poles across the thin slit, some are scattered at the receiving pole and are accelerated toward the display surface by a large voltage gradient (tens of kV) between the display panel and the surface conduction electron emitter apparatus. Canon Inc. working with Toshiba uses inkjet printing technology to spray phosphors onto the glass. The technology has been in development since 1987."

this article tells the story. nano-propriety, the company that licensed the technology to canon), who went into partnership with toshiba, is now suing canon, stating that toshiba wasn't part of the deal. canon bought out toshiba's stake and became majority share holders...

it seems like promises for the technology have been delayed over and over again, most recently they stated that we would see it late in 2007, but now, i'm thinking that, without toshiba to mass-produce them, it might get pushed back even farther, or never come to fruition at all.


sony to include portable media on bluray?

it is with eyebrows raised and thoughts running through my head that read this article at kokatu.com. apparently, sony is considering the idea of including portable media on their bluray discs, so that you can take your movies with you on a laptop or ipod, or perhaps, their psp.

this seems very much un-sony like.

but, it's an idea that i can get behind. the idea is that you buy their high definition bluray disc, and on that disc you will also receive the content in a format that can be viewed on another media player of sorts.

so very curious the behavior of sony is sometimes.


i know will interest many of you...

someone on one of the forums i frequent asked, "now we know. now, what are we going to do about it?"

i'm not really sure... but damn. something must be done... perhaps.


hmm... sharp's got one too...

i previously mentioned westinghouse had developed a display they called 'quad-hd'.

i would like to show you something else from engadget.com.

sharp's 4k x 2k . another 8.3mp digital display. hmm.

i'm telling you... these will not 'remain' commercial...


wow... how many jobs might this take?

apparently the trend of this post is technology based on 'inkjet'. first, i present the SED, which is based on spraying phosphors on the screen... now we're talking about a new robot, that sprays houses.

yep. it sprays houses.

read the article here. it removes the need for those pesky people in the house building equation...

damn.

and still no fucking hovercars! whiskey tango foxtrot abounds.


ONE

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one

No is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes it's the saddest experience you'll ever know
'Cause, one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
One is the loneliest number, when you're lost at two

It's just no good anymore
Since you went away
Now I spend my time
Makin' rhymes of yesterday



damn. i don't really want to talk about me right now. i'm brooding. i heard words that i already knew were true, yet hearing them spoken, out loud... it somehow makes the whole experience that much worse. fuck.

me love yoy long time!

sorry... i'm watching the office right now...


from the iPhone department...

alright, so, previously i went on and on about how wonderful the iphone is, or will be...

my stance is solid. this thing is pretty amazing.

however, i have enjoyed some of the great articles that have popped up already. the one from gizmodo is pretty good, the guy says that he used it to call his mommy. i lol'd a bit.

the best write up that i've seen so far, however, is from the new york times. i enjoyed it because it doesn't seem to pull any punches, and while you can tell that the guy has some issues about this new device of glory, it seems pretty well rounded and fair. from his time with the new iphone, he wrote an interesting FAQ (frequently asked questions), or as i like to call it... NO! it mostly focuses on the fact that this phone cannot be used on any network other than cingular... but it's funny as fuck. (the new york times article is written by david pogue, he has quite a few other articles, many of which are actually pretty good reads. of course, he's writing for a pretty hardcore paper, so i imagine he'd have to be pretty good to get there, lol).

also... in news of sheer hilarity, apple didn't QUITE finalize the 'iphone' name thing before they announced it, now cisco is pissed. read this article or this article... or don't, just trust that they are all sorts of suing apple. of course, iphone is really a bit misleading anyway, this thing is truly less a phone and an all encompassing multimedia device.

good times.


blu-ray vs. hd-dvd... pr0n is teh tiebreaker!

although many of the net slackers these days do not remember (or weren't yet alive for) the great VHS vs. BetaMax battles of yore (and even fewer even know about the u-matic catastrophe much earlier on, DAT is was not...), i will tell you that the battle was vicious, as i understand it. i don't remember it either, however, i've heard plenty. the truth was that betamax was a 'superior' format, and in all truth, it survived for nearly 30 years in japan, where you could still purchase NEW edbeta tapes providing much better resolution than vhs and even dvd... one of things that interested me the most was that sony's (betamax) defeat at the hands of vhs was, while due to many things, partially caused by the porn industries selection of using vhs as their standard of choice. it's not a 'well known' fact, mostly because people don't like to talk about porn if they can help it.

the reasoning was that vhs was a less selective, less expensive and over all 'looser' standard. sony, as you may know, is one of my least favorite companies, and i will not launch into another tirade, but i will leave it at that. they have a lot of things that they do well, but mostly, they are a money mongering, overly closed ended and proprietary company.

now, with the NEW format battle raging, bluray vs. hd-dvd, we have a whole new set of issues.

sony's bluray is, again, a 'better' quality standard. bluray allows for a much higher capacity disc (testing has it up to 33GB per layer, roughly 7 times as much as the current dvd standard, about about twice that of hd-dvd), and has a 'tighter' standard of codecs and laser construction. this means that conent is 'automatically' better... although i don't feel like explaining that, trust me on it. sony's proprietary nature is what keeps this one down, it's more expensive on the manufacturing front, more restrictive and much more closed format.

hd-dvd, however, is much more open. the main proponent of hd-dvd is microsoft (i say this because, 1. it's true, and 2. sony's ps3 vs. xbox360... c'mon! but, yes, it's a toshiba thing). now, i'm not a huge fan of microsoft either, and terms of open operability, they aren't known for 'playing friendly' with everyone else, but with hd-dvd, it's true, which i believe is due to toshiba being at the forefront of the technology. anyway... to the point!

now, it seems that the porn industry has thrown their hat in the ring! and they are siding with... hd-dvd! again, it seems they are shying away from sony! they cite a few reasons, such as it being cheaper and easier to produce. it also seems to have a lot to do with the fact that sony announced they will not ALLOW porn to sully their precious bluray discs! wow.

given the fact that adult movies comprise a ridiculous amount of annual dvd sales... i can't imagine that this is the best financial decision sony could make. i mean, morality is one thing, but you have to know that those execs are just as likely to stick a copy of 'teen age sluts from jupiter' in their dvd player every once in a while like the rest of the world.

and, sony is LOSING the sales race. first, their first players are TWICE the price, ringing in around $1000 for bluray, while the first line of toshiba hd-dvd players broke at $500. also, it seems their $600 PS3 gaming behemoth is not getting bluray players into as many households as they thought, ESPECIALLY in their homeland of japan. although, it's the wii that winning out there... which doesn't use ANY movie standard... hmm. either way, while this isn't the final chapter in the story, i am still voting that hd-dvd is the more likely standard to win. of course, being so close on the heels of the dvd revolution, it's all early adopters now anyway. in terms of sheer percentages very few people actually own hdtvs now, and of those, even fewer have the current hdmi standard meaning they can't watch either now anyway.

i could go on and on. but... i won't. yer probably all glossy eyed anyway...

i'm almost done on this subject.


but, in related news... 2160p!

well, ces is a great time of year for announcements in technology. it seems westinghouse (you know, the brand that best buy blows out the door... they make fridges too...) has developed what they call 'quad hdtv'. damn is all i've got to say.

some background.

long long ago, in a galaxy far far away... they invented tv. it was originally broadcast from one room to another. similar to edison's first telephone conversation. originally, they decided to send 480 lines of information. why 480 lines? just cause, they knew what could be 'transmitted' at the time (ok, it was actually something like 500 some lines.. which is still the case, but that's getting REALLY technical, the bottom line is what you SEE, right?). this was long before wifi you know, 802.11n draft standard ftw. anyway, they did it.. but only half the picture went through. much head scratching occurred and they knew something had to be changed.

well now, someone thought, "Hey, interlace it!". bam. 480i was born... the i standing for interlaced. that means that you have 480 lines, but you remove HALF of them, and intersperse at equal intervals, blank lines. that means you have 240 lines of picture and 240 lines of blank. this is what people watched, in black and white.

many many years later someone said... umm... color?

thus it became, and it was good, and for many more decades, this was the only innovation we saw. 640x480 interlaced color moving pictures.

now, it came to be that people wanted more. you see, film is much higher 'resolution', and people wanted that, as much of that as possible. someone said, well, there's 480 lines here, lets open that up. ta-da, 480p! progressive. progressive means NO LINES! it means, there are 480 lines, starting at the bottom and being displaying PROGRESSIVELY up until there's a full picture. this happens 30 times a second and it makes moving pictures to our eyes.

oh the neat!

but that wasn't enough, no sir. you see, people wanted things EVEN CLEARER!

so, it happened that they invented the HD standard, and oh how good it is!

it was split two ways. 720p and 1080i. i'll remind you that p = progressive and i = interlaced. both look great and both appear similarly. i prefer the 720p, myself, wich you will find on FIXED PIXEL displays, using matrices to make pictures. this is anything but a tube type tv, i.e. LCD / Plasma / DLP and most other acronyms. rear project and standard tubes are generally 1080i, and it all has to do with the 'grill' that is used and the way they fire phosphors... blah, whatever.

now, a few years goes by and people say, screw it, we want 1080p! yes. the p is gooder!

they are trickling out, and while you can't find much in the way of true content that is 1080p outside of video games, it will come, all in due time.

now, going back to that first transmission where they found out they could send enough content at first. the same is true now, there's no way to STORE enough content to make 1080p worthwhile. it just takes up too much damn space, even on bluray / hd-dvd discs... there's some economics and such involved too... but it takes a lot of compression and a lot of storage and we're just not there yet.

so, these high pixel displays are reserved for 'real time' content like video games and live satellite feeds and things of that nature.

enter westinghouse and their display. it's a show of what CAN be done, and likely is meant to show what's coming around the bend. time. time will tell all, but i expect that within the next ten years we will have 2160p capable ps5's and xbox720s.

wow... that was a rambling discourse of pointlessness. enjoy the knowledge and use it well.

as a sidenote, in terms of sheer resolution... 720p displays are typically 1366x768 (WXGA+)... we love it as consumers, but we're going the other way as well. the ipod videos, zunes, and iriver / archos etc. personal video players are running 320x240. wrap your head around that one... ;)


from the ricockulousness files...

paypal won't release the funds from a memorial fund of a dead soldier to the people that set it up because paypal chose to mark it as belonging to a 'non-profit' when it was set up. they are a for profit organization. now the money is being held in limbo for 180 days, for some reason i don't quite understand. read the story here... maybe give paypal a call and ask them why they are retarded.


real heroes!

an unsigned band, koopa, is poised to hit the top 40 charts without ever pressing a cd, according to this bbc article. there's new rules being placed to make it so that downloadable songs are counted toward the uk's top 40 charts even if they don't have a cd, and are unsigned! wow.

that's just great.


it's called black sheep

it will be the greatest movie ever. cult following seen waiting in the wings. watch the trailer here.


bahahhahahahahha

mpaa = teh dumb

as promised...

i finally got some birthday pics posted, so, check them out... moira at chuck e. cheese's.

moira's semi-impromptu 5th birthday party

these things i must say...

which isn't much... yet you'll find content a plenty today...


apple is evil!

damn them for making me want a thing so bad!

it was today, this day, that the words of steve jobs, at macworld 2007, were delivered, in the form of a keynote, had me truly longing for an apple product like i've not done before.

what follows is pure editorial on the new product and my opinions of apple, inc. (they changed the name officially, dropping computer from the title). if you would like to skip all that, click this link and prepare to drool... this link will be repeated at the end if you'd actually like to read what i have to say...)

don't get me wrong. i'm not a true apple hater. i have an ipod, which is ancient but well loved (though replaced by my newer, prettier zune). for a brief period i owned a powerbook g4, and even now wouldn't mind a new g5 or intel based macbook pro. i would gladly accept the fact that apple, in stark contrast of the rest of the desktop computing world, have INTENTIONALLY designed their rediculously powerful towers to weigh something in excees of 3,000 lbs. it's fine, because they're neat. i would accept the higher latency refresh rates on one of their cinema displays, because, who doesn't want 30"+ of lcd beauty that matches or 1 1/2 ton tower? who wouldn't want two like i do... who i ask?

of course, my relationship with apple is love/hate. because, i, like many others, can see well beyond the beauty of their products. they make things that look good and are marketed well. this by itself is acceptable, but they do so while making us, the consumer, pay a premium for the pretty boxes. the minimalist matte black finish and unassuming white apple logo on the the cardboard enclosures their product comes in alone means i'm paying 10% more.

they do this without a lot of extra capability. i've said it, and been criticized for it, but i stand by it. it's all the more true now that their computers are running intel processers of the same class you can find in a pc. the truth is that they aren't more stable or less succesptabel to virii, they just deal with it differently. in terms of stability, for example, if a windows machine becomes unstable, it tells you, in near panicky tones, that it's all over ctrl-alt-del, we're done. sorry, you probably lost what you were working on. but, on mac, a beautiful dialogue box is presented informing you that macos is in need of restarting, and you click the button, for the good of humanity. it doesn't happen less often, as a matter of fact, i have many friends that will tell you without the slightest hint of sarcasm that it happens more frequently. in terms of virii... well, let's be honest. no one is going to drop a bomb in a cornfield in the hopes of taking out 1/120th of a countries population, are they?

however, this day, TODAY, it was announced that apple has 'redefined' the world of cell phones. in most cases i would skoff at a statement like this. but they show you HOW they've done it. i can truly say... WOW!

while they announced the long awaited 'iTV' (and are simply calling it apple tv, which is a simple video conversion box meant to help integrate all of your home a/v equipment into the apple collective...), it was far less interesting than the announcement of the long rumored iPhone.

yep, it's called iPhone. and it's amazing. forget the krazr and the rockr, forget chocolate and the mda, forget the blackberry and treo's... forget the word smartphone, cellphone, and forget everything you knew about integrated multimedia devices.

here's what it is. it's a device. it comes with onboard memory to the tune of 4GB or 8GB. it is compatible with GSM and the EDGE network. it's a cellphone with no primary buttons or keyboard. it's entirely touchcreen, using multi-touch recognition to perform everytask, and softkeys for all of it's input.

ok, you say, so?

it plays music. it allows you to flip, via touch, through your library. it allows you to send sms txts while performing multiple tasks. it plays videos, which it can do while downloading email in the background and updating a weather widget.

widget? oh yes, it uses those beloved macos apps that do amazing things for you. but how, you might ask. simple. it has macos onboard.

yes, macos in built in. so is safari. and you might think, so what, i've seen smartphones and their browsers, they suck. not so for the iPhone. it has breathtaking imagry, and can be zoomed in and out using 2 figners. you see, when you open a page, the entire contents and navigate about the page like you might a large digital image, which it supports very nicely as well because of it's built in iphoto interface and 2MP camera. and you can look at them and webpages with portrait or landscape without touching a button, a built in sensor will reorientate the image based on how the phone is held... and there are other magic-like sensors for light and the weather you are ON the phone to help conserve battery life... smart.

well, you say, the web sucks on cell service. not trure, though, the EDGE is near broadband speed, and expected to get faster very soon, but that's ok, because you can use the built in 802.11 b/g wifi to connect as well.

while you're connected, you might as well send a text message while downloading a song from itunes and talking via your bluetooth headset.

omg! you might say. you might, if you knew what i was talking about. if you don't... just take a look at it. instantly you'll see while it's the tenchophile's wet dream come true. it's just amazing.

alright, you'll probably think, damn, i bet it's pricy as hell...

to a degree, it is. they said to themselves, "hey, selves, how much is the ipod?" "$199," was their reply. "ok self," they said, "how much for a decent smartphone?" "well, $299," they replied again. "and what we've got here should be how much then?"

they hemmed and hawed. they knew they could get a grand a piece off these things easily. they knew they could go sony on it and push the $1500 mark. instead they landed on a simple math problem. ipod + smartphone = iPhone...

for those of you of limited math skills, that's "$499" for the 4GB model, and "$599" for the 8GB version. for everything that you get here... that seems almost laughably priced. but, i will gladly accept their insanity, as if they were 'krazy martin of krazy martin's auto sales' because, well, i'm just that way.

no word yet how much the service will run that i've seen, but i'm guessing it will be premium, being that there's a lot of innovation. not least of which is the new 'visual voicemail box'. hate having to listen through each message in your vm box to get to the one you want, which is usually the most recent and therefore at the end of the queue? me too... try just opening your voicemail screen on the iPhone and tapping the name of the person who's message you want to hear. simple, right? yep. why didn't anyone else think of that?

200+ patents have gone into the thing and i am pretty much blown away by it.

wow. it's the only thing i can say.

now, if only i had the money to buy one when (if, actually) they get their fcc rights.

again, if you didn't click the link above, please do so now and be amazed! apple's iPhone

truly astounding. apple isn't one for doing things on a small scale or whit baby steps, they are going for the gusto with this one.

bastards.





zune news that will pale in comparison...

alright, here comes some telephone like series of quoting. according to a gamasutra.com article, bloomberg is reporting that it was announced at CES is L.V., NV, that the zune will we be getting some games! i'd say soon... but it's anticipated in mid 2008.

it's not a huge surprise, but it's pleasant news to me. it's assumed that this is in response to the ipod's game library, or perhaps the ipod's games are in response to the rumors about the coming games for the zune. eitherway, it'll be interesting at least.


the con game!

i don't know why, but i always love reading and watching and generally hearing about con artistry. and it is that: artistry.

this recent story was picked up on fark.com, but i read the article in utter disbelief. a woman has gone to cold war espionage-esque lengths to steal the identities of several people, the most recent of which is a long missing woman, all in the effort of attending some high level colleges.

not for the money. of course the money seems to be coming as if by magic for her, but no, it seems she's doing this for motives unseen. she's doing it... just to go to harvard and columbia?

truly astounding, read the new york post article to find out more. it's nearly unbelievable.... but, if nothing else, is a good read!



the new mike section...

mike, a great contributor to this blog, whether he likes it or not, sent me some more good links.

first, we have....
amazing screw on head @ amazon.com. per his recommendation i read the first customer review, i encourage you to do the same. as i told him... it had me at david hyde pierce. ;)

from the product description:

"In this hilarious send-up of Lovecraftian horror and steampunk adventure, President Abraham Lincoln's top spy is a bodyless head known only as Screw-On Head (Paul Giamatti). When arch-fiend Emperor Zombie (David Hyde Pierce) steals an artifact that will enable him to threaten all life on Earth, the task of stopping him is assigned to Screw-on Head. Fortunately, Screw-On Head is not alone on this perilous quest. He is aided by his multitalented manservant, Mr. Groin, and by his talking canine cohort, Mr. Dog. Can this unorthodox trio stop Emperor Zombie in time? Does Screw-On Head have a body awesome enough to stop the horrors that have been unleashed? Where can we get a talking dog? All these questions (O.K., maybe not that last one) are answered by the thrilling tale of The AMAZING SCREW ON HEAD! Based on the award-winning comic book by Mike Mignola, creator of HELLBOY."

yay i say!

in news of the great 'frank millers's 300'!
joblo.com visits the set of 300! this stands on it's own, check it out!

some news on grindhouse...
specifically the 'faux' trailers in the middle... i'd happily see rob zombie's the werewolf women of the s.s. in feature length!

and finally:

mike's open letter to the creators of the new fantastic four sequel, a trailer can be seen here... (this is copied verbatum from an email to me, this is done without permission and simply to make myself look good... suck it mike!)

Query 1: Have you seen the trailer for Fantastic Four: Rise of the
Silver Surfer?

Comment 1: At the end of the trailer, Johnny Storm has been
"extinguished" and is "dropped" in to the Earth's orbit, in space, by
the Silver Surfer.

Query 2: How the hell does that work? A) He would explode due to the
severe lack of air pressure in space. B) He would freeze to death
(though I'm sure that they'll say that his warm internal temperature
kept him alive, though that doesn't explain why his skin wasn't frozen
off because his skin, probably, is not much warmer than ours seeing as
how he can still fornicate with human women.) C) He would be torn apart
by the friction created by traveling through the Earth's atmosphere at
terminal velocity (being on fire would not be of much assistance
there). D) He would suffocate due to the aforementioned lack of air.

Comment 2: I call bullshit on this movie. Don't try to fool me with
all that crap. I know my shit. Physics don't cease to exist just
because you were caught in a gamma storm in space and developed
super-human powers. The Invisible Woman could, theoretically, create a
force-field strong enough to resist the friction and lack of air
pressure in space as well as contain a decent supply of air, but that
still wouldn't solve the temperature problem. I could see Johnny and
Sue Storm surviving in space by combining their powers, but
individually, they would be dead before you can say, "it's clobbering time".

having now watched the trailer he speaks of... i couldn't agree more. i assume that silver surfer is acting as galctus' herald at this point... but... it's so hard to tell from this blurb... i will be forced to do more research. i will say this. while i didn't hate the first one, i so much HATED the casting that it made it hard to enjoy... jessica alba, while definitely high on the list of women i'd love to practice baby making with, cannot and will not EVER be a good fit for mrs. richards... i don't care how hot she is... i will inevitibly see this one, and i assume i will gripe about it. but oh well... marvel can have my money. they've given me enough, i don't mind donating to the cause...



soylent green is... people!?!?

not really.. but cloned meat? i don't know, i guess if it's tasty and it doesn't kill me.... i'll eat it... read all about it! (no... not people... just rtfa)


something to occupy your time...

i've been playing with this in my free time for quite awhile... well, this and others like it...

it's a sign generator... in this case... a church sign generator. go ahead... try it out!

there are other 'generators' there too... pointless entertainment.




these are merely links without editorial...

re: cancer and smoking...

miracle cure and supporting article

another miracle cure

smoking does not cause lung cancer and failure to cause lung cancer


that's it...

hopefully, sometime in the next couple days i'll get the pics of my daughter's birthday up... but, i'll need to comb through them to find some good'ns.


i would like to mention that i hate womens and their evils. just putting it out there.

thanks.

have a good one internets!

oh yeah...

this is a reminder to myself... i have over 4000 tracks on my zune... and my 'zune software' keeps track of play counts. since i've been rather unambitous, i've really just listened on shuffle almost exclusively, skipping a few tracks here and there that just didn't make sense at the time... why then, do i have have over 70% of the tracks in my list NOT PLAYED and many songs that have been played 3 or 4 times?

not random....

read about something like this in the old itunes...

probably bill gates' fault...

just a quick note...

i'm fairly exhausted after a long day at work and an even longer night at chuck e. cheese's.

my younger daughter, moira, turned 5 yesterday, and, ever the little angel, she recalled the promise i made her last year at her sister's birthday party, where i told her that she could go to chuck e. cheese's this year for her birthday.

you can't welch on that sort of thing...

so, tonight we went for a few hours. it was fun, at least, my girls had fun. i got a lot of pics that i'll hopefully get up into picassa sooner or later... you can see the joy of it. we left with around $45 worth of pizza in our bellies and cheap plastic trinkets in tow.

luckily, being a monday night, it was not very busy. also, i think the new dave and busters just up the street might be stealin' away some of their business.


mar. 2nd is my older daughter's (tristan rose) 7th birthday. i've got to come up with something for that, now that she's old enough to have her little friends come with her somewhere, i'm sure that it will have to be something novel and different.

now accepting ideas that won't bankrupt me.

have a good night internets.