Of nature and stray kittehs

This time of year, I like to grab a camera, and take the kids for walks through the local Elm Creek Park Reserve. It's a great place to get some good shots, and some nice exercise and spend some time in a little corner of nature.

We went both yesterday, and today. Yesterday we took a trip on a leg of the trails nearer to my home. There's a small bridge over Elm Creek that provided some good shots. The creek is up pretty high with all the rains, as evident by all the plants that are now under water.

Today was a bit more of an adventure than yesterday. We stopped at the Eastman Nature Center, which is quite a bit further up the trail system, and saw the one eyed owl, an owl who was born with one eye and therefore can't hunt or fly so now spends its days being an educational bird. Then we walked the 'Sumac Trail' which has a long wooden path, like a dock, that stretches out over a small lake or pond.

There were tons of dragon flies, and those little blue bugs that look like dragon flies, however, I'm not sure that they are dragon flies simply because I thought that a dragon fly's wings were always extended when they landed, and these fold up and have their wings in a slightly different configuration.



These are all the images that I posted to my deviantArt Gallery.

As we finished our walk, we found a stray cat that had been hiding in the brush. It had no collar, but was fairly friendly, even turning over for tummy rubs, and letting me pick it up without any qualms. There are quite a few houses nearby, so we thought that it might have come from one, although with the increase in foreclosures right now, there's every chance that someone just abandoned him there. We tried to get the cat to come with us back to the nature center down the road, so that they could have one of the park police officers take it to the humane society, but it wasn't having any sort of car trip. We didn't really have the time to walk it the whole way there, although on foot it would have probably followed us anywhere. I let the people at the nature center know where the cat was, and they were having the Park Police pick it up and take it to a shelter, so with any luck the kitteh is well fed and safe now.

I'm still thinking that I should post something to craigslist on the off chance that there's an owner looking for him, and they might be reunited.




UPDATE: As it turned out, the insect I couldn't identify is a damselfly. I find it odd because I swear I looked at the damselfly and ruled it out before deciding I didn't know what it was. However, it is what it is.

Where Pets Belong

I'm not going to talk about Petco, or Petsmart or any other pet store that welcomes pets. What I'm going to talk about is where pets, and animals in general, belong and where they do not.

I feel I should preface this with a statement regarding helper animals. I understand and appreciate the training that is involved with helper animals, and they belong with their humans in any environment. What I'm wanting to talk about it is the large population of people out there that think their animals should be with them all the time, dogs especially, but there's plenty of others.

Consider this a rant.

There is a small list of places where it is acceptable to bring your pet. The vet, the groomers, the kennel, and any recreation that specifically involves the animal (including dog parks and the homes of friends that accept your animal). You'll notice that I don't mention pet stores, and the reason behind this is simple: animals do not belong in retail space.

This is a simple statement, but one that rings true time and time again. First of all, there's no reason to bring your pet to the store unless you're passing through it to get to the vet, the groomer, the kennel, or one of those recreations I mentioned (in this case, obedience training). Your animal should never, I repeat never go shopping with you. I do not care how well behaved your dog is, I don't care how lonely your critter gets when you leave it alone, you should never bring your pet into a retail space.

This extends obviously beyond pet stores. To date, I have seen animals in Wal-Mart, Target, various department stores, Schmidt Music (yes, a small music store), office supply stores and yes, even grocery stores. Whenever I see this I find myself both saddened by the pathetic nature of the people carrying out this idiotic display, but I also find myself appalled at the fact that no one is ever willing to do anything about this.

Recently I was at a store where a woman had brought her little toy poodle, which she carried around in her little purse thing. Apparently she decided that she needed to use the rest room (the owner, that is), and for whatever she felt that it would be best to leave the dog outside of the rest room unsupervised while she went into the bathroom to do her thing. The animal then proceeded to wander around, marking its territory, and generally being a dog.

I saw another woman who brought a ferret with her into stores only to just let it run around in it's leash, leaving behind it a train of feces and urine that was left for others to clean up as the owner wouldn't dream of taking responsibility for the animal. What's worse is that after being confronted, this woman actually promised to take her business elsewhere.

Good. Take it far away from me.

Now, I don't want people to think that I'm some kind of animal hater. I have a lovely little dog, two guinea pigs, two hamsters and quite a few fish in my home. I've owned, in the past, an iguana, many more guinea pigs, a few cockatiels, and many other creatures. I love animals.

But you'll never see me bring an animal to a store. You'll also never see me bring my animals to restaurants.

I've seen animals in McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Perkins, Denny's, and others. Why this happens makes even less sense to me. Does it not occur to people that we're talking about establishments that make food, that have to be clean, and yet no one considers the implications of bring their animals into these places.

And there are plenty of people that will try to play the 'hot car' card. Oh, it's just that it's so hot out, I don't want my dog getting sick, or dying.

Guess what, if you hadn't brought the dog in the first place, you wouldn't have such a crisis. If you went somewhere that was valid for the dog to tag along, and you need to make another stop, then either leave poochy in the car, or bring them home first and go back out later.

I just don't understand the mentality of people that insist on this practice of bringing their animals with them everywhere. Often times they treat the animals like kids, as though they are trying to map their emotional want for children onto a dog.

It's strange, though, how you can mention to people that you think it's crazy to bring any animal into a retail location, and you'll get some of the longest, blankest stares. You can say that it's crazy to walk into a department store and drop trow and defaecate on the floor of mens wear, but yet bringing a living, breathing, and most importantly, pooping animal in with you while you shop for swim suits seems perfectly logical.

I just don't understand, and maybe I never will.

WALL-E

I took my daughters to see WALL-E today.

It was no surprise that this is an amazingly good movie. It has all the things that make Disney / Pixar movies so great. It has a solid underlying message, it features perfect timing, it's cute and wonderful, and has the best representation of robot love ever. Everything about it is polished, clean, and well put together.

It is a good movie. There's no point saying anything else. Go see it... now.

Wanted

I watched Wanted on Friday. I've seen a lot of over the top action flicks in my time, and I can honestly say that this is one of them. There are a lot of aspects and considerations that must be made about this movie. The bottom line, however, is that this is a fantastic action flick. It is nothing more, and nothing less.

This movie is based on a creator owned comic book mini-series by the same name, but it is such a loose basis that without the title of Wanted, and a the names, you'd likely never have known that they were the same thing.

This is one of the few comic movies that I've seen where I've not read the original series, I was, however, aware of it. I am glad, however, because I feel that having seen this movie, I would have been very disappointed by it if I'd read the comic first. If you'd like to learn more about the original Top Cow Comic, hit up wikipedia.

Now, when you get over, or perhaps look past the difference between this movie and the the comic book, you'll find an excellent action movie. The film begins with a bang, or several bangs and a great deal of brain and skull splattering. We're then brought down to meet the hero of our tale, a mid-twenties loser who has become apathetic with a sardonic outlook on life. These things come from the fact that he knows he's a loser, that his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend, that he's completely pathetic.

Then he meets Fox (Angelina Jolie), a beautiful bad-ass who is as deadly as she looks. We're treated to an amazing shoot-out, which is followed by an equally amazing car chase, which requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief as a delivery van is able to keep pace with a Dodge Viper. I could go on, explaining his meeting with Sloan, the leader of the Fraternity, and even explain the back story he's given about being one of them, able to control his mind and body, about how he must avenge his father's death. I could even go on about his training, where he's beaten mercilessly to be honed into a weapon.

I could even explain the twist, the rug you spend the entire movie waiting to be pulled out from under you, and when it comes, you basically shrug your shoulders and say, "yep."

Still, though, it's all very entertaining. It's wall to wall action with just enough story to make it worth watching, and the entire thing is wrapped up very neatly for you in the end so that you come out feeling quite satisfied.

What little acting that is actually required is good, but since it's mostly about the action, you don't really notice any hiccups. The effects are very good, you really believe you're seeing people's brains being blown from their skulls.

So, with all this rambling discourse, I should probably give my opinion outright. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie for the adrenaline feast that it was.

I was going to post a review of Wanted...

I came home tonight ready to post a review of Wanted, but when I lifted the lid on my laptop, I found that there were more pressing matters that needed my attention.

I received a chain mail from a friend regarding coke tops and rat urine. I felt that I should do something about it, because it's simply just not right for these things to make their rounds as they do. (The email in question is summarized here on Snopes.com)

Here was my response:

I am begging you (all of you), please stop and think before you send these damn things out. Chain e-mails are not logical sources of accurate information, it's not an underground network for sending out warnings that the media or government doesn't want people to know. Chain e-mails are idiotic, and typically only serve to waste network bandwidth while generally just scaring the stupid people of the world.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/raturine.asp

Snopes.com is a great way to check these things out before sending them. First, you're more likely to be hit by a bus than you are to contract leptospirosis, as mentioned in the above article, and easily verified, there are an average of about 100 to 200 cases of leptospirosis each year in the US, and about half of those occur in Hawaii. Further, the odds of contracting leptospirosis from a coke can (or any other food container stored in the US) are very slim. First of all, the can would have to be in a rat invested environment, and then those rats would have to be carriers. Finally, leptospirosis is only fatal in extreme cases, and is otherwise treatable.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's no potential for danger, but you'd be better off sending out emails warning people that they should be careful while driving their cars. If it really makes you feel better, wipe off your cans of soda before drinking them. However, I'd like to offer some insight, cans come off the bottling line, are ringed together (those rings that kill birds), and then are placed in cardboard box bottoms and immediately wrapped in tight plastic before being sent out to stores. Otherwise, they come off the line and are immediate packaged into the tight cardboard boxes in 12, 24 and 36 (Pepsi) packs, and then are stacked on pallets before being sent out to stores. Rarely are cans stored in a way that their tops are exposed.

This is just my 2 cents. My apologies to anyone I cc'd on this who might be bothered by getting more junk in their email box. And yes, I understand the irony of sending out a 'chain email' denouncing chain emails.

Stephen

I'm sure why I feel that I need to act as some kind of crusader of stupid emails, but I feel like I can't just sit by and do nothing.

As I was preparing to send the thing, my good friend Nathan bleeped me, scaring the bejesus out of me.

At this point, I felt I needed to do something to prove to the world that I have conversations with people... that these things actually happen... that I'm not making them up:

12:27 AM nedwards: WALL-E kicked butt

12:28 AM me: lol

I saw Wanted

nedwards: I'd like to see that too -

me: Might do Wall-E on Sunday or Monday

Wanted was pretty sweet

12:29 AM Hold on, I'm sending an anti chain email email... I'll BCC you on it

nedwards: k

12:31 AM me: actually

let me ask your opinion...

should I send this thing out to all the CC's that are listed, or just the original sender...

I'll forward you what I've written...

12:32 AM you should have it

12:33 AM nedwards: forward it to everyone

I've got Sarah using Snopes now everytime before she emails me something stupid

me: I just don't want to piss people off

you know what I mean?

nedwards: And one time she sent me a link with the Snopes link attached

I laughed

12:34 AM me: http://www.woot.com/

nedwards: it won't piss people off - it will make them more enlightened

me: Think this helicopter is any good??

nedwards: dunno - I've heard about one of these that catches on fire

12:35 AM me: hmm

12:36 AM nedwards: I need Jim to send me a few fandango codes

me: I'm still milking the ones he gave me for my birthday

but I don't know how much longer those will hold out, lol

12:37 AM nedwards: Heh

well, with Dark Knight and X-Files in the next couple of weeks, it would be nice to have them

though seeing Dark Knight in Imax would be preferable

12:38 AM me: yeah

I'm pretty eager to see that one

I have to work really hard at it though, because I hate Christian Bale as Batman, but love his work, so I just have to sort of let go and enjoy it

he's just not a good Bruce Wayne to me.

12:39 AM nedwards: I like Christian Bale

I think compared to other Batmans he is certainly the best

though Keaton was a nice combination of sauve, pissed and slightly crazy

12:40 AM Kilmer and Clooney . . . shudder

me: I haven't liked any live action portrayal to date.

I really like The Animated Series construct... and I have no idea who would be better.

12:41 AM nedwards: I used to come home from High School and watch the animated series

me: Needs to be a tall, square jawed, extremely well built guy

Almost like Jason Statham

But not quite... if that makes sense

12:42 AM By the way, trailer for new Jason Statham movie... he's a hard ass, fast driving, super fighting bad guy you have to root for.

nedwards: Heh

me: It's a role you've never seen him in.

Amazing

nedwards: Does he make out with a chick in an unlikely location?

12:43 AM me: I'm not certain, but I'm willing to guess: yes!

nedwards: holy crap - that's a must see

Oh lord, there was a preview before Wall-E

for Beverly Hills Chihuahua

me: Do I really want to know?

12:44 AM nedwards: It had hundreds of singing Chihuahua's dancing around an Aztec ruin

me: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/321702714/sharper-image-human-touch-massage-chairs-look-familiar

Wow, Aztec ruins in a movie about a Beverly Hills Chihuahua?12:45 AM nedwards: that's a disturbing picture

me: lol, yeah.

nedwards: http://www.thirteen.org/scienceandnature/ayveq-the-masturbating-walrus-dies

here's a disturbing story

12:46 AM me: Wow

That kinda brings a tear to my eye...

nedwards: I'm just cracking up right now because it's on like every major news page

The masturbating walrus dies

12:47 AM me: NEWS FLASH: That's not news!

Here's a question?

Why do I read both Gizmodo and Engadget?

12:48 AM http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/27/engadgets-farewell-card-to-bill-g/

http://gizmodo.com/5020426/bill-gates-you-have-a-retirement-e+card-from-gizmodo

nedwards: Hah, I was just wondering why I read engadget and gadget lab on wired

me: They're the same damned thing!

Seriously... they both posted retirement cards for Bill Gates within minutes of each other.

nedwards: It's not news but it's funny to say masturbating walrus

me: That's just stupid!

Masturbating Walrus

tah

12:49 AM nedwards: heh

rotfl

but not really

me: right

The brain matter gore level in Wanted is pretty intense

I'll be posting my review sometime in the near

12:50 AM actually, I was planning to do it tonight, and then I got that stupid chain email and felt that I needed to sort that out first

nedwards: heh

I'm trying to find a video of the walrus doing his deed

me: You can't be serious...

12:51 AM nedwards: No dude

me: why do you want to actually see that

nedwards: because it's a MASTURBATING WALRUS!

it's right up there with the bonobo monkeys

I recorded a PBS special on them because I heard they have sex instead of handhsakes

12:52 AM We started watching and when they started talking about that part, I told Sarah - "Ahhhh yea, that's what I'm talking about"

Animal sex cracks me up - it's just an odd quirk

12:53 AM me: Yeah... quirk

.... fetish?

nedwards: No, not a fetish

me: lol

nedwards: it doesn't get me off, I just find it funny

me: I know... it's a joke

seriously, though... apart from snails, I couldn't care much less about sex in the wild

12:54 AM I chuckle and all... but really.

nedwards: Dude, monkeys pounding each other like hyperactive jackhammers is just about the funniest thing the the world to me - - -

me: I have to warn you... I'm considering posting this chat on my blog. (with spelling errors corrected.)

nedwards: Don't ask me to explain

Hah!

12:55 AM I feel like I have to prove to the world that these are actual conversations I have with people!

nedwards: this is what happens when you work the graveyard shift for three years

12:56 AM me: I'm thinking I will call it "I was going to post a review of Wanted...:

"

nedwards: lol

12:57 AM me: This is what happens when you spend years as an insomniac with access to the internet

nedwards: there are only three stupid youtube videos - none of which show Ayveq doing his famous . . . thing

12:59 AM me: I'm not sure whether I should be happy about that or not...

If you've actually made it down the page, you might be looking for some sort of conclusion. I don't really have one. I'm absolutely blown away by the fact that we live in a world where a Masturbating Walrus's death can be considered news of any kind. I'm also somewhat astounded by the fact that I actually associate with people in general... between chain emails about fear of death my rat urine, to a friend that considers animal sex to be rife with comedic value, and even to another that is capable of writing a vivid first person narrative of cannibalism... why have I not shut myself up in a little room and given up on the universe.

I suppose it's because then I'd be pretty lonely... and I wouldn't have anything to blog about tonight.

For anyone that might actually want a review of Wanted, check back soon... I promise that I will get one up ASAP. If you can't wait that long, my (mis-counted) one word review of the film is simply: It was pretty good...

Until next time.

Stupidity in Comments

I recently had a conversation with my good friend Mike about the stupidity of comments throughout the internet. The bulk of the conversation was that Mike seems unable to avoid reading the through the idiocracy of people, while I find myself generally avoiding them without concern.

I learned long ago not to bother, but Mike describes comments as being like watching a train wreck in action, something you can't tear your eyes away from.The bottom line, though, was that we both agree that stupid people seem to think they should be their opinion should be known, all while people who are, if only slightly, less stupid call them out on it. Whether it's some 12 year kid that thinks Nazis are cool and get a bad rap, or some ignorant guy determined that everything is some kind of conspiracy. And all of this is coupled with spelling and grammar errors, which many try to cover up with 'text speak'.

While I try to avoid them, scrolling down on this page I found the comments had sneaked up on me. In this case, it's classic "didn't bother to read" syndrome. On average, most people on the internet skim their way around, only taking in a small fraction of every story they encounter. The problem is that they then still feel to comment with only part of the information, without comprehending the story they just read (or watched).An example: From the article:

"The ginormous ball, of which the Burj Dubai has nine, was installed on in-place from 41 discrete steel plates because the combined weight of 730 tons would have been too heavy to lift by crane."

This is a pretty straight forward statement. Yet we find comments like this:

"Mfumbi at 12:17 PM on 06/24/08*Does anyone know how a 730 ton ball is lifted to the top of a 101 story building? Do they use cranes? Is it airlifted?"

I also love smart-ass remarks like this:

"MFlick at 10:16 AM on 06/24/08*I would say let them all try to sit on it and swing a 730 ton (1,460,000 pound) ball... It would take every single person in china to do it."

Which doesn't make a lot of sense, something pointed out by this poster:

"wild homes has... at 10:20 AM on 06/24/08*@MFlick: If China's got a population of a billion people-- which it does-- and if the average person weighs 100 pounds-- which, accounting for children, I'd expect they certainly meet, if not exceed-- then we're at 100,000,000,000 pounds. Which I'd guess would have to be more than enough to move the ball. So it would definitely take less than the entire population of China to move the ball."

It's actually more like 1.3 billion, but I don't want to nitpick. Further, you find so many posts regarding the fact that it's an article about a large ball and therefore must have a variety of testicle jokes. Now, this is just one example, and to be honest, this is a mild example at best. Sites like Youtube.com and MySpace.com are frequented by many more idiots than Gizmodo.

As an example, here we have the comments from the first YouTube video I clicked (that wasn't completely NSFW, even if the comments technically are). Enjoy the stupidity.


Of course, as with so many videos on YouTube, I wonder why people even bother to comment. Then I usually wonder why the video is there in the first place.

Gas Prices?

Today, on the radio, it was announced that oil exceeded $140 a barrel, although trading ended at just below that particular watermark, I found myself trying to guess at what that would equate to as a per gallon price, whether I should stop for gas on the way home rather than waiting another day or two to fill up.

The hits, however, weren't to stop there. It was stated then that the President of OPEC announced today that they expect to see oil topping $170 a barrel by the end of the summer. Meanwhile, in response to an impending law suit against OPEC from the US, Libya said that they would cut production.

I had heard estimates that we might see prices in excess of $5 a gallon this summer, but it still just blows my mind that we can continue to see the constant increase of demand with no relief in sight.

Meanwhile, there continues to be rumblings of things like windfall profits taxes and gas tax holidays, things that wouldn't result in any sizable difference in the actual price per gallon.

What's my point? I don't know, I'm just finding myself more and more amazed (if not actually amazed) by each day's news. I keep wondering what's coming next, what new, terrible financial kick to the groin will we experience next? There's clearly no broad sweeping changes that will see a change in the near future, any relief that will save us in the short term, and even if there was, I think we'd all be leery of it, concerned about a potential wolf in sheep's clothing.

As for me, I keep looking at my daily 35 minute commute and wondering if my day could handle a 4 hour round trip on bike.

A Blimp!

You just don't see dirigibles around much anymore. Neat.

The Hitcher

I watched The Hitcher last night for the first time. I had wanted to see it some time ago, I remember coming across the box on the shelf at Target and thinking, yeah, I need to see this. There are several reasons, obvious of you know me. It's a horror flick, it's a re-make of a cult classic from the 80's, and it's got one of the greatest villain actors of all time, Sean Bean.

I didn't have high expectations when I started this movie, but there was a lingering hope, a hope that remained even after Michael Bay's name appeared on the screen. My hope remained even as the second poorly rendered computer generated creature was killed on the screen.

My doubts didn't begin until after the first set of ridiculous coincidences, which in turn gave way to further coincidences, and further doubts. I wish I could explain all the ways that this movie fails in terms of sheer silliness, but unfortunately it would ruin the movie for you.

Why am I worried about ruining this movie for you when my tone seems to indicate that it wasn't good? Simply put, this movie, as bad as it is, is still worth watching. This is the sort of film that makes you love hating it.

There are a lot of movies that do this well, movies that make you groan as it unfolds, yet you can't bring yourself to stop watching, can't bring yourself to hit stop or walk out of the theater. This movie does that perfectly, Sean Bean is a villain that makes you want the bad guy to win, just as badly as you want him to lose.

Still, this is a movie I recommend seeing. It's filled with blood and guts, it has moments of action, and it gives you plenty of those situations that makes want to scream at the screen.

And really, that's what matters, that the movie gets you involved.

The Website is Down

I like things that are funny. I can't always tell you why I think something is funny, but that doesn't mean that I don't like it. I admit that I try to prefer high brow, more refined humor, things that don't capitalize on easy laughs, jokes that are based on knee jerk infantile reactions, but that's not always possible.

With that said, I found 'The Website is Down' absolutely hilarious. Be forewarned that this is a not safe for work link. This has a health mix of low brow and high brow humor that I think really makes for good entertainment.

It appears that this is the first video, "Sales Guy vs. Web Dude". And by all regards, they have definitely come with it.

Admittedly, this wouldn't be near as funny were it not for the stretched voice pitch that makes everyone in the thing sound like characters from South Park. Also, if you've never been in a situation where you're providing some kind of technical support to someone who is less than savvy, it might not seem as funny. To me, though, it's the some of the funniest 'screen cast sit-com humor' I've seen yet.

I think the little touches are what really put it over the top for me. The fact that this guy is just playing Halo, the fact that he's got Monster.com sitting open when he switches out to his browser. The big flashing "Skip-Intro Pro 2.0 is now available!' on the web page, or the fact that the company's big "web 2.0" logo proclaims them PlasTrolTech Inc., and is absolute garbage. It's just well done.

According to the blog, they've gotten a lot more hits than expected, which seems to have led to the removal of the really awesome image frame that surrounded the video (basically it was just a monitor on a desk, but it added a 'sense of realism' as it were). I don't feel bad plugging it, though, because so few people actually read my blog I doubt I'll have much effect on his bandwidth costs, but I do worry about what their bill is going to look like.

I can only hope that there will be more soon... as long they don't lose the site for non-payment.

Update - If you want to see the cool old interface that they had set up, it's been hidden here, again, so few hits here should equal minimal damage to them there.

Topping Out

The other night I went to a wedding of some friends of my girlfriend. They had a lovely ceremony at a chapel at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN (A sister college of Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where they'd met).

After the ceremony, we went to their reception at the Embassy Suites in St. Paul. It was a decent reception, good meal, et cetera, et cetera.

None of that is really the reason for this post. Instead, I want to talk about something I wasn't aware of before I went to that reception. Something I saw when I went outside for a cigarette struck me as odd.

It wasn't this Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile:



Nor was it this Crane across the highway:



It was the tree you can see in that last image:




It struck me as odd, so I mentioned it when I went back inside. I was told that this is something that happens on a lot of buildings under construction.

The fact that there was some kind of trivial knowledge I didn't already have also struck me as odd, so I went searching.

Apparently this is an extremely old practice, according to this article by John V. Robinson. There are a couple of small Wikipedia articles as well, Topping Out, and Topping Off.

It's interesting that this is one of those long time traditions that no one really understands. It's funny how things like this happen, where you can actually ask someone why they're doing it, and they'll just shrug and tell you, "we've always done it."

Whatever the reason, it's an interesting tidbit that now occupies a part of my brain meats.

Why is there bad internet?

I've been meaning to post this for a little while, but I keep forgetting.

Simply put, this is one of the most ridiculous websites I've ever encountered.

I give you www.yyyyyyy.info

Now, I'm pretty certain that this is a 'bad design' that is 'bad by design'. There's actually a few different versions of the same horrible, so feel free to reload the page a couple times.

If you'd like, you're welcome to see some really bad sites that are just bad.

It's one of the wonderful things about the internet that basically anyone can create their own page or site. The problem is that the internet, like so many other things, just because you can do a thing doesn't mean that you should.

However, I'm sure the same can be said of me and my blogging, in that just because I can blog, doesn't mean that I should.

A demon creature...

Seriously, this is something to behold. I'm not sure where it came from, but I think it must have rode in on my pant legs, as that's where it seemed to crawl from after I took them off for the evening...



I didn't think about putting anything down for scale, but this thing was about half way between a quarter and half-dollar in size. And if anyone is worried, I did catch and release it back into the wild. (Although it was primarily because I didn't really have anything big and heavy enough to squash it that wouldn't have been ruined by the bug's guts... no, that's just a little joke. Really, I'm not that cruel.)

Hopefully I'll get a little time tomorrow to talk about the wedding I went to last night, as well as discuss an obscure tradition that has been going on for centuries, something trivial which I was not aware of.

Get Smart

Get Smart is, hands down, the best movie based on an old television show I've seen in a very long time. I find it somewhat sad that an opening sentence like that can actually hold meaning in that there have been so many of these films over the last 5-10 years. It's hard to believe that Hollywood isn't running out of ideas when movies like this keep happening.

Certainly, though, I understand some of the motivation. This type of movie both recalls better times for many, and also introduces something to a new generation that may not have had the opportunity to enjoy the series. In some cases I feel like the 'retro' films based on movies and TV shows are simply just a way to capitalize on an existing franchise that made money once, so is in some ways a guaranteed win, and then I see a movie like Get Smart, and I think that there really must have been some love that went into it.

Get Smart was a series I loved when I was a kid. I used to watch it whenever it was on Nick at Nite, which was sometimes a bit difficult because it would often air at midnight or one o'clock in the morning, when I was supposed to be in bed. I was one of those kids, that loved old TV and Movies, and even old music when I was younger. There was something about the silly ways that Maxwell Smart would always bumble his way through every mission, some how always emerging victorious in the end. It was good, clean, wholesome fun.

This film brings much of the same. I had some fear that this movie would simply be the old premise, updated with extra sexual and toilet humor. It was, but there was something more, something that rings true from the original Mel Brooks characters. Steve Carrell portrayed a perfect Maxwell Smart, and Anne Hathaway was a more than suitable Agent 99. The entire cast managed to revive the original characters they portrayed, and watching, you get a sense of something more than just a re-hashing of old jokes to make money.

As with so many other movies, I can't say there wasn't some fault, something that could have been better, but overall I have to say that it was truly fantastic. As a someone that used to enjoy the series, and for someone that has never seen it, this movies brings a lot, and does it very well.

One of things I think really helped was that they didn't try to push it over the top. Much of Max's 'slapstick' and humor, as well as the entire movie over all was subdued, as though Steve Carrell was playing his own straight man. You tend to see a lot of limits pushed in movies like this because it seems like many filmmakers think it is the only way to get laughs, so it was good to see that this movie was so balanced.

I really have only good things to say, and would encourage anyone and everyone to see this movie.

El Toro (Mobile)

I love hole-in-the-wall family restaurants. This place is one I frequent, primarily because of the home made white sauce they serve with the home made chips.

The Bunuelòs and Sopapilla are also great.

In addition: This is a great little place in Champlin, MN on the corner of 109th and Douglas Dr.. It has some of the best authentic Mexican food around. It's the sort of place you know is good before you step inside because the lot is always packed, and there's usually a line up at the door. If you're ever in the Northwest Suburbs of Minneapolis, check them out.

(Also, try the Ming Tree on the corner of Hwy 169 and West River Road in Champlin as well, some of the best 'Chinese' food around!)

Linux: Pandora's Box

I won't take a lot screen real estate today, simply because I'm tired, and need to sleep.

I have to say that one of things I love and hate about Linux is the Pandora's Box effect it has on me. Whenever I decide that I'm going to do something, it always leads me into about 10 different other projects. Typically, these projects tend to snowball, and increase is scale and complexity until I'm about as deep inside the computer as possible, unsure where my flesh ends and the tenuous strands of copper begin.

Currently, I'm working on getting some kind of Media Center up and running, which is a daunting task. It's something I will say for Windows Media Center, it might be the most perfect thing ever, it certainly may be lacking in terms of some of the possibilities (home automation springs to mind), but I'll tell you that it is fairly simple and straight forward and requires very little work.

Counterparts under Linux do not have the same advantages. First, I've tried several different options that exist, Elisa, Freevo, and MythTV. I've given thought to Linux MCE, but it looks like it would be the most in depth in terms of configuration. Elisa is extremely simple, but seems to lack the ability to access my network shares, that or I'm just not smart enough to figure it out, and unfortunately, there seems to be no user documentation to speak of on the webs. Freevo looked very promising, but for some reason I can't get it to run at all, it didn't even give me the full gamut of option screens I was supposed to get during install. MythTV seems to run, I can get it to play DVD's with the options, and though MythTV seems like a silly option because I don't actually have a TV tuner yet, it certainly has all the feel of a Media Center.

The problem is that MythTV still doesn't see my network either. This is seeming like it must be something I'm doing wrong. Oddly, when I try to search out a solution online, it seems as though I'm the only one looking to access video over a network.

So, for the moment I'm stuck, and I've wasted plenty of time on this. It's a love / hate relationship I tell you.

Update: I sent an email to Garry Parker, who wrote a MythTV Ubuntu Installation Guide. His response made me feel really stupid, in that all I needed to do was mount the network shares, something I'd done many times before. I feel like a dummy.

Biblical Coloring Books

Alright, I'll admit that I'm not exactly the best person in the world to make judgment calls when it comes to the contents of a Christian Biblical Coloring book. Personally, I have a hard time with the level of watered down scripture given to kids to begin with, and the simple manner in which the religious establishment tends to gloss over a majority of the text, simply interpreting and regurgitating subtext regarding morals and love. When you take something as massive as The Bible, and you try to dumb it down into a coloring book, it seems to me that you lose something. Personally, I'm for leaving religion either out of the equation, or factored in with all other beliefs until a child is old enough to make an informed decision, but that's just me. (Of course, I don't find fault with exposing children to a solid moral message early in life, either. Really, I just get frustrated with the statistics that show high percentages of children raised in a certain religion from birth will generally never look at other options, and basically become 'religiously' brainwashed.)

However, I have to say that I don't know what to make of this:



It appeared today without comment or sourcing in one of my RSS feeds, and I really don't know what to think. I've stared at it for a long time, trying to decide if it's a brilliant Photohop, something that's just been taken out of context (like something that actually appeared in The Onion, or as an editorial cartoon in Newsweek), or if this is actually a page from a real children's coloring book.

The mind boggles.

Windows Mobile and Linux

I wouldn't call Windows Mobile and Linux a match made in heaven, but I have to say that I'm impressed with the user support for Windows Mobile Devices under Linux.

I have an HTC Mogul, a phone I have a pretty strong relationship with because it allows me to keep organized. I have a great capacity for storing trivial knowledge, but I can't remember to grab a stack of papers before I leave for work in the morning if my phone doesn't beep at me to remind me to do so (and even then, I have to admit that I often still forget). I'd try regular PDA's in the past, but I never wanted to carry them around, so with my phone being my PDA, I'm more or less forced to keep it on me. Of course, you probably already know all the reasons why someone would have a 'Smart Phone', so I'll move on.

As I've mentioned, I've been a casual Linux user for years. I've run everything from Knoppix to Puppy, and SUSE to Ubuntu. Since the release of Ubuntu's Hardy Heron 8.04 in April, I've had it running on a partition on my laptop. I've used it off and on, impressed with a lot of the new features, and ease of use. I have to admit that overall, for a casual user, it has definitely moved leaps and bounds in the right direction, even my Toshiba's media keys, volume controls, and best of all FN keys were all supported right out of the box. However, there's still enough reason for me not to dump Windows completely, but I can imagine a scenario in the not too distant future when Linux might finally be ready for me to jump in full bore.

I'm a fairly savvy user, learning most of the day to day terminal commands years ago, and through plenty of tinkering, I've developed plenty adeptness and agility in Linux. Still, for someone like me, I find that there's plenty of things that require a bit too much work to make the process simple and easy, even if the list of those things are shrinking almost daily. The biggest example would be Media. I have a healthy media collection, and I still can't get Linux to smoothly operate as a media server the way that I'd like, finding it difficult to even get certain files to play correctly under Linux, if at all. While I understand the reasons, proprietary drivers, and non-free licenses, it's still frustrating. Given that there's several Windows options that are simple, almost one click solutions to this, and even after hour upon hour of research and searching for similar results in Linux and still coming up empty, the full switch to Linux is all the more difficult.

However, I have to admit something that thrilled me to no end today. I've been putting off the idea of setting up email and calender functions in Linux, since they're all web based anyway. This hasn't been an issue for me, but tonight, for some reason, I decided to see if there was any way I could set up mail and also sync my phone.

Ubuntu includes Evolution for email and PIM. I've used Outlook under Windows for years, so of course there's always an urge to look for similarities and differences. I was impressed on opening Evolution that it was a clean and simple interface. I have to admit that some of the options under the account set-up wizard might be a bit ubiquitous to many casual users who just want to get their Gmail or Hotmail being that there's just a lot of options on the screen with little direction as to what they mean, but it was pretty straight forward for me to get it up and running, and I found the IMAP support to be solid, setting up the folders automatically and then collecting and populating just fine. What really impressed me about the IMAP is that Evolution's IMAP speed is about 100 times faster than Outlook's. (Although, I've often wondered why Outlook's IMAP is so very slow to begin with).

Since I had my mail up and running, it was time to set up the phone. This was quite a bit more tricky. First, I checked the package manager, searching for terms like 'Windows Mobile' and 'Smart Phone', but the results were meager. So, it was off to Google, which didn't yield much at first either. (The top result for my first 3 searches were in German, if that means anything.) On my fifth try, I found something that looked promising. It was an article talking about SynCE, which turned out to be the ticket.

Now, setting up SyncCE to work took a bit of work in the terminal, and while the directions were fairly straight forward for me, there were a few things I think might catch people off guard if they're not used to working in a Linux environment (for example, there's plenty of direction on the exact command for 'apt-get' retrieval of the needed packages, but there are a few points where it mentions 'adding a line to /etc/something/file' without explaining exactly what that means. Sure, you can just 'sudo gedit' the file, but I fear there are plenty of plenty of people that just don't realize it's a file to edit in the first place)

After running through a few pages of commands, which involved setting up SynCE, then I needed to install and configure OpenSync.

For anyone reading this who doesn't understand what the difference is here. SynCE is the software that interfaces your Windows Mobile device to the computer while OpenSync is the software that does the actual synchronization between your device and your client (i.e. Evolution).

The entire process was pretty straight forward, and within about 15 minutes I had a working connection. Now, I haven't done much research yet as to whether or not there's a simple tray applet, for now I've just set up a simple shell script that makes the magic happen, but the process is very smooth. Once I had the connection established, I was able to sync from my Phone to evolution about 10x faster than I can under windows, using the 1 click program developed by Microsoft, which should work much better than anything anyone in the Linux community could come up with, but alas, it does not. Also, I've only done a few tests, but it seems that SynCE is able to connect and transact with my phone everytime, and very quickly, something that cannot be said under Windows.


Overall, I'm impressed. It's just another reason I won't have to reboot to Windows, even if that does only take about a minute.

Of Star Wars and Shame...

This evening I went to the Science Museum of Minnesota for the Star Wars - Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit. I know the first thing that would spring to mind is that I'm some sort of Star Wars nerd. Well, to a degree I am, but I'm not one of those uber-nerd Star Wars geeks, and I would probably never have gone if I'd not gotten to go for free.

As it turns out, an old friend of mine, Nathan (Nedwards), had gotten some free passes to the opening night preview, so I went with him and a couple of his friends.. The exhibit has been open for a few days now, but apparently the big Grand Opening will be Thursday, and tonight was some kind of pre-grand opening celebration. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but either way, it was free, and it was catered (delicious catering, too).

Now, I'll admit that I have a fairly expansive knowledge of Star Wars in general, all locked up with the rest of the trivial knowledge that makes up my brain. So, it was pretty funny that, among other things, we ended up discussing an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation (The one where Moriarty takes over the Enterprise because Geordi LaForge requested a Holodeck Character that was capable of 'beating' Data, which doesn't make sense, because there's no way the computer would have been able to create an artificial intelligence of that scale.)

It was a lot of fun to see. There were a lot of different props and costumes and interactive stations, including a mag-lev lego thing, and interesting 'eye toy' like thing, and some programmable robots. While there were a lot of things, it actually seemed like there should have been more. Maybe it's just the expectations I got from for the level of advertisement and the fact that they've substantially extended their hours seven days a week to accommodate, but I just really thought there would be more too it.

Still, considering that it was free, I really enjoyed it. It was also a lot of fun to get out and hang out with Nedwards, since I hadn't seen him in a very long time. As a matter of fact, he and I figured out that it's been about 2 years since the last time we were actually in the same place at the same time. Hopefully it won't be just a long gap between.

Here are some photos, although I took quite a few more, many them just didn't turn out well.

One last thing...

I'm finally about to embark on a journey through Ludlum's work, wish me luck.

A mobile post... from my bed.

I haven't said a word, and most likely won't, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it...

I watched The Goonies today with my girls, a first time experience for them both, and one I hadn't had the pleasure of in (I'm going to guess) over a decade. My eldest daughter was feeling ill and wound up falling asleep before the end, but expressed that she wanted to try watching again soon. My youngest had been upset, claiming that she didn't want to watch a movie, much less the one that was starting, but by the end she was leaned forward, literally on the edge of her seat and asking to watch again.

This evening, in an effort to determine whether my recollection of M. Night Shyamalan's talent was accurate, I watched Unbreakable. It was every bit as good as I remembered, if not more so. I will be likely watching Signs again soon as well, just to be sure.

Overall, I consider it a decent enough Father's Day.

However, I'm done for now. (these tiny keys are killers)

The Happening

As it happens, I went to see The Happening today. I mentioned my excitement for this film, hoping that Shyamalan would manage to break his 'slump' of bad movies.

I hate to say that I was disappointed, but I was. There were several elements about the film I was excited to see, and over all they just fell short.

The first was the 'R' rating, which was touted in a majority of the commercials. I won't say that there wasn't a reasonable amount of gore, which is certainly a departure from his previous work. It wasn't exactly worth noting, though, it just became a gimmick to try and boost sales, and really should have just stood on their own.

I had great hope in that the movie featured both Mark Wahlberg and John Leguizamo, who are both underrated actors in my opinion. The problem is that Shyamalan seems to have taken one of the most obnoxious components of Lady in the Water, and applied it to this film, and that's the terrible acting. It's hard to believe that he would do this intentionally, but the fact that the actors in this film are actually decent, I can only assume that he sat there through cut after cut with his megaphone saying, "No, worse, please, act worse!"

Finally, I was hoping that there would be a solid twist in this story, as he always wants to try and switch things around on you at the end of every one of his films. In this case, there really was no twist. Instead, there was an underlying message, which unfortunately doesn't lie under anything, but is actually spelled out vividly and plainly, as though people aren't capable of figuring out what he was trying to say. If you want to save yourself nearly two hours, I'll sum it up, "people are hurting the environment, soon the environment might fight back."

A good story teller should be able to deliver their message with the story, not with blatant exposition. Instead, when the story is over, we're treated to another of many newscasts where an 'expert' not only tells us what we should have already figured out, but then tells us exactly what that's supposed to mean.

There was one other subtle piece to the film that just irked me. He's apparently been attached to a three film live action project of 'Avatar: The Last Airbender, Nickelodeon's feux-anime cartoon. I personally love the series, and being an established story, I can only hope he could pull it off. Now, here we are a year later, and we've heard virtually nothing else about it, yet he felt the need to show off the story when the young character, Jess, is wearing an 'Avatar' back pack in one of the final scenes of the film.

Overall I'm very disappointed, not only with the fact that Shyamalan seems to have become incapable of producing anything worth watching, but also with the fact that Hollywood is still willing to give him money to create this garbage. Of his mainstream films, he's now 3 and 3, with his first three being solid films, and last 3 being much less than stellar. It's a terrible streak.

Admittedly, this film was better than Lady in the Water by leaps and bounds, but that's not difficult. Meanwhile, the Village wasn't so much bad as just badly done with a 'twist' that made the majority of movie-goers groan when they realized it in the first act, and this movie failed to deliver any sort of 'twist' at all, and this is especially despicable considering that it's his trademark.

Do I recommend seeing this movie? No. Simple as that. If you took people's advice and avoided Lady in the Water, I would encourage you to do the same with this.