Kevin Smith, noted indie director, has posted his review of Episode III (FYI, his language is 'salty'). Also, you should be warned that it is very spoiler heavy, though given the nature of episode III, it's hard to give too much away (Anakin turns into Darth Vader, shh!) For those wishing to avoid being spoiled (or perhaps the salty language), he liked it, and claimed it was the prequel we've been waiting for this whole time. I've received a couple of offers to see it opening day, but I think I'm going to wait a week for the crowds to die down a little bit.
In the bad news category, it appears that Opportunity has become stuck in a Martian sand dune. Engineers are optimistic about getting the rover unstuck, but it's going to take awhile. Since they're obviously not going to want to rush anything, the lead scientist is quoted as saying, "A note to all you Opportunity fans: Get used to the current scenery, because we’re going to be here awhile." I think that whatever happens, the rovers have performed beyond all expectation and it's just great to have had them.
It's been raining for about a month here in Utah and it's starting to flood. In response to this, my wife and I have decided to head north towards the worst of the flooding and spend the weekend there. If we don't make it back, someone take over my World of Warcraft account (username: direkobold, password: scrotum) and keep the dream alive. Oh and yeah, I guess someone needs to take care of my kids as well.
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Ross
In my continuing attempt to plug the holes in my pop culture knowledge, I watched The Godfather last night. IMDB has it as the #1 movie of all time. I don't agree with that, but it was an excellent movie. The scene with Al Pacino in the family resturant with the Turk and the police chief was so suspenseful that I could feel my heart rev up to about 150 beats a minute. Looking back, I'm not even sure why it was so gripping, but it undeniably was.
I'm wondering if, in the interest of completeness, I should watch the number #1 worst movie of all time on IMDB, Manos, the Hands of Fate. Though one imagines that a copy of the very worst movie of all time is more difficult to find than the very best movie. I think the very worst movie I ever saw was Short Cuts, though inexplicably that movie has a 7.6 ranking on IMDB. The lowest ranked movie I actually have seen is Leonard Part 6, and looking over the list that appears to be the only movie in the bottom 100 I have seen.
As long as we're on the subject of movies, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes out tomorrow. As of this writing, it's just shy (59%) of a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which generally means that those who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like (shamelessly stolen from President Lincoln.) Though I doubt I will make it this weekend.
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I'm late in getting to my blog, so it's going to be short. I'm going to put the Star Wars debate on hold until Netflix sends me the Clone Wars DVD with all the 3 minute shorts which appeared on Cartoon network. Though I will say that the idea of a live-action Star Wars TV show both excites and appalls me. I think today's Penny Arcade comic illustrates my concerns. The key problem, I suppose, is that you just can't have anywhere near the same special affects in a TV show that you can in a movie. The preceding is an example of paralipsis, not a great one mind you, but you've got to take whatever opening you can get in using a word like that.
Turning from an example of erudition to idiocy, Slashdot had a link to a very stupid hacker. Just in case you miss this key element of the story, the IP address 127.0.0.1 always refers to the computer you're on: it's sort of like saying "me." Well, that's all I have time for. Tune in tomorrow, when I'll be discussing the endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat.
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It's nice to see that any mention of Star Wars can still spark a lively debate. I stand by my assertion that Harrison Ford was the secret sauce in the original Star Wars trilogy. Try this mental exercise: imagine removing Han Solo from the first three movies. When I did this, what was left strongly resembled episodes one and two. Of course, some would argue that you have to perform a similar exercise with episodes one and two and remove Jar-Jar. After handicapping 4,5 and 6 and improving 1 and 2 in this fashion, you end up with two fairly similar movies, stylistically.
I said on Friday that I was going to talk about the Wendy's finger-in-the-chili case once more information became available. There hasn't been a lot of new info since then, but apparently the women who was charged isn't backing down. The authorities haven't found the owner of the finger, which would be the smoking gun, but apparently they have testimonies lined up from people who heard her admit to putting the finger in the chili and experts who will testify that it wasn't cooked along with the chili. Overall it's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but it's enough to convince me.
Finally, I'm including a link to a fascinating article in Scientific American on the differences between male and female brains. I have only had the chance to read part of it, but what I have read so far is fascinating.
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It was a weird weekend for me, mostly characterized by weariness. I slept for 10 hours Saturday night and still feel asleep in church. I'm not sure if I was sick, if I'm getting sick or what, but it was weird. 'Course, I did do a lot on Saturday: I mowed my lawn for the first time, which meant that it was about six inches long, so it took several passes. I bought another desk for the office and put it together, then I rearranged everything so that now my wife has a computer and I have a computer. It's pretty geeky, but it's also a pretty nice set-up as well. So it could be that I was tired from doing all that, but that would mean that I'm horribly out of shape...
The ramp-up to the release of Episode III is in full swing. The local FOX station broadcast "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back" yesterday. Lucas is on the cover of WIRED and there have been lots of other festivities as well. I saw the following quote on a letter posted to Ain't It Cool News:
I was in the second Lucas Q&A (at least, I think it was the second - blue wrist band) and someone had the cojones to ask why the original trilogy was interesting and the prequels weren't. Lucas talked about how the first act of a play and the first chapters of a book are always boring because their exposition - they set up the rest of the story - and compared the prequels to that. Even more interesting, though, Lucas said that when he originally wrote the SW story, the prequels amounted to about 20 pages. 20% of that got used in TPM (with the rest of the movie made up - Lucas called it a "jazz rift" on the main plot), 20% in AOTC (with more "filler"), but fully 60% of the prequel plot is contained in ROTS.
This has had the unfortunate side-effect of once again giving me hope...
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The musical was much better than I expected. For one thing, it was pretty funny (though interestingly in this politically correct day and age, mostly by making fun of the Chinese.) Also, it had more tap-dancing than the movie. Yes I admit it, tap-dancing does make a stage play more enjoyable for me. Also the dinner was excellent; we went to Macaroni Grill, and they had a "Tuscan Ribeye" on the menu. Normally I don't order steak from a pasta place, but this one came with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus, which by themselves are pretty tasty, so I went ahead, and I was pleasently suprised. It was a bone-in ribeye and quite tasty and the potatoes and the asparagus were also really, really good.
Jeff asked for the specs on my new computer, so here you go:
Possibly more information that you needed, but that's everything, plus a link to the place where I bought it from. Of course, you do have to put it together yourself (or get a friend to do it, which is what I did). I was going to talk about the arrest of the woman in the Wendy's finger case, but I'll leave that until Monday after the police have had a chance to hold their press conference.
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Well, I set up my new computer last night. The first order of business was to get the old computer to see the new computer and vice-versa. It took a surprisingly long time and involved several reboots, but I eventually was able to see both of them. Then I started copying stuff over, which in itself took quite a while. Once I had that done, I decided to install World of Warcraft, since I was really curious how the new video card would look. That took the better part of two hours I think, but all I can say is, wow!! What a difference. I didn't actually play, I mostly just wandered around for awhile looking at stuff, mostly while stuff was copying and installing. I tried to finish HP5, which I didn't manage, even though I stayed up way too late in the attempt.
Unfortunately I won't be able to spend any more time on it tonight because I'm going to the touring Broadway production of "Thoroughly Modern Millie." You can imagine my excitement. Actually I am excited, not because I know anything about the musical, but because my wife is excited, so I'm sure if nothing else I'll get some vicarious thrill out of watching her watch the show.
I'm not sure if you've heard the news yet, but the Discovery Channel and AOL are doing a series on the 100 Greatest Americans. Looking at the list, I don't know what to say. I mean I know these are nominations by AOL users, but even taking into account the appalling nature of that demographic, it's just hard to imagine how they came up with some of these names. For example: Dr. Phil, Madonna, John Edwards, Laura Bush, Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson, Michael Moore, Brett Favre and Mel Gibson (isn't he Australian?) . I could go on, but it's clear that hardly any sense of history went into the nominations. It looks to me like about 60% of the nominees are still alive and 80+% we still alive (or not born yet) in 1950. Couldn't they have just cut the crap and said the greatest Americans of the last century? At least then it wouldn't have looked quite so lop-sided.
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Lots of stuff going on: the CIO came by and told me to take down the "Wall of Dilbert." Apparently, someone had complained about it... Still, it lasted longer than I thought it would. The parts for my new computer arrived yesterday. Looking back over my blog I don't think I've mentioned my new computer yet. There's actually a funny story about how I ended up getting a new computer. My wife compares it to Monty Python's famous Spanish Inquisition Sketch. I'll explain...
My wife came to me and said that depending on the size of the tax refund she wanted to get new floor in the kitchen and dining room. I said sure, but I wanted a new video card (~$200). We agreed and that was the deal for a month or so, then while on the way to California our account called and told us what the refund was going to be: it was a lot more than we expected (I try not to give the government an interest-free loan, but I'm already claiming 9 deductions and the lady in payroll acted like she was going to turn me in when I suggested more...) So with that information, I suggested that the computer could use some memory as well and I quoted her a price of $350 or so.
Well, then I started pricing out and comparing video cards and I realized that the new PCI express cards are much cheaper than a comparable AGP card, but of course my old mother board doesn't have PCI express, so with a great deal of tact I explained the advantages of upgrading to the new technology to my wife and told her I wanted to add a mother board and processor ($750). Once again, she agreed. Well then, the next day, my friend, who's helping me put the computer together asked me how many IDE devices I had, and I told him four: two hard drives and two optical drives. He mentioned that the new mother board would only support 2, so I would have to get rid of two. Well, I was worried about my old hard-drives anyway, and they have the new SATA hard drives so I started looking at that, at which point I realized all I was using from the old computer was the case... So I went back to my wife and said "Okay, how about we just get a whole new computer?($1000)" That's when she came up with the "Spanish Inquisition" analogy...
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Some of you may have noticed that the site was down for about 14 hours. My guess is that most of you did not. My friend who is kind enough to take care of my hosting turned off the name servers I was using without telling me. It took me a while to figure out that's what had happened because Comcast (cable modem provider) has been having lots of DNS problems as well, so initially I thought that's what it was. I guess if I had been more on the ball I would have figured it out last night. Anyway, there's actually a whole story of greed, corruption, lust and no small amount of PERL programming behind the name servers being shut down, but I'll have to save that for another time.
I just heard that they've selected a new pope. CNN says:
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected the 265th pontiff today by the College of Cardinals. He was announced as tens of thousands of people cheered in St. Peter's Square. Ratzinger has chosen the name Benedict XVI, the Vatican announced. The announcement came shortly after white smoke rose from the Vatican chimney and bells rang to announce that a new pope had been selected.
I have to confess to being disappointed that it didn't take longer. I was hoping for weeks of deadlock, mostly because it makes for a more interesting story, but I was also hoping that the Latin American delegation would put up a stronger fight. They had almost enough votes by themselves to block the selection of a new pope, and I was counting on a pope from either Latin America or Africa, but I guess after hundreds of years of Italian popes they're slowly working their way outward, though going from Poland to Germany seems like a step backwards. I find it interesting that he's 78. Barring phenomenal health, his papacy will be shorter than John Paul's; probably considerably shorter. My guess is that this indicates that he's designed to be a place holder rather than a revolutionary, though judging by how conservative he's been, there was never much of a danger of him being a revolutionary.
That's all for today. I'll leave you with a story on an asteroid which was suppossed to miss Earth but may get us after all.
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I'm going to use this forum to admit that I was 100% wrong and my wife was 100% right; about what I'm not sure, she just told me to say that. Actually it's about re-reading the Harry Potter books -- we were both doing it, and I opined that I thought it would be better to pace oneself such that they finished book five around the time book six came out. She, on the other hand, read them in five days and told me that I would never make it to July. I'm not sure what I said at that point, but clearly whatever it was, it was wrong, 100% wrong, and you can't be more wrong than that (don't let anyone tell you they were 200% wrong or something like that -- they're just idiots.)
Of course the thing I didn't count on, the thing that proved to be my Achilles heel is that I got hooked: I figured it wouldn't happen since I had already read the books, but midway through book four, they got me. I'm not sure if it's the excitement of wondering whether Harry will go with Cho to the Yuletide Ball (I had honestly forgotten how that worked out) or the magic of finally deciding to ignore the huge gaping abyssal plot holes and just read the book, but I'm having a difficult time putting it down now.
That fan-made Star Wars Movie I was mentioned a month or so ago is finally available. I'm sure I'll watch it at some point -- it has to be better than episodes 1 and 2. In other news, did you hear about the cruise ship that got hit by a 70 ft. tall wave? I'm just disappointed that, as far as I can tell, no one has a picture of it...
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So yesterday I'm donating platelets and of course there's this huge questionaire that you have to answer before they will let you donate. Most of the questions relate to AIDS and BSE (mad-cow disease). They've recently streamlined the process and they just have a list of restricted medications. Now I have read the list at least a half a dozen times, but for some reason "insulin" never jumped out at me until yesterday when the person doing the screening said it out loud. It was only then that I made the connection: I had had insulin once when I was in 7th grade. Doctors purposely sent me into insulin shock as part of a treatment for me being ridiculously short (but that's a whole other story by itself).
Finally making the connection I said, 'Yeah I've had insulin, but it was a long, long time ago." She wanted to know if it was beef insulin. How the heck am I supposed to know whether it was beef insulin or not? My suspicion is that it wasn't, and I tell her that, but she want's to know if I'm 100% sure. Of course I'm not 100% sure; it was over 20 years ago. I remind her of that and she says, if you've ever had beef insulin you're permanently deferred. Seeing that this is going to de-rail the whole thing if I don't do something quickly I tell her, "Oh you know what? I just remembered it wasn't insulin after all." She replied, "okay," and we moved on.
The whole thing seems really silly if not downright ridiculous, particularly when you consider that the first case of mad-cow was in 1985 the year after I received insulin. Plus, and of course far more importantly, is it possible that in their slavish adherence to these deferment rules, that rather than saving peoples' lives by keeping BSE-tainted blood out of the supply, that they're killing people because there's not enough blood?
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I thought that my link to an article on how environmentalists will have to change their minds on a bunch of issues might spark some comments. I had hoped (foolishly) that the news that it was my 500th blog entry might generate a remark or two, but apparently the main appeal of my blog is stories about children vomiting. You cannot imagine how much this depresses me...
The big problem is that as far as things of that nature, not much happened. I mean, sure, one of my kids looked like he was going to puke for a while on the way home from SeaWorld, but that's so common as to basically be unremarkable (I think it was too much time in the sun combined with too much driving). I guess the most humorous thing that my kids did was comment on every cigarette they saw. Actually it was mostly just my number one son (the same one who looked like he was going to puke). I guess he doesn't see a lot of cigarettes normally. And then of course, there was the guy in the pool with us one night who had a cigar, and my son wanted me to explain the difference. Mostly I was just focused on keeping my kids from splashing him with water -- the guy looked like an ex-Navy SEAL.
Other than that, I'm still trying to get back into the swing of things after my vacation. One of the things I really, really, really, really need to do is exercise. Speaking of which, they just published an interesting study on the dangers of drinking too much water. I knew you could develop hyponatremia that way, but I thought it was only a problem if you drank just water, that sport drinks would keep you safe, but they didn't make any distiction in the article, mentioning that the people in the Boston Marathon study drank water and sports drinks. Not something I have to worry about; I think I'd have to exercise first before I'd be in danger.
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Imagine my surprise when I discovered that today's entry will be my 500th. You would think I would do something special; that would be a mistake. I figure that just sharing my wisdom is special enough. I guess the only problem is that out of 500 enteries I've probably said something wise only one or maybe two times, and my guess is that no one has the patience to wade through all that crap for one semi-precious stone. Still, if I may be a little bit self-congragulatory, even if it is crap, 500 enteries represents a lot of shoveling.
I got back from my trip yesterday. I definitely did not escape unscathed. Most noticably, my large billboard-like forehead is sunburned. It's my own fault. I am a very haphazard applier of sunscreen: I'll slap some on, but I don't have anywhere near the dedication it takes to make sure I cover every exposed part, and as a result my upper forehead, the sides of both arms and my wrists got pretty badly burned. As a side benefit (not for me) I have been the source of constant entertainment for all of my co-workers since I returned.
Finally, it's once again time to talk about nuclear power and the environment. Technology Review has an article by someone predicting that the environmental movement will reverse its views in four major areas: population growth, urbanization, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power. I've long opined much the same thing about nuclear power though I was never bold enough to say the same thing about the other three. It's an interesting read and dove-tails nicely should you be forced to read "State of Fear" by Crichton.
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Ross
There was an interesting discussion over on Terra Nova about a recent event in the World of Warcraft where a group of two people completely bought out the entire contents of one of the Auction Houses (to be fair, there were apparently a few really premium items they didn't buy, but they got everything else). They then, of course, re-listed everything at a substantial markup. As you can imagine, responses ranged from rage to grudging respect. The results of this experiment in economics are known only to the two players, but by all accounts people still bought stuff even if it had been marked up. Once again it illustrates that no matter how much you try to limit a virtual economy, it still ends up acting like a real economy.
Beyond that, I'm trying to prepare for the trip to California; my wife is mercifully and quite generously taking care of all of my packing with the exception of any entertainment I want to bring along, which basically consists of reading material. This leads to a discussion of one of the biggest problems I have while on vacation: I always expect to get way too much done. My current stack consists of three books, four magazines and five or size D&D rulebooks. I know I need to trim already, but my impulse is to add more rather than subtract. If I step back and assume a dispassionate view of all of this, then my best estimate is that when I return I will have read one of the books and part of one magazine. However, you never know and it's that sort of never-say-die optimism that makes me bring several dead trees worth of reading material.
And having solved all of the other problems, Congress has voted to increase the duration of Daylight Savings Time by two months as an energy saving measure...
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My eldest daughter (8) has been tearing through the Ramona books and I decided that they weren't challanging enough for her, so I told her that she needed to read the Harry Potter books. She was initially resistant, but once she could see I wasn't going to bend she went ahead and started book one. Of course this immediately caused both my wife and I to start re-reading the books along with her. I've finished book one, which puts me ahead of my daughter (though just barely). My wife, of course is mid-way through book four (or is it book five). My plan is to take a more leisurely pace and hopefully arrive at the end of book five right about the time book six is released.
I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I'm taking the family down to San Diego over the weekend to visit family and go to Sea World. I'm glad we're not at the Disney World stage yet; I think I need another few years to prepare for that, but I love Sea World so I'm looking forward to that. I'm also kind of looking forward to the drive. I like road trips, and with the purchase of the DVD player for the van, having four kids along isn't that bad. In any case, as a result you will be spared my blog, Friday, Monday and Tuesday. Enjoy!
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Today I became a character from the movie Office Space. I actually sent someone an e-mail saying, "Have we got the PTR for the HHT yet?" Of course, what's really funny is that I have no idea what either acronymn stands for. I mean I could find out, but I think it might not be as funny if I did, so I've avoided it. My day off was pretty nice -- the highlight had to be when I took a two hour nap: that's just something you can never do too much.
Actually, the highlight was taking my son to kindergarten... another thing you can't do too much. I can't place my finger on exactly what was special, but I was really impressed with how cool he was; how cool all of my kids are. Of course, by cool I don't mean that they hang with the popular kids or wear trendy clothes, but I figure you already knew that based on who their father is. I mean cool in the sense that they are happy, well-adjusted, fun to be around, smart kids. I guess the challange now is to keep public schools (in particular junior high) from reaching down their throat, ripping out all that's optimistic and joyful, playing soccer with it for a year or two before finally allowing it to die, alone and forgotten in a corner behind the bleachers where the rats will gnaw on it for all eternity.
Okay that got a little dark... can you tell I didn't like junior high? I better wrap it up before I'm reported to the authorities (again). Two final thoughts, first an article on the biggest problem facing a permanent moon base, and second, a quote from "Office Space" to remind us all of its genius:
And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...
--Milton
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We're sort of in crisis mode here at work. Fortunately, while I can see the crisis from where I am, and it shook the widows a bit as it passed, it doesn't look like it's headed in this direction. As a result I should still be able to take Monday off. It will be the first day I've taken off this year, considering that I get 22 vacation days a year, going three months without using any is pretty good, and I feel like I've earned it, or in any case that I need it. There was a noticable improvement in my mood a couple of days ago when I decided to take Monday off, though I may have been the only one who noticed it.
Anyway, back to the crisis, given the recent stories of bloggers getting fired for posting about work, I probably shouldn't go into too many details so I'll just toss out some terms: failed back-ups, employee table, recursive linked deletions, day-old pizza, eye-watering flatulence and a Venn diagram with a hole the size of Utah. No lives were lost, but only because we were lucky.
On Monday I'll be taking the day off from my blog as well. My guess is that the pope will have passed on by that point so here's the process for selecting a new pope. As someone who got most of his information from Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons," this was very informative. The only thing I don't know the answer to is since:
How do they determine which 15 don't get to vote?
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