All Things Considered...

Man bag

2011-03-16T08:28:00.001-07:00

He's back. The condom perpetrator in my hood is back. He'd gone dark months ago. In fact, I thought he might've either contracted some more glamorous position, such as "crack vial discarder", but alas he still graces the gutters of my street with his DNA wrapped cleverly in laytex.

Just this week I was fortunate to find a pale sheath laying in the gutter by my house. It had been raining, and there was something of the non-flora variety of usual detritus in the gutter. On closer inspection it was a spent vessel.

Immediately I knew what that meant: he was back. I don't have clear evidence of who "he" is. It's been theorized that he is a neighbor or one of many johns in a clandestine suburban prostitution ring. I'm a member of the former school of thought, as a certain neighbor around the corner has two sons who are of age, and likely engaging in such activity. Why they choose to do it in (I'm guessing) a car in front of their mom's house is something I can't understand, nor the discarding of such personal material in such close proximity.

My strongest, albeit far-fetched, theory is that he is an alien trying to disseminate his seed via the sewage system, as he is somehow related to Cthulhu. Perhaps it's a pre-emptive strike to mutate us all into above sea level R'lyehians.

Regardless, I'll be installing a motion activated night vision wifi cams in several strategic locations in order to catch the ejaculator in the act of disposing of the evidence in such an un-neighborly manner. Maybe I'll also film the elusive owner of the dog, who is allowed to wander up on my lawn to empty his man-sized, Alpo-powered bowels on my lawn. Jeez, that'd be swell.

Tethered

2011-03-10T06:52:00.000-08:00

During the first leg of an adventure I am now fortunate enough to take once a week instead of five, I sat in a coffeeshop in the Mission and battled connecting to an unsecured wifi network and saw a motorcycle cop park out front and prepare himself for a similar beverage procured behind the counter from where I was sitting.

I watched as he took his helmet off, and laid it on the handlebars, and I wondered what would happen if, as soon as he turned his back, some rogue individual scurried up and snatched it.

It's not like it's his service firearm, but a motorcycle cop without his helmet is like a Ron without his Jeremy, if you catch my meaning.

After ordering his coffee, he strided over to a corner seat, which offered an optimal defensive and viewing position and proceeded to nosh on his bagel.

I remarked at the uniform, which reminded me of the staties in Boston: near knee-high boots, bloused pants, jacket shoulders punctuated with Judge Dredd-like authority, and a helmet, which did nothing but remind me of the T1000 with all its inventive talents proferred by a mimetic poly-alloy.

Without the helmet he looked like an over-grown child in a very realistic Halloween costume, or maybe an zealous uncle taking the kids out for trick or treating. At the very least it was evident that he was older than I, and probably was enjoying his tenured position while the retirement pension window shortened with each passing shift.

Would he miss the helmet? What would happen to it after retirement? Would the department let him keep the uniform if he wanted?

I could stand losing corporate supplied laptops and mobile devices: I could always find the same ones elsewhere. The helmet, however, is probably less replaceable.
Which leads me back to my original thought: why simply leave it on the handlebars? Must be some American frontier artifact...like tying off your hoss in front of the saloon.

Ambient Music

2011-03-04T07:06:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take a moment out of the early start of my day to thank my youngest for being such a fitful and vocal sleeper. It really made my sleep, I mean, micro-naps that much more enjoyable.

I likened the experience to that of the members of the Inception troupe having an Edith Piaf inspired bellow take hold of their slumber and dash it into a bathtub of cold water.

One day, when you're shooting over the celestial plains of a far away moon in your fancy extra-system Planet Runner with the gleam of starlight in your eyes, I hope you'll think of me and your mother and launch an Apple Insta-Constellator™ device into the cosmos on our behalf, ensuring that it blossoms in the heavens so that we may view it with our naked, cybernetically enhanced eyeballs from afar, and know that you appreciated our sacrifice of sanity during your early years on your home planet.

Only took 2 years to get back in the swing

2011-03-03T09:33:00.001-08:00

As soon as I start writing for my bloggy, I end up thinking I'm already going off topic. I've gotten so used to tweeting, and synching content to Facebook.

I'm not sure why I stopped blogging. Less time? Lost passion? I can't say for sure.
I came back on a whim and saw my old content spread across the interwebs, and instantly removed all the gadgets I'd added. What was I thinking? Gonna keep it simple for now.

Content will also need to be simpler and more relevant. How this will manifest I'll need to mull.

I don't game as much as I used to, but still love it. Politics are always going to be there, and I've never been too keen on sharing my private life on a blog or tweet. Perhaps I'll focus more on my bizarre and random thoughts that fire like so many ill-timed sparkplugs.

With mobile device access, a Posterous site with multi-post action, and an unlimited data plan I'm sure I can figure something out.

The world is now throbbing with immediacy, hence the million-plus followers in a 24 hour period for Charlie Sheen. Sad really. Everyone wants to be there to see his internal timer hit 0, so they can say "check it, his detonator blows right here at interval 3.32" and be there to watch his mushroom cloud take to the sky.

That being said, maybe I'll just post random clips of plastic bags soaring a la American Beauty to see if anyone gets the reference. Whatever happened to Wes Bentley anyway? Duh, dude. Wikipedia.

Holy snaps, he was in Jonah Hex!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Bentley

Posted via email from jromi's posterous

Times are tough

2009-03-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

...when you see stuff like this from your LinkedIn network.

Thank you Sarah Palin

2009-02-05T11:01:00.001-08:00

Your 15 minutes are over. Be gone.

I also want to thank you for running with McCain, and helping people make the easy decision to vote for Obama. I'm going to miss your lampoons on SNL. Thankfully, Tina Fey will be around longer than you.

Posted via email from jromi's posterous

Crisis is a catchy ditty

2009-02-04T16:17:00.001-08:00

Porn always wins.

Posted via email from jromi's posterous

Misunderestimated Prez

2009-01-09T07:27:00.001-08:00

BBC presents The Misunderestimated President http://is.gd/eRT8.

Posted via email from jromi's posterous

Black Mesa Mod for HL1

2008-12-04T12:36:00.001-08:00

Dude. This looks so good.

The word is that you can play this mod using a Steam account with any Source engine game installed. That means that you could replay the entire first Half-Life game with the update Source engine.

Posted via email from jromi's posterous

Palin's Subscriptions

2008-11-26T22:53:00.001-08:00

Hilarious.

I laugh now.

20 years from now I will look back and shudder, then wait for my robot overlord to read me a magazine.

Posted by email from jromi's posterous

Microbloggy

2008-11-25T12:31:00.001-08:00

Haven't been 'macro' blogging much these days, as I've been consumed with exploring time-wasting appliances like Twitter, Ubiquity, Twinkle, Posterous, and the like. If I ever want to be on the Obama team, they will need to know about that Fight Club posting I made with regards to desiring Dick Cheney's participation.

Also want to see how Posterous handles this post, since it's coming from email. I hear that it renders a video-related URL (like YouTube) into a player. There's also some support for playing video and audio files. Soon everyone will be able to experience the song or comedy routine I'm listening to in the morning.

Too bad I don't have an available wi-fi network at work, else I'd leverage my iPhone's AirSharing app to serve up some rich content for the masses.

Here's a simple URL that takes you to a lovely experience of Patton Oswalt writing up his experience of trying one of his failure bowls.

And with an associated video URL

I'll have to test how it interprets mp3s later.

Do it internets. Make it happennnnnnnnnnow!

Posted by email from jromi's posterous

Plug for my aunt

2008-11-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

My aunt's doing her bit to get a handle on emissions, and is now at a company that sells hardware for your car, so you can improve your fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. Apparently, you can even use these on your existing hybrid to make it an uber-hybrid.

Products are here. They are all of the Electronic Fuel Injection Enhancment family. Information on them are here.

The crazy adventures of Biblely!

2008-11-07T08:08:00.000-08:00

Prop 8 passed, while folks in CA voted heavily for Obama. It was truly ironic that much of the support came from Black and Latino voters, who have the unpleasant historical experience of having their civil rights restricted by the state because of the color of their skin.

Huh?

Morford has an excellent commentary on it, that about sums up the reason why it failed. Of course

Excerpts:

Some say the inglorious success of Prop. 8, the brutally regressive measure that removes the rights of very specific people who love very specific other people from ever marrying them, can be blamed on multiple factors.
...
Or maybe it's all those sad, white, central portions of the state, the huge chunks of voters who live in places without much culture or perspective or major universities, who only hear certain strains of spiteful rhetoric and thin fearmongering, whose general lack of education means they apparently still believe certain flavors of love will poison everyone's soup and ruin the sanctity of the time-honored 50-percent heterosexual missionary position Christian divorce rate.
...
[...]I think the real blame lies with, well, the Almighty himself.
...
Behind it all, it's God. No, not the god you and I understand as a universal, non-gendered, asexual, love-drunk energy coursing through all things at all times everywhere without the slightest wisp of prejudice or geographical preference, but that famously small, myopic version, the one that encourages a literalist interpretation of very carefully selected Bible verse (to the complete disregard of myriad others) -- a version that, in short, has been drilled into the consciousness of far too many voters for far too long.

Is it not true? Once again this election, in pulpits across America, the call rang out: We must stop the gays. We cannot allow them entry into the sanctuary of Eternal Hetero Love. After all, marriage is (these people believe) the last upstanding Christian stronghold, the final barrier preventing America from becoming some sort of Sodom-iffic nipple-pierced polyamorous rave party where anyone can marry anything and pets are running scared and people stick parts of their bodies into other people's parts for sexual pleasure. The horror.

My take on it: restricting civil rights using a simple majority vote is un-American. That, and the simple fact that nothing is removed or lessened for heterosexual relationships should gay people marry.

What would Mr. Show do?

Or Senator Tankerbell? You gotta watch it to get the Bibley reference.

Fanboys: Harry Knowles is kicking Window's ass

2008-11-07T07:38:00.000-08:00

Extreme Star Wars dork pleasure, or failed montage of sci-fi heroes? Darth Vader would no doubt find my lack of faith disturbing.

I can almost see Shatner's ego greedily chomping at the margins of the film.

We're all growns up, and have lots of work ahead

2008-11-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

We Baracked the vote. We are a better nation for it.

Here's some commentary on the GOP and its future:

Conservatives also must decide whether a return to their core economic beliefs will be accompanied by a hard right turn on social issues such as gay rights, guns and abortion. Some feel that Sen. John McCain wasn't conservative enough socially.

Regardless, for Republicans to rebound, they must catch up to Democrats in online organizing and fundraising - a shortcoming made clear in this election.

"The Republican Party is teetering on the brink of irrelevancy," said Professor Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. "This is about as close to a repudiation as you can get."

What will follow, Jacobs said, "will be a period of bloodletting in the Republican Party. It's going to be a free-for-all, professional wrestling battle royal."
...
Dick Armey of Texas knows what it is like to revive the Republican Party. A former majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, Armey was one of the leaders of the 1994 "Republican revolution" that seized Capitol Hill after two years of a Democratically controlled Congress and White House.

"They need to get back to what worked in the past," said Armey. "We should start by asking ourselves, 'What were we doing when people loved us?' And it's been a long time since some people in this country loved us."
...
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's future appears mixed. Armey said, "It's hard for me to tell where she will fit in." Franc said, "She's the young athlete who makes it to the big leagues who has 'lots of upside.' " Hawkins called her "a rock star."

Jacobs said: "There's been a lot of hyperventilating about her. But once cooler heads look back on her, she will be seen as destructive to the ticket and more abysmal than (former Vice President Dan) Quayle. There has never been a vice presidential candidate as unpopular as Sarah Palin.'"

GOP has 8 years of Bush to thank for lost love. Even now, Bushco is working on getting his final nail in the coffin with deregulatory measures.

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.
...
Bush's aides are acutely aware of the political risks of completing their regulatory work too late. On the afternoon of Bush's inauguration, Jan. 20, 2001, his chief of staff issued a government-wide memo that blocked the completion or implementation of regulations drafted in the waning days of the Clinton administration that had not yet taken legal effect.
...
"Through the end of the Clinton administration, we were working like crazy to get as many regulations out as possible," said Donald R. Arbuckle, who retired in 2006 after 25 years as an OMB official. "Then on Sunday, the day after the inauguration, OMB Director Mitch Daniels called me in and said, 'Let's pull back as many of these as we can.' "
...
Clinton's appointees wound up paying a heavy price for procrastination. Bush's team was able to withdraw 254 regulations that covered such matters as drug and airline safety, immigration and indoor air pollutants. After further review, many of the proposals were modified to reflect Republican policy ideals or scrapped altogether.

So lots to do in the coming years. At least we can send Palin back to the Fortress of Solitude where her and her husband can resume building momentum to support the secession of Alaska from the US. Maybe Russia will take them.

2008 Presidential Election Day

2008-11-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

So excited. I've been waiting 8 years for this day. It's like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, and the release day of every video game I've ever wanted. It's time to undumben the Presidential office, and all afflicted institutions.

Thanks to rosstralia for the wonderful Lego Obama clip.

The only thing I will miss about the GOP will be the consistent behavior so fecund for fodder. What will Tina Fey do now, other than make hit TV shows? Will John Stewart still have a job? Will running in a political office still be an attractive lampoon mechanism for Stephen Colbert? Let's wait and see.

On the rare chance that McCain gets elected, I have only this to say: please don't die.

Dead Space look good...play bad

2008-10-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

Let me clarify that statement.

I was able to procure the new EA developed/produced title Dead Space for my PC through a friend whose S.O. works there. I was warned that the controls were funky on the PC, and that I should use an Xbox360 controller to avoid the standard keyboard/mouse configuration.

I was initially thinking, 'how bad could it be', then I installed and played it.

Yikes. Mouse controls are soft and loose, not crisp and defined like most 1st or 3rd person shooters. Mouse sensitivity options are useless.

At first I was thinking, well maybe they designed this because it makes the gameplay more visceral in that you're more vulnerable to attacks. Then, after a few rounds with some gnarly looking necromorphs, it was clear that the control schema was simply ported over from console design to the PC without any kind of discrete mapping or optimization. LAME!

Why does a development house like EA spend all this time making a great game, then hobble it for one platform? Oh wait...we're talking about EA developing PC games. Ahhh....ok...making sense now.

Stuff on the internets indicates that the issue was raised to EA, and the response was:

"Dead Space for PC is an equivalent experience to that on consoles. The controls are different and customizable, but we feel it's in the best ability for the players to match what the console experience is like."

The PC review from IGN, a site I usually rely on for reviews and details on new and upcoming media, was positive, and a closer read indicates that a device other than keyboard/mouse was used for the evaluation. It would have been interesting to see what the score would've been had they used the standard PC controls. It is noteworthy that the review doesn't draw attention to why they employed an Xbox360 controller (or similar device). I wonder if they had any prompting from EA. If so, that's downright dastardly of IGN

Here's hoping they get a patch out that fixes this, otherwise, I'm going to have to invest in a nice, used, wired controller. How ironic. Folks like to play these kinds of games because of the better sense of accuracy, and now the PC is being relegated to mimic console controls. I weep for the future.

Solid Gold...in your coffee?

2008-10-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

While preparing my beverage the other morning, the brand name of the creamer took me back to the 80s. I never realized that Diddy was dancing back then...wow! He's so talented. A Solid Gold dancer.

Will the sequel be Hannukah on Venus?

2008-10-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

I love The Flaming Lips. Bonus to you and me, they're in a film called 'Christmas on Mars'.

Weird? You haven't heard their Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots then. Apparently, their Fight Test EP had a trailer of the movie. I'm so late to the game.

While the movie's in release in *select* theaters, a CD-DVD set including the movie and soundtrack is coming out in November.

These guys are by far one of the best things to ever come out of Ohio. Family and friends reading this, you know it's true.

Palin for President

2008-10-17T11:09:00.000-07:00

My new favorite site.

Looks like it's getting updated each day.

Can't wait to see what happens with the diplomas.

WTF? New Bioshock 2 trailer

2008-10-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

Bioshock was one of the COOLEST games ever. It redefined 1st-person shooters. I'm still tripping out on the gameplay, graphics, storyline, and replay value. Here's hoping that Irrational Games continues developing quality games for this IP.

This just in: Democratic administrations better for your investment

2008-10-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

According to a NYTimes piece (sourced from Bloomberg Financial Markets), $10,000 invested in the S.& P. stock market would be worth $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents and $300,671 for Democratic presidents, assuming a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years (the period of time during which either a Republican or Democratic president was in office).

They also indicate what the return would've been had Hoover's administration been considered.

Note that the period where the investment has the greatest return is during Clinton's administration.

Hmmm.

Current president: can't think for himself, has difficulty speaking in clear, articulate sentences, dragged America down a couple rungs in the eyes of the world, ran country using fear tactics; the economy suffers.
Note: couldn't get impeached no matter how many child molesters or CIA agent outers he protected.

Clinton: charismatic, intelligent, could articulately speak to any audience, worked with Dems and GOP congresspeople to get a balanced budget (a first in over 30 years, at the time), had crazy dope foreign policy skills (restoration of Haitian president, Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, peace negotiations with Protestants/Catholics in Ireland, etc), 4% unemployment + more; the economy boomed.
Note: Newt Gingrich and Kenneth Starr led the way to waste taxpayer dollars to impeach him for a blowjob.

Teabag

2008-10-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

Usually in the mornings I have English Breakfast or Plantation Mint tea, but today all that changed.

I experienced all that is I Love Lemon. Madness I tell you...madness!

Note the crappy photo quality (or is it user error?) from my iPhone.

I'm fortunate that I didn't have this experience while savoring its goodness.

This just in: cool people admit they would have Tina Fey's baby

2008-10-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

See the SNL VP Debate?

Nitro pump for Boddington's

2008-10-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

Went to Ben 'n Nick's on College Ave last night with some old co-workers.

As luck would have it, they had Boddington's on tap, AND poured from the nitro tap, which means the head was extra creamy, so of course, I got a stein.

And to add to the Citysearch comments, they do have free wifi, but the signal was weak, so disconnected the iPhone from the network and ran it on 3G instead. All better.

Plan C (If McCain/Palin are elected, and I haven't the will)

2008-10-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

Just came across this great piece over at InfoWorld about Americans being able to offshore themselves if IT jobs continue the exodus.

Costa Rica sounds sweet, but I've always wanted to go to Israel and get my kosher on. Regardless, it's an awesome thing to see a more integration of a markets, needs, and talent. Feels like a Schoolhouse Rock spot.

I hear there's mashies on the youteletubbies

2008-10-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

Check out the "W." film channel on youtube. Visitors can make video mashups with the content provided. Oliver Stone has a welcome spot, in which he indicates that he's picking a winner, and the prize is well over a million dollars...not really.

Even if you don't make a mashup, there are some great clips of Dubya in inaction during his great prisonmate ass-raping of the world during the past 8 years.

Donkeys are usually heavier than elephants

2008-10-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

The Economist has a Global Electoral College tool on its site. It allows people from across the world to select their country and vote for a U.S. Presidential nominee

What's that mean? You say? Economist? Isn't that a elite media institution that uses multi-syllabic words designed to befuddle Joe Six Pack on Main Street? I'm sure that's the argument that sweet little barb-toothed Palin would project given the results: the world is choosing Obama.

During debate last night, I was expecting to see 'the gloves come off' from McCain, as Palin indicated they would. The gloves must've been from McCain's proctologist employed in a quick pre-debate probing. Everything seemed to be relatively smooth, and I didn't see much sting from McCain, given that the policy of fear first raised from the dead by Dubya and Cheney is still being carted around by the current GOP nominees. Looks like the U.S. wants Obama as well.

One of my personal highlights

M: ...in his short career, he does not understand our national security challenges. ... We don't have the time for on-the-job training.
O: It's true. There are some things I don't understand," Obama said. "I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11" while failing to capture Osama bin Laden.

A Forbes poll also reveals much of the same:

A-game for the AP

2008-10-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

I'm loving the comedic coverage from the AP regarding the U.S. 2008 Presidential race.

Highlights here:

Of course, the stock market's plunge was a popular topic among the comics, with Letterman devoting his Top Ten list to "Ways to Make the Financial Crisis More Fun." Ranked in second place: "Enjoy the blank stare when Katie Couric asks Sarah Palin what the FDIC stands for."

He also poked fun at Palin's gaffe when, addressing a group Sunday, she referred to Afghanistan as "our neighboring country."

"Apparently," cracked Letterman, "she can see bin Laden's cave from her house."

On Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," host Stephen Colbert took an approving look back at Thursday's vice presidential debate.

"Both candidates surpassed expectations," he said. "Sarah Palin proved she could speak. And Joe Biden proved he could STOP speaking."

And NBC "Tonight" show host Jay Leno called attention to a candidate for governor of Bangkok who assaulted a TV reporter for asking him tough questions on the air.

"Today Sarah Palin said, 'You can do THAT? Where's Katie Couric?'"

And here:

"John McCain's campaign has closed their offices in Michigan and they say they won't try to compete for votes there," noted NBC "Late Night" host Conan O'Brien on Monday. "Apparently this is part of McCain's strategy to try to win votes only in the original 13 colonies."

"John McCain blew off Michigan! Well, I know how they feel," said CBS "Late Show" host David Letterman. McCain canceled an appearance on Letterman's show two weeks ago."

7 1/2 Floor...700 Billion...Coincidence? I think not.

2008-10-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I was at World Savings (part of Golden West Financial) in, which later got bought by Wachovia, which then severed a multitude of jobs, and is about to get put in Wells Fargo's grocery bag.

SFGate ran a piece about the Sandlers, a husband and wife team who started World Savings and had their headquarters located in Oakland, and who got out of the mortgage business about the time when I left. Very shrewd couple...or evil diabolical architects of fiduciary vampiricism?

Regardless, it appears that their Wachovia stock is going to get a whole lot more valuable. Although I must say, we had a very Being John Malkovich orientation process at World.

The orientation consisted of getting to know how many branches they opened up, what was the first branch, how Herb and Marion Sandler met, etc. It was almost like...7 1/2 Floors.

Unfortunately, there seems to be little peace for taxpayers and the lot of their accursed kind. We get to bail out everyone. It's amazing how 'FREE MARKET WILL PROVIDE' the politicians are, but when the shit hits the fan, we get a Karl Marx solution.

Answers at Ask.com

2008-10-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

This is a shameless plug made in favor of the shareholders (i.e. me) and internet denizens like yourselves.

We launched a completely revamped site today. Most noticeable, is the removal of the left hand navigation frame that contained the "Narrow Your Search and " Related Search" features. Frame design as a whole was streamlined to provide less clutter on the screen and more information relating to a query. In short, we redesigned to focus on providing answers, so people can avoid the constant clicking of a link, then clicking back to return to an initial search result page.

The site now presents "blended results", which mean that each blue link resulting from a search can contain content matches from various sources.

Various agencies reporting on the release liken it to a harkening waaaaay back in the 90s, when it was askjeeves.com and people actually provided answers/results for queries. I suppose it is in a way, but now the responses are fed by various external data sources and our own proprietary search algorithms.

Are we now considered a "core" search engine? That will be left up to the users. We're certainly taking actions on the traffic data, to understand what people are looking for, and how they look for it.

We've also acquired Lexico, the parent of dictionary.com, thesarus.com. and reference.com, so expect to see more integration in the future. These services fall directly in line with the new direction of Ask.com: quickly providing answers to users asking questions.

Check the new site out. Send feedback, although I can't guarantee you'll get a response you will feel better after getting it off your chest.

Well, she didn't wear an ear bud

2008-10-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

On the whole, I found the VP debate to be pretty anticlimactic, but interesting.

I found Biden to be better than expected. He was pretty much to the point, and smartly remained focused on highlighting the differences between McCain and Obama, and portraying Obama in a more positive light, thereby emphasizing the skills he'd use when supporting the President.

Palin did better than I expected, which isn't saying much given that the bar was set so low, all she had to do was show up, smile, talk about Joe Six Pack, and talk about how silly all that crazy political talk sounded since she's such a Washington outsider. Palin seemed to take more jabs at Biden, and didn't always address the moderator's questions. I found her folksy 'small-town' colloquialisms to be insulting, as it's reminiscent of Dubya, another self-coined 'Washington outsider'. She reminded me of Charles Montgomery Burns when he ran for governor.

I heard that Palin's debate talent rests on the fact that she leverages the theatrical element, rather than relying on facts, numbers, and y'know...anything that would establish political data points used to construct a trend, which could be used as a predictor for future behavior. She pretty much smiled, acted cutesy, delivered barbs, and dropped a few numbers here and there, which were her clumsiest moments. Facts-schmacts.

I found the reactions to global warming hilarious. Palin basically said she didn't want to point fingers at causes, while Biden indicated that you probably won't be able to come up with a solution to a problem if you don't identify a cause. Her constant comments about Alaska being an energy-producing state were vomit-inducing. Alaska's untapped fields aren't going to provide a long-term solution to the world's addiction to fossil fuels...not while the U.S consumes 25% of it.

My favorite moment related to taxes. There are mountains of spam moving around about how broke we'll be if Obama comes into office because of his record of voting to raise taxes (94 times). Palin called this out, and Biden clarified it as being an inaccurate statement, while leveraging the same rationale to McCain's record and indicating by the same logic McCain voted to raise them 477 times.

courtesy SFGate

I walked away from it feeling better about Biden. Palin delivered barbs and did her best to try to make herself and McCain seem like a voice of change, which was downright laughable. The Obama movement was launched with the theme of change, and gathered so much momentum the only way the GOP could counter was to get someone REALLY inexperienced, and make Palin seem like a moose-eyed newbie, even when Obama's only 3 years older than her. It appears that the less experienced she is, the better, since it's closer to Joe Six Pack, and that is who she's talking to in her fireside chats.

There was a new word mentioned, exceptionalism, thanks to Sarah Palin, the spiritual torch-carrier for imaginistic langualogy in the same breath as Dubbya. Voice of change indeed.

She did much better than her recent Couric interview:

Couric: You have a 72-year-old running mate - is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden's been around a while?

Palin: Oh no, it's nothing negative at all. He's got a lot of experience and just stating the fact there, that we've been hearing his speeches for all these years. So he's got a tremendous amount of experience and, you know, I'm the new energy, the new face, the new ideas and he's got the experience.

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

I think I can see Alaska from here...must make me a geographer!

VP Debate pre-show details

2008-10-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

The VP debate's on tonight! See what channels offer it where you live.

Seen the AP piece on the recent bout of network hosts blasting the VP candidates? It's fairly one-sided because, well, we haven't seen this much of a sub-par GOP VP nominee since Quayle ran with GHW Bush. She's an unstoppable force of fodder. The bar's been lowered so far, that she'll be seen as a competent candidate as long as she remains standing, maintains that spooky smile, and utters a few incomprehensible words.

And be warned...if her hair isn't in a bob, then she's wearing an earpiece, so her handlers can bail her out.

In the event you don't like additional mouse-clicks, here's the highlights from the article:

"Last night during an interview on CBS, Sarah Palin said, 'One of my best friends is a lesbian and I love her dearly.' After hearing this, Bill Clinton said, 'Prove it.'"
_O'Brien, NBC's "Late Night."
___
"I love this show! It's like the first season of 'Lost' only it makes less sense."
_Stewart, Comedy Central's "The Daily Show".
___
"It's been reported that John McCain is taking an herbal supplement to improve his memory. Apparently McCain is having trouble remembering why he picked Sarah Palin."
_O'Brien, NBC's "Late Night."
___
"Great day for Sarah Palin. She has been practicing for the big debate tomorrow night. Palin's staff has tried to find a stand-in to pretend to be Joe Biden. But so far all they've come up with is a tree stump. Which actually sounds about right."
_Craig Ferguson, CBS'"Late Late Show."
___
"This is for all the marbles, this debate tomorrow night. And Sarah Palin is nothing if not diligent. She's working hard on preparing for the debate with Joe Biden. Earlier today in Arizona, we just heard, she shot a donkey."
_Letterman, CBS'"Late Show."
___
"Now we all know Gov. Palin has a lot of foreign policy experience because from Alaska, she can see Russia. More to the point, Russia is on the other side of the international dateline from Alaska. It's tomorrow there. So when Palin looks at it, she's actually seeing the future."
_Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."
___
"The vice presidential debate is tomorrow night. Joe Biden, already gearing up. I understand he went to the hair salon, told the guy to put a little more on top ... And Sarah Palin she's getting ready for tomorrow's debate, too. I understand she now knows all three branches of government."
_Jay Leno, NBC's "Tonight" show
___
"Teams of technicians have been working around the clock trying to figure out how to run an Internet cable directly into the back of (Palin's) skull."
_Jimmy Kimmel, ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

Notorious

2008-10-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

Might be a DVD rental, but I think my money's going to be on Stone's 'W.' biopic.
[GHWB: Who do you think you are? A Kennedy? You're a Bush! Starting acting like one.]

I'm a fan of Biggie fo sho, and he was undoubtedly one of the best MCs to grab the mic, but right now I want to see Dubya's legacy skewered and roasted over a hot pit of voter vengeance.

That's what we call meat on my planet

2008-09-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

IGN has a great piece on bad comic book turned movies. I'm truly curious to know if that unreleased 1994 version is worse than the '05 and '07 iteration.

As I was watching this horrible clip, I found myself unable to pull away. It was like being in a speeding, out of control car, and knowing you're going to crash into a telephone pole.

I also found the soundtrack seemed very familiar, and given that it's a Roger Corman production (king of the B-movies), I said to myself, "Self, didn't you see another Corman film when you were a kid with that same soundtrack?" Thanks to the internets, I can say "Yes." It was Corman's 'Battle Beyond the Stars'. Revel in the pre-A-Team George Peppard campy goodness.

Mysterious Barack UK Underground ads

2008-09-28T19:27:00.000-07:00

During a recent trip abroad to the UK, we took the tube (totally kicks BART's ass) and saw a series of billboards at various Underground stations.

One that generated the most curiosity was one of Barack Obama in front of 10 Downing Street given that our English cousins aren't casting any ballots.

I just learned that the ads were all part of a campaign launched by The Times. Tricky Brits.

Thank you Paul

2008-09-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

When I first really started to get into films, Paul Newman was one of my favorite actors...Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

I'm starting to feel old when all these actors I grew up with are dropping off, and concerned that there are only throngs of Hanna Montanas to replace them.

I'm voting Republican, so I can go to Iran

2008-09-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

Came back from a trip overseas (where news about the corporate bailout took up a generous chunk), but was pleased to see some videos relayed my way, as they were the juicy bits of email wheat in an otherwise sea of chaff.

One of these videos convinced me to vote Republican. It just feels so much cozier...so I can stay in Iraq...so I can go to Iran!

The other, well, it's a great tidbit of our nation's most fav high functioning moron.

Shepard Fairey drops a bomb...paints the bomb?

2008-09-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

Probably best known for his 'Obey' work, which features a stylized rendition of Andre the Giant's face, Shepard Fairey is now a tad more mainstream, albeit in making some provocative pieces pertaining to BushCo, the war on terror, free (or lack there of) speech, all inspiring critical thought. He's got a show going in SF right now at WhiteWallsSF.

Reminds me that I need to replace a button on my pants

2008-09-18T07:39:00.000-07:00

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button looks good. I totally dig David Fincher as a director. Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, and Tilda Swinton star in the adapted for screen F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story, which also happens to be available online.

Seems like a nice December-timed release. We'll have a new President by then, and hopefully a new direction. Perhaps we can run the clock back on the moral and ethical decay BushCo laid down, and return to youthful, yet savvy and sound country.

Palin's yahoo email password is 'password'

2008-09-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

Or something close no doubt. Some moderately clever evil-doers hacked her yahoo account.

What's so funny about it (or sad depending on how you look at it) was that she was using it to conduct public (read: as an elected official) communications.

Palin's chief of staff, Michael Nizich, sent her an e-mail August 22 with the subject line, "Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans." The subject line of another e-mail from Nizich reads "CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter."

The technical grasp of the GOP nominees is coming across as strikingly and shockingly subpar.

I'm vying for a spot in a reality show

2008-09-17T15:49:00.000-07:00

Finally my love of the thespian arena and gaming intersect with MTV Networks, Spike TV, and Microsoft Corporation partnership to bring a bunch of dorks together in "...a real-life televised Gears of War 2 adventure."

I've submitted my questionnaire and emailed in the pitch entailing why I should be a member of Delta Squad.

"...just like in the game, challenges, tough decisions and sacrifices stand in the path of victory. In a fast paced reality show that feels like an alternate reality game brought to life, your team must work together to reach the ultimate goal: Becoming the first gamers in the world to play through the entire saga of Gears of War 2 in early October."

In light of Patton Oswalt's piece on George Lucas, my geekiness is getting in the way of my nerdiness.

I can see Russia from my house...

2008-09-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Thank you Tina Fey.

Housekeeping or precursor to The Road?

2008-09-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

A nice summation of the current state of the economy from SFGate:

WINNERS: Bank of America: Buys Merrill Lynch in a shotgun sale for $50 billion, creating the largest U.S. financial services company. Warren Buffett: His insurance holdings stand to benefit from AIG's weakened position, and he could buy some or all of the company at a big discount. Taxpayers: The federal government refuses to throw financial lifelines to Lehman Bros. or AIG that could have put taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars in bad loans. It also refuses to pay the ousted chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac up to $24 million in exit packages.

LOSERS: Merrill Lynch: One of the best-known and most respected companies in American history vanishes overnight in a desperate sale to Bank of America. Lehman Bros.: It survived the Civil War and the Great Depression, but it can't escape the credit crisis and files for bankruptcy protection as it closes. Washington Mutual: The Seattle thrift was flying high amid the real estate boom, but it crashes just as spectacularly. Now it reportedly looks for a buyer as it tries to avoid insolvency.

HOSERS: Current Presidential nominees.

Can we finally put the whole lipstick-gate thing behind us? No one owns that word, and who gives a damn if she can field dress a moose? It's not like living in AK gives Palin years of valuable foreign policy experience.

I don't care about her baby and her baby having babies, or McCain delivering sermons on how he's more patriotic than Obama, I care about getting the economy stabilized, the job market improved, and the perception of Americans improved in the international sector. It's a sad state of affairs when the majority of Americans buy into the political campaigning and spin doctoring designed to cast candidates in more favorable light, especially when it detracts from 'real issues'. And please GOP/McCain campaingers...spare us the all the 'elite media' tripe you've been spewing. Just because you're not the loveable darling now that Dubya and Cheney salted it for you, doesn't mean you need to whine.
Thank you Dilbert. You so wonderfully characterizes the legacy of the Bush administration, and what we'll [hopefully] be recovering from in the next Presidential term.

Using internet = System Architect Commander Leader

2008-09-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

Sweet! Living in AK gives Palin insight into foreign policy! Wow! I was under the impression that her insight was limited to the depth of a moose colon! Silly me!

McCain in the Membrane ya'll!

Hi! I'm BART one-point-oh

2008-09-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

WTF BART? You make a new website that's awesome and kinda 2.0-ey, and then you start considering hiking fares *again* during high commute times?

Hey! I've got an idea! If the current system is rated to support 500,000 daily riders, and there are only 370,000 at present, and officials are saying that 500k is pushing it why don't we add more trains which lessen wait times and train load concerns?

Yeah! Then BART would be less crowded, have more available trains LIKE OTHER METRO RAIL SYSTEMS.

This just in: don't penalize people for taking public transportation! And if you're going to hike rates, at least offer some kind of value to commuters...yes, it's going to cost a little more, but trains run more frequently and you might actually be able to sit once a month instead of always crushing into the human mass of armpit vapor punctuated with the occasional mystery fart.

Maybe BART should spend less time/money developing the leak-proof coffee cup that doesn't work well, and more time thinking about how to improve operations while providing cost and environmentally conscious riders an alternative to driving.

I'm just saying, if that's what your standards are

2008-09-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

My bestest buddy Gabe hooked me up with Patton Oswalt's "Werewolves and Lollipops" album that we'd listened to while driving down to Big Sur, where we TOTALLY saw Natalie Portman, for some beer drinking...er...camping with another old school homie.

Gee, gosh, darn he's funny. Ross prefers Jim Gaffigan, and characterized Patton as edgier, but not as funny.

While Jim has some good stuff, I really dig on Patton's political sensibilities. Take his 'The Dukes of Hazzard' piece. Brilliant.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

2008-09-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

Oh this is going to be glorious. I won't go into the drama surrounding the licensing issues that have been plaguing this game, but it appears the dust has settled, and it's going to be called F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.

What was the first F.E.A.R, and what the hell does that acronym mean? First Encounter Assault Response. Think of the X-files directed by John Woo combined with aspects of the Clone Wars, Resident Evil, and the Japanese horror elements present in movies such as The Ring. You play as a nameless badass and terminate the cloned army of some psychic lab child born in DARPA-shrouded secrecy. One of the coolest gameplay mechanics was the use of "reflex time", which was another way of saying "bullet time". Employing this tool shifted the visual spectrum a tad, particle modeling increases, enemies moved slower, but you moved faster, enabling you to bust caps on a platoon sized onslaught of gun-toting automatons.

At the end of the first game there's a huge explosion and you're rescued via helicopter.

There were some lackluster expansion packs that I never played, but this sequel picks up right after the end of the first game, and continues to explore the mysterious little girl, Alma, who's since been freed from the confines described in the first game.

Environments seemed to have been reportedly improved, as the first game suffered from little deviation in terrain and atmosphere. The gore factor has been drastically ramped up, and there are some crazy new weapons.

The title is scheduled to release 2-10-09 in the States. I'm so excited to get my fear on.

Search algorithm and heuristics...not quite there

2008-09-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

A very honest question, to be sure, and unfortunately I don't think this visitor found what s/he was looking for when they arrived at a post I had on Obama.

At least the post has some decent indexing, or perhaps had their mind in the gutter about next President-elect?

Show me your privacy...now!

2008-09-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

Feel good about your privacy? This recent CNET article highlights how the current administration (read: NSA) exploits loopholes that allows them to profile individuals using the intermediary communication providers between primary service providers.

The massive collection of customer data comes down to the interplay of two specific issues: First, thousands of companies play small, niche support roles in the wireless phone industry, and as such these firms learn quite a bit about the calling habits of millions of U.S. citizens. Second, the laws relating to information sharing and wiretapping specifically regulate companies that provide services to the general public (such as AT&T and Verizon), but they do not cover the firms that provide services to the major carriers or connect communications companies to one other.
...
With the passage of laws like the FISA Amendments Act and the USA Patriot Act, in most cases, requests for customer information come with a gag order, forbidding the companies from notifying the public, or the end users whose calling information is being snooped upon.
...
So any entity--from tower provider, to a third-party spam filter, to WAP gateway operator to billing to call center customer service--can [...] be compelled to assist in silence. They likely don't volunteer because of reputation and contractual obligations, but they won't resist either.

That means that Jack Bauer may come visit you to administer electro-shock therapy to your nipples should you be selected for profiling, and targeted for...evaluation.

Who would play Kuato?

2008-09-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

izz naaht uh toooomah

PS: some of you on the Google Groups might have noticed some jerkface assclown spammed the group with some porn themed postings. I've since reported them to the Google Hive. Let's see what happens. I'd originally left the group open so anyone could post, but I've now restricted it. The internets are an amazing place that we each have to police. Let's make the world a better place...one keystroke at a time.

BART 2.0

2008-09-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

I'm digging the new BART site redesign and improved functionality.

They finally made their service consider the fact that some people need to plan a trip from a location close to a BART station to another station or to another nearby location by a station.

That's a lot of "ay-shun", and is total alliteration.
I'm prone to roll employing loquation, and in kindergarten I hated equations.
Missed the Cuban missile crisis and threats of nuclear obliteration.
Before I handle food, I conduct a thorough ablution.
Sarah Palin promotes theory of creation, while abstinence didn't deter her younger generation from fornication...

I digress....where was I?

Before, a site user had to copy and paste address information to find the nearest station, then go through another step of selection that station and the other end point, which was a total pain in the 'a'.

Now when I want to find out the closest station and route to the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, while also planning my trip itinerary from my starting BART station to the closest station near the Academy, I can do it all in one step!

They also have an embedded quick planner widget now.

Everything's coming up Milhouse.

Why John Stewart makes it nice

2008-09-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

I've seen this on a few different sites, but being that I'm limited to basic cable I enjoy John Stewart episodes streamed over the internets.

Here's one that nails Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Morris, and some other d-bags.

I'd love to see one with Sarah Palin and her views on religion and the separation of Church and State, and how effective abstinence is as the sole option in sex education for adolescents.

Hatey...it's not just a country

2008-09-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

I heart the GOP and all its southern voters who embody the divisive nature of politics, as they pander to the least-common denominatin' cracka-ass-cracka in the hopes of beating the dead horse that we call 'fear-based politics'.

The newest flounder?

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville, Ga., described the Obamas as members of an "elitist-class ... that thinks that they're uppity," according to The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper.

I'm guessing that shortly after his press conference Westmoreland immediately felt hungry after having spitting so much hateful venom, and felt intense pangs of regret for the now almost defunct Sambo's restaraunt chain.

When pressed the next day about making the comment he said

...he didn't know that "uppity" was commonly used as a derogatory term for blacks seeking equal treatment. Instead, he referred to the dictionary definition of the word as describing someone who is haughty, snobbish or has inflated self-esteem.

Sooo...it's ok then to use the dictionary term of a word, disavow any cracka-ass-cracka connotations (even though he is a Suthin' gentleman, and lived in the region before and after the Civil Rights movement), and adamantly indicate that if he had to do it again he'd use the same word? That's awesome. Seems fair to ding Michelle Obama for taking her 'for the first time I feel proud to be an American' remark out of context and lambast her.

I cannot wait until we breed hatey people like this out of the gene-pool. Here's to Lynn's kids marrying a non-Anglo, so he can learn to love his "uppity" grandkids.

Man this porn looks good

2008-09-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

Seth Rogen and Kevin Smith come together to make a movie? Oh sweet celluoid nectar of the silver screen...er...my TV at home, I cannot wait to revel in your extra-feature laden DVD.

To have the Apple guy say the words "more like Glen and Gary suck Ross's giant meaty c--k" just sucks the blood out of your inner Miss Nancy's complexion.

Thankfully, the film ended up garnering an R instead of the dreaded NC-17.

Incidentally, for more insight on how movies receive ratings (and for an interview with Kevin Smith on how he had to fight for R ratings for Clerks), I highly recommend the documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated.

There was an RNC?

2008-09-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

What is so great about Sarah Palin, other than the fact that she looks better than Joe Biden?

The malarky surrounding the recent Republican convention was downright hilarity. Since when does a lame-ass VP-nominee feel the need to take shots at the Presidential nominee, especially when she one-ups Obama on the whole 'inexperience' issue.

She is younger and less experienced than the first-term Illinois senator, and brings an ethical shadow to the ticket. A governor for just 20 months, she was two-term mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of 6,500 where the biggest issue is controlling growth and the biggest civic worry is whether there will be enough snow for the Iditarod dog-mushing race.
...
The pick earned McCain praise Friday from evangelicals and other social conservatives who have been skeptical of him. "Conservatives will be thrilled with this pick," said Greg Mueller, a conservative GOP strategist.

The price for that support could be high. Palin's lack of experience undercuts GOP charges that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief. McCain said in April that he was determined to avoid a pick like Dan Quayle, the little-known Indiana senator whom George H.W. Bush put on his ticket in 1988. The choice proved embarrassing.

Her comment about Obama, talking one way to some voters and a different way to others was laughable. I'd have liked to see her deliver the same style speech she gave at her old Pentecostal church.

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."
...
"I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

I recommend you check out the link to that speech, as there's a charming video that allows for a more visceral experience of the crazy. The pastor, Ed Kalnins? He makes Barack Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright look like Mother Teresa.

What you see in a terrorist -- that's called the invisible enemy. There has always been an invisible enemy. What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. ... We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die. Listen, you know we can't even follow him unless you are willing to give up your life. ... I believe that Jesus himself operated from that position of war mode. Everyone say "war mode." Now you say, wait a minute Ed, he's like the good shepherd, he's loving all the time and he's kind all the time. Oh yes he is -- but I also believe that he had a part of his thoughts that knew that he was in a war.

Interestingly enough, the Wasilla Assembly of God website is now unavailable except for the holy cache. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the McCain-Palin campaign leaders made a quick call up to AK and had to enact some damage control. Odd how we're not seeing any media backlash on this one, though. Dare I suggest that Ed's comments aren't perceived as inflammatory because he's white, and more in line with the current administration's take on the "War on Terror"?

So hurray for the Palin nomination! Thanks Sarah, for making the current Republican party seem like a bunch of angry, fearful, hateful wackjobs. It makes it easier for everyone on election day.

I, like George Washington, favor a heady dose of the separation of Church and State...otherwise, y'know...we get all fundamentally suicidally and killy-like. Just like those terrorists your pastor denegrates!

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.

(George Washington, letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 726.)

Chrome, you're the chromiest

2008-09-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

Chrome is good...aside from the whole theological takeover parody I suggested, the browser is sweet. My favorite is the 'stats for nerds' tool, which lets nerd nerd it up in the nerdiest way possible. You will note that I am probably a nerd given the Wikipedia page open in this scenario.

Pretty cool stuff. As one comment I saw on ars, Chrome has "the snappy". It opens fast, pages render fast, and there's some clever architecture built into it to make the search experience better. I can see Ubiquity-like features on the horizon. I like how if one tab crashes, the multi-thread architecture [supposedly] limits the amputation to the affected tab, and not the entire browser session.

Google even went ahead and put together a clever stylized online googlebook with renderings of the developers explaining the design approach and some of Chrome underpinnings and why it works the way it does. It's open-source, so folks can add features and fixes as with Mozilla's Firefox.

Evil, clever bastards.

Google forays with a new open-source religion

2008-09-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

Bolstered by its continued success in generating billions of ad dollars, strong brand recognition, the creation of an iPhone competitor (based on the Android platform), its forthcoming new browser (with long-term competitors being IE, FF, Safari, and Opera), Google has finally decided to offer its version of theology.

Google's PR department released this statement:

"It's going to be an open-sourced model that allows faith-followers to synergistically strengthen their core beliefs with a ubiquitous de-centralized deity. It's based on the OpenSocial API, which is the foundation for a host of successful web appliances, namely Orkut. We realized that in order to be true to the mantra 'don't be evil', we would need to create a new theological construct in order to legitimize more aggressive revenue-generating advertising models. In addition, we believe that we have something new to offer certain members of various demographics who find themselves removed or disconnected from reality.

As part of an extended development process, our team conducted focus groups with [among others] Second Life denizens, as well as individuals tinkering with cybernetic implants and found that while people enjoy their metaphysical experiences there is a certain degree of spiritual emptiness as we have not yet been able to reduce the human soul to a binary expression, nor digitally quantifying the aforementioned emptiness.

With much experimentation, we discovered as a way to accomplish these tasks, and in doing so, uncovering the means to similarly generate a host appliance capable of monitoring and upgrading soul programs, thereby improving the quality of virtual life. Sergey and Larry dubbed this host: DaemonLord, in a sentimental gesture to a long-lived family of processes well-known in those versed in computer science concepts.

Beta-users of DaemonLord will receive secure access to the development site, and complementary surgery to integrate proprietary mechanisms designed to facilitate the entry into the virtual environment, nicknamed Temple. As the user spends more time in Temple, his or her body would normally atrophy, however Google is committed to maintaining both a healthy body and virtua-soul, so initial testers will be configured with electrical stimulation in order to prevent physical decay.

We plan on maintaining DaemonLord and Temple by the revenue generated by users within the environment, as micro-transactions (similar to papal indulgences) and various implementations of the existing AdSense and AdWords platforms."

Needless to say, there's been some explosive responses from the general user community. Religious leaders have yet to release a formalized comment on the situation, but President Gee-dub did have these questions:

"So...if I snort some of that digitalized nose dust in that there etherland of pagan goodness, will it come up in my pee-pee test that I have to take for Uncle Dick every month?"

...and...

"Does this mean that I can hook up with Sarah Palin in this new-fangled Temple thang? I'm tryin' to talk Laura into a threesome! Man, that Sarah could moose-wrestle me into submission any Temple session!"

Thank you Sarah Palin....mmmm....tasty

2008-08-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

I was all fired up to do a little something on Sarah Palin, and found that the dailykos had already delivered a lovely piece on why:

she's ineffective
Alaska is effed, and the GOP is scrambling
the rhetoric used to highlight Obama's 'lack of experience' blows up in the GOPs face with her nomination
the neo-con star chamber, led by His Exalted Evilness Karl Rove still runs things

I'm feeling better every day about the upcoming Presidential election. Haters move out of the way. We're going to have a President who speaks in complete sentences and doesn't make up words without knowing that he's made up a [albeit cool-sounding] word. If only we could install stupidfilter for Dubya, then at least we wouldn't need to contend with his failed policies AND his mind-numbingly lame diction.

Facetown....ghostbook?

2008-08-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ricky Gervaise = Whoopi Goldberg

I swear to Yahweh, that if both the Facebook movie and Ghost Town come out in the same year, I will gouge out my own eyes, pack the empty sockets with kosher salt, and ram my head against the nearest marble vertex until my skull splits open and I can see my own gray matter patter to the floor and make little bloody smacking sounds when they hit.

And doesn't Téa Leoni look great?! Wow! She's totally hotter here than in 'Bad Boys II'. David Duchovny is a lucky guy, but that's why he gets songs written after him.

Seriously...why did some troll think it was a good idea to make a Facebook movie? Mark Zuckerberg is a d-bag, and Facebook...is a WEBSITE! What's so wonderful about making a movie about a website? Do we really need a movie about a website that puts you in touch with your old friends from elementary school? I'm going to throw this out there: if you're not in touch with them now, maybe it's for a good reason.

Maybe if Facebook started killing people, and they had the whole 'The Ring' thing going for it it might be compelling, but a movie about some dudes who made an exclusive social site for like-minded d-bags at Ivy League universities [good for branding, giving it a solid heritage, pass my snifter of cognac, won't you Reginald?], then rolled it out to the proles [read: State schools], where they effectively tarnished their image forever with the Beacon privacy debacle? What's the denouement? Zuckerberg becomes the youngest billionaire ever, and initiates his own Logan's Run bubbleworld to keep the 30+ folks in check? OK...maybe that's too dated of a film for his 'young' demographic...how about 'The Island'! That was a wonderful tale that probably meshes well with his junior high school experience.

I can't wait for the DVD...so I can film myself burning it on the stack of 'Facebook: The Movie' posters, and make multiple postings of it on youtube...not really...in reality I will just not attend the film in the theater, or in any paid streaming fashion. If I do choose to see it, I'll pirate a copy.

Then again, from the little that's been said about the book, it's supposedly brutal in critique of said Zuckerberg. In this case, it might be worth a viewing...from a pirated source of course.

My God...It's full of stars

2008-08-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

With the same wonder that Dave Bowman expressed when entering monolith-initiated time-space travel, Ubiquity redefines today's web experience.

If you're using Firefox, then you need to install this plugin. It allows you to bring up a contextual command interface where you can perform a variety of tasks from your Firefox browser.

Searching, emailing, integrating maps into email, searching for Flickr pictures, post directly to Twitter...amazing.

Check it out in action:

For example, you install the Ubiquity plug-in, then visit a site you want to email to a friend. Instead of copying your friend's email or site URL, then opening another tab to start a gmail session, you bring up the Ubiquity console and start typing your friend's name. Ubiquity links up with your gmail account to find contacts that match that pattern.

Then select the address you want by arrowing to it and hitting enter, which will cause the another tab open in a gmail session with the recipients email address already populated, with the message you specified, with the link to the page you were visiting.

Simple, but very powerful stuff. It's like wormhole technology for the web.

Oakland needs superheroes

2008-08-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Nobody's put it out there yet, so I'm going to go out on a limb.

We need superheroes in Oakland. A Watchmen-like troupe would suffice. A seething mass of face-punching justice wranglers who can instill a sense of loss and mortality in the d-bags who are robbing local restaurants in the Oakland area. Most people have eaten at least one of these restaurants in the area. I can't back this up on e-paper...I don't have the results of a properly structured social study...but there some discrete quantitative data points numbering three or more (indicating a trend) that concisely tell us that this phenomena is increasing.

We don't need to arm the populace. We just need superheroes.

We need a few people who know what's going down, and where it's going down, so they can be there when it goes down, and twist fools. Someone, somewhere knows where the next round of robberies is going to be. Someone knows who's going to do it. That means the heist is avoidable, or, shall we say, conducive to bringing the proper big scary people who knock down doors and beat/maim/kill...fine...apprehend the bad guys.

We need people who can roll through to Ron Dellums' pad, sneak into his room, nudge him awake from his cozy Depends fortified slumber, whisper in his ear: "You are not doing your job Mr. Mayor...the Edgerlies of your city are running it...do something now, or we will."

We need Chip Johnson to be granted superpowers, so he can bust on fools who pistol-whip workers and patrons, package them for pickup for the cops, then take pictures of the perps, and then post them in his column where he'll expose their names and addresses.

Then...once a semblance of safety is returned to the streets of Oakland, we can turn our attention to the rotting, decrepit, desiccated, and corrupt zombie-like corpse we call City Hall and perform some major reconstructive surgery.

So far I haven't been able to find any postings on Craigslist offering superhero services (although someone's selling a superhero suit). If anyone finds one, please comment with the contact info, so I can get in touch with the person and discuss the role and compensation.

Ziggurat

2008-08-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

01

Logan's Run (film).

Warcraft III.

The uber-panopticon.

Soylent green.

These are all things that come to mind when reading about Timelinks proposal to cram 1 million people into a carbon-neutral footprint pyramid-like 2.3 km structure that does away with the need for cars, a lawn, a garden, personal space, and privacy.

Ridas Matonis, Managing Director of Timelinks, said: “Ziggurat communities can be almost totally self-sufficient energy-wise. Apart from using steam power in the building we will also employ wind turbine technology to harness natural energy resources.”
...
The concept will also aim at a better quality of life for the inhabitants. Transport throughout the complex would be connected by an integrated 360 degree network (horizontally and vertically) so cars would be redundant. Biometrics would provide security with facial recognition technology.

Oh, dude. My dystopic sci-fi novels are sooo right on. Tom Cruise's version of Minority Report here I come! Whoo-hooo!!

Picture it...you walking down the Zig-hall, and a Zig-scanner reads your retina and instantly cross-checks your identity with the Zig-repository, establishes interests from recent email communications, utterances made in your bathroom, recent purchases from the Zig-store, and a Zig-avatar appears and starts walking next to you, slyly suggesting items or services in which you might be interested...like sponsored listings you see in various search engines.
Instead of DUIs or PI crimes, there'll be Zig-infractions and in order to maintain societal balance, there'll be strict re-education policies in place since there's no space for prison...or maybe there'll be a Penal-Zig?

Excursions to the surrounding pastoral areas would be frowned upon, as the lands would be snatched up by mega-conglomerates, and seeded with powerfully mutated agricultural products that aren't so much healthy, as they are cost-effective, so Zig-officials would want to limit the amount of exposure to zigizens (like 'citizen', but for Ziggurat, sweet!) else the highly condensed populace would vector biological contaminents at a brisk pace.

Nations will collapse, and Zig-States will replace modern continent-oriented governmental paradigms. Alliances with neighboring Ziggurats will be established, and battles will be fought to control water sources as they'll be the sources for both hydro-electric power and for treating 1 million people's worth of excrement per Ziggurat.

Urban centers will collapse and will become vestigages of humanity's triumphs and folly, eventually fallen prey to managed lifestyles.

My new home cheer:
Zig-gu-rat!
It's where it's at!
Zig-gu-rat!
It's where it's at!
[repeat it...or else]

Mayor Dellums: Flaccid Impotent Bookend from the Past and His Crazy Adventures in Oakland

2008-08-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

Way to go Dellums!

Whoo-hoo! The FBI issued subpoenas for current and former Oakland City Hall non-elected officials in connection to fiscal tomfoolery and crusty backhanded shenanigans enacted upon Oakland's coffers.

One of the recipients is Deborah Edgerly. She was the top non-elected official in Oakland since former Mayor Jerry Brown, and boy did she like to stick it to the man! Er...the taxpayers of Oakland.

I no longer live in Oakland, after departing to suburbia to raise a family, but I still love the city. Say what you will, Gertrude Stein, but there is plenty of 'there' there.

I do work in Oakland, and like other residents, we're all well aware of the embarrassing state of the public school system, increasing crime (hello robbers in the hood), and ineffectiveness of the current Mayor.

He's been living up to his moniker: The Quiet Mayor. He's staying out of the limelight, avoiding the press, and not saying much. He's also not doing much to improve the situation. What the hell? Does he think that the edifice of the eponymous Federal Building is going to be able to hide his ineffectiveness in managing his staff and the city?

Let's just take the case of the recent spree of 'takeover' robberies. Granted the state of the economy is somewhat to blame for the increase in crime, and that doesn't excuse the perps, but it does beckon the Mayor to step up and get serious about cleaning up City hall and improving the safety of individuals who are directly responsible for providing income for the city: namely local restaurateurs and related business owners.

I never saw the appeal in Dellums. He seemed pleased with himself for his past accomplishments, and thought that it'd be cool to chill in pseudo-retirement in a city that was so corrupt and mismanaged that it wouldn't make matters worse for him to stroll into office, pronounce some vapor policy, and then fade into the woodwork all the while touting his new 'political transparency' model.

Is this the same guy who voiced so much opposition in the 80s against arms development and the refocusing of federal budgetary expenditures and was lauded by Nancy Pelosi and other high-ranking dems?

There is no 'W.' in 'Hobbit'

2008-08-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

Oh man. Have you seen the trailer for Oliver Stone's new *unbiased* biopic? It's glorious. The cast you ask?

Elizabeth Banks ... Laura Bush
Josh Brolin ... George W. Bush
Thandie Newton ... Condoleezza Rice
Richard Dreyfuss ... Dick Cheney
Ioan Gruffudd ... Tony Blair
James Cromwell ... George Herbert Walker Bush
Ellen Burstyn ... Barbara Bush
Scott Glenn ... Donald Rumsfeld
Noah Wyle ... Don Evans
Jason Ritter ... Jeb Bush
Jeffrey Wright ... General Colin Powell
Rob Corddry ... Ari Fleischer
Sayed Badreya ... Saddam Hussein
Toby Jones ... Karl Rove
Michael Gaston ... General Tommy Franks
Dennis Boutsikaris ... Paul Wolfowitz
Allan Kolman ... Vladimir Putin
Paul Rae ... Kent Hance

You must peep the trailer. Dreyfuss as Cheney looks awesome, Scott Glenn as Rumsfeld is genius, and how did Thandie Newton nail the Condi smile so well?

As for the Hobbit, we know that Guillermo Del Toro is directing, as Peter Jackson was dissed by the studio. While they later made up, Jackson was going to be aboard as a Producer, but now the real meat: the entire LOTR screenwriting team is going to be penning the script for the prequel, which will span two films. Narnia, Spiderwick, Golden Compass, etc step aside, you fast-following wannabes.

I'm trying this as soon as I get home

2008-08-21T10:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you internets. Thanks you for proving to me that there's more to you than just porn...there's you, in all your electronic glittering glow, showing me a Japanese video where I can learn how to fold a tshirt in 2 concise steps.

I heart tshirts, and I heart concise, although this looks like it might be hard to do while playing drinking games...er, while folding laundry.

Hiro and Y.T.

2008-08-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

So I started reading Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and I'm about 40 pages into it, and know it's going to be awesome.

Hiro and Y.T., by the way, are the...ahem...Protagonists...well at least Hiro is.

I was initially turned off by the whole 'cyberpunk' term because it sounded desperately needy. It screamed: I'm a cutting edge technophile who reads amazingly gadget-ridden books and don't make fun of me because I watch Star Trek, The Original Series! Of course, the dichotomy of the matter is that I like books with gadgets and own the TOS on DVD, but really who doesn't?

I digress...

What's the point in discussing the plot, when you can get it from Interweb Cybertown, suffice it to say that it anticipated virtual worlds like Second Life, and is rich with relatively accurately extrapolated computer science themes and disciplines. Above that, and this is what I find the most rewarding, is its social commentary on consumerism and what happens when privatization goes wrong, while at the same time not being extremely preachy.

It's so far been a visceral and completely engaging read. Which was a nice change from reading Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix, about which I read somewhere in some dust jacket text indicating that Gully Foyle should watch out because Sterling's Abelard Lindsay was the new man constantly on the remake. I found that to be debatable, but the last part of Schismatrix became so anti-climactic (right around the time of the Neotenic Cultural Republic) and somehow bereft of the intensity and passion with which it initially started out that I returned it to the library...twice. Both times I checked it out! I had other books (Snow Crash) waiting in the hopper and somehow I just couldn't force myself to finish it.

I never do that, but when I do, it's soooo liberating.

We saw Natalie Portman

2008-08-18T11:20:00.001-07:00

Oh yeah...almost forgot.

On the way back from the campsite we stopped at gas station/bakery/kitsch-mart spot (Big Sur Bakery) in Big Sur to get gas and saw Natalie Portman with her dog.

She rolled up in a Toyota Matrix with her boyfriend, and 2 ultra-hip scenesters that reeked of L.A. I totally have a *thing* for her. Here's what the dialog with my buddy went like:

Me:
Dude...she looks like Natalie Portman!

Michael Dudikoff:
No she doesn't.

Me:
[Pause...takes another good look] Dude that's totally Natalie Portman!

MD:
I don't think she is, dude. [starts pumping gas]

Me:
[Staring through space and time, which causes the side of her face to heat up] Dude, she looked just at me, and I saw her eyes and that is Natalie Portman...wow...she's small!

MD:
That does kinda look like her. Isn't she dating that singer dude?

Me:
Yeah, except I can't really tell...he's got a hat and sunglasses on...could be...he looks kinda like him. Who are those 2 lamewads with her?

MD:
Dunno...they are hella lame. Look like scenesters.

Me:
Oh man, she put her sunglasses on after she saw me looking at her. I feel creepy now.

MD:
I'm not sure that's her.

Me:
That's totally her. She's just smaller in real life. Damn...she's like 100 pounds or something.

MD:
Yeah, she IS very diminutive. Does she have a dog?

Me:
I dunno. I think so.

MD:
It's too bad we don't have the iPhone to look up on the internets to see if she has a dog.

Me:
There's no signal here anyway. Dammit. I know it's her. I'll look it up when we get home.

MD:
Cool.

The rest of the trip we built the case supporting the claim that it was Natalie Portman, and agreed that for all our arguments and suppositions, it all came down to the fact that it was dependent on the dog.

Case closed. Here's what the dog looked like.

I did think of taking pictures, but then I would've felt dirty and creepy. Still, I would think that someone who portrays the mother of Luke and Leia Skywalker would be a little more imposing. She was...diminutive, but just as pretty as she is in her movies.

All the fanboys at work are bugging out big time when I retell the story.

Thank you Coug and Zack

2008-08-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

Just got back from spending four days camping down near Big Sur. Awesome stuff.

My buddy and I drove through the burn zone and saw completely denuded hillsides and the local businesses had 'We [heart] you Firefighters!' signs up everywhere.

We couldn't have an open flame, so no campfires, and the trails in the hills were closed, but we did have some cool beach access and a double-burner propane stove.

In getting down there, we stopped at this bomb Vietnamese restaurant that made very stinky (lots of pickled veggies) BBQ chicken sandwiches. We'd parked next to the great sounding place that offered both the chance to cut hair and provide the patron with a tasty snack! What a winning combination!

Traffic was gnarly going down, and the marine layer was thick with Pacific goodness. When driving through Carmel we saw tons of eff-you money in the form of spankin' new Ferraris, Austin-Martins, Porches, BMW Z8s, a Maybach, Maseratis, et al. Of course, I could only remember and take pictures of them after the fact, so my photos were relegated to the prole Subarus and hybrid SUV.

When we got there, we couldn't have a campfire, but we could have a propane stove, so we fired it up and got the shitakes going.

The sunset was awesome from the view from our campsite.

Beach access was achieved by hiking down a path that crossed the creek for which the site was named. There was evidence of crazy pyroclastic activity. The rocks in the hillside were mostly covered by soil, but at beach level, there were instances of quartz, granite, shale, basalt, feldspar, and this crazy looking sediment layer that had some sweet cleavage.

Once our other friend showed up, and we walked down again, we came across a couple composed of a guy in a large hat, and a 'talented' woman who had taken some attention-getting classes from Paris Hilton. On the way back from a hike, we found them in the creek, where the dude was [repeatedly] directing his lady-friend to splash some [of the water] on her torso. It was a comment that got us better mileage than the EV-1.

There was lots of kelp...so much kelp that I got a little naseous when taking this photo.

Since the trails were closed we hiked up a nearby road that led up over the mountains. We scored some sweet views, and found this cool looking tree. I didn't tell either of my comrades, but I had mentally nicknamed it 'Huggy'.

We got up far enough that the marine layer burned off...or was at least thin enough in certain areas so we could see some blue sky. At one point there we spotted some godlight, which is what I call the sunlight when it's visibly sticking its fingers through the space around tress, clouds, or other sources that cause the light to become distinct photonic shafts.

We came across a tunnel spider. I was the only one to see it...it was massive, fast, and burly...kinda like Kathy Bates' portrayal of Annie Wilkes in Stephen King's Misery. We tried unsuccessfully to get it out of its funnel. This picture doesn't do fairly express the sheer size of the web.

As for the spider, I would imagine that it looks similar to this one. It certainly moved as fast.

Later forays with nature involves plugging up a nearby yellow jacket nest after it had struck one of our numbers on an early morning bathroom break.

This didn't work very well, so we were forced to take stronger measures and recruit all the nearby ground squirrels to rally together and eat the insects as they swarmed near their den.

Colonel Codpiece, seen here, was most successful in gnawing off the heads of most of the treacherous stingbugs. He continued to pester us once the yellow jackets were vanquished, and surprised us by mounting the nearby rock and whistling for his homies to come over and get his back.

The Coug term is in reference to a neighbor camper who strolled around the site with her tiny dog. Somehow she acquired the mantle of a 'cougar', which served us several days of material, for which we were eternally grateful.

Zack was the site attendent during our visit. When we first got there, we found someone else in our site, and after talking with Zack we learned that he 1) made a minor mistake, and 2) was probably baked, so...like...totally unavoidable.

OMG! Anchorman III: The Late Show

2008-08-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

There aren't enough unique filmmakers and scriptwriters.

While present-day American cinema is known for its tentpole blockbusters, with Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer leading each summer release blazing to theatrical premiers in their futuristic alien jet-space car that shoots lasers where headlights should be, and is able to project cgi buildings which it then proceeds to barrel into, throwing virtual debris on the Fandango populace held at bay by the velvet rope, it's not exactly consistently producing innovative or groundbreaking material on a semi-regular basis. Don't get me wrong...God Bless America and all that, but damn, do we really need a remake of The Fly?

Maybe it's me getting older and being more critical of what I watch. Maybe it's the dumbening of America, when the hallmark of comedy is the next new Will Ferrel Anchorman-70s retro-basketball star-stepbrother vehicle that's misting my vision. We all know that Dubya is a big fan of Will's movies, which, by all reasonable calculations done on my stupiditron device indicates that they are inherently evil...save for 'Stranger Than Fiction'.

Of course there are the handful of recent and relatively recent films that stand out as being uniquely powerful, stimulating, and provocative:
The Departed (based of the Hong Kong film 'Infernal Affairs')
Little Miss Sunshine
The Usual Suspects
Goodfellas
Schindler's List
Batman Begins & The Dark Knight
The Lord of the Rings
Juno
Hard Candy
Being John Malkovich
Donnie Darko
Fresh
El Mariachi
Memento
Swingers
Rushmore
The Royal Tennenbaums
The Fountain
Sunshine
No Country for Old Men (Look for the next adaptation of McCarthy's book, 'The Road' and Michael Chabon discussing The Road).

'Brick' is another film. Written and directed by Rian Johnson, it's been called a neo-noir crime drama played out among highschoolers who talk like cats from the 1940s where the protagonist works to solve a murder. It was good. It was different, and it required some involvement from the audience. Johnson's next one coming out ('The Brothers Bloom') looks pretty interesting as well, but it's 'Looper' that's sounds compelling to me.

"It's called Looper," Johnson said during a recent visit to the edit bay for The Brothers Bloom. "It's sci-fi, but it's very much -- well, I think people toss out Philip Dick sci-fi when they mean 'small, dark' sci-fi. Although, when I think of Philip Dick's books, it's something very different. I think people are confusing it with the movie Blade Runner.

Being a sci-fi uber nerd, and a Philip K. Dick fan at that, the comparison to Dickian themes whets my appetite, while the nerd is busy nodding his head and in complete agreement with the Dick |does not equal| 'Blade Runner' comment.

So, until then, I'm satisfying myself with Oliver Stone's next unbiased biopic, 'W.', which delves into the background of the only monkey ever to be elected President of the United States. Well done red staters!

'City of Ember' also looks interesting, but I'm reserving judgment. Just because Tom Hanks' company is producing it doesn't mean that it's going to outshine 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe'.

You had me at spoof

2008-08-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

'I got to roll around with Kim'. Why did I check out this interview? Why did this warrant an interview? This has got to be the most painful thing ever to watch. It's not like either of the 'stars' from the new film, 'Disaster Movie', are all that compelling...aside from the obvious eye candy. Carmen Electra looks like her face has been martinized by gothic surfers who think bad CGI is a kind of art in unto itself, and Kim Kardashian looks like when she's not enjoying the $5 million settlement from Vivid Entertainment for her 'leaked' sex tape with Ray Jay she's busy practicing eyelash batting in the mirror.

Of course, stating this I might bring the entire Armenian mob on my head, but what the hell did she do to warrant the hype? A sex video. Playboy pictures. Mmm-kay.

The Interweb Cybertown electro-question alone reveals that 'news' on her is relegated to the gossip columns, and a hard to find Larry King interview about said movie and pictures.

Granted every 13 year old boy will be attending the film in hopes of seeing a stray nipple missed by censors, and I understand that there's the degree of hotness there, but what's with the fascination on people who are famous solely for being hot and leaking a sex tape that at some point your brother, cousin, or cubemate downloads and says 'DUDE! YOU GOTTA SEE THIS CHIC!'? Are we that bored? Kathy Hilton doesn't think so.

Caeser:
The burdens of ruling on high on Olympus run such a blade of apathy in a man's heart...

Sub-praetor:
O Caesar...don't sweat it...you are the man!

Caesar: My subjects number in the millions, offer their tribute, and yet, I find them to be nothing more than a band of degenerate, slack-jawed yokels lusting for decrepit entertainment

Sub-praetor:
O Caesar...shall you offer them games and scantily clad maidens and man-brads with which to give their base yearning means to succor?

Caesar:
Make it so...and be certain to retain the finest maiden and score of man-brads for myself...it grows so weary on Olympus...

I shouldn't be so surprised, after all, the true purpose of DARPA was to create a more effective porn vector. Gentleman...I salute you and your success: the internets!

Everything in its right place

2008-08-01T09:04:00.000-07:00

The less software I have to install to do the stuff I want to do on the computer, the better. Salesforce.com gets it, Google gets it, the cloud computing movement is the manifestation of getting it, but what does the ordinary person get out of all this?

Well, you could be using Google Docs, which lets you do all your basic spreadsheeting, word processing, and presentation development without needing to install something like...let's say...MS Office.

What if you want to instant message with someone, but don't want to download the IM client and install it on your parent's computer, or your's? Sometimes that little Yahoo smiley face icon in the sys tray doesn't go over so well when you in a meeting, and presenting something to a roomful of smartypants and then 'chunkylover95' hits you up with 'ur a lewsor 4 kissing my sister lst nite'. Not cool....the message seen by all in the boardroom, not the kissing.

Meebo launched a few years ago, and being the early adopter that I am, I just now started using it a few months ago. What is it? It's a browser based IM application that lets you connect to all your existing IM accounts, whether they be on AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Google, Jabber, or ICQ. Everything's in one place. Chat with your Yahoo account with one friend, and hit up another on Google, all in the same browser session, and it doesn't require extra software.

During a recent trip to Guadalajara, I helped my comadre get set up with this. It's a liberating act to be able to include IMing in your tabbed browser session. It keeps everything in its right place.

If Philip K Dick were alive he'd order from here

2008-07-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Cool shirts from Atomic Tarantula. Found this one from the sponsored listing spam header in my gmail.

The Hal-9000 one is pretty good, although the shirt info on this one (Stark Trek tricorder to those living under a rock), indicates that this is the 'classic' model.

Sorry to be the uber nerd, but this is actually a model from the Next Generation franchise.

Now here's a classic...sturdy, heavy, and made for Spock and Bones' loving hands. Just look at that bulbous display. Who needed all those fancy buttons, why in my day we did just fine with six, and rubbing that equalizer-lookin thing on the left. Damn space-whippersnappers....

The 'I' stands for 'inability' maybe

2008-07-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Hmm...Fry's has some decent external hard drives they could buy and plug in to assist with space concerns. Maybe that would help.

Weird that I didn't get anything....I thought there was supposed to be results fed in from some other machine cluster. I guess everything is busy covering everything else's search queries.

Cool and not so Cuil

2008-07-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Cool:

Two upcoming games - 'Mirror's Edge' and 'Dead Space'.

I'd mentioned Mirror's Edge previously, and development seems to be coming along nicely. It'll be nice to have another action adventure in the spirit of Prince of Persia. The first person perspective looks sweet.

'Dead Space'...looks like Hostel or what video game version of Event Horizon might be. Early footage released indicates that weapon fire is more realistic in that hit placement determines enemy take-down effectiveness. Meaning: if Mr. Tentacle-Stomach slaps you with his various hurtful probiscii, then bust a few rounds into the appendages that secure him to his perch on the wall.

The game also introduces a mechanism to push the pause button on adversaries. The 'stasis field' tells creatures to chill, so you can regroup and reload.

'Mirror's Edge' comes out sometime in 2008, while 'Dead Space' has a firmer October 2008 shelf date. Both should be good diversions needed until Diablo III is released...which looks like some time in 2009.

Not so Cuil:

A new search alternative launched today. It's called 'Cuil' (pronounced 'cool'). Why Cuil? Based on the page logo, it suggests that they're trying to put the COOL around the I(nternet), but that's just my internal marketing voice pitching ideas to the imaginary VC board. A former Google employee and her husband started the resource with some VC money.

Anyway, being that I work in search I of course peeped it and found that it returned some very odd results...as in...what the hell does that have to do with SFGate?

An article on CNet details how the engine performs:

"...traffic has spiked beyond their expectations. In other Web 2.0 launches, a traffic spike would slow down or crash the service, but in Cuil's architecture, the spike affected results, not speed....Each of Cuil's search appliances is specialized to a particular subcategory of results. There are machines that understand and index sports; others are experts on medicine, etc. As these search machines get overloaded, Sollitto said, they drop offline for some queries, and the machines left online return less-than-relevant results that then appear at the top of users' pages."

Weird. So if the cluster of machines that's working on Entertainment-related queries is overloaded, then results from the Science cluster will backfill as needed? Hmm....doesn't sound like so much of an 'alternative' as it sounds lame. But, this is launch day. It looks promising: clean UI, straightforward result delivery...if they can get the results to be relevant, and optimize performance to avoid traffic spike result leakage, or perhaps re-architect how results are seeded to complement others, it could be good. Otherwise people will go elsewhere...Ask.com, of course.

Randy Pausch

2008-07-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

An amazing man with an amazing attitude, Randy Pausch, Computer Science Professor at Carnegie-Mellon, passed away.

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer he delivered a 'last lecture' speech at Carnegie-Mellon and later on Oprah. His lecture is called 'Achieving Your Childhood Dreams'. If you haven't seen or heard his speech. Here's your chance. Here's the full lecture he delivered at CM:

Here's the abbreviated one on Oprah:

I'm normally not one for the Tony Robbins or Deepak Choprah thing, because their message is essentially motivated by money. Randy's message is one that he wanted to leave for his kids, and thus its genuine quality shines so very bright. His personal truth is enlightening and after watching him, knowing that he's facing his illness with so much dignity is amazing and inspiring.

Randy was a Star Trek fan, like so many bright and creative people are, and apparently had a small role in the upcoming J.J. Abrams franchise reboot. I'm looking forward to seeing his posthumous and eternal exploration of the final frontier. Pleasant journeys, Randy.

Missing the BART train, forgetting to turn the sprinklers before a week trip to Mexico, not having milk to put in your coffee: these are insignificant trivialities compared to the gift of life, and how we use it to make the world a better place...one keystroke at a time. So before I start complaining about anything today, I'm going to ask myself...what would Randy do? Is this something I want to leave as my legacy?

My next job is going to be awesome

2008-07-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

I can't wait.

I get paid $7.00 for every 1kb of text I revise?! SWEET!

And Russel Barajas (you can email him at tengyzw@qq.com [hey Russel...what's with the tengyzw? a quick search reveals your handle on strange Chinese sites like 'underthepink'...hmmm....) sounds like a totally cool manager, and wields an extraordinary command of the English language...I mean, he's like awesomer than Dubya, whose unswerving ability to blow shotgun holes in sentences has been raising hackles on grammar and diction nazis for years.

I think I'll send all my private info to this Russel guy. I mean, there doesn't seem to be an actual 'datingroup.co', although there is a datinggroup.org. It looks like it's on the up-and-up too! I'm so excited to be part of the Global Community! Yay!

I feel all Internety and Google-y inside. My vittles are all atwitter.

Portywood? WTF?!

2008-07-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

What in the...huh?

Why is Natalie Portman in a Bollywood video?

What would Darth say?
Noooooooo!

Fake Steve goes real

2008-07-22T16:19:00.000-07:00

Kinda stale, but the Secret Steve Jobs Diary blog is changing...to the dude who writes as Steve Jobs, Dan.

I totally loved his stuff. My favorite was recent piece from a contributor who 'worked' at Google, and was describing the significance of employee badges. Details.

Dan/Steve also pointed out some awesome comic, SiliconApartment.com, which covers the life and times of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates living together. Hijinks ensue.

Watching Watchmen in 2009

2008-07-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

So I get back from Guadalajara, where I procured some of the delicious handmade granada ponche from a lovely little unnamed village somewhere in the state of Jalisco, and finally go see The Dark Knight (fantastically awesome), and what preview should be showcased prior to the Caped Crusader doing his dark deeds? 'Watchmen'.

If you've never heard of it, that's probably because you're not a graphic novel fan, or dork variant of some kind. I'm fortunately both, and therefore was terribly animated. Luckily for me, there was a dude who shared my enthusiasm sitting next to me and Fil (my father-in-law) in the theater.

Watchmen was written in the 80s by Alan Moore, who also penned 'V for Vendetta', 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', 'Hellblazer' (think of the movie 'Constantine'), 'From Hell', and other such gems, and details the plight of ordinary men (save Dr. Manhattan) and women who fight crime as 'superheroes'. Eventually, the populace forces them to go into retirement (I'm guessing that the screenwriters for Pixar's 'The Incredibles' borrowed this theme from Watchmen) and then someone mysteriously murders one of the 'masks' who accepted governmental sponsorship (working for the man, and still being allowed to practice their arts). Wikipedia, of course, is a decent source of detailed info on the plot. Suffice it to say, this is rich humanistic story. Characters are flawed, and compelling and complementing subplots abound. There's also going to be additional web matierial rounding out some of the back story, and reportedly a companion DVD containing 'The Black Freighter' content, in addition to an uber Lord of the Rings length director's cut.

It'll undoubtedly be updated for the 90s. Instead of the looming nuclear war with the Russians, it'll probably be 'splinter organizations' or 'regimes' that are the antagonistic mechanism. Zach Snyder, who directed '300', is heading this one. Dave Gibbons, the original novel's illustrator is on board.

It looks like it'll be a real treat. It opens March 6, 2009.

Diablo III, praise be to Blizzard

2008-06-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

Oh my stars...joy upon joys...the next installment of Diablo III is coming. Finally Blizzard (the shop responsible for the genre expanding Warcraft series) is focusing development efforts on the Diablo world. Diablo was my first serious foray into PC gaming, having spent countless hours playing it at a certain textbook and software publishing house in Emeryville, when I was also starting my foray into Business Intelligence. During the close of the month I had to kick off a manual process of building text files used to construct OLAP cubes, which I then employed to run scheduled and ad hoc analyses and reports. During the file build, I'd fire up Diablo II and wail away at monsters, collect weapons, and hire mercenaries to fight by my side. There was some initial buzz over what Blizzard was doing, as some of the recent content they put online didn't clearly state what was happening., but at the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France, they announced their next title would be Diablo III.
No release date was indicated, but from the demo material that they released, the POV is top-down like in I and II, the gameplay is updated, and includes destructible environments, enhanced 3D graphics, and new character classes.
It looks glorious. After playing Diablo II and the Lord of Destruction expansion pack to death many years ago, I'm going to need to break it out to get back into the mindset of what is Diablo.

Thank you Blizzard. Thank you.

Oakland's Project Mayhem

2008-06-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

I'd just ported over my blog to wordpress, and have been tinkering with stuff over there, when just today I find that Google has finally put some effort into enhancing Blogger...so I'm going to try it out.

Meanwhile, I came into work today (it's been busy, hence no postings) and found that the 12th St BART Station was closed because of 'police activity'. Normally this means the cops had to lay the beatdown on someone who was acting a fool, but SFGate reports the presence as a result of a 'suspicious device'. Sheriffs, OPD, BART po-leece, and helicopters were in full force. Still, my money's on the real Oakland gangsta pictured at left.

Who dat, you ask? That's Deborah Edgerly. She alledgedly interfered in the police towing her nephew's car, and threatened them to call Internal Affairs, while also warning her nephew about an increased police presence because of his affiliation with his rough riders. Her nephew, rolls with some other thug-lifas in Oakland. What is it with this city? Ron Dellums is sitting in his office, drinking his Ensure, while the city continues to crumble.

If I didn't know better, I'd think Project Mayhem was running afoot in my hood.

Regardless, things are looking good on the horizon, once we can clear the air from all the fires, weather a drought, and squeak through a $5/gal gas summer. Truly, now when you see someone rolling an H3 or some other Earth Destroyer 2009 model, it's textbook conspicuous consumption: I drive this because I can afford the shitty gas mileage...or I'm too dumb to care that the cost to fill the tank rapes my bank account.

But seriously people, the light is at the end of the tunnel...and let's hope it's not another train. We're going to be shedding Bushco, and although we're going to be collectively paying for its mistakes through our lives and possibly the lives of our grandchildren, it'll be better.

It's almost like we had to hit rock-bottom to know what we had to do. How bad could it get? Pretty bad. We had to feel it before we could even be ready for the possibility of Obama. Is he going to take it? I think so. Will he be able to prevent people from thinking a 40oz wrapped in a paper bag is a 'suspicious device' inside the BART terminal? Probably not, but it's a start.

I love it when children's books are re-envisioned as political satires

2008-06-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

Check out 'Goodnight Bush'. Brilliant stuff. There's an interactive website that allows you to flip through the virtual pages.

I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime...

2008-06-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

...and I'm glad to have been proven wrong. Obama is now the first Black Presidential nominee, as he's secured the delegates necessary to clinch the nomination from the Democratic Party. Clinton's essentially been a shining star, and done the best thing for the party and will be easing to the left in order to keep the Democrats from tearing at each other's throats.

GOP...look out. I'm foretelling that McCain will not be able to stand up to the wave that Obama is riding in...and given McCain's close relationship with Bush, Americans do not want to elect a Bush II candidate. Dubya has done more to turn Americans off of 'compassionate conservatism' than any U.S. President before. Perhaps it was necessary, else how could we have arrived here. This must feel like what my parents felt when JFK was elected. Let's hope that it doesn't the same way.

Also in the news...several white papers describing how to implement a stable and clean manner of nuclear fission was discovered in Dubya's desk today, strategically hidden under a hardbound copy Scott McClellan's White House expose. When asked about it and the incontrovertible truth it contained, he said, 'How did that get there? That's not mine!'

The Tesla motor company received anonymous donations today, enabling them to flood the market with affordable and spirited electric cars, thus severing American dependency on the petroleum teat.

Chevron recorded record losses, while public education spending increased and state and national ledgers finally edged back into the black.

Recent non-partisan surveys revealed that Americans feel pretty good about the changes and are happy that we're moving away from a government that thrives on stagnant fear, to one that thrives on optimism and moving forward.

All silliness aside, you know what's so compelling about Obama, and what's going to put him in office? Our votes of course, but the fact that he genuinely resonates with people. I think some older, perhaps more Conservative-oriented people don't get this. It's like a dog whistle, some people hear it, and others can't. Excellent comparison, Howard.
Totally unrelated, and for a certain reader, who recently exclaimed 'I like reading your blogs on gaming', here's some fabulous coverage of one the newly released COD 4 PC multiplayer maps...'Creek':

My hard drive just crapped out on me last night, and I spent a few hours getting a new drive installed and configured, so haven't been able to check this out yet, but will soon. This time around, I'm going to be running a dual-boot machine (Windows XP Pro SP3 and Ubuntu's Linux). Gaming and iTunes will be relegated to the XP partition, while all the evil dastardly deeds will be executed from the Ubuntu environment.

Interested in doing it to your XP machine? Did you know that you can install Ubuntu directly onto a machine running XP? Yup. Check it out here. The Ubuntu install comes with OpenOffice.org apps, which are fully compatible with Windows and Adobe formats. the best thing: it's free and constantly updated by the Ubuntu user community.

Things are looking good, my friends.

House of cards

2008-05-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

...except the cards are made from your tax dollars and BushCo plays 52-pickup with them while funding the war on terror.

Speaking of which, have you heard that Scott McClellan, the former White House Press Secretary (post-Ari Fleischer and pre-Dana Perino), has written a memoir detailing his time spent with Bush and his spin doctors? It's titled: What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.

The SF Chronicle has an article on it. Some of the highlights:

The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."

"In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes.
...
The former press secretary — the second of four so far in Bush's presidency — explained his dramatic shift from loyal defender to fierce critic as a difficult act of personal contrition, a way, he wrote, to learn from his mistakes, be true to his Christian faith and become a better person.

"I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be," McClellan writes. He also blames the media whose questions he fielded, calling them "complicit enablers" in the White House campaign to manipulate public opinion toward the need for war.

McClellan said Bush loyalists will no doubt continue to think the administration's decisions have been correct and its unpopularity undeserved. "I've become genuinely convinced otherwise," he said.

We knew that Iraq wasn't behind the attacks on September 11th. We know that the man who was is hiding in the luxurious Afghanistan-Pakistan mountain borne caves. Yet with enough spinning, the American people in their anger, pain, and frustration, found the lies hurled from the collective foul recesses of the neocon mouth bearing enough credence to choose to go to war against Iraq because of supposed WMDs and a (then) questionable link to the Taliban.

We knew Saddam was bad. No question about it. So we went in under the pretense of liberation, and have put ourselves in a position that will make it extremely difficult to extricate ourselves. What benefits have we seen from these actions?

Ever heard of the Wolfovitz Doctrine (aka 'Rebuilding American Defenses')? We let it become policy right:

'...while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for U.S. military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

We can't blame everything on the war that's lasted over 5 years and has claimed the lives of over 4,000 American soldiers thrown in harm's way not to protect American interests, but to further the goals of a dying leprous breed of politicians. However, given the war's impact on the the stability (or at least perceived stability) of petroleum availability, coupled with the crumbling mortgage industry, the housing market slump, and fuel and food costs increasing, it stands to reason that prolonging current troop deployments and actions to fight the ephemeral 'war on terror' is a bad thing for Americans and their progeny.

This is not a partisan issue. This is an ethical issue. We've been manipulated enough with BushCo spin doctors, but we also need to take accountability for our actions of allowing our country to go in the wrong direction. We've shown the government that we're intimidated by them, when really it should be the other way around. They are elected officials. While we're going to see lots of propaganda from both sides (a certain questionable email that's been circulating comes to mind) we should keep in mind that we control who goes into office.

After so many Orange Alerts, looming shadows of Homeland Security restrictions on traveling, cases of illegal wire taps, we seemed to have been cowed into conformity. A fearful populace is an easily governed populace. When we seem to be perpetually at war, our government has enlisted tools that instill fear in our hearts, so we allow them to send more troops and spend more tax dollars overseas, while we constantly cut out education programs and raise tuition at public universities and put our next generation of engineers, teachers, police officers, soldiers, mothers, and fathers further into debt.

While Scott McClellan's tell-all comes a little late, it no doubt provides more context into the lame duck presidency that will go down in history as the administration that ran 2 terms as a fascist third-world regime while losing ground to other countries, instead of the innovative and progressive force it could've been.

That being said, the end of BushCo is nigh. Even while he campaigns for McCain, John knows that linking himself to the man who put the crack in cracka is a death sentence for the November elections.

No Google Street View for you

2008-05-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

Like the Soup Nazi, it would appear that there's the requisite 'soup' and 'no soup for you' with regards to Google Street View's mapped content.

If you haven't seen this, it's Google latest (couple years old) foray into providing 'added value'. The company employs a squadron of vans equipped with a roof-mounted camera to drive almost everywhere and then provide these images on their mapping service, so when you want to map an address, you have the option to actually see what the area looks like: the 'street view' one might say. Clicking on the 'Street View' button brings up blue trails on streets and roads that have been indexed by Google.

It's interesting. If your area has been captured, then someone mapping directions to your house can see what it looks like from the road. I'm sure it makes some people's lives easier, as if you're not a directions-on-paper type person, the visuals fill in the blanks.

How does Google determine which areas are captured? Excellent question. As we see here:
there's a big hole of coverage in parts of Piedmont, Montclair, and Crocker Highlands. Not familiar with Piedmont? It's got stupid money. Huge homes, great schools, embedded (like journalists in Iraq) in Oakland, and it doesn't tolerate all that nonsense that goes down in the adjacent Oaktown streets. The cops shoot at you with platinum bullets. Montclair (the area bisected by Snake and Shepard Canyon) is similar to Piedmont, although it's still technically part of Oakland. Crocker Highlands is another relatively affluent area with gorgeous homes.

Rumor has it that the downtown Montclair village area had a nightclub back in the 80s that was the source for the majority of cocaine for the local yuppies. The area now frequently changes hands and becomes a swanky burger joint or bagel shop every 3 years. I digress.

How did certain parts of Piedmont and Oakland escape the capture?

Google filmed all of Pinehurst Rd in Canyon, but left the 'residential' area alone.In nearby Walnut Creek, there's a similar hole.Almost the entire island of Alameda was left untouched.Was there a request made by the community leaders? A discrete pay-off? Subtle (or not so subtle) legal threats? Montclair is in an elevated location, where the houses are secluded by gorgeous redwoods carpeting the hillside. Maybe the camera on the van can't swivel to get all the non-standard street view perspectives. All of Alameda? Hmmm...

Has anyone ever seen the Google picture van?

It's an elusive creature...fortunately, as the sun sets the vehicle's shadow becomes part of the landscape...keep your eyes open...Coupled with Google Health we should expect some vocal privacy concerns. Kaiser Permanente partnered with Google in order to 'advise' them on HIPAA related concerns.

The new Kaiser Thrive marketing mantra?

We believe in instant information
We believe that your medical records are great for sponsored listings
We believe you can't do shit about us making them available for Google
We believe we'll make a great profit from your genetic profile being scanned by the Google AdSense engine
We believe that going over budget is the best way to increase profits, since you'll pay for our mistakes
We believe we'll thrive on you, the consumer
We believe you better pray you stay employed, so we don't have to reject your medical coverage application

Thank you Monty

2008-05-09T23:30:00.000-07:00

In light of the recent Duggar news, I just want to salute Jim Bob with this lovely ditty performed by the timeless Eric Idle. Thank you for everything Eric. Jim Bob...thanks for keeping Pampers in business.

Every Duggar Sperm is Sacred

2008-05-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Duggars have child number 18 on the way. Mom's been pregnant for 11 years. WTF? All the kids are homeschooled...

...gulp...

...the oldest wants to be an attorney, the rest are basically a mix of missionary, carpenter, and midwife...not that these are bad vocations, but 18 KIDS?!

Let us hope Amy fails to cut anything on this mirror

2008-05-07T13:14:00.000-07:00

How cool does Mirror's Edge look? This cool:
It's an action adventure game that makes me think of Prince of Persia, but done in first-person perspective with the gameplay mechanics showcasing parkour. Check out the French movie District B13 for a good example of this style of physical movement.
Totally unrelated, but it looks like Amy Winehouse has finally completed her descent and completely wrecked her entire train. She needs rehab like Bush needs to line up his coke. Thank you Family Guy.

It's a bit of a downer. Talented girl, Grammys aplenty, fans buying out her tickets within minutes, tapped to do the next Bond theme song, and nothing to show for it but bad press about her thuggish-ruggish man and her addiction-fueled behavior.

GTA IV is here

2008-04-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

The production of the video review is pretty sweet. The Kanye tie-in with the syncopated claps and gunfine is divine.

IGN has an amazing review here, and you'll see that's one of the very few games that they've ever given a '10'.

I remember playing GTA III on the PS2 back in a humble 2 bedroom apartment back in early 2001, and being completely blown away by the graphics, gameplay, and sheer replay value of the title. Vice City and San Andreas were worthy sequels, but I never found them to be all that compelling.

Now that the HD-DVD has gone the way of the dodo, and most games are available for both consoles (only talking about PS3 and 360, here: the Wii is cool, but we're not talking about Mario Kart here), I've serious motivation to take up a paper route to score the PS3 so I can get down with GTA IV. Or at least pick the new gear from the finery outlet at the Rockstar Warehouse.

I'm going to have to bug my colleagues in MIS to procure this one for the game room.

Ironically enough, I'm reading some short stories by J.G. Ballard (the writer probably best known for his work 'Empire of the Sun', which Spielberg made into a movie in the early 1980s). One of the tales is called 'The Subliminal Man', in which the protagonist becomes aware of the large signal arrays that are being erected all over the city. At first, he thinks they're related to airline traffic, and later realizes that they're huge subliminal emitters, blasting the populace with urgent advertisements designed to evoke consumption. It's a great commentary on how the things we own end up owning us, and more deeply embedded, are the pitfalls of extreme instances of capitalism and communism.

Is Sony shooting ads at my brain? Bastards. I'll fool them in the end. I had a lobotomy.

Always bet on black and white stripes

2008-04-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Wesley Snipes goes to jail for 3 years for tax evasion or failure to pay taxes, depending on how you want to interpret it.

Just like his Demolition Man character, Simon Phoenix, he'll now be chillin' in the big house, and kept on ice. Even praising letters from Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington couldn't spare him jailtime. Nobody gets away with not paying taxes. Unless you're Dubya and think that the jedi mind trick actually works on the IRS.

Is this news? Nah, but damn, you'd think that his earnings from the Blade franchise would've insulated him from the rising prices of rice.

Worst. Movie. Ever...oh...and our progeny is doomed

2008-04-18T07:32:00.000-07:00

WTF? Isn't the world bad enough with Uwe Boll making movies?

Why would someone ever make a movie about the game Tetris? My mind reels in its inability to understand why anyone would provide funding for this. From the looks of the preview, it's like some Tetris fan's bad wet dream a la 300.

Premise: guys fly huge Tetris blocks around in the air...I guess it's a sport but bigger, but not as big as Rollerball. Guy's brother dies in Tetris match. Brother to avenge death. Filmed in your neighbor's garage via greenscreen.

We are all dumber having knowing someone made this film.

You want to see a relevant and hilarious piece of work? Check out Mark Fiore's White House Life. Oh man.
In a related note, I never found myself that big of a fan of Black Sabbath, probably out of ignorance for actually giving the music a shot after seeing the horrible reality program with Ozzy's family. I stand corrected, and thank Guitar Hero 2 for opening my figurative eyes. It was during gametime that I was able to play War Pigs, and I thought 'sigh...Sabbath...bat-head eater gimmick...lame...' but I needed to beat the song in order to move onto the next level, so I gave it a go.

The song rocks, not just in a pre-metal 1970s rougher-than-Zeppelin kind of way, but in its forthright commentary on war. What I find remarkable is we seem to be expressing the same frustrations and making the same articulations almost 40 years since the song's release.

If the government was run more like a business, then I wonder if Dubya would've been allowed to remain in office. Shareholders would probably have kicked his crappy administration out of office years ago. Why haven't we? Maybe we like the war on terror, and suffer from some prideful ailment that's crippling us from packing things up, which of course we really can't now that we broke it ('it' being the stability of the Middle East). Then again it's not like the current administration is tearing its hair out to attend to majority of people's concerns: jobs, affordable housing, education, etc.

Maybe it's the alluring thought of receiving that juicy economic stimulus package that I won't get because the plan didn't factor in an adjustment for residents living in areas where the cost of living is higher. Oh well, that's just money my great-grandkids would owe the Bank of China anyway.

Ques: How will the US pay for 'economic stimulus package'?
Ans: The US Treasury will write a check for the debt.
Ques: How will the US Treasury finance the check?
Ans: The US Treasruy will borrow the money.
Ques: Where will the US Treasury get the money?
Ans: The US Treasury will sell "paper" at the debt window. [think of your neighborhood checking-cashing facility! yay!]
Ques: Who will buy the "paper"?
Ans: Foreign Central banks interested in US debt (ie China, Saudia Arabia, etc.)
Ques: What will be the interest rate on the loan and what will be the term?
Ans: The rate and term of the loan will be negotiated.

Can we please put Dubya in the Tetris movie, so it'll at least be funny to watch? I also find the mental image of him getting crushed by a giant CG metal block positively hilarious.

I was looking forward to Mahalo on Aloha via BART

2008-04-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

Getting on the train today I see that BART is having a survey across its station network, in order to poll riders to see what they think: do they like stinky cloth covered seats, or vomit-slicked plastic seats?

Regardless of the response, riders will be entered into a prize giveaway contest, in which the grand prize is an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii...via Aloha Airlines. Thankfully, they've updated potential survey participants with the unfortunate news about Aloha's demise.

I hope Hawaii continues to be money-maker state, else I could see the Dubya admin having to mortgage it to the Chinese to pay for our highly questionable and seemingly neverending war on terror. Good thing we found Saddam because...um...ahh...wait...why was it so important?

President Black Bush/The Black HouseFunnyOrDie.com

After all this time it's just an embedded video?

2008-04-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

I like this. I was on the edge of my seat while viewing it. It's kinda like what a stick figure themed version of the Matrix would be like...and no, I'm not referring the bullet-time action sequences.

Animator vs. Animation by *alanbecker on deviant ART

We've been working on rolling out a Hyperion Business Intelligence (BI) environment at work, and have been pulling the 12-13 hour days for the past month it seems. Needless to say, it's been leaving home when the moon is still visible, and coming home when the crickets are composing their evening symphony, so their hasn't been much time for anything else. I don't even see much of the news anymore, although I do see a certain hillside every morning and see we're making good progress in filling it up with crosses.

Meanwhile gas is now over $4.00 a gallon in the Bay Area, layoffs are plentiful across industries, not everyone is getting the 'economic stimulus package' (read: kiss this money good-bye because it's either paying off debt, buying a flat screen LCD, or going to your interest-only home loan(s)), and our exit strategy is now to go through Iran.

Thank you Bush administration. You're leveling a bill that transcends 3 trillion dollars on future American generations that you'll never see or care about as you cooked your neural synapses on superb 1980s coke while your daddy was running the CIA. Bang up job Dubya.

I keep waiting for the Neo moment when Morpheus wakes me up with the red pill, and can fathom that power larger than the Bush dynasty is responsible for the economic and patriotic wasteland that's permeating our global landscape.

Right now I can't take the blue pill, as a $50 tank of gas coupled with a mortgage crisis, corporate 'downsizing', and (most importantly) a seemingly neverending antiseptic war on terrorism was unleashed on taxpayers by an American president.

How people query now isn't evocative of natural language

2008-03-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

'kitchen-floor conflict intensifies as rival house cats claim same empty bag analysis'

By far the strangest query that returned results matching my blog, and where a person actually selected my blog as a result.

What the heck was that person looking for?

It almost makes sense. It sounds like there's been some research done that examines the behavior of cats when an empty (but possibly smelly) bag is thrown in between them. What do they do? Let's find out...amazing! Put the results on the Internets!

We've become so used to entering in a string of keywords (since that's how Google returns results: keywords in indexed pages bubble to the top) in a way that's not how we think or speak.

Perhaps the notion of *asking* a question will become more prevalent in people's minds when conducting a search in the coming months...

Can we declare a war on layoffs?

2008-03-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

I want to be clear here: I'm not happy about anyone losing their job. It sucks. It's a downright nasty, foul, frustrating experience usually empathized by coworkers who express uncomfortable concern for their colleagues. I say 'uncomfortable' because the coworkers are still retaining a paycheck, and they, too, could be next.

This being said, when I learned that Cnet.com is laying off about 10% of its workforce in the (all cuts to be made in the U.S.), I was surprised to see that this headline wasn't glossing the virtual pages of its online properties. Typically, Cnet has all the layoff details for other companies plastered on its site as soon as the news hits the streets.

Although, this is probably going to be a good move for them. They're a media company about technology, not vice versa. Perhaps they're realizing this. Cnet says:

...it is laying off 120 employees as part of an effort to streamline the online media company while generating more content for its news and entertainment sites.

But man, with stock at $7.25 (value closed on Wed), you'd think this move wouldn't have been a surprise. They're going to have to find a way to stand out from all the other sources of tech news out there: slashdot, arstechnica, valleywag, techcrunch, wired, various news portals/aggregators (BigNews, Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! News , etc.) by delivering competitive content that attracts ad dollars. Running leaner may help.

Of course, that little thing called the 5 year (and going!) War on Terror might also have something to do with things...

LoveMeet.net

2008-03-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

Have you taken your LoveMeet.net personality quiz yet? RockstarNorth Games has GTA IV coming out very shortly, and in the spirit of petsovernight.com, and other jolly mock-ercials they've developed a splendid personality test. I highly recommend this useful tool to help you know your inner you.

Speaking of inner you, it's about time Mike Meyers did another *good* movie. I'm hoping that 'The Love Guru' is as hilarious as the first Austin Powers.

Meet my confidential Italian secretary. Her name is Alotta. Alotta Fagina.
...
Pardon me, I thought you said your name was a lot of um...never mind.

Obama punches Thompson

2008-03-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

It's nice to hear when something you worked on was well received by a much larger audience...especially when you spend so much time at work that you're seriously considering bringing in a cot to put under your desk.

During the whole pre-primary Presidential race we worked on producing some information that was feed to an integrated marketing piece on the Washington Post. Here's the details.

The functionality of the piece is still there, so the queries work. I wonder what kind of results are coming up now for Fred Thompson...

Spitzer to provide extracurricular activity lessons to Vallejo city employees

2008-03-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

It's tragic, offensive, and downright embarrassing for everyone.

Now that we have that out of the way, here were some of the recent highlights of comedy antics surrounding (now) former Gov. Eliot Spitzer:

I sat next to the guy three times and I didn't pick up on any of this. - Stephen Colbert

It's just mind-blowing that he spent $4,300 on a hooker. It just shows how high the cost of living is in New York. That same hooker would cost $50 in Newark. - Lisa Landry

They're talking about impeaching Eliot Spitzer if he doesn't step down, and I'm thinking, 'Whoa, a Democrat being impeached for extramarital sex. Well, happy days are here again!' - David Letterman

Not surprisingly, clients 1 through 8 were Charlie Sheen. - Conan O'Brien

If this guy was a plumber ... he would have his wife's SUV tire tracks over his head - Jay Leno

No. 1: "It's Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thanks. I'm no longer America's creepiest governor." - David Letterman's Top 10 List

Spitzer resigned yesterday. If only other elected officials in similar circumstances could follow suit....ahem...Mr. Craig?

Next on the list for the former Governor? Well, he's heading to Vallejo, CA to act as Activities Director for the city's overpaid city employees.

Nobody puts baby in a corner

2008-03-06T08:12:00.000-08:00

That's got to be Hillary's new campaign theme. Bill can deliver it at press conferences. I can just hear him say it:

Obama...you've got some serious momentum behind you. I can't deny that, but as we've just seen from results in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island...nobody puts baby in a corner.

Can't you hear it?

As always, Democrats have problems getting behind one candidate. Both are electable, and both would be landmark Presidential candidates. Unfortunately, the pleasantries have been put aside and now the uglies come out.

The only thing good that will come out of this for Dems will be that while the GOP has McCain, the race for Republican delegates is over and some of the excitement and energy will dissipate for GOP voters. On the other hand, if Obama and Clinton 2 battle it out for the nomination to the bitter end, you can be certain that Dem voters will be fired up for the November ballot.

Of course, while we're all happy that we're moving a chimp out of office, and the rhetoric has been lovely (because really, doesn't the Bush administration provide excellent fodder for debate...this was a great time for a person to run for President...the platform was 'I'm not Dubya') there's the nagging suspicion that political machinery in place isn't changing...just the oilers.
Oh well. At least Huckabee's outta there. Just the fact that Chuck Norris was backing him was disturbing...that and the fact that we all know what's under his beard.