June 29, 2005
Movie Quote...
"Was it a dream where you were where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid, with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?"
June 28, 2005
Movie Quote...
"Do you know what they call a gathering of crows? Curve? A murder. A murder of crows. Think about it."
Some neat links
How to stream audio and video to a mobile phone - Sadly I don't have one of these fancy phones that accept 3GP files, all you fancy cellphone video watching people!
Chihuly at Fairchild: A Garden of Glass - Chihuly will be exhibiting at Fairchild Gardens in Coral Gables from December 3 – May 30, 2006. If you can see any of his exhibits definetely go see them, they are awesome.
Wal-Mart won't print digital photos that look "professional" - Thank goodness we A) don't shop at Walmart because it sucks B) print a majority of our prints at home C) if we need film processed we go to a photo lab that doesn't also sell a box of hot dogs at 10 for $1.
View from inside a tornado - The people that do this crap are completely nuts. The closest I've been to a tornado has been seeing one form from at least a 1/4 mile away, and we freaked and ran for cover. These guys are watching a F4/5 from that far away...bearing down on them and they still take the time to make sure the cameras are in place.
Bait car videos - Step 1: Place a car in a place where it's going to most likely be stolen. Make sure the car has a hidden video camera and a remote kill switch. Step 2: Watch as morons enter car to steal it. Step 3: Watch as morons believe their in the clear. Step 4: Arrest the crap out of them. Step 5: Repeat!
June 27, 2005
Movie Quote...
"Do, do you have to keep bringing that up, huh? Ok, so it was a good thing we did a test because it wasn't going to be just a quick snap. Would've broken my neck, or leg or my back. Would've bled to death on the beach, but it's in the past. It was what, a year ago? SO let's just forget it."
June 26, 2005
MIT Bloggers Survey
I just took it, if you're a blogger you should take it too.
(Link courtesy of BoingBoing)
June 24, 2005
Movie Quote...
"Most people - same job, same gig, doing the same thing 10 years from now. Us, we don't know what we are doing 10 minutes from now."
June 23, 2005
Some neat links
The Walmart documentary - Documentary on the evil's of Walmart.
Surreal furniture - I wonder if Christine would allow me to have a coffee table that looks like it's pissing on the floor in the new house?
Adding Half Life 2 elements in your everyday photos
Pictures of Brooklyn camera dealer storefronts
Electric cars as fast as Ferraris - Soon you'll be able to save world from your cars pollution and still "run the streets".
DIYParts.org - Trade/give away your old computer parts.
I have seen God in a cup of chocolate - Cory Doctorow visits neat places, with delicious chocolate beverages. I need to do more of that.
June 22, 2005
Little unhappy, little happy
First off I'm a little unhappy, just watched the Global Frequency pilot, and I thought it was good. Quite good in fact, and that's not the bottle of Syrah we finished for dinner talking. I'd love to know why the people who make these decisions didn't pick it up. Did they not understand it? Are they stupid? Maybe we'll never know, I for one would have watched it on the boob tube, and if they decide to drop the pilot all fancy like on DVD I would plunk down my money to see it again. A wonderful job on the pilot to all folks involved.
Now the happy bit, Threadless has reprinted the Darth Vadar gardening shirt! Although they didn't email me to let me know about it (scum!). Anyway I bought one so I can be guaranteed a shirt and are letting you all know after the fact (because I am a bastard that way, and because last time I tried to get one I waited too long and they sold out).
Please don't ask me where I got the pilot, trust me, it's easy enough to find.
Movie Quote...
"This place is fantastic; it's like "Gone With The Wind" on mescaline. They walk imaginary pets here, Garland---on a fucking leash. And they're all heavily armed and drunk. New York is boring!"
June 21, 2005
Downing Street Memo hearing
From the article:
"We were forced to convene the hearing in a small room in the basement of the Capitol as the Republicans would not make any other room available to us. Then, the Republican Leadership scheduled 11 consecutive floor votes at the precise time the hearing was scheduled to begin. My research shows that this is more votes that have been scheduled at any other time in the last ten years since the GOP takeover of the House."
Some neat links
Ajax and weblogs - Kottke talking about adding an Ajax menu (he's since removed) on his blog. Nice set of notes on how he did it.
Obscure Disneyland factoids - Fifty odd facts about the Disneyland park.
Manga Head styling gel - This link is for my brother Marc.
Microsoft in Cell phones - Nice little op/ed on why Microsoft should stay out of the cellphone business.
Is Yoga The Devil's Subterfuge? - There are people (a group of Christians, what a shock!) who believe that yoga is evil. What the hell is wrong with these people?
Creationism v. Evolution -- Leave it to the Beavers - From the article: "My favorite moment in sci vs. fi history was when the JPL launched the Cassini space probe of Saturn in 1997. Soon after, the JPL phone rang; attorneys for clothes designer Oleg Cassini were demanding to know how JPL had the effrontery to name a space probe after the man who designed ensembles for Jackie Kennedy and almost married Grace Kelly – and not even ask his permission to do so? Ahem, said the JPL; the probe is named for an 18th-century astronomer named Jean Dominique Cassini."
Logos for $25 - Review of a firm that makes you a logo for $25.
FusionHDTV USB TV peripheral - Little box that you plug into your PC so you can record TV, even supports HDTV recording.
Movie Quote...
"I got the shakes that'll make you quake. I got the fries that will cross your eyes. I got the burgers that... will... I just got burgers."
June 20, 2005
Some writing...
Bit of dialog from a short comic I'm writing, not done yet (so friggen close), I'm think it's going to be black and white, probably 32 pages. I've removed the descriptive bit from the first panel because I don't want to give away what they're (a cop and the main character) looking at.
Panel One
Police Chief (off panel): He’s been missing over three days. He jumped onto one of those windsailers on a resort and disappeared. The fool’s family demanded the Bahamian navy search the waters for him.
Panel Two
Tim and the Bahamian police chief talking, an orderly pushes the gurney away. This is all taking place on the dock at their hotel.
Tim: There’s a Bahamian navy?
PC: Dat guy’s family wishes there was.
Watching the US Open (Golf)
Got to watch some of the US Open over the last couple of days, it was interesting to say the least. The last day of the event, when the #1 and #2 players in the tournament walked up to the tee, the #2 player was a guy named Jason Gore, a no-name who's ranked 818th in the tour and made all of twenty-nine thousand bucks throughout last year.
And boy did the news hounds chomp onto that making him out to be a "Cinderella Man", and because of it as Gore walked up to the first tee for the last time, he was met with thunderous applause, the loudest of any of the golfers. I thought it odd, almost like the sport news folks jinxed the guy, talking grandly of him, sharing with the world all the problems he had to overcome to get there. And initially he got off to a good start, although he seemed nervous (the guy was sweating so much you would have thought it was 200 degrees on the course), he seemed in good shape. For the first two holes. And after that it was all downhill from there. I felt bad for the guy, he went from a #2 finish (a $700,000 check) to ending the day 49th (a $20,000 check).
But what I thought was interesting was the feeling that the crowd and folks watching at home were rallying for this guy, this poor schlub, who's car was vandalized on the way to the course, who had to qualify just to be there. Rallying for the big guy who seemed much closer to them than the likes of a Retief Goosen or Tiger Woods. But what happened? Both Goosen (the leader) and Gore feel apart, they started doing so bad NBC stopped following them around, instead focusing on Woods and Campbell (the eventual winner). And what's more American than that?
June 17, 2005
Movie Quote...
"What can you expect when you're on top? You know? It's like Napoleon. When he was the king, you know, people were just constantly trying to conquer him, you know, in the Roman Empire. So, it's history repeating itself all over again."
A soldier and Cuba...
From the article:
"Father's Day may seem a funny time to consider the cruelty of U.S. policy toward Cuba. These days it's anything but funny for Carlos Lazo the father of two teenage boys living in Havana.
Carlos made a life for himself in the United States. He learned English. He remarried. He got a job counseling the developmentally disabled. He even joined the Army National Guard after an earthquake struck Washington State, so he could give something back to his adoptive country and state.
In June 2004 Carlos got two weeks of R+R, jumped on a plane, and got as far as the Miami Airport with a charter ticket in his hand all ready to see his sons. But just days before the new Bush travel restrictions went into effect, putting severe and unprecedented limits on the rights of Cuban Americans to see their families, Carlos was turned away. He had to return to Iraq, not knowing if he'd see his sons again."
Some neat links
Every once in a while I come across some neat links that don't fall into my "bookmark into my del.icio.us bookmarks" so here's a bunch (with comments if I feel like it).
Photos of Airbus A380 superjumbo plane - Those planes are friggen huge, they're expanding the Orlando airport's runways so these things can land.
Place The State game - It's surpisingly addicting and sort of proves all that money my parents spent on my education wasn't for naught.
Pimp my mouth - It just proves that people love spending money on crap.
Hottest sauce on earth - Supposedly this stuff could kill ya, but that's the chance you have to take for a tasty hot sauce!
Selling stuff!
I've added a My eBay Auctions link to the sidebar, our townhouse will be done in a little over a month (cross our fingers) so I'll be dropping things onto eBay while we're cleaning and packing the apartment.
My first auction is a stack of Touch of Death #1's, buy one and I'll autograph it/sketch a funny little man onto it if you like (just let me know if you want any of that).
Over the next coming weeks will be adding stuff when it comes along.
Thanks for listening to my ranting...now run along, it's a nice day out.
June 16, 2005
Movie Quote...
"I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip."
So busy...
Been so busy at work, we spent most of yesterday ripping out the contents of the server room to replace with nice looking racks. It looks sweet (I'll have to take some pictures to show the before and after). Also had to stay up until 3:30 last night because of a client mishap.
In the meantime I uploaded some pictures to my Flickr account, just the last roll I took the weekend of Christine's parents anniversary.
June 14, 2005
Movie Quote...
"Welcome the rich man, he's hard for you to miss. His butt keeps getting bigger, so there's plenty there to kiss!"
June 13, 2005
There are companies who still do this?
Eons ago (in the young wild days of the internet, the 90's) we used to do search engine optimization for the first full-time craphouse I worked at. We had all sorts of tricks, invisible text, link farms the whole bit, and for a while it worked quite well. But now?
Recently I received a letter in the mail (land spam) trying to market a search engine optimization company to us. Does this stuff actually work? I know there's the blog spammers and link farms but wouldn't you think that most major search engines have these guys pegged? Here's a BoingBoing article about an insidious SEO company.
From the article:
"Phillip Lenssen blogged some material about a "Search Engine Optimizer" (a company that helps web-developers inflate their rankings with search-engines) called Search Engine Optimization, Inc. The service had all but vanished from Google's database, and Phillip, a commentator on this industry, noted that this boded poorly for the company, indicating that they'd probably done something wrong to incur the wrath of Google (the "Google Death Penalty"), which meant that they ended up looking totally incompentent: not only couldn't they improve your site's PageRank, they couldn't get themselves ranked on Google.
The company responded with a threatening, bogus Cease-and-Desist letter telling Phillip that he had to take his page down or face legal action. Never mind that Phillip's post contained nothing actionable, he couldn't afford a lawsuit and poof, these bullies were able to censor their critics off the Internet."
More CBRM updates!
CBRM (Comic Book Review Machine) now has over 600 reviews! Also I've added the ability to register and add descriptive tags to any of the comic books I have in the database. Next step will be searching by those tags, seeing related tags and quite possibly a tag cloud (although I believe they've gotten a bit passe).
Lost Kubrick photos published.
From the gallery:
"Few people know that before he started making movies, Stanley Kubrick was a star photojournalist. In the summer of 1949, Look magazine sent him to Chicago to shoot pictures for a story called 'Chicago City of Contrasts.'"
(Link courtesy of BoingBoing)
Movie Quote...
"I like these calm little moments before the storm. It reminds me of Beethoven. Can you hear it? It's like when you put your head to the grass and you can hear the growin' and you can hear the insects. Do you like Beethoven?"
June 12, 2005
Downing Street Memo website
From the website:
"The Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005, but to date US media coverage has been limited. This site is intended to act as a resource for anyone who wants to understand the facts revealed in this document."
(Link courtesy of BoingBoing)
June 11, 2005
Silencing of dissent.
From the article:
"The House Republicans just shut down the Patriot Act hearings while the Democrats were still talking. It was absolutely amazing. Then they shut the mics off on the Dems. Even more amazing is that the House Republicans have the nerve to do this during a hearing on, what?, the Patriot Act! A hearing about our concerns about shutting down free speech and civil rights and the Constitution. So what do they do, they simply shut down open debate in the US Congress. Horrifying."
(Link courtesy of Atrios)
June 09, 2005
Movie Quote...
"I tell you that tonight, we shall have a wedding. Or a hanging. Either way, we ought to have a lot of fun, huh?"
When Recruiters Attack
From the article:
"'You don't want to be a burden to your mom,' they told him. "Be a man." "Make your father proud." Never mind that, because of his own experience in the service, Marcia says enlistment for his son is the last thing Axel's dad would have wanted.
The next weekend, when Marcia went to Seattle for the Folklife Festival and Axel was home alone, two recruiters showed up at the door.
Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car."
June 08, 2005
Movie Quote...
"When the shootin’ started, he was way too cool. And normally when there's shootin’ white people aren't that cool, man. They either run around in circles, or screaming out 'Aaaaagh!'"
Cuban Brothers' Identity Switch Backfires
From the article:
"Bernardo Heredia fled communist Cuba a decade ago, and this year loaned his lookalike younger brother his U.S. residency documents to help him do the same.
In Havana on a family visit, Bernardo Heredia persuaded his brother to use his U.S. residency card and Cuban passport to leave on a plane for Mexico. Fidel Heredia, who turns 41 in July, then used his own documents to cross the Mexico border into the United States as a regular Cuban migrant.
With his own documents mailed back to him and no record of an arrival in Las Vegas, Bernardo Heredia imagined there'd be no problem flying back to the United States. But Cuban immigration officials stopped him at the Havana airport after realizing his passport had been used a few days prior."
(Link courtesy of Christine)
Gone are the mainframe programmers
From the article:
"The mainframe is often viewed as a cobwebbed hunk of iron that's only good for housing legacy data. But in 2004, the year Big Iron turned 40, mainframe revenue actually grew by 44 percent compared with the year before.
These days, most computer science programs no longer offer comprehensive mainframe instruction. The absence of new blood comes as nearly 80 percent of the people who work in mainframe support are 50 years of age or older. With more than 70 percent of the world's digital information residing on the mainframe, companies are now hard-pressed to find skilled staff to support these critical systems."
(Link courtesy of BoingBoing)
June 07, 2005
Movie Quote...
"A little word of advice: next time you're watching a place, don't claim that you own it just because you're watching it, OK? I house sit for my sister all the time; it's not like I claim that I own her house, ya know what I mean?"
June 04, 2005
June 03, 2005
Movie Quote...
"Uh, betray us, and I will fong you, until your insides are out, your outsides are in, your entrails will become your extrails I will w-rip... all the p... ung. Pain, lots of pain."
Those crazy Google folks...
From their blog:
"We're undertaking an experiment called Google Sitemaps that will either fail miserably, or succeed beyond our wildest dreams, in making the web better for webmasters and users alike. It's a beta "ecosystem" that may help webmasters with two current challenges: keeping Google informed about all of your new web pages or updates, and increasing the coverage of your web pages in the Google index.
This project doesn't just pertain to Google, either: we're releasing it under the Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons license so that other search engines can do a better job as well. "
Link to Google Sitemaps (requires Google login).
(Link courtesy of Slashdot)
June 02, 2005
Movie Quote...
"Mercy is for the weak. We do not train to be merciful here. A man face you, he is enemy. Enemy deserve no mercy."
Banana cell phone cover
Cell phone cover that makes your cell phone look like a banana.
Everyone needs one right now.
(Link courtesy of Dave Barry's Blog)
June 01, 2005
Movie Quote...
"The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."
Matthew Vaughn Exits "X-Men 3"
From the article:
"Vaughn was apparently concerned about uprooting his family and moving them to Los Angeles and Vancouver during the shoot.
Fox president Hutch Parker told The Hollywood Reporter, "We understand Matthew's reasons for leaving, as nothing is more important than family. Luckily, we have a fantastic script, the original cast is returning, and there will be some great new characters.
We will decide shortly among several directors who are keenly interested in the project and are fully committed to remaining right on schedule."
Read the full article.
(Link courtesy of Christine)