FlasshePoint

Life, Minutiae, Toys, Irrational Phobias, Peeves, Fiber

MyBrick

Posted on | May 9, 2008 at 7:23 am | 4 Comments

brickPet Peeve of the Day: One of my external hard drives died this week. It was a 250GB Western Digital MyBook (USB & Firewire). Now it’s a brick. An out-of-warranty brick. The thing has always given me trouble, so I’m not exactly sorry to see it go. It’s always run hot. It was always going to sleep and then taking a long time to wake up, which locked up the computer. It did the waking-up even when I wasn’t accessing it – just running an application would do it. Sometimes the computer would just lose the connection to it for no reason.

Luckily, the only thing I was using this drive for was backup. My backup manager ran a differential backup to it from my main drive every night and a full backup on Friday nights. Ah well, now I can buy a bigger drive and have room to backup my MP3 files as well. But I just feel gypped.

The drive died pretty quickly. One night the backup didn’t work – it kept trying to write to the drive and couldn’t. When I powered the drive off and on, it made clunking noises. I’m not enough of an engineer to take it apart and figure out if its salvageable. Plus, I was getting tired of the thing and its quirks anyway.

Strangely, my other external drive is a Western Digital as well – a 500MB “Elements” drive. Never had any problems with that one. No overheating, faster waking, fast access. That’s the one I use for my MP3s.

So long, MyBook. May you rot in MyHell!

Latre.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “fancy covers to put around key hole on car door”.

Do Roses Smell?

Posted on | May 8, 2008 at 9:24 pm | 3 Comments

Please explain to me what “boredom” is. I hear people occasionally say “I’m bored” and I don’t understand what they’re talking about. Oh sure, I get bored like anyone else when I’m doing a tedious task or watching or reading something I’m not really into. But sitting around looking for something to do? Never going to happen. I’ll be reaching the half-century mark in a few years, and I’m starting to panic that I won’t have enough time left in my life to do all the things I want to do. I just can’t ever imagine being at a point where I didn’t have anything to do, unless I was having mental or physical problems. There are just too many books to read, albums to listen to, TV shows and movies to watch, places to go, games to play, research to do, house projects to do, things to fix, computer projects to do, organizational projects to do, new dishes to try, songs and stories to write, new skills to learn, people to meet, conversations to have, and so much more. I get stymied every time I start a “to do” list in my PDA, because there’s just so much and I don’t know how to prioritize it or list it all. Sometimes I also get stymied (but not bored) thinking of something to do next, because there are just too many choices.

Part of what drives me on is a sadness. I’ll never really find what I’m looking for, and that depresses me. For example, I know that somewhere out there, someone has recorded the perfect song – the song that I would like above all others and never grow tired of. It’s out there – I know it. But I also know I’ll never find it. There’s just too much music available and not enough time to find it and listen to it. That’s a big part of why I have such a large CD collection. I don’t want to miss out. It also explains why I do things like buy an artist’s entire catalog if I like even one song. It’s because there could be a hidden gem that’s even better on one of the other albums. Yes, it’s something of an obsession, and I’ve been trying to curb it lately, but it’s always there, tickling my brain.

Part of me can’t wait for retirement, because then I’ll actually have time to explore some of these things. But another part of me knows that retirement means that time is running out even faster. I’ll be worried about trying to cram too much in. Strange thing to worry about, to be sure, but that’s the way my mind goes. I can never just sit there and soak it in and enjoy life. I’m always thinking about what comes next. Even when I do something relaxing like having a massage, halfway through I’m thinking “Ack! It’s almost over! What am I going to do for dinner?” Maybe I need to be bored or to learn how to enjoy boredom. Certainly the pace of life in this century is fast enough that some downtime is earned. But I can never stop looking at that clock.

Okay, time to wrap this up. Got things to do. Is it better to be bored occasionally than to always have something going on? Probably depends on the kind of person you are and what kind of enjoyment you get out of life. I get enjoyment from completing things. I know others are content to just live in the moment. Teach me how! Let me know how I can live with the fact that I’m never going to be able to do all the things I want to do!

Latre.

Major Matt Awesome

Posted on | May 7, 2008 at 11:42 pm | 4 Comments

Space JockeyNothing feeds the nostalgia addiction like the Internet. Well, that and TV on DVD. I got all weepy for the past the other day when I saw this post on io9 (watch the commercial!) about one of my favorite childhood toys, NASA astronaut Major Matt Mason. Now there was a toy. More than mere action figures (or “dolls”), the Major and his buddies were a symbol of American superiority in space, as well as in toy design. All the figures were the same except for the heads and the different colored uniforms. But man, those different colored uniforms were a big draw for me. Collect them all! And one of Matt’s astronaut buddies (the blue one) was an African-American long before a real life African-American went into space.

The thing I remember most about the figures was that the bendable “accordion” rubber joints were cool in that you could really bend these things in all directions, but they broke really easily and you often ended up with a bare wire or two showing. The wires themselves became soft after awhile, turning the figures limp. The outer coating of the uniform also eventually flaked off, leaving black bits showing through. It was often necessary to replace the figures, though parental budgeting tried to put the kibosh on that.

The other cool thing was the vast number of accessories available for these guys, including a lot of awesome battery-powered vehicles. My friend/next door neighbor Mark was also a MMM-aficionado, and so he would try to get accessories that I didn’t have. As such, it’s hard for me to remember who owned what. But I remember playing with the Space Station, the Uni-Tread with Space Bubble, the Space Crawler, and the Star Seeker. Endless hours of fun and endless ways to annoy the dog with big plastic things that moved of their volition.

One strange thing about the toys was that there were no female astronauts. Sure, Matt and his team had some alien friends, but women? Heck no! They don’t belong in space. I remember inventing a detailed fantasy life for Matt that included an astronaut wife named Barbara. In fact, all the dudes had astronaut wives. Unfortunately, the women had to stay at the Space Station and cook all day while the men were out exploring the moon. It was the 60s, after all. My sister was too young (or not born yet) to be playing with Barbie or other dolls, so I didn’t have any material female companions to hook the team up with. Besides, Barbie would seem like an Amazon next to little old Matt, and he wouldn’t know what to do with her. Especially since his NASA uniform/space suit was part of him and couldn’t be removed.

At one point, I may’ve tried to attach breasts and long hair to one of Matt’s buddies, but let’s not go there.

There was no limit to what my imagination could come up with for these toys. The things weren’t licensed from any TV show or movie, so there was no set backstory to adhere to. We were on our own. The only thing the toys were based on was some actual proposed NASA designs. Kids today with their CSI and Desperate Housewives action figures – they don’t get the chance to exercise the creative parts of their brains the way we did. Will the children of today look back as fondly on their Jack Bauer Counter-Terrorist SUV Playsets as I do on my Major Matt Mason Flight Set and Moon Suit? I think not.

This post has been brought to you by The Old Curmudgeon We Had It Way Better Than You Young Punks Nostalgia Patrol.

Latre.

P.S. Steve, you came really close to winning the post-every-day competition tonight, due to problems I was having with the website. Luckily, I finally figured out the problem was with my PC and browsers and not the site itself, and a reboot fixed it.

Appropriate Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “godzilla final wars toys”.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “mexican who hates cilantro”.

Run, Damo, Run!

Posted on | May 6, 2008 at 10:41 pm | 2 Comments

Go Here, Go There!This is going to have to be a short entry, since I injured my finger paying bills tonight (okay, it was a paper cut, but a very painful bloody one under the fingernail). Last weekend, I finally watched the third movie in the Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum. Like the first two, I rented the DVD and watched it at home instead of seeing it in the theater. I remember when this movie came out, it got pretty good critical reviews. In fact, the score at Rotten Tomatoes is 93%. The first two movies were entertaining little action flix, but the way the critics were talking, I was thinking the third one must be a masterpiece. I remember a lot of them declared it the best action movie of last summer.

Eh.

It was pretty much the same thing as the first two movies.

Here’s the plot:
Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) runs around from country to country, being chased by and chasing the people involved in a conspiracy who “created” him, while trying to figure out his origins.

Okay, how many times can you tell the same story, and each time with less amount of plot? There’s practically no dialog. It’s all just one chase scene after another. Foot, motorcycle, car, hot air balloon, big wheel – chase after chase after chase. Yeah, it’s kind of interesting seeing how Bourne turns the tables on his adversaries, but that gets boring and predictable after awhile too. And hey, there’s Julia Stiles again! Here she comes! And there she goes. There’s no time for any deep relationships in this movie when there’s chasing to be done and conspiracies to uncover! Sheesh, Sue thought Iron Man was boring with all the suit-building, but Bourne is a much better sleep aid.

And I still don’t buy Matt Damon as action hero. He’s a fine actor, but he’s just not right for this sort of thing. It’s almost like watching my high school civics teacher play spy. How do you like them apples?

There’s talk of doing a fourth movie. If so, I hope Bourne goes to the moon or something to uncover the next government conspiracy (and to discover he’s actually an alien). Or maybe the Libertarians can hire him to take down the entire government, not just the latest Black Ops division.

Latre.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “tony stark goatee”.

Suit Up!

Posted on | May 5, 2008 at 6:55 am | 4 Comments

I Am Iron Wulf!I’m afraid that I must respectfully but vehemently disagree with my buddy Sue in her review of Iron Man, which I saw yesterday. (Although I did like her Entertainment Weekly-inspired review title.) But then again, I’m probably one of the eternal “14-year-old boys who are impressed with girls, guns and gadgetry” that she mentions. Yes, Robert Downey Jr does a good job of sending up his own image, but the role is so much more than that. Though I’ve been a fan of the Iron Man comics off and on over the years (it really depends on who the creative team is), I’ve never been that much enamored of the Tony Stark character. Even after he gained a conscience, he still seemed like something of a rigid prick who always felt like he was right. And I always hated that goatee. But Downey made me actually like and feel for the guy – much like his role is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, one of the most underrated movies of all time. All the performances were excellent, and Jeff Bridges actually didn’t chew the scenery as much as I thought he would. Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard also give great performances, as you’d expect from these Oscar-level actors, and you really believe that their characters love and respect their friend Stark.

About that goatee – I wondered before the movie came out if you could just slap that on to any actor and have him look like Tony Stark. Now I think not. Downey just had that overall look down so well that I really believed he had lept off the comic page.

I do have to admit the big action scene at the end was lacking and made me bored. Seeing two armored guys duke it out is just not that interesting, no matter how you dress it up or how big you make one of them. Like all superhero movie origin stories, I wish there were more scenes of the hero doing heroic things not as directly related to the main plot (y’know, saving the cat in the tree like in the original Superman, or stopping a bank robbery, or stuff like that). Sue’s right – there is a lot of “suit building” in this movie, a lot of which seems implausible (that’s some power supply!), but that was necessary to the character and the conventions of the origin story. I’m sure the sequel will be more interesting, especially if they adapt “Demon in a Bottle” or something like that.

And speaking of the sequel, Sue seems to think that the scene at the end of the credits (do stay for the whole thing!) is setting up the sequel. The impression I got was that it was more setting up the intertwined universe that Marvel Studios is creating with their movies. I believe this will become more obvious once the new Edward Norton Hulk movie is released next month. And hey, how can anyone object to a cool Samuel L. Jackson cameo, especially one without snakes?

There’s other stuff in the movie that’s setting up a potential sequel, but much of that will be obvious only to fanboys (”ten rings”, Rhodey eying that spare suit, etc).

If I were using the old nod-o-meter, this one would’ve rated a 0 (or less). I swear I didn’t even start to nod off during the entire film – which is really, really rare for me these days. Yeah, I liked it.

Latre.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “lug wrench walmart”.

Unplugging Toasters

Posted on | May 4, 2008 at 12:44 pm | 2 Comments

I know I’m trampling on one of my own sacred crows (yes, I worship crows and not cows) here, but I gotta say I’ve been disappointed with Battlestar Galactica so far this season. [Warning: Some spoilers ahead for those of you who aren't caught up or who watch by DVD-only.] Five episodes in, and my brain is already starting to tune out.

DMR sent me an e-mail last night:
I’m an ep behind, but man is BSG ever a dark downer lately! The last couple eps I was thinking I’d just kill for a good battle scene. At least the Cylons turned on each other and provided a little bit of action. And they need to get Lee out of his business suit and back in uniform!

I have to agree. The Cylon Civil War, and the intense episode where Cally gets in too deep (space), have been the only real highpoints so far. And Lee Adama as a misguided lawyer/politician (or whatever he is) instead of a viper pilot? Way to dull-up your leading man, guys. And if I see one more scene of Chief Tyrol brooding, I’m going to go into the TV and whomp on his ass myself. And let’s see… Roslyn still dying of cancer? Check. Baltar still thinking/saying profound things he may not mean just so he can survive and/or get laid? Check. Everyone still thinks Starbuck’s crazy (or a Cylon, or both)? Check. In fact, everyone is pretty much acting crazy, including the Cylons. Just wait until they find Earth and have to deal with the Bush administration.

The thing is… the darkness and gloominess of the show is one of the primary things that attracted me to it in the first place. It was a complete turnaround from the 80s show. It made much more sense that the last survivors of a civilization, on the run from genocide, would be a gloomy bunch and be filled with despair and craziness. But there’s also always been that spark of hope and strong leadership and the sense that there was a direction to follow. Now I just feel that great void pressing in on everybody. There’s no one really to pull for. Yeah, you know Kara’s lunacy is eventually going to led them to Earth and they should’ve listened to her in the first place, but in the meantime we have to put up with endless scenes of everyone doubting her and getting in the way of her quest. It just feels like filler. Baltar and his religious cult holds no interest for me, since we’ve seen it all before, in slightly different forms. Yeah, I know there’s a pattern with him, but is he ever going to break out of it? I hope that’s what they’re leading to.

I realize the early part of the season often just sets things up for the later part (I remember the beginning of season two bored me also, as everyone just seemed to be flailing around trying to get back together). But I was hoping for more from this final season. This show has a lot of questions to answer, and it needs to get on the stick fast. Heck, Lost seems to be moving faster lately than BSG, and that’s really saying something.

And, yes, please, let’s have some action! Some suspense! If I see one more scene of two people sitting or standing together making vague dialog with long pauses and awkward glances between phrases, I’m going to mutilate my Apollo and Starbuck action figures in really obscene ways. (Okay, I don’t really have Apollo and Starbuck action figures, but if I did…) So, whoever is editing this show this week, tighten that shit up! It all makes it look like the show is trying to be more deep than it is (and it’s pretty deep). This ain’t French cinema.

Latre.

Pet Peeve Of The Day: Widespread freeze-up problems playing Grand Theft Auto IV on the PS3 (and sometimes on the 360) have been reported, yet Take Two Interactive doesn’t seem to be doing much about it other than telling people to completely neuter their Playstations and then re-install the game. After my initial install and playing session, I got locked up at the first loading screen. The only way I can play the game is to disable the PS3’s Internet connectivity, which means no online multiplayer. The reinstall didn’t work. They say it’s a very limited subset of customers experiencing the problem, and initial data seemed to suggest it was on 60GB units only, but I have a 80GB unit.

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