Tell Me What’s A Happening
Posted on | April 15, 2008 at 8:06 pm | 9 Comments
Pet Peeve Of The Day: One of the problems with my new iPhone is that it has one of the worst cases of “TDMA Buzz” I’ve encountered. For those not afflicted or who don’t know what I’m talking about, see this article, which explains: “A disadvantage of TDMA systems is that they create interference at a frequency which is directly connected to the timeslot length. This is the buzz which can sometimes be heard if a TDMA phone is left next to a radio or speakers.” I had this problem with the old Motorola Razr, but not as loud as it is with the iPhone. It also seems to do it over longer distances from the affected speaker than the Razr. I remember being in a meeting at work the day after I got the iPhone, and the speaker phone in the room kept buzzing even though I was many feet away from it. I’m pretty sure it was due to my phone. When I have the iPhone hooked up to the computer for syncing, I can hear the buzz through the stereo speakers connected to the computer. Sometimes when I’m talking on a landline phone at home or at work, the buzz comes through the handset speakers. Very annoying.
But the worst thing is I can’t even keep the iPhone on my nightstand in my bedroom at night because it makes the iHome iPod alarm clock buzz. I have to put it several feet away on the dresser. But I had that problem with the Razr too. I could probably stand the buzz if it was a constant one, but it’s intermittent random blasts of static. No way can I sleep when that is going on. Well, now there’s a new product to take care of it: A new version of the iHome that is shielded against the buzz. Looks pretty cool, though it’s $150. *Sigh* Time to upgrade again?
Although I must say the buzz doesn’t seem to be as frequent or quite as loud lately as it was when I first got the phone. Is that even possible? Or maybe I’m just getting used to it.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 42°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Comes as No Surprise” (Mansun)
- “Ready, Steady, No!” (Mighty Lemon Drops)
- “Monkey In The Moon (Demo)” (Alphaville)
- “Monument” (Dirty on Purpose)
- “Consequences” (Fay Ray)
- “Petulant Featuring Claire Hirst (Drug Bastard Mix #3)” (Shriekback)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “dealing with evil coworkers”.
A Piece Of The Omega Force Patterns With Bread
Posted on | April 14, 2008 at 10:42 pm | 4 Comments
So it looks like they’re going to be making this movie called Bobism: “Story’s centered on a shy collegian who discovers that life in 1,000 years will be based on his blog”. Interesting. Wasn’t that the plot of an old Star Trek episode? Anyway, I can’t help thinking about what if a future society based their civilization on my blog? That would be one dull society, let me tell you. Although they’d have some really great home theater systems, and there would be Safeways everywhere, complete with bagger guys who talk about your fiber intake.
I got nothin’.
What would a civilization based on your blog look like?
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 38°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Just Lust” (Buzzcocks)
- “Situation Gone Bad” (The Features)
- “Clampdown” (Poster Children)
- “Eloquence” (Jason Falkner)
- “Further Away” (Manic Street Preachers)
- “Your Love Is Like Las Vegas” (Thrills)
- “The Operator” (The Coral)
- “Famous Blue Raincoat” (Jonathan Coulton)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “cilantro is the food of the devil”.
Spring Break In Uganda
Posted on | April 13, 2008 at 3:11 pm | 3 Comments
Last night I finally got to see The Last King Of Scotland, which I’d been wanting to do for some time now. Like the HBO John Adams series and Showtime’s The Tudors, it’s “historical fiction”. (I put that one in there for those of you who say those two shows are not entirely accurate.) Scotland, like the book of the same name, goes them one better by inventing a completely fictional character and centering the movie around putting him into the historical events surrounding the rule of Idi Amin in the early 70s in Uganda. The fictional character Nicholas Garrigan is a young Scottish doctor who flees to Uganda to have some fun rather than getting stuck emulating his doctor father’s boring practice back in Scotland. And oh yeah, he says he wants to do some good, but really he’s just an excitement junkie. The character is played by Atonement’s James McAvoy as a charming but immature rogue who is used to getting what he wants.
So through a series of circumstances, he gets to be Amin’s personal physician and close adviser, and witnesses firsthand the dictator’s brutal spiral into oppression, paranoia, and madness (played well of course by Forest Whitaker in his Oscar-winning performance). At first he plays along, but as things get more and more out of hand, he just wants to go back and get away from all the killing and blood and all. Along the way, he manages to sleep with one of Amin’s wives and get her pregnant, which really didn’t seem to me like a smart thing to do.
This movie was not really what I was expecting. It had more of a thriller aspect than I thought it would. There’s a lot of suspense in wondering just when Amin is going to figure out how his Scottish friend has betrayed him, and whether or not our “hero” will escape. Some scenes are quite intense and the movie does not shy away from the shocking images. One gory scene involving a dead body, thoughtfully shown only in quick images, was particularly graphic and not for the squeamish. One torture scene went a bit too far and was like something out of Hellraiser, but the main problem I had with it was that I couldn’t believe the victim pretty much walked away from it.
One weird thing about my viewing experience: I totally did not recognize Gillian Anderson in the movie. I knew she was in it from the opening credits, but I forgot after that. Her character Sarah has long blond hair, and I did not recognize her as Anderson and I did not connect the two until I was watching the end credits.
As these kinds of films/shows have been doing to me lately, it made me interested in looking up the real facts and story. I was fairly young when the events depicted in the movie happened, but I do remember Amin and especially the Entebbe hostage situation, which figures into the climax of the movie. The documentary on the DVD also shed some light on the real Idi Amin and what he was like. So I learned a lot about a period of world history. Though the movie was not the greatest, it was entertaining and it increased my knowledge. So, it was a good evening spent watching it. Oh, and the picture looked fabulous from the DVD played on my PS3 upconverted to 1080p.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 36°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “You Need Love” (The Wondermints)
- “Tearing Up the Oxygen” (Maritime)
- “Rocket Science” (Brain Surgeons NYC)
- “Such Little Nonbelievers (live)” (Loud Family)
- “Ten Feet Tall” (Pidgin)
- “Roman” (The Church)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “safeway personal lubricant reviews”.
Relative Bandwagons
Posted on | April 12, 2008 at 7:35 pm | 8 Comments
Reportedly, publisher Penguin is now saying they are going to be releasing their books in ebook format as well as the regular paperly kind. I found out about this from this post, which amusingly mentions “the ebook bandwagon”.
When we were discussing this several months ago, I thought the whole ebook thing was essentially dead or relegated to a niche market, though I was wondering what effect Amazon’s Kindle would have on that market. Well, I guess it must be a positive effect. Sounds like it’s hard to keep those puppies in stock. Are they really that popular or is Amazon just trying to make it seem that way with their supply issues? Note that I still don’t have a Kindle – I’m still using the ebook reader on my PDA. I was kind of hoping that once third party applications start flooding onto the iPhone, that ebooks and an ebook reader will be one of the first things. It’s really easy to read stuff on the iPhone’s screen, especially with all the resizing you can do and the smoothness of the fonts and images. However, the battery life would be a killer, especially if you were on a trip. They’d have to figure out someway to not suck the battery dry. Heck, even my Palm T|X starts to run out of juice at the end of long plane flights if I’m using it to read the whole time.
(BTW, there’s another disadvantage to reading books on my PDA that I failed to mention in my original post on the subject. The PDA screen is hard to read outside, especially in sunlight. The iPhone is much better with this.)
Anyway, I’m glad to see that the whole ebook thing is gaining interest, and I’ll keep using the ebook reader in my PDA and buying books for it. (Although I’ve been using it less and less since I got the iPhone. The ability to easily peruse the Internet anywhere when I’m bored often beats out the ability to read a book anywhere.) But real books aren’t going away anytime soon. Feel free to jump on the bandwagon, but do it because you have a use for the technology, not because it’s cool.
I can’t believe I just said that.
Latre.
A Public Service
Posted on | April 11, 2008 at 8:05 am | 2 Comments
This may be the most important thing you do all week. As explained in this post, please please please stop Uwe Boll from directing any more movies. The director himself says he’ll stop making movies if one million people tell him he should via of this online petition. Heck, that’s only 1/8th the population of NYC. C’mon! We can do it!
Watch the video, it’s hilarious. (And short.) I like the part about George Clooney. You gotta admit – Uwe’s got a sense of humor.
(If you don’t know who Uwe Boll is, he’s a director with an incredible ego who makes bad movies based on videogames. Many believe he’s the worst director working today.)
Please help. Prevent Donkey Kong: The Movie from ever happening.
Red Light Cameras update: The Rocky Mountain News today reported that Denver is capitulating and is increasing the yellow light times at the four intersections where they plan to install the red light cameras. Sounds like they’re still going to install the cameras, but at least they’re also extending the yellow lights. And there was this:
It also will add pedestrian “countdown” signals at the four locations, which give the seconds remaining until yellow appears. Motorists often use such signals to know when the yellow will start.
I love these countdown walk signals. I think they do more than anything else to cut down on red light running. Lakewood has been adding a lot of them recently and they really help.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 35°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “From Which I Came / A Magic World” (Eels)
- “Everyday I Love You Less And Less” (Kaiser Chiefs)
- “Far Out” (Ginger)
- “Your World and the Way We Left It” (My First Days on Junk)
- “It Takes Time” (The Stills)
- “United Artists” (Anne Summers)
- “Have You Had Success” (The Celebrity Pilots)
Old ‘Nuts In The Naked Bathroom
Posted on | April 10, 2008 at 9:48 pm | 5 Comments
There’s one thing that’s always bothered me about the Peanuts comic strip, as exemplified by this one from yesterday (click to enlarge):
The only times you ever see Schroeder in the strip, he’s either 1) playing his piano or 2) the catcher on Charlie Brown’s baseball team. Which of these is not like the other? Music geeks are not sports fanatics. Or at least, if they are, they’re fans and statisticians, not necessarily players. (I’m looking at you, baseball/music nerds, many of whom seem to be blogging friends of mine.) And, as this strip shows, he’s pretty knowledgeable about the game. He seems to know more than the manager/pitcher of the team. At least he knows how to read the batters. This dichotomy blows my mind – it’s like he’s two different characters. I want to see some scenes linking these two sides of the dude. At least show him away from his piano sometime, maybe watching TV and eating a sandwich. Or taking Lucy out for a night on the town to the local Classical Music Club.
I kid, but these reprints of classic Peanuts strips remind me of how funny and how revolutionary the strip used to be. The really good strips were from even before my time. I remember going over to my grandparents’ house for holidays and other visits during the late 60s and early 70s. They had two bathrooms. Well, one bathroom and one additional toilet/shower. The extra toilet and freestanding shower were in the largely unfinished basement of the house, which I remember as being huge and which was mostly taken up by the laundry area and my grandfather’s humongous workbench. He was a very crafty, handy guy like my dad and unlike me. But near the bottom of the stairs and around the corner was that toilet, sitting on the bare concrete floor. There was no door or anything. Basically, this was where you went if the upstairs bathroom was being used and you really had to go and you didn’t much care about privacy. But the cool thing about that toilet was that my grandfather always had a stack of paperbacks of old Peanuts strips sitting on the back of it. I used to go down there and use that toilet even when I didn’t have to, just so I could sit there in the dim light and the cold dankness and read those paperbacks. I almost couldn’t believe it was the same strip I had been reading in the paper.
Once the focus shifted to Snoopy, I think it lost a lot of its charm and humor. And don’t even get me started on Woodstock. Or on the waning years of the strip, when it had just become weird and non sequitur and pretty much lost all humor. I hope the syndicate continues to reprint the older strips and forgets about the more contemporary ones. Or maybe I should just start buying The Complete Peanuts.
I’m still waiting for “No matter how hard you try, you just can’t throw a potato chip”. The first time I read that one, I laughed so hard I almost plotzed. Oh wait… I did plotz.
Latre.