Alternative Radio
With the demise of WHFS, I suggest you check out 89.7 (WTMD) or 103.1 (WRNR) for the spirit of HFS. In fact, 103.1 is filled with former members of HFS.
Battlestar Galactica
Last year, I had TiVo’d the miniseries well ahead of its broadcast on NBC last week. At that time, I did not like the touches they had done. Starbuck a girl! Boomer an asian girl! Cylons as humans clones even?! Hrmph! Not to my liking.
Well, this year it has become a full blown TV series. From the first two episodes, I like it better. I had seen some of the orignal series and now beginning to understand why they set up the story line like this. The original was one long story arc: find Earth and the lost tribe of space humans. This one tries to do the same. I must stay tuned to see if they can do it. Set Tivo.
House of Flying Daggars
All movies in the end are love stories none more so than House of Flying Daggars. With that title, you would expect a return to Kung Fu theatre. To wit, “Damn! Those house of house of flying daggar dudes rank right up there with five deadly venoms!” Alas, it is not happening. I was bored to tears by this movie. The last time someone throwing side kicks up some dude’s head put me to sleep, David Carridine was walking on rice paper. I think the art house kung fu flick is now dead. Bring back Bruce Lee. More martial less art!
2 of 5 stars.
Why I thought I needed an AirPort Express
Decided today to buy a Apple AirPort Express. I wanted it in order to achieve two goals. First, to hook into the stereo in my den to stream music with iTunes. Second, to solve the perplexing problem I have been having with my wireless network. Actually, I think the second goal the more important of the two. Ever since I got DSL and set up a wireless network, I have been having trouble using it. I believe it is the layout and construction of my condominium which makes it troublesome.
Here’s how it goes. My desktop computer (Win95-233 MHz PII!), dsl modem, and wireless router reside in my office, a back room on the upper floor of the condo. The furnace sits to its front and side, basically centered on the second floor, acting as a big metal sink soaking up the wireless signal. Another aspect of the building is that it uses the cement board in floor to dampen sound, but it also dampens the wireless signal to the bottom floor. I am limited to 50% signal strength outside of my office. Not much of a signal coming downstairs, and a washed out signal in my bedroom at the front of the second floor.
I bought the AirPort Express to alleviate some of these problems. I wanted to set it up to increase the range of my signal. So I placed it in my den/music room to take advantage of line of site to my bedroom and to have some signal spill down the stairs. It took me 2 hours to get it set up correctly. At first, I set it up as a client to the wireless network. That was not what I wanted. I searched the internet and found this which helped, but was confusing. When I was setting the AirPort Express up to use WDS, I was searching using my wireless network which caused me to continually fail the configuration updating. One tip: if you try to do this, when updating the configuration of the AirPort Express select it as the network you are updating. Once I got that correct and it was extending my range, I had problem connecting to the internet. This had to do with using a bad MAC address. I am still confused about what the right MAC address is. I saw on my router configuration 2 different MAC addresses. I don’t know why the one I am using works, because it isn’t one of the two. Has it worked?
Achieving my goals has not happened. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I haven’t tested it enough, but I still receive sucky signal strength in my bedroom and down stairs. Rats!
More on the Mac Mini
The other day I posted about my jonesing for a Mac mini. When I sobered up a bit, I realised that it does have some limitations. The one glaring drawback is that it comes with a base 256 meg of memory. To run OS X and the iLife suite of applications, the minimum RAM should start at 1 GB. Hooking the Mac Mini up with this amount puts it up around $800 bucks. Better to get an iMac. If you need further information, then this article from Macworld is a good start to understanding the Mac mini.
Adios, HFS!
If you grew up in the Baltimore/DC area and loved music from bands that were not so mainstream, then you at least tuned into 99.1 on the dial. WHFS was always about the alternative music. They were alternative before there was alternative. I remember in the early 80s trying to catch their weak signal for some music. Only on clear broadcast days did I pick up the signal. They morphed into the juggarnaut of alternative radio in the mid-90s, but could always be counted to play something I liked. Lately they have been going down hill.
Yesterday, the station switched formats. Its been talked about a lot. Read it and weep. What a grievious day. Hopefully, the junkies will land on their feet.
The music landscape has changed around here. For the better I don’t know. What I do know is that HFS will be missed.
White Noise
If I can save you money by convincing you that White Noise is a bad movie, then I have done my job. The movie was predictable from the start. In fact, before it was even released, I had predicted the ending. Unfortunately for me, I saw it in the theatres and had my suspicions confirmed. It had the feel of the Serpent and the Rainbow movie. It presented the EVP, electro-video phenomenon, as something real, just as the Serpent and the Rainbow presented zombies/voodoo as real. I was just not buying it.
2 of 5 stars.
Apple confirms rumors
Today Apple unveiled the Mac Mini and the mini iPod mini, the iPod shuffle. I expect to have one or both of these soon.
Skateboard madness
As a young dude, to while away the idle time during English class, I would doodle in my notebook drawing skateparks. You see back in the day when I skated (early 80s to mid 90s), there really wasn’t any places to skate. The public skatepark was on the decline and there were not many around. So this article describling how skatepark design has come a long way, brings out the young kid in me. I need to get a new board and ride some of these new fangled parks. Olle one-foots all day!
Meet the Fokkers
When I saw the commercials for this movie last year, I thought, “Why would anyone want to see a mediocre sequel to a mediocre commedy?” Imagine to my chagrin that it took top honors at the box office with $47 million and a total haul of $162 million. Meet the Fokkers is a mediocre sequel to a mediocre original film. Ben Stiller is not funny in it. Babs is funny thing. Robert Dinero has reached a new low in his career. I have already forgotten that I have seen it.
2 of 5 stars.