Bookshelf

broderic on February 12, 2012

I put up a bookshelf to house my manga collection. It’s 31″ x 80″ x 15″ and it’s already full. Plus, I’m not even done buying manga. O well, I probably need another bookshelf. Or better yet, I should sell off some of the manga I don’t need.

Towards the end of stocking up this bookshelf, I got lazy and stacked ten or so volumes randomly. These are the candidates for the trash bin. But I can’t. There’s some Tezuka there such as Dororo in a beautiful rendition. I liked the story, but don’t want t hold onto it for now.

I’m becoming one of those hoarders. What happens if I have to move? Who will pack this up?

Sucker Punch

broderic on March 26, 2011

Last year Roger Ebert stirred the up the internet when he stated his opinion that video games can never be art. The internet came down on Roger Ebert and made him change his mind, or at least see the error of his ways. I think with Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch the internet may owe him an apology.

Like movies and entertainment in the 90s being influenced by MTV and it’s hyper-kinetic cuts, movies and entertainment in 00s have been influenced by video games. If they weren’t art at their dawn, they have been accepted by the majority of geeks so that they are an art form by default. Their aesthetics have been incorporated in many other forms of entertainment and sometimes that ain’t a good thing.

One of my favorite movies from last year, Scott Pilgrim v. The World is movie with some video game. Sucker Punch isn’t a movie, but a video game.

It opens with a long silent segment evocative of those opening cut scenes of video games. This establishes the background of various characters and aids in giving them motivation for some of the story. Then it gets to the place where the game takes place. Baby Doll has to escape from the loony bin. There’s a little bit of set up before she get the clues on how to escape. Eventually, she must defeat a boss in order to score the equipment to get her out of there. Very routine video game fodder.

The problem with Sucker Punch is that it wasn’t a video game, but a movie and the story it had to tell was very shallow and uninteresting. So were the characters all stock and cardboard thin. Nothing to care about.

This movie reminds me of Inception. It is a product of the director. Zack Snyder made up the whole story just as Nolan did Inception. And like Inception, it is also a gamble in that it isn’t based on a previous entertainment property no comic book, no novel, no tv show. It must live and die on its own. I admire that. Story telling isn’t dead in Hollywood just that the story its telling is.

Is Sucker Punch misogynistic? I’ve read several reviews that say it is. I can’t really say, but I imagine that the actresses loved to do that action stuff that the boys are always doing. Sometimes it looks as if they enjoyed themselves. Is that empowerment? Is the fact that the bad guys are all men and shown in a demeaning light a case against misogyny? Does the beating of women and glorifying it the case for misogyny? You’ll have to decide yourself.

Neo as the One in Matrix. Baby Doll as the one in Sucker Punch.

Here’s to hoping we don’t get nothing but Baby Doll’s for Halloween. Seifuku is awesome and blue seifuku is awesome as well. But nothing beats the zettai ryouiki. Yes. That’s probably why I wanted to watch this film so badly. I also hoped that Baby Doll was tsundere. She wasn’t.

I’m gonna give it a medium score because I found some of the action fun. The train scene. Like Michael Bay, Snyder has his own style. It’s ridiculous and like wanting to seen the Baysian twirl, you can’t wait for the Snyder slow-fast-slow-fast fight scenes and the train scene is his Mona Lisa perfect in every way. I think it would make me watch it again just for that fight. Anyway, it was this fight and zettai ryouiki brings the score up out from 2 to 3, but just barely.

3 of 5 stars

The Network Is Down

broderic on March 12, 2011

Last weekend I replaced the venerable LinkSys WRT54g router with the completely awesome AirPort Extreme.

The week prior I had noticed a whine coming from the LinkSys. That was strange as routers don’t have a spinning hard drive. What could be making that noise? So to shut it up, I unplugged it to reboot. That did the job no more whine.

I went about doing house chores for an hour before I had the chance to use a computer. When I did use my computers, I found that I couldn’t access the internet. I quickly glanced at the lights on the LinkSys. It looked okay.

I tried to access LinkSys’s browser-based configuration screen. “No route to host.” I tried pinging its IP address. “100% packet loss.” I looked closer at the router’s lights and noticed that the LAN LED wasn’t on. Since it was next to another LED that was on, it looked alright but, sadly, wasn’t.

The LinkSys router was kaput.

Luckily, I have had an AirportExtreme in my possession for a year now. I was going to replace the LinkSys a year ago, but was too lazy to shut down all computing devices, change out the router, then reboot all computing devices and configure them. Out of necessity, I now had to do it.

I shut down all laptops, except my main MBP. I took the Mac Mini down, too. IPhone can stay on but I switched to just the cellular network. The 0G iPhone I didn’t bother. Using the MBP, I began configuring the replacement network.

Apple’s Airport utilities make this easy. You could just follow the wizard to set it up, but I liked to have control of my configuration. Manually, I went about configuring the AirportExtreme router. Lots of same settings, I ported from the defunct LinkSys — network IP addressing, MAC address filtering. Others I changed — new wireless ID.

I brought online all computing devices and reconfigured them for the new wireless network. The TiBook gave me trouble because, I think OSX Tiger, didn’t like to remember the new wireless network name until I created a new Location for it.

Overall, it went smoothly. At work, I have to deal with networked software nodes, and it is a pain in the ass to debug network trouble. Who’s causing what to whom all happens in the invisible ethernet and it takes some understanding of how networks work to find and fix the trouble. My new house wireless network was stood up without too much hassles.

The sole issue I have with my new wireless network is what to do about the AirportExpress. I had originally used this to extend the LinkSys network via bridging, because I couldn’t get wireless coverage throughout the house with just the LinkSys router. With the new AirportExtreme, I don’t need it, but I didn’t know when I started reconfiguring the network. I tried configuring the Express for bridging, but it cause conflicts on the Extreme. Only when I abandoned the Express did I realize that the Extreme is powerful enough to provide coverage throughout my house (and my neighbors, too). Therefore, the Express sits silent on the floor waiting for a use. I’ll probably try to configure it with my stereo system so I can stream music through it.

The new network is up. I’m planning to put a network drive off of it, perhaps SSD. I want to try that back to my Mac feature. It’s also faster since there is only one wireless station.

I’m back online thanks to the Apple’s AirportExtreme router; it’s cold white face and unblinking, green LED comforts me.

Game Theory

broderic on March 5, 2011

Post Oscar Pool thoughts.

I had done the categories part of the Oscar Pool form soon after the nominations had gone out. I didn’t post it for a while because I was trying to figure out a better way to assign points. I had read slate’s take on point assignment and it made me want to change my scoring. I was looking to add a bit of strategy to making the choice. You can see it with the fact that I made the points a choice. (Although, Ness and Angeli didn’t notice).

It was trying to gauge how well you believe in your vote. Unfortunately, the strategy made for choosing the highest value if you wanted to win.

I wanted to make the votes themselves optional, but I feared that someone would win with 1 vote. I had wanted to add a 0 value along with the optional choice — that was the basis for the no-prize reference.

After all the scores had been , I went into theoretical mode. Who wins if all categories were worth the same points? Who wins in the straight pick ’em? I was able to see how the points worked, but not into how you would choose what. I could only see how the points affect your current choice, but not how the point system would affect your choice.

I’m thinking of a better point system for next year.

Football in the dark

broderic on October 12, 2008

It’s only 9:00 PM, and we’re checking out the Wicked Woods at my nephew’s school. They say that there are ghosts there, but all I see is people in white sheets. There’s nothing wicked or evil here.

My nephew has one of those glow in the dark footballs. He wants to through it around by the Wicked Woods. He drags me to the school’s field which is only bathed in the ghosts lights from the Wicked Woods and the parking lot seventy-five yards away.

I can barely see the football, but we throw and throw and throw it across darkness to each other. One time I overthrow him and hit people in line for the ghosts maze. The kid throws a perfect spiral back to me. Thank god that we’re in the dark and no one can see my lame passes. My nephew can’t either.

We throw and throw and throw it to each other as the ghosts and goblins take the guests through the wicked woods.

All your bases

broderic on April 5, 2008

As a packrat, reading the tips on Unclutterer scares me.

What if I needed that?

What if I have want to remember that?

What if I may use that again?

Perhaps we should have some kind of life lending library. Stuff on loan for you to use, but return in a week when you get bored with it.

Quick Links

broderic on March 3, 2007

It’s the weekend and I usually like to run a long post for you to read on Saturday evenings. I suck at writing and time has been cut short with some things to do. I think I should write those items up over the week and just post them Saturday. Who am I kidding?

Here’s some links for the day. Stuff I was browsing through and found interesting. Hope you like ’em.

A switcher from PC to Macs makes a list of things that he has learned. (hat tip to Fake Steve Jobs)

Not getting things done. I do this often.

Believe in one thing on this list and join the extreme wing of liberalism! Huzzah! We’re all bad! What a wanker!

Happy Birthday, Jessica Biel!

I can’t tell if Black Sheep is trying to be like Shaun of the Dead or a more serious movie. Baa!

Talks amongst yourselves.

It’s the new style!

broderic on February 24, 2007

I did a quick write-up on the changes at BrowserMetrics early this morning, but I don’t think it does justice to, if at all mentions, the design process I went through. After most design/development, I feel it productive to have a postmortem where the process and the product are evaluated for the good and bad of it.

Layout and CSS
In the late 90s, I worked in a web design company helping to churn out pages for lame ass businesses. We did everything with tables. This layout doesn’t use any of that. It is purely CSS driven. I am proud of that. I took me some time to find out how it works. Now that I do know how it does, I want to tweak this layout some more.

My last template centered everything in two small tidy columns that didn’t fill all the entire screen. I wanted to try to use the screen to its fullmost. First, the content area of the posts needed to be larger. It now sits fixed to the left size with a generous width. Notice, that when you enlarge the browser window that the posts don’t change size. That’s what I was going for.

The sidebar I wanted to consolidate. It was too cluttered especially my blogroll. I changed this by trying to shrink the lengths of the lists. Notice that more than one link happens per line.

Color
I knew I wanted a black background. This is to validate BlueRyder’s idea that this blog is dark. Just kidding. Black looks so much cooler or at least a non-white background. Non-white is my text editor at work’s colors for documents. It’ll make it easier to blog at work. Just kidding, again.

The color scheme I chose is mainly black and orange. Unfortunately, this is also the colors for the hometown birds. I have wanted to try out this color scheme out a long time ago, but never had a decent opportunity.

Did you know that the text isn’t purely white? It’s slightly yellow and it compliments the black.

The links are a subtle orange which also compliments the darker main orange color. It’s not the bright one I am used too, but I like it. I hope you too.

Sidebar Tricks
Check out the cache section which is autoatically generated via Blogger tags. I print especially via some javascript.

Mainly the javascript is used to add the ‘|’ after each link printed. For the archive links, I had to create a column effect with javascript. It’s basically every third link I don’t print the ‘|.’ So there’s some programming done here. I wonder if it is taking some time to do this. Perhaps some performance checks needed to executed for those who are still on dialup.

What I like
The layout. The colors. A new blog.

What I don’t like
The CSS. The lack of a proper footer (I wanted another grey bar to rest at the bottom.

“Sit in the snow with Daddy and let us all bask in television’s warm glowing warming glow.”

broderic on February 17, 2007

Like many latchkey kids, I grew up with television as my babysitter. She watched over me as I watched her. Slowly, steadily, and inevitably, she has shaped my life.

It was always awesome to watch show’s over and over again. Syndication made that possible. I don’t know how many times I saw the complete runs of Taxi, Three’s Company or Seinfeld, but I’ve seen them over and over that their episode plotlines run into each and have become indestinguishable.

So imagine my surprise at finding that many television shows have replaced their syndication revenue stream with that of DVD. It is a godsend that the producers are now releasing their shows on DVD. Plenty of the ones out of syndication or even the unpopular ones can now be found at your local Best Buy. So if you want ot catch up or just catch a show you’ve missed, rent the DVD and enjoy.

But what to watch?

These are four discs that are in my personal TV on DVD library. Each of these discs I find to be essential in grokking the show’s concept. If you like to learn more, put them on your netflix queue.

The X-Files: Season 5, Disc 1
The X-Files was the first television show to be released on DVD. I loved that show. I queued the request to buy the first season a couple of months in advance on Amazon. It was originally priced as $129.00, but early buyers could get it for $90. That price today is outrageous as the discs can be got for as little as $30, but I guess they didn’t know who’s going to buy it. That disc sold well.

My choice disc, season five, disc one, will help you grokk The X-Files. It comes from the beginning of the end of the show’s run. Around this time the show “jumped the shark.” It still had another five years left, but the show before season five is completely different than the show after it. Yet, the four episodes on this disc still capture The X-Files in all its glory.

These were the first episodes after the movie. It opens with a standalone episode for the Lone Gunmen, “Unusual Suspects,” which is one of my favorites. There goes the idea of continuing the momentum from the movie. But then it does dive back into the conspiracy with “Redux” and “Redux II“. You would think these episodes would try to resolve lingering plotlines from the movie and the previous season’s cliffhanger. It does and doesn’t leaving many plotlines dangling and unleashing a few more. Finally, you get another standalone episode, “Detour,” which finds our favorite FBI agents lost in the woods just as they have always been. Not a particularly strong episode, but it does have Scully singing. Mmmm, Scully!

After this season, the show officially moved production from wet and dank Vancouver to sunny LA. The tone changed and thus began it’s steady decline.

Northern Exposure: Season 3, Disc 3
The packaging of the first two Northern Exposure discs was highly regarded as dumb. It was a neat little parka. Sounds as stupid as those iPod socks. Also, the first two seasons were short, because the show was a summer/spring replacement. The cost for these two discs were $40, as outrageous a price as The X-Files discs.

With season three, the producers have put the discs in the standard slip case and finally have some idea of what episodes are on each disc.

I have chosen season three’s disc three side B to best represent the show. It is the last few episodes of their magnificent season 3, and they go on hiatus with a set of strong episodes. The show ignites the lustful emotions between Joel and Maggie by locking them up in the same hotel room in Juneau in “It Happened in Juneau.” This episode sums up the love-hate-love that the two main characters go through. It’s as silly as all your other “will they or won’t they” plotlines. Next is “Our Wedding.” Not Joel and Maggie’s, bit Adam and Eve. Bringing fun for everyone but the groom. Finally, on this disc, you have the best episode of the show ever, “Cicely.” You come to know about the town of Cicely and how it became the “Alaskan Riviera.” It also keys you on the magic between the cast and of the place that is Northern Exposure.

News Radio: Season 3, Disc 1
I would like to have you watch every disc of this show, but I have to choose one which is unfair to the rest of them. You already know of my passion for this show if you stick around for NewsRadio Quote Month.

As the show opens it’s third season, it finds itself looking to stay on television. It’s not that the show was bad, but just the executives at NBC who were. They couldn’t give this most funniest of shows a decent time slot. It didn’t follow the nineties Friends-like template. It harkened back to workplace comedies which have been as old as the lembego trick.

When you watch this disc, you’ll find nine of the most funniest sitcoms episodes. They’ll make you want to watch all the rest of the discs.

“President” with Jimmy James running for and losing out in one day. A side plot is Matthew’s mustache. “Review” is for all those office drones who have to ge through this process. You’ll instantly recognize the cringe-inducing factor of this suckful work place phenomena. “Message Chair” is to remind you of the loss of Phil Hartman. “Arcade” is to remind you of all the quarters you pumped into video games as a kid. StarGate Defender! Plus Lisa Miller and the SAT. “Holloween” and “Award Show” highlight the ensemble cast at their goofiest. “Daydream” sums up all those dream episodes in television rather succinctly. “Movie Star” has James Caan intrigued by the spaz, and “Stocks” has you wishing for more secret of management advice from Jimmy James.

I think I’ll pop this disc in and watch a few eps…

The Simpsons: Season 2, Disc 4
This past Christmas I had received five seasons worth of this show on DVD. That’s an insane amount to view, especially since they are all from the waning years of the show. Yes it’s still on, but have you watched it? Religiously? Like you did when you were younger? I thought so.

Yet, the Simpsons still has it’s funny sides. I had to dive into the early run of the show to be reminded of the fact.

“Lisa’s Substitute” is the classic episode with Dustin Hoffman voicing the Jewish cowboy teacher that Lisa has a crush on. “The War of the Simpsons” has Homer catching General Sherman, beatin the mighty catfish down, but releasing it because of his love for Marge. “Three Men and A Comic Book” has Milhouse, Bart, and Martin fighting over the titular comic book. Reminds me of the time that my brother ripped up one of mine. “Blood Feud” a mediocre fare that is still better than today’s show.

I have a few more shows on DVD, but they aren’t my favorites.

Share with me yours.