March 2004

This page is closed,
for new content... go to my blog home page and click "Current Blogging"

Wednesday March 31, 7:12pm

Keynono Reeves will be staring in another Matrix-like movie PKD's Scanner Darkly. Soon it may dawn on Hollywood that Keynono sucks. Until then lots of movies with him.

No idea if this Off-road monstrosity is the real new Batmobile from the upcoming Batman Begins movie or not but it's still pretty neat looking.

Wonder Woman Television Series on DVD, June 29th 2004. The Batmobile pictures linked to above are also repeated on this page as well.

Tuesday March 30, 9:05pm

Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon:
Does he mean me? Is this cartoon talking to me?

Try out this Work Ethics calendar. Requires MS Excel. No Macros or Viruii.
from j-walk blog (The guy writes Excel for Dummies books)

Excellent NEW American Express Jerry Seinnfeld hanging out with Superman in a diner and setting-up surround sound tv system-- Web Movie/commercial. About 5 or 6 minutes long.... pretty funny.

Tuesday March 30, 6:12am

Let's Go Surfing

A pretty neat little photoshop pic. Click and look closely.
via j-walk blog

Handknit beer cozies
via j-walk blog

Sunday March 28, 11:11am

OK, now I completely get it. We must stop P2P to Save the Children. If you are for P2P, you are anti-child. It was so obvious. I don't know why I didn't see it sooner.

And here's an interesting article extoling the virtues of corporations taking responsibillity for your waistline. While at the same time not taking responsibillity and responding to market demand to create the impression of responsible choices.

Saturday March 27, 10:45pm

Ramble mode on

Currently in Urban Mill, a coffee shop with Wi-Fi, in downtown GR. There is a kid, early 20s singing and playing guitar. He's actually pretty good. I know nothing of music and my appreciation of it is rudimentary, but he's as good as anything I would care to listen to on the radio and it's live so that's cool. I'm reading a book intitled Free Culture. I downloaded it free in it's entirety from the author's web site. It is an essay or argument about the basis of free culture, free as in speech or free as in markets, not free as in beer.

I'm on about page 84 of 350+ or so pages and so far it is very good. Nothing really new for anyone who pays attention to this sort of topic on the internet, but it is well put together and fairly well reasoned. I'm enjoying reading it.

Oddly, I don't think I would have bought the book in the book store, but I'll read it for free. The author is a professional writer and perhaps he will get additional sales of the book by providing it for free, and most certainly he will get increased name recognition, because it is a proffesional work and although it retreads over worn trails of thought, it does so well. His increased name recognition may lead to other economic oportunities within and beyond writing perhaps. Who knows? I haven't read his reasoning behind releasing this book for free.

Within the same context, the before mentioned kid singing and playing the guitar here is playing cover songs, all of which I assume are stll under copyright. I do not know the law regarding the performance of copyrighted material for an audience of 20 in a coffee shop. He may be in violation of copyright, but I have yet to see any police and there doesn't seem to be a public outcry for him to stop playing. Everyone seems to be enjoying the performance, and it seems beneficial for society, from my point of view, for him to be playing. It also seems unlikely at his age that he would have 2+ hours of orginal material to play.

It could even be argued that this kid is taking away dollars from the recording industry because if he wasn't playing music I might be listening to purchased music on my laptop CD player. Who knows?

Thinking about the law and society on this topic, it all seems to me like an over complication of simple negotiation and balancing a gift of a monopoly to individuals for the benefit of society as a whole.

Society wants lots of entertainment. The most efficient way to get that is to have individuals who do nothing but work towards generating entertainment. In exchange for them doing that we have created copyright and the abillity to charge for their works as an incentive. But the simple argument is, what happens when a large number of part time amateurs who hold other jobs can generate a wealth of entertainment and distribute it to a worldwide audience over the internet at minimal personal cost? Honestly, society won't need copyright when that is the case. It will actually be penalized for it. As a culture, we now have and will continue to have more entertainment than we can posibibly consume in a lifetime.

At that point I think copyright just becomes another form of control, which is a futile human desire in the grand scheme of things... but a hard one to give up.

The hot chocolate in the coffee shop, I don't mind paying for though.

Saturday March 27, 12:48pm

Let's Go surfing

Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon:

These are really cool: Stanford Torus, Bernal Sphere, O'Neill Cylinder. Very nice "Babylon 5 Station" style drawings of different space habitats.
via boing boing.net

Odd Pledge of Allegience Powerpoint presentation.

ahem -- March Madness? NSFW
via FARK

Justice League Unlimited News. There will be over 60 DC heroes in the opening title sequence. This could be alot of fun if Mattel goes Super Powers all over this series and starts producing alot of figures too.

PSP (Playstation Portable), due March 2005, will have built-n wi-fi. I could see actually buying one of these game consoles.... this looks like it has the potential to be a killer handheld device.

Nice to see entry level Digital Camera's with LCD screens coming down in price. This Argus one is $45.

oQo uPC. Very Cool.

Check out these pixel people
via j-walk blog

A couple of Oligopoly Watch Stories on Walmart and also the toy industry

Apparently you can use these mice for your second hand in addition to your primary mouse in Photoshop and other programs.

Thursday March 25, 9:35pm

Over the last couple days I read the last five issues, 54-59, of JSA. Pretty bad, slow pacing, blah art. I think I'm going to drop this book even though the Golden Age Green lantern is a regular member/character. I don't reccomend.

Let's Go Surfing

Possible reason you're dreaming about things you don't want to dream about.

Monday March 22, 2:12pm

Comments on Comics

Enjoyed Teen Titan's #9. The issue had interesting pacing. It is one of the few books out today that is a serial but still doesn't seem necessarilly intended to be read as a tradepaperback.

Also read Superman: Secret Identity #3. This will make a good tradepaperback but works well as a series of stand alones too. You could actually pick up any of the three issues so far and read them without needing the others and since it is not set in DC Continuity or really any alternate continuity, a non comic reader would probably also enjoy it. On many levels it works as a light Twilight Zone episode. All three prestige format books work very well as a group though too, as it is one story. The story is structured to make each book stand on it's own well. The art is very different from the mainstream and the story explores an entertaining what if senerio. Looking forward to the 4th and final issue. Do read.

Thought

What would you fight for? How far would you go? How do you determine what's fair, if everyone plays by different rules? How many principles can you defend at one time? When one principle makes it impossible to live up to another principle, which one do you go with? What happens when you can't agree to disagree? WWJD? He "changed" GWB's "heart", yet he went to war.

If others fight first? Do you then fight back? Do you keep going to the other side gives up? or is no more?

What do you fight for? How far do you go?

Sunday March 21, 1:002pm

Just read Superman/Batman #8 which reintroduces the proper Kara Zor-el, Superman's cousin, Supergirl back to contemporary DC Continuity (if you can call the strung together inconsistencies within the DCU: continuity). Beautiful Book, even if it is a bit fast of a read, plus there are 2 pages completely in Kryptonese which I'm sure has been translated by now somewhere on the internet. There is a heavy, ahem, homage to the Terminator films within it's pages, in how they present Kara's first appearance, but overall good begining to a story (like everything these days) most likely destined to find its true pacing within a Tradepaperback reprinting.

Saturday March 20, 11:35pm

Comment

Probably my biggest blog break yet? But I'm back (All 10 or so of you reading this :) Life can have a way of interrupting fun little habits like this.

Comments on Comics

Read issues 2 and 3 of DC New Frontier today. Great story. Fantastic Art. A real epic tale that is masterfully weaving together a tight retelling of DC's Silver Age, set in THE Silver Age, of the 60's. I'm not sure how good of a read it would be for those unfamiliar with the background of DC's 1960s Superheroes, although I'm sure that most would still find it entertaining. But for those with a fondness for this time period and genre, it's particularly good stuff. Up their with Kingdom Come and Dark Knight Returns I think.

Pic of the Week

Either my co-worker is going in search of her "Lucky Charms" or it must have been St. Patrick's Day last Week.

Let's Go Surfing

Grumpy on Atkins? Depressed after your bacon Cheeseburger? Maybe this is why?

A Urinal for Rolling Stones Fans or just weird people in general. NSFW (They also make a Flower pot toilet too)
via FARK

Diamond Comic Previews for June. DC, DC Direct, Marvel and Image.

DC and some top comics talent is doing a series of tribute specials to Julius Schartz this summer:

These titles ship one per week in July beginning with:

DC COMICS PRESENTS: BATMAN

The cover to Batman #183, re-created by Adam Hughes, features a seeming "couch potato" Dark Knight. The stories are by Geoff Johns with art by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella and by Len Wein with art by Andy Kuhn.

DC COMICS PRESENTS: MYSTERY IN SPACE

Alex Ross pays tribute to the cover of Mystery in Space #82, featuring Adam Strange's dilemma of having to decide the fate of two worlds. By Grant Morrison with art by Jerry Ordway and Elliot S. Maggin with art by J.H. Williams III.

DC COMICS PRESENTS: GREEN LANTERN

Brian Bolland reinterprets the cover of Green Lantern #31, where the Emerald Gladiator offers "Power Rings For Sale." By Brian Azzarello with art by Norm Breyfogle and Sal Buscema and Martin Pasko with art by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens.

DC COMICS PRESENTS: HAWKMAN

José Luis García-López illustrates Hawkman's battle with a winged gorilla from the cover of Hawkman #6. By Kurt Busiek with art by Walter Simonson and Cary Bates with art by John Byrne.

And in August, look for four more DC Comics Presents Specials showcasing Superman, the Flash, the Atom, and the Justice League of America, with new stories featuring the work of Stan Lee, Darwyn Cooke, Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, Dennis O'Neil, Doug Mahnke, Jeph Loeb, Dave Gibbons, Mark Waid, Peter David, Harlan Ellison, Marv Wolfman, Dustin Nguyen Joe Giella and more.

Hey Kid'S! FREE Comics! Here is this year's listing of Free Offerings Free Comic Book Day is Saturday July 3rd this year.

Cool Toshiba Concept Wrist PDA. Although honestly you'd probably smack-up the monitor pretty good and it would be more practical just to mount your cellphone to your forearm I think.

The Chillow... a pillow with a built-in non-powered heatsink. According to the site: "The sensation of the Chillow® has been described like the “cool kiss of a Caribbean breeze right on your cheek!"

Cellphone with virtual laser keyboard attachment.

Surfing Freefiles today I found that there was an Update to Net Chat which I mentioned earlier. It is no longer the simple stand alone app that it was. It now has an Installer, version 1.2 is the version to use. Current version 1.4 on the site I probably wouldn't install.

This looks like it might be a good book:

Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork,
and the Myth of Total Efficiency
Tom DeMarco
2001, 226 pages
$23
Broadway Books
Amazon

The Legacy of the nineties has been a dangerous corporate delusion; the idea that organizations are effective only to the extent that all their workers are totally and eternally busy. Anyone who's not overworked (sweating, staying late, racing from one task to the next, working Saturdays, unable to squeeze time for even the briefest meeting till two weeks after next) is looked on with suspicion. People with a little idle time on their hands may not even be safe.

---

A look of triumph now comes over the consultant's face. If Sylvia is only busy 43 percent of the time, 57 percent of her cost is potentially savable. Why, all we have to do is dump Sylvia into a "pool" and allocate 43 percent of her time to you and the rest to other people. Or have you share her with some other manager who needs only 57 percent of a full person. Or even get rid of Sylvia entirely and hire a temp for that 43 percent of the time that you really need someone. (You can be sure that the consultant will be checking back later to find out if you really need that much help.)

What an improvement. Sylvia's gone or gone 57 percent of the time, and 57 percent of what she was costing the organization goes directly down to the bottom line. Wow. In place of a person who was idle 57 percent of the time, we now have someone who is busy 100 percent of the time. Talk about efficiency!

The problem of course, is that the now-slackless secretary or portion thereof is simply not as responsive as Sylvia was. This highly efficient person doesn't get cracking right away on anything new that comes up, because this highly efficient person is too busy.

A Weeks worth of select J-Walk Blog links:

Monday March 15, 9:46pm

Some guy has taken Bush and Kerry's RSS feeds and placed them side by side on a single web page. Scary stuff really. Instead of Presidential debates, I think we'll just want to throw these guys into a mud pit and have them wrestle for it by the time this is done.

George Carlin on all the recent media hoopla on indecency etc.

Pessimisim has benefits. Yeah right.

Check out the reasoning behind the upcoming death of the video game industry

Paper Models

Word of the Day
shadenfreud - delight in the misery of others

Here's quote from my archive:

Intelligence is probably no better than 5th on the list of things that make success possible, behind birth, good social skills, good looks, and hard work. (In about that order, too.) It's probably more important than gender, though I've sure met women who would dispute that.
-Daniel Keys Moran

Sunday March 14, 11:10pm

NASA is to announce a new 10th planet today, named Sedna. My mother's name is Sedana. So I find this quite amusing.

There was a pretty good song released late last year with a catchy beat and chorus:

Fnck what i said it dont mean sh!t now
Fnck the presents might as well throw em out
Fnck all those kisses, it didnt mean jack
Fnck you, you hoe, i dont want you back

Not really positve, but still a catchy beat, Fnck !t by Eamon (flip the n's and !'s upside down and Kazaa search away), MTV calls the song: "I don't want you back". It is basically a break-up song from the point of view of a guy who's girlfriend cheated on him. Yesterday I heard a female flip-side version of the song on the radio, Fnck you right back! by Frankee. Same music background, but this time told from the girl's point of view (Her version doesn't come across as sympathetic as his though).

I like these type of songs that are tied together telling larger stories or giving both points of view. It would be neat if there were more of them.

If you've heard the first but not the second, seek it out.

Guy Cleaning Tip

Set the Hair Blower to Cold, plug it into a large extension cord and you have a great method of walking around the room to do some light dusting. The hair blower won't get rid of that multi-month old type of dust that needs a good cloth taken too it, but it will blow off all the recent light dust, most of which will fall to the floor and can be vacumed up.

Tim Allen does a comedy bit about doing something similar, duct taping all the small stuff down and then going through with a leaf blower, but I wouldn't reccomend that.

Sunday March 14, 8:36am

The non-commerical full iRobot movie trailer is up. It looks good but it doesn't look like it bares much resemblence to any thing by Azimov other than the title. Even when they do the three laws they didn't copy them word for word which is a little odd. Still looks like it might be interesting though.

Thongs wrong for work?
Sun via FARK

Saturday March 13, 7:40pm

The Internet has created a new holiday for tomorrow March 14th. NSFW

Thursday March 11, 11:35pm

Pics of the Day

Here's a picture of me chewing gum.

A picture of some pizza biscuits I made (Put pasta sauce, pepperoni, cooked Itallian sausage, and shredded pizza cheese between two Pillsbury Buttermilk bicuit dough halves, add butter to top bake in oven for around 12 minutes or so at 400deg until golden brown.)

And a picture of an iBib I made for one of the earlier mentioned iTune fiend co-worker's baby shower.

Let's Go Surfing

Great reference of various Television show cliches and plot devices.

These are not official sources but apparently two people tried to Proclaim March 3rd as International Read a Comic Book in Public Day and/or International Read a Comic Book Naked Day. Now I'm of the opinion that the first idea is kind of stupid, would you have International Read a Magazine in Public Day? I don't think so, that would be silly, as is the idea that you would need a special day to read a comic in public. But the latter is a perfectly silly concept to proclaim, so I shall hereto also blog and mention the read a comic naked day to help its prominence as a meme on the web for next year.

Hugging good for you
via FARK

I've arbitrailly decided that Elisha Cuthbert from 24 will now replace Emily Procter as hottest blonde tv actress. Emily, earlier of Ainsley Hayes/West Wing Fame now on CSI Miami, not as hot lately which is too bad because she has a really individual voice.

Creepy Anakin Skywalker photo from Episode III

I really like the simplicity of Net Chat located here. If you have a small windows lan and want to send short messages/snippets back and forth among your computers, this little stand alone, no registry changing no dll app works great. 3/20/04: The program has been updated with new features including an installer, I don't reccomend it as highly now.

Gizmodo has an intriguing story on Starbucks getting into the CD burning business.

messy desks
via J-walk blog

This looks like a really neat watch whereas this one looks pretty stupid.

Really cool software for capturing and archiving standard whiteboard images with the aid of a digital camera.
via Digital Media thoughts

Wednesday March 10, 9:16pm

According to this CDC site, Poor Diet and Inactivity is close to beating smoking as the leading casue of death. Truely an amazing statistic if you think about it. If you die in America, it's most likely because you took advantage of too many junk food choices and didn't have to do anything. This is truly a spectacular time to be alive.
via boing boing

Quote of the Day "Remember, none of us alone are as dumb as we are together."

Tuesday March 9, 9:02pm

The other day I took a picture of a Squirel licking a dum dum sucker... but it was with my little mini-digicam, no zoom. It would have been a really cool picture, because it was very amusing.

People with absolute beliefs are kindof scary, and there's alot of them.

How much of your day is dedicated to doing what you like to do vs. doing what you have to do so that you can do what you like to do?

The coffee shop is quite odd today.

If you had a 10x10 room, what would you have in it? What would you have to leave out.

Let's Go Surfing

That neat lightscribe technology that let's you use your CDr laser to burn a disk label looks like it will soon be real hardware

Article: How News travels on the Internet
via boing boing

California Lawmakers want to give California kids the right to vote. "A vote cast by a 14 or 15-year-old would be counted as a quarter of a vote, and a vote by a 16 or 17-year-old would be counted as half a vote." Methinks the drinking age in California would be quickly be lowered to 14 if this becomes law.

Sneak peek of the New Batman Animated Series on WB this Saturday (3/13/04) Morning.

Quote of the Day
Monday "She took all the Toilet Paper."
Tuesday "We're on Tuesday, but he's on Monday"

Saturday March 6, 11:45pm

Let's Go Surfing

Here's a great quote from a sort of NSFW site that I won't link to here on one man's opinion of Martha Stewart:

I forgave Martha Stewart a long time ago for her indiscretions and her strange "uber-frau" propensities. She showed me how to prevent ice cream from leaking out the bottom of a waffle cone by putting a mini-marshmallow in side, effectively plugging the hole.

Bryan Singer (Director of X-Men) to remake Logan's Run. Great Movie. Of course technically in the Logan's Run World I should be dead right now.
via aint-it-cool-news

This is pretty cool sounding: Philips' New Camera Lens Works Like Human Eye

When you see a mini-MP3 Player like this, you know the day is coming quickly when these things are in the grocery checkout lane next to the mini-calculators.
via Digital Media thoughts

Smittens.... cute idea... but maybe a more neutral color than pink?
via j-walk blog

These updated propaganda posters are a little left for my tastes, but the orginal art they are based on is cool.
via j-walk blog

Absolutely one of the coolest things I've seen checkout this house of books
via j-walk blog

Wednesday March 5, 9:55pm

This is really pretty good, even if you don't care anything about the Mars rovers *yawn* you should check out this humor/parody of Opportunity's LiveJournal. Great Stuff.

Friday, February 6th, 2004
8:23 am
squee!
I got to drive today! It's so cool! I didn't think I'd ever be allowed to go out on my own. NASA is so protective sometimes; it's like they wanted to keep me swaddled in airbags forever. But anyways, I keep finding these round pebbly things. They get stuck in my treads. Do you think they'll leave a mark? OMG what if Stardust saw me like this? No, it's cool. It's not like he'd ever come by this planet again...

Spirit is still "sick." She swears she's gonna drive to that crater any time now, though. She just wants to do it on her time and not when NASA orders her to. Like, whatever. Don't tell anyone but sometimes I miss her.

If you click on the comments you'll see that alot of other people are getting into this too, and the "author" opprtunitygrrl replies back within the comment section sometimes too. Funny stuff.
via boingboing

One of the neat things about the interent is completely worthless compilations of data like this link to a guide to pantone colors of lego bricks. I see things like this and realize that there are people with far more time on their hands than me.
via boingboing

Wednesday March 3, 11:57pm

Just finished reading Supreme Power #8 JMS's revamp of Squadron Supreme. It continues to be one of the few comics that are really worth picking up on a monthly basis. It should make a great tradepaperback at some point as well (which I will prolly also pick-up)

My Faith in Frankie #3 also out this week... story continues to get more involving.

Let's Go Surfing

Today's Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon:

Yes you can have fries with that... but no you can't super-size them. The extra ounce is bad for you.

Who knew the Ewok victory song at the end of Star Wars Return of the Jedi actually had words?
via boingboing

Alan Moore so much doesn't like the upcoming Hellblazer (Constanine) movie that he is having his name taken off as character creator and rejecting the money too. DC sux at movies :(

Pic of the Day

Somewhat courtesy of playing with a demo of some face twisting software called FaceFilter that I saw on DigitalMediaThoughts.com.

Tuesday March 2, 11:55pm

Let's Go Surfing

Lots of Water on Mars, apparently the place was swimming with it, yawn, I'm still waiting for the discovery of Martian Space Lizards. And speaking of lizards... on the earth bound thunderous lizard dinosaur front... according to this article there is now a multiple asteriod theory.... aparently there was a second asteriod hiding in a grassy knoll.
via Slashdot

Government is once again trying to protect children from porn on the internet. For some reason no one has come up with the idea of--- watching the children and keeping them off the internet.
via FARK

Jon Stewart really is America's most trusted news source

This Ms. Butterworth horror video short rocks!

Looks like it's going to be Bush v. Kerry this fall, Edwards to throw in the towel, yawn.

Here's a neat tip on making kaleidoscopic images from regular pictures in photoshop.
via j-walk blog

Presidential Action figures
via j-walk blog

Comedian Steven Wright Jokes:

I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me -- and I didn't hear it.

He asked me if I knew what time it was. I said, "Yes, but not right now."

I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas, I just think about it.

My watch is three hours fast, and I can't fix it. So I'm going to move to New York.

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, "What for?" I said, "I'm going to buy some sugar."

I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, "Hey, the sign says you're open 24 hours." He said, "Yes, but not in a row."

I filled out an application that said, "In Case Of Emergency Notify". I wrote "Doctor"... What's my mother going to do?