Sun 12/30/07 11:14pm #

Spider-man, One More Day

Well after seeing a little bit of it talked about online the last couple days, I got a hold of all four issues of the Spider-man, One More Day story.

WARNING SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!
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So Aunt May is about to die having gotten hit by a bullet that was intended for Peter Parker. Peter goes all over the Marvel Universe looking for a way to save May. She's beyond help though. Tony Stark, Dr. Strange, Reed Richards, no one can help, because well people as old as May can't really take bullet wounds well.

Enter Mephisto, Marvel's answer to the Devil. He'll save Aunt May but Peter and MJ have to let him take their marriage away, as if it never happened. That's the devils bargain, Peter can save Aunt May but he has to lose his wife MJ (she doesn't die, but they don't end up together.).

It's brought up several times that Aunt May is old, but Great Power ,Great Responsibility etc. etc. Peter can't let May go and MJ who has to agree to the Devil's bargain too, can't bear to let Peter, in his own mind, be “the cause of Aunt May's death like his Uncle Ben's”.

So MJ agrees to Mephisto adding some extra conditions into the bargain and whispering another condition that the reader doesn't get to hear, Peter agrees and just like that, Mephisto waves the magic pixie dust and more or less 20 years of comics continuity are just disappeared away. (Assuming this stays permanent of course)

Mephisto delivers an interesting line in the story to Peter and MJ:

“You will not consciously remember the bargain or this moment, or the life you've lived to this point. But there will be a very small part of your soul that will remember, that will know what you've lost. And my joy will be in listening to that part of your soul screaming throughout eternity.”

I think that line would be better read as a line delivered by Marvel Editor In Chief Joe Quesada (the architect of hitting the Peter/MJ relationship reset button) to Spider-man fans. It's a pretty heavy thing they layed on the character, and having JMS, the writer, pen the tale, gave it quite abit of weight as well. I think whatever lighter fun situations they put Spider-man in going forward, there is going to be a little part of the fans feeling the “loss” for the character as well.

I don't know how much escapism you can find in a character that's been turned that tragic if that plot continues too long. It's mostly depressing watching the “happily ever after” part of the book get ripped out.

For the comic fans out there I'll also add: Quesada has had Superboy hit a wall in the Marvel U. now too.

I want to hear your

Sun 12/30/07 10:34pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I generally keep alot of tabs open in Firefox. All day long my WinXP laptop hard drive has been grinding as the virtual memory swaps back and forth. Apparently the page you are looking at with it's bunches and bunches of pictures takes up some serious ram in Firefox on XP. Ouch. Sorry about that. Viva la Broadband.

Let's Go Surfing

» Cable Carpet. I could use some of that.

» Cool Image of presents opening children.

» In 2012, the lights go out, as Congress has banned the incandescent light bulb. Seriously, what will pop up over my head when I get an idea after 2012 when those bulbs are gone? One of those squiggly CFLs? I don't think so.

» Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly's Local to continue in April 2008. Very cool, this is a great series.

» Microsoft Groupshop. Freeware that will take two different group photos and allow you to mege the best headshots of each. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds interesting.

Videos

» New Frontier trailer from a couple weeks ago that's just filled with awesome. (Youtube).

» Bookeem CyBook eBook. $350

» Neil Gaiman's Coraline sneak footage from last week. (Youtube). Very much looking forward to this.

» Nora the Piano playing Kitten. (Youtube)

I want to hear your

Sun 12/30/07 1:26pm #

You're not taking a picture are you?

I want to hear your

Sun 12/30/07 12:31pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I went through my Toyfare's etc. and updated my Upcoming List for 2008. There are something like 61 possible Action figures on that list. Yowsa. I'll probably get less, but that's still about 1 a week or more. I need to seriously reflect on this collecting hobby thing.

» A comment response of mine on another blog where someone was wondering about "Linux Acceptance"

Apple, Microsoft and Linux are seen as three different brands: Hip, Functional or Geek. Even if that isn't exactly true anymore, there is alot of marketing still out there reinforcing that.

That kindof of branding takes a long time to change.

Most people care more about what something says about them than what something does for them. That makes the branding more important than the use.

Surfed

» ToyOtter over on Action Figure Insider has linked to my DCU pictures. How neat is that? The whole group at Action Figure Insider does a spectacular job of bringing the Toy info goodness. They're also one of a handful of sites that ocasionally gets exclusive info, so if for some reason, you're new to the action figure game and haven't added them to your bookmarks, do so. If you hunt the aisles regulary, you already have them on "speed-click" I bet.

» While on the topic of DCU, ToyOtter's post above also turned me on to Christophe at the Hall Of Justice's cool custom Mattel 6in" Checklist card. Very nice graphic of what's out there in the line right now. It's sutible for printing, laminating and staring at for hours until you collect them all :)

Also ToyOtter has 5 Classic Super Powers Commercials posted in there too. So what are you waiting for? Get to clicking.

Let's Go Surfing

» Iron Man Movie Action Figures. Finally some movie actions figures done right... Little launching rockets etc. for the kiddies and nice sculpts for the adults.

» If this Iron Man Video Game Clip is any indication, then the movie is going to be pretty incredible.

» Very nicely designed small table.

» Really neat freeware program that will take a txt file and render the text as a series of jpegs that you can then view on your MP3 Player Picture Viewer or camera phone. info | download.

» Henry Ford on the 5 Day, 8 hour work week. Motivations in this article do not necessarily seem humanitarian, but it does seem to be an interesting portal into another time, as well as containing information useful in the present.
via Metafilter

» I like big hutts...

» Baby Blender... er at least that's what I think it is... seems like putting babies in a blender should be illegal though.

» Interesting Sliding Shelf/Office/Desk idea

Videos

» Asus EeePC modded with Touchscreen Keyboard. I wish I had the guts to do this to mine.

I want to hear your

Fri 12/28/07 9:04pm #

DC Universe Wave 1

» My wallet doth feel lighter today. I hit Toys R Us before today's delayed holiday comic run and there was one entire set of DC Universe Wave 1. At first I had only planed to get 3 of these figures but seeing them all together I decided to go for 5 to build the BAF Metamorpho figure. These are very nice figures. Shrunken heads have been one of the consistent bothers to me of earlier Mattel DC figures. With the exception of Batman, Mattel has finally gotten in-scale heads on these figures and that's a very good thing. Lot's of articulation, Four Horseman sculpts. These are definite Hasbro Legends killers. Nice wave, can't wait for more from this line.

I want to hear your

Fri 12/28/07 5:56pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I found the entire Mattel DC Universe wave today at 28th St. Toys R Us. Pictures of those soon.

More Billy Batson Photos

» By Request a few more Billy Batson comparison Photos.

I want to hear your

NCW #

New Comic Picks for 12/28/07

ACTION COMICS #860 $2.99
BATMAN #672 $2.99
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #9 $2.99
COUNTDOWN TO ADVENTURE #5 (OF 8) $3.99
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 18 $2.99
CRIME BIBLE THE FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD #3 (OF 5) $2.99
DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #4 (OF 8) $3.50
FLASH #235 $2.99
GREEN LANTERN #26 $2.99
GREEN LANTERN SINESTRO CORPS SECRET FILES #1 $4.99
JLA CLASSIFIED #49 $2.99
JSA CLASSIFIED #33 $2.99
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES CVR A #37 $2.99
TEEN TITANS #54 $2.99
WIZARD MAGAZINE #196 IRON MAN MOVIE CVR $5.99

According to Diamond Comics Shipping List

I want to hear your

Thur 12/27/07 10:06pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I took these photos weeks ago, but haven't really had the chance until now to sit down and post all of these. So hopefully you are viewing on a broadband connection because there's more than a few pictures below.

And away we go....

DC Direct Wonder Woman Wave

» Shazam! Dc Direct hit one out of the park with this wave! Great basic sculpts and an entire case that's impossible to skip. These came out a few weeks ago and it's taken me forever to get my picks on here, but this was a wave I was exicted to get. I wish I had an entire shelf I could devote to them. Great Stuff.

Billy and Hoppy the Bunny. Hoppy the freaking Bunny!

His name is Captain Marvel. That's Captain MARVEL, M - A - R - V - E - L.
I don't care what understanding Marvel and DC have, this is a 70 year old character, let's call him by his proper name already.

Captain Marvel Jr. (see rant above)

Mary Marvel

Mary Marvel, White variant. I'm a bigger fan of the red costume, but I couldn't bring myself not to get both. (I may need to take a Superbuddies picture soon y'know?)

I love Dr. Silvana, but I was actually more excited to get Mr. Mind. I wish they would have packaged him on a tiny little action figure card all his own.

Holey Moley it's the Marvel Family!

Mr. Mind, Mr. Mind, Mr. Mind... he's and evil genius catapiller or bug or whatever... and he talks though that little 40s radio on his chest. How awesome of a villian is that.

Have I mentioned how much I like this wave yet?

See above would be the part will Silvana explains his evil plan.

And Mary Marvel would be all like, We'll stop you and stuff.

...and then Silvana would explain the twist...

Captain Marvel, 70s style.

Now as much as I like the new Captain Marvel figure, there are two things I like about the older version: One-- I like the idea that Captain Marvel appears to be in his late 30s or early 40s instead of the 1970's late 20s look. And two-- I like the shirt chest flap design of the original costume.

As figures go, I prefer the plastic capes to the fabric ones.
Not a fan of the fabric action figure capes.

70s style Captain Marvel does tend to look better with Supes though.

I really enjoyed Black Adam in 52. I like how Adam always refers to Captain Marvel as Billy throughout that book. There's a certain dismissiveness to that to me.

We probably could use a newer Black Adam Figure with a little more height. (The Alex Ross one was nice, but the detail on those figures always seems to be a bit much when you put them with the more comic styled ones.)

Definetly an improvement on the earlier Billy figure, but a nice sculpt slightly younger shorter Billy would be nice too. (I'm splitting hairs with that comment though.)

A couple Mighty Maids.

Supergirl and Mary Marvel.

I want to hear your

Thur 12/27/07 9:23pm #

DC Direct Wonder Woman Wave

» These came out a few weeks ago also. I like the Diana Prince figure and the Circe is decent (if a little hard to pose.)

I passed on the Donna Troy and the Wonder Woman figures. I'm still hoping for an ideal Wonder Woman figure. There is going to be an All Star Wonder Woman figure based on Adam Hughes next year so hopefully that will be the one.

Diana Prince and Circe. Circe is an awkward sculpt as one of her legs is a little longer than the other which forces her into the one pose if you want her to stand (which with that heavy cape is still a challenge.)

Diana's scale is just a little bit too tall. but it's a very nice sculpt.

Circe and Cheetah

I want to hear your

Thur 12/27/07 9:13pm #

Marvel Legends Brood Queen Wave

» I ordered these online a month or so ago. I still haven't seen them in stores. I opted to get Black Knight, Marvel Girl (Rachel ) and Bucky. Hasbro's waves continue to be uneven as some of the figures are new and others are based on Toy Biz molds. Black Knight is probably my fav of the wave, as he brings my collection ever closer to completing the Avengers from when I was a kid.

I wish the figure had the youth and energy of the drawing in the upper lefthand corner. Still, who would have thought we'd get a Bucky figure?

Black Knight, Marvel Girl (Rachel) and Bucky.

Captain America and Bucky

"Actually I was thinking that when I grow up I'd call myself The Winter Soldier."

Bucky manages to get a little more height out of the same basic sculpt.

Patriot and Bucky

Did somebody call for a sidekick?

Bucky and the Boy Wonder!

Black Knight, excellent figure!

Apparently Black Knight's armor, (and the figure's less articulation) makes it a little awkward to ride his mechanical steed.

Avengers Assemble!

I like these two characters together.

Rachel and Jean, Mother and Daughter (The daughter's from the future, it's kindof complicated, or it least it was, I haven't read the character in a long while)

I want to hear your

Thur 12/27/07 8:44pm #

Babylon 5 Londo and G'Kar

» I got Londo and G'Kar during a sale at my local comic shop. Londo was $2 and G'Kar was $8. Having this pair for $10 seemed worth it. I was a big fan of this show when it was on and these two characters were certainly it's heart. Good Stuff.

Just looking at the two characters you can feel the wit and sarcasm can't you?

Adam Strange seemed a good pick to show the figures scale with.

I want to hear your

Wed 12/26/07 9:31am #

Knight Rider 10 Second Teaser Commercial

I don't car for the car choice... but they got the red sweep light, voice and music. It's hard to pass that up.

I want to hear your

Mon 12/24/07 5:32pm #

eBay

I currently have eBay bidder's remorse. I just bid on a gadget on eBay and then imediately had second thoughts about the device. If I win the item, it will be half what it costs new and not terribly expensive. There are 17 other bidders and I only bid $5 more than the last guy, so I might get outbid, but it is Christmas Eve, so who knows.

I'm kindof hoping I lose. 2 hours will tell.

I want to hear your

Sun 12/23/07 7:38pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Photo taken with my cellphone camera in Ann Arbor yesterday. Interesting effect as my friend Chris blurs across the image.

» A couple weeks ago, Google Talk's IM service gained the abillity to log into AIM accounts and merge all your AIM buddies into your Google Chat Friends' list. Now if they can just get around to adding in MSN the circle will be complete.

» CompUSA is completely closing in January. The one store in Grand Rapids completely closed down some time ago, but it's still a bummer to see the entire chain gone. It's never seemed to be the most popular store on the net, but it was the only "Computer" focused chain store in the midwest. It's sortof puzzling to me that they didn't find a way to transform it into something smaller, I mean if Radio Shack can survive all these years? Why couldn't CompUSA? Bummer.

» I not sure I see the function of Free Comic Book Day. There are enough tie-ins with television and movies and enough presence in book stores that people are aware of and can find comic books. Because of this, the recent decision to make FCBD books All-Ages only seems all the more backwards to me. Shouldn't the FCBD event now focus on exposing people to a broad range of comics? Or are we back to trying to promote Superheroes and Cartoon characters exclusively to kids again? Lame.

» I'm not a Ron Paul supporter. I think he has some interesting thoughts, but largely I think he bites off positions too large too chew. With that said, Tim Russert attempted a straight-up hit job on Paul on Meet the Press today. MTP today was not an interview-- it was Russert implementing an agenda against Paul. Russert's main vector was to create attack after attack to elevate Paul's mood and tone to an offputting level. Again, this was not an interview, it was a take down attempt by Russert, who spent no time at all on Paul's grassroots suport story and instead went after ever more outrageous Paul positions. Albehit outrageous Paul positions are low-hanging fruit and easy to pick, but there were several times Paul tried to give nuanced answers (not evasive, but nuanced) and Russert wouldn't allow it and that was very disingenuous of Russert. Finally, Paul was put in a no win situation, but he also should also have known better than to attack the moderator, which he tried a couple times, even in self-defense, that's almost always a losing strategy.

On Face the Nation Bill Schiefer interviewed Obama and Huckabee. Obama got a fairly even handed, if an uninteresting, interview treatment by Schiefer. There was a little back and forth, but it was essentially a free ad spot for Obama. Schiefer went after Huckabee pretty hard at first, almost approaching Russert's intensity, but Huckabee unlike Paul has more traditional political skill, he refused to be ruffled, never let his tone get elevated and Scheiffer backed down from each question as it became apparent the candidate would only answer the answers he had prepared.

I don't mean to imply any endorcement or any thing about Huckabee above (far from that), he's just better "on camera" as a politician than Paul is.

Let's Go Surfing

» This is a couple weeks old, but it's photos of Lindsay Lohan with Batman, Hulk and Spider-man. Odd.

» Connect360 software lets you stream xvid movies from Mac to XBOX 360. Apparently there is a free trial available too.

» Color E-Ink. This stuff is eventually going to change computing. (I'm sortof suprised it hasn't already.)

» Cradlepoint Router turns your EVDO Cellphone into a Hotspot. Slick but there are phones that have this built-in to now.

» Knight Rider KITT as Mustang = Lame. Lovely car, but KITT it ain't.

» Human History reduced to 10 bullet points.. Other 60 second lectures.

Human History
Alan Charles Kors
George H. Walker Endowed Term Professor of History

• First, tribes: tough life.
• The defaults beyond the intimate tribe were violence, aversion to difference, and slavery. Superstition: everywhere.
• Culture overcomes them partially.
• Rainfall agriculture, which allows loners.
• Irrigation agriculture, which favors community.
• Division of labor plus exchange in trade bring mutual cooperation, even outside the tribe.
• The impulse is always there, though: "Kill or enslave the outsider."
• Gradual science from Athens' compact with reason.
• Division of labor, trade, the mastery of knowledge, plus time brought surplus, sometimes a peaceful extended order and, rules diversely evolved and, the cooperation of strangers - always warring against the fierce defaults of tribalism, violence, and ignorance.
• No one who teaches you knows what will happen.

» NECA is doing Eastman and Laird Style Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Action Figures. Cowabunga!

» Star Wars Toys that never made it. These are funny.

» Tim Burton to direct Alice in Wonderland. Now that should be interesting.

» Push Presents? Really? Is there anything that can't be commercialized?

Videos

» Gabe and Max's Internet Thing. Much funnies. (Youtube).

I want to hear your

Fri 12/21/07 1:12pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

• I saw Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Seville at a free pass showing last night. Johnny Depp plays the title role in the Tim Burton film. Alan Rickman and Helen Botham Carter also round out the cast. It's a very dark movie occasionally lightened by even darker comedy. There was less gore, but more blood than I had anticipated. The majority of the movie is a musical, yet despite that, I found myself quickly involved in the tale. If you are on the fence about Tim Burton, then this is not the film for you, but if you're up for a dark bloody tale of murder set to song, then this is the film for you. Good Stuff.

• I also saw I am Legend this past Sunday. I throughly enjoyed that film, I especially loved the faux Superman/Batman, Teen Titans and Green Lantern movie posters that got snuck into some of the background set decoration. Overall, good take on the zombie/end of the world genre. Unconventional pacing. Good Stuff. Go see on the big screen.

• I read online today that the Daily Show and Colbert Report will return on January 7th without their writers (presumeably since it seems unlikely that the strike would be resolved by then.)

I have mixed feelings on that, on the one hand, the Daily Show seems a vital part of what passes for journalism on television in this country and to have the show off the air during the primary season weakens our democracy. But for "writers" such as Stewart and Colbert to cross a writer picket line does not set well with me either. I'd much rather see the two of them create some sort of "Youtube" based show together once or twice a week that comments on the important issues of the moment, rather than help the networks sell commercial time.

• How about that Journeyman finale this past Wednesday? I really hope it comes back, and I'll probably send in a box of rice-a-roni next week towards that effect, but if it doesn't come back at least they gave the audience a nice place to leave it at. Really good stuff, go download on iTunes or buy the DVD set when it comes out (hopefully). It's a very good show.

I want to hear your

Thur 12/20/07 1:58pm #

Short Rant

I hate to rant as word police, but indulge me for a second. It bothers me that any comic book that is square bound in book form instead of pamphlet form gets labeled as a "graphic novel".

I guess I prefer the old school Graphic Novel understanding that described an original long form comic story debuting in the book form.

The comic collections in tradepaperback and hardcover that Marvel and DC are putting out, in general, to me, do not seem lofty or focused enough to actually be called "graphic novels". I believe most of them should be refered to as Comic Collections or Tradepaperback Collected Reprints or something along those lines. To me, using the term "Graphic Novel" for some random collection of Superman or X-Men issues is just laying it on too thick.

Your milage may vary.

I want to hear your

Thur 12/20/07, 10:20am #

Google tiene muy fresco de la traducción de este sistema de robot que puede añadir a su lista de amigos de Google Chat. También puede invitar al robot al grupo de chat y que se encargará de traducir sus conversaciones en tiempo real. Es muy fresco. Es como el tipo de vida en Star Trek. Leer sobre esto aquí.

I want to hear your

Wed 12/19/07 12:08am #

Random Non-Sequiters

» CBZ is a great file format. Make some jpegs, number them in order, throw them into a zip file, rename the extension from .ZIP to .CBZ and you're all set.

Unfortunately most people don't have a comic book reader program installed. What I wanted to do was quickly convert a CBZ to a PDF.

Now you could just take the Jpegs and combine them in Acrobat, but that takes several different steps and a bunch of clicking. I thought, "there must be an easier way". I did a little searching around the Google, and found Comic Rack a freeware CBR/CBZ reader that also can SAVE TO PDF.

I still plan on using CDisplay on Windows and Comix on Linux but if you want to quickly convert a CBZ (or even a pack of JPEGS to PDF) Comic Shack looks to do the trick.

» I installed TORCS (The Open Source Race Car Simulator) on my Eee PC Tonight. I wasn't that impressed with it. It did not seem to work with my Joypad (I didn't see any options for joypad controls anyway), and I thought the keyboard controls were way too sensitive and it also took over 200+ megs of precious Eee storage space, so I ended up uninstalling it.

» Also played with Foxit PDF reader on my Windows PC. Worked well. Seemed to have smoother scrolling than Acrobat Reader as well as taking up less memory.

I want to hear your

NCW #

Comic Picks for 12/19/07

BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #3 $2.99
BIRDS OF PREY #113 $2.99
CATWOMAN #74 $2.99
COUNTDOWN ARENA #3 (OF 4) $3.99
COUNTDOWN RAY PALMER SUPERWOMAN BATWOMAN #1 $2.99
COUNTDOWN RAY PALMER SUPERWOMAN BATWOMAN #1 $2.99
DETECTIVE COMICS #839 (GHUL) $2.99
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #16 $2.99
METAMORPHO YEAR ONE #6 (OF 6) $2.99
SUPERMAN #671 $2.99
SUPERMAN BATMAN #44 $2.99

INVINCIBLE PRESENTS ATOM EVE #1 (OF 2) $2.99

According to Diamond Comics Shipping List

I want to hear your

Sat 12/15/07 5:27pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

Two things I saw this morning.

» The $299 2G Surf Model of the is available earlier than expected from retailers such as NewEgg, although I didn't see it when I just looked. (They did have the $349 4G Surf model though. I have the 4G ($399) with a bunch of extras on it and have plenty of room. Keep checking I suppose if you want to save the $50, but I'd go for the extra Gigs.

» Google Reader has a new(?) feature where you can now read your “Google Talk” friend's "Shared Items" directly in Reader. I think this would be a fantastic feature if any of my friends actually used Google Reader. *sigh*

You can find the “Friends Shared Items” link above the “add a subscription” box in the left navigation pane.

I want to hear your

Fri 12/14/07 9:05pm #

Attack of the 1987 Show

Today's Attack of the Show on G4 was pretty good. They did the entire show as if it was taking place in 1987 without breaking character or even explaining what they were doing. They discussed whether Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can make the jump to Kids TV in the Loop. Layla Keighlie had all the news about Windows 2.0 in The Feed. They took viewer questions from their answering machine and reviewed a new wire-free cellular phone you can use outside of your car!. The newest laser discs were reviewed, and they had a cheat code that let you go directly to fighting Mike Tyson in Punch-out.

All the titles and graphics were sutibly 80s styled and the phrase Whubba Whubba Whubba was also uttered.

Try and catch the replay at 11pm tonight or their Attack Stack this weekend.

Rad stuff.

I want to hear your

Fri 12/14/07 3:41pm #

Hooray

My cell phone has a spinning camera that can point away or toward you. The image has been upside down more often than not for weeks now. I've tried to no avail talking to the company about it etc. I've been planning to take it in to the cellphone place and get it exchanged for a new unit. I was explaining this to a co-worker today. She reached over to my phone clicked a button and righted the image, clicked another button and upsidedowned the image, clicked it a third time and righted the image once again.

This made me very happy.

Mine is no longer a topsy-turvey cellphone camera'd world. Hooray!

I want to hear your

Wed 12/12/07 7:40am #

The Journey Ends?

According to Sci-Fi, NBC has effectively cancelled Journeyman, which really sucks, because Journeyman was very good.

There are still 2 more episodes left, so hopefully things get tied up a little. I hope there will be a comic or a novel that will explain where the series was going.

No word on whether there will be a DVD release, but if there is one, I highly reccomend people who haven't watched this show to grab it on DVD as I think it will play even better in two or three sittings than as weekly episodes.

I want to hear your

Tues 12/11/07 10:45pm #

Eee PC and HP Photo Scanner

» I just tried my old 4"x6" HP Photo Scanner 1000 with my Linux Eee PC. It mounted it like a USB drive. So you push the button, it makes the scan, and then you just copy the jpeg off the scanner to the harddrive in the file manager. No driver or program installation needed. Works Easy.

Love the Linux and the Eee.

(Added bonus: the mini-scanner and the mini-laptop look cute together.)

I want to hear your

Tues 12/11/07 9:00pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

Google has added "Street View" to the suburban Metro Detroit Area. I just virtually "bicycled-around" my old neighborhood I grew up in as a kid.

Above: What my old house looks like today. We had different bushes in the front when I lived there and didn't have the Flag pole, but other than that not much different.

I want to hear your

Tue 12/10/07 11:54am #

Random Non-Sequiters

• Journeyman was good as always last night.

• I saw that Battlestar Galactica is now delayed until March 2008.

• Weekly TV watching is getting sparse and looking to stay that way for the next few months.

Let's go Surfing

• Dell Latitude Tablet PC is $2,500. Wow, I don't know who researches the markets for this stuff, but that's insane. Way to continue to keep tablet's niche Dell!

I want to hear your

Sun 12/9/07 10:54am #

Let's Go Surfing

» Nice Comparison Photo of the Asus Eee and the Nokia n810. Not that I probably need both, but when you see how small the Nokia is compared to the tiny Eee, it's that much more enticing. There were some $200 range prices on the Nokia at Black Friday, and Woot recently offered it for $199. Looks like a great coffee shop device for that price.

I might keep my eye out for another bargain on this.

» Brian Wood Northlanders interview at Comics Reporter

» Why you never see toilets in Star Trek Next Generation. Pretty Brilliant explanation really.

» Kansas City Public Library, nice building design.

» Xerox has created printer ink that disappears in 16 hours, so that you can reuse the paper. Sort of neat, if not probably very practical idea.

» How Television Benefits Your Children. Historical and funny.

» Firebrand.com is like MTV for commercials. They play streaming "TV" commercials and have VeeJays (C-Jays?) in between them with bits of information about the commercials.

» WANT! Wacom Cintiq 12" pressure sensitive touchscreen monitor. It's $999 though, so still too pricey for me, but it's very nice. (Oh and here's a link that shows two of it's Bigger Brothers too.)

» Definr.com is a cool online dictionary.

» Sansa TakeTV Review. This is a small USB Stick sized device that you plug into your computer, copy over your movie files (Divx, Xvid, Mpeg, etc.) and then you can plug the device into your TV to watch them. Looks like a fairly positive real world review. 4 Gig Player is only $99 on Amazon.

» I'm in no way a Gmail power user but after reading this article on Gmail's new color coded tags, I set up some auto tagging filters and colors. Makes Gmail even neater.

» Flickr now has basic photo editing features. I'm not sure how good of a thing that is. I imagine I'll use the crop feature from time to time on my camera phone uploaded pictures.

Videos

» Cat in Zero Gravity. (Youtube)

» Timelapsed Cat Nap. link)

I want to hear your

Sun 12/9/07 7:02am #

Google Chart API

Google has an API that allows you to automatically create chart graphics on the fly. The explanation is a little confusing, so here's a simpler example:

<img src=http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chco=523431& chd=t:1,2,3,4&chs=500x200&chl=Label1|Label2|Label3|Label4>

If you want to make simple pie charts, then the only 4 values you probably care about are:
chco=(put your hex color here)
chd=t:(values go here seperated by commas)
chs=(width x height of the image)
ch1=(labels go here seperated by | )

The above image looks like this:

You can make bar charts, pie charts, scatter plots etc. etc. but really it's all about the pie isn't?

I want to hear your

Sat 12/8/07 6:45pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

• I saw the Golden Compass this afternoon. While it looked neat, there really wasn't much to it. The movie takes place on an "alternate" earth that looks like how a Victorian might have imagined the 1950s. All the human characters have these animal avatars that serve as their personal Jiminy Crickets. At one point in the film some armored Polar Bears fight. Other than that, the whole movie is pretty pointless. There isn't really even an ending to the film. It plays like the first act of a larger movie. The first act of a long tedious movie. Skip the theatre, skip the DVD, skip it entirely really.

• I saw the movie at Rivertown Mall. Every parking spot was filled, the inside of the mall was wall to wall people. Completely insane really.

I want to hear your

Sat 12/8/07 11:07pm #

Let's Go Surfing

Videos

» American's Love Lists (Youtube)

» Here Comes Another Bubble, to the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire. Geek Humor. (Youtube)

I want to hear your

Fri 12/7/07 7:34pm #

Ramblings

There's a small window where the narrative is fluid, the plot isn't predetermined and the actors aren't typecast.

But then the narrative solidifies, the plot structures and the actors are placed into their roles.

The audience expects the play to run a certain way. Woe to, the director that doesn't fufill that expectation, the script that goes astray or the performer that breaks character, because then the sequel or the series is done.

(And remember, although they don't necessarily know what it will be, the audience expects the twist too.)

I want to hear your

Fri 12/7/08 4:43pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

Let's do some true random non-sequiters shall we. No links either. But Google is your friend.

I saw that Ray Park (Darth Maul, Toad) has been cast as Snake-Eyes in the G.I. Joe Movie. That's the first good thing I've heard about the film.

I saw that there are still 3 more episodes of Journeyman! Hooray.

It is very gray, very winter in Michigan right now.

The new Speed Racer Trailer looks a little like Speed is stuck in a Sonic the Hedgehog game. (Still looks like it could be fun though)

I got the Diana Prince and Circe DC Direct figures this past Wednesday. Thankfully I didn't order the Wonder Woman, not that it's a bad figure but it's very similar to the one with the cape that came out a few months back and my wallet was due a rest on these toys. Currently planning to do a bunch of toy pics this weekend.

Debating seeing a early showing of Golden Compass this weekend. Rotten Tomatoes reviews were kindof mixed, but a lot of the negative reviews seemed interesting to me. (Still have to see Hitman too.)

They painted the hallways of my complex different colors yesterday. When coming home, it feels like I'm in the wrong building. It's nice, but a jarring change to a long standing familiarity.

I saw that Apple's UMPC is expected to be $1,500. That's too bad. I think the cheaper UMPC's like the Eee are going to be the wave of the future in that product space.

Sounds like Dell will announce their Tablet PC officially next month. I still haven't seen a price on that but I'm still interested in a low priced tablet (if it is that), fingers crossed.

Did a Rock Band night again this past week. We may have reached a level in that game that has outstripped my “rocking” capabilities, I'm not that good at Medium and now the game wants us to go to the Hard setting. Next week will be Heroclix again, so there's that break at least.

Brought the Portable Apps version of Open Office into work this week. I like it. It's much cleaner looking then MSWord. I've gotten accustomed to OO on the Eee as well.

There's another 3 episodes of 30 Rock left too. I haven't watched last nights' yet though. (I watch them on Mondays usually.) One of the best shows on TV. Good Stuff.

So far on my RSS Poll from a couple days ago, the results are: 1 person has subscribed, 1 person has not, and 1 person likes Cake and Ice Cream. Polls have never proven to be very popular on this blog.

Heroes this past week seemed fairly anticlimactic to me. I think the overall problem is that the characters have become completely unrelateable, the plots and pacing has become sloppy, and there was no mystery and too much familiarity with the villains. It's an ok show, but not as good as the first season by any stretch.

All for now. pics, links and the sorts of things blogs are for this weekend.

I want to hear your

Sun 12/2/07 6:02pm #

Why do we even pretend to live in a democracy at this point?
Free Press Article | Raw Story Article.

from freep

Michigan Democrats were stripped of all 156 delegates to their party’s national convention in August this morning.

Despite arguments from top state Democrats who sought to justify their decision to sanction the Jan. 15 presidential primary as their official method of choosing delegates to the convention, the Democratic National Committee found the state in violation of party rules that allow only four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — to hold primaries or caucuses earlier than Feb. 5.

[snip]

All the major Democratic candidates have sworn off campaigning in Michigan because of its violation of party rules and many also pulled their names off the ballot, leaving New York Sen. Hillary Clinton as the only leading contender among Democrats still on the ballot.

The Republican Party has threatened to reduce the number of Michigan delegates to its national convention for the same reason but not remove all the delegates. However, Republican candidates continue to campaign in Michigan and none have removed their names from the ballot.

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Sun 12/2/07 9:11am #

Hey, I just thought up a Rudy Giuliani joke:

Q: What time does Rudy Guiliani get up every morning?
A: 9:11

Thank you, thank you very much, I'll be blogging here all week!

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Sat 12/1/07 9:18pm #

Random Non-Sequiters

» I got my Sansa c240 1 Gig Mp3 player from Woot.com in the mail today. It was a refurbished unit but it came with all it's stickers on like new. It was however packed in a couple bubblewrap bags in a blank cardboard box but for $15 + $5 shipping, it still seems like a good deal.

I plugged it into my computer, copied over a couple songs and photos. Works well.

Voice Recorder and FM Radio recorder worked well too.

I got it primarily to listen to audio books and podcasts. It seems to work well for that as it remembers what track and position you were on last time you were listening when you turn the device back on.

I found the big “REFURB” letters on the back interesting though. I guess they didn't want me to forget that part of it. No biggie though, it's kind of punk that way.

» Also got my Marvel Legends Black Knight, Bucky and Rachel Marvel Girl action figures in the mail today. Pictures of those along with this week's DC Direct Captain Marvel Shazam Family Wave coming soon.

» If you have subscribed to my blog in your RSS reader, please answer the survey below:

Because a fair ammount of my blog is still created manually, my RSS feed is only updated a couple times a month. But because it's manual, I also don't currently have any idea how many people might be subscribed to it either. So if you are subscribed let me know.

Let's Go Surfing

» Watchman Movie Rorsharch on Set. I think I'm looking forward to Watchman a little more than JLA at this point. (That may, however, change the first time I see a live action movie Green Lantern with a ring construct.)

I want to hear your

Sat 12/1/07 2:48pm #

My Eee PC is good for surfing the web. When you install the Fullerscreen addon to Firefox you free up a lot of screen space and it's even better for browsing. I took a few minutes to look online to see if there was a way to rotate the entire display and I found a nice little “hidden app”, that's already installed, that makes the web work even better on the device.

If you have enabled the Full Desktop mode on your Eee you can type: krandrtray into the run box or at the terminal and a screen rotate icon will be added to your task tray. It works best in Full Desktop, but it also works (a little awkwardly) in Easy Mode too.

You can sit back in a chair with the Eee in your hand sideways like a big open paperback, plug in a mouse to scroll with and web browsing larger passages of text is very nice indeed.

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