email me: chris@chris-karath.com
May 2008
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Video Blogging
Instead of typing out comments to random Google Reader stuff I read today. I video'd them.
Sound is kind of low, and there is a little bit of static... I'll tweak the record volume next time.
Ramblings about Comics
Online Ordering - A couple weeks ago I blogged my intent to switch over to purchasing comics online instead of at my local comic store. There was a snag in that concept, and it came down to Math.
Y'see, when I order comics through my local comic store, I pay for them on delivery, however, when you order them through DCBService, which I was going to use, you pay for your order at the time of the order. Since comics are ordered 3 months out, there would then be 3 months of overlap where I would be paying at the store and paying online at the same time. Also since I would be paying every month, I'd never recoup that double bill for the first three months unless I stopped ordering online. Since that isn't the plan, effectively it is going to feel like paying for 3 months extra comics.
The DCBService online pricing is at a considerable discount over the store but by my calculations it would still take six or 7 months for the savings to cancel out that initial double paying I would be doing.
Toys are even worse. There is very little discount on the toys to begin with and since the toys are ordered 6 months in advance in Previews, I'd be paying double (online and in- store) for the toys for 6 months. The toys are much pricier than the comics. So for that reason the toys are even more a no-go than the comics.
I may still go the online route in a month or two, I may also just stop pre-ordering entirely for a month or two. I mostly get DC and have been a little burned out by the constant reboots with every new creative team on every new book every 4 to 6 issues. I may cut back a little and just grab things off the rack. Current comic mood: undecided.
Apparitions - On the topic of Apparitions, my Local Comic Store, they re-layed out the store this past week. It's a lot nicer organized and much neater now. Stop in there and take a look around, it's a dramatic improvement-- I just hope Dave doesn't have a heart attack when he comes back and sees it. :)
Oh, and when I went in this week there was almost a mini intervention, the guys at the store did notice that I didn't turn in my Previews and it was sort of an awkward thing. The three guys, in Dave's absence, are doing a great job with the store , but the store has gotten alot more pushy. They're trying real hard (understandably so) to generate additional sales, but it's not as low-key as when Dave was there. Part of the fun of going t the store is it's like dropping by a friends house once a week on lunch. Lately when dropping by I feel like "the friends" have two tight an eye on how to separate my wallet from it's contents. I doubt it would be much of an issue for more casual shoppers, but I have a reputation for buying a fair amount, so I think I'm just getting hit up a little more because of that.
![]() | I do suppose it is nice to get such a warm greeting on a comic pull bag? |
Final Crisis - I also read Final Crisis #1 last night. It was very much a Grant Morrison book. And although I like Grant Morrison, the way he writes DC never quite feels right to me. Morrison's DC always feels small and street level to me. DC should feel epic and larger than life. Your mileage may vary but outside of Batman and some of the more urban characters, Morrison doesn't usually work for me.
Click the Picture to Play the Video

You have new Video Mail!
Click the Picture to Play the Video

You have new Video Mail!
New Comic Picks for 5/29/08
ACTION COMICS #865 $2.99
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #11 $2.99
BATMAN #677 RIP $2.99
BLUE BEETLE #27 $2.99
FINAL CRISIS #1 (OF 7) $3.99
GREEN LANTERN #31 $2.99
JSA CLASSIFIED #38 $2.99
TEEN TITANS #59 $2.99
WIZARD MAGAZINE #201 SUMMER PREVIEW CVR $5.99
According to Diamond Comics Shipping List
Holidays and the Death of Possibilities
I like Holiday weekends, they are so much better than just taking a day off work. When I take a day off work, everyone else is still there sending me emails, putting things on my desk, and in general not noticing that I am in fact not there. You come back the next day and you almost have the whole off day's worth of work to catch up on.
Holiday weekends are nicer, because no one else is there at work. You get that bonus day without as much catch-up when you get back.
The downside and explanation of the header above. Holidays are also the Death of Possibilities. I find that most people thoroughly plan their holiday weekends, and usually with family also. The phone, IM, Twitters, Blogs, and communication devices of choice sit quiet. People are off doing their plans. There’s very little spontaneity that is going to happen on a Holiday weekend. Death of Possibilities.
Let’s Go Surfing
• Huffy Green machine H20 with built-in water cannon.
• Epson has 385 dpi A4 sized eInk ePaper.
• Netflixs Streaming box for $99 looks promising, I might pick one of these up soon. More Reviews.
• Friend Dan’s Halo 3 Lan Party Invite Postcards are pretty slick.
• Cool look at NECA’s TMNT Mousers. I still need to get the 4 Turtles they’ve put out in this series.
• James Bond Book Covers. Double Oh Neat.
• ekko.tv is pretty slick. It’s Flash based video chat for up to 3 people, no registration required, go there, log on, email or IM a friend a link, and you are all set.
• Move over Segway… this Badass vehicles does 0 to 60 in 3 seconds.
• Daniel Keys Moran now re-owns A.I. War the decade long anticipated sequel to Emerald Eyes, The Long Run and The Last Dancer. He’s going to have it up on his site for FREE soon. The Long Run is one of my favorite books of all time. You can read a RTF or PDF of it for FREE as well as all the books above--here.
• HomeCamera.com is a software and website combination that will do webcam monitoring for you. Looks interesting, Although I’m not sure I need a lot of room I’m not in (or even those I am in monitored).
Random Non-Sequiters
» Here's a thought I'm noodling around in my head.
Advertising. You hear alot about advertising techniques, advertising strategies, advertising based business models. But advertising isn't what anyone including advertisers really want is it?
Attention. Attention is what is of value. Ideally, attention that results in productivity or a financial transaction. Advertising can grab someone's attention, that is often it's purpose. But holding attention is so much more valuable and larger in scope than advertising alone. Advertising can be the means, but the end is Attention, Production or Transaction.
» I got a new mouse yesterday. It's got a bunch more buttons on it than any other mouse I've ever had. Very slick.
Adobe Air Applications
• I tried the eBay Desktop Adobe Air app today. Very nice way to shop eBay! For those not familiar, Adobe Air is a platform in sort of the same way as Flash or Java, except Adobe Air is for running web applications in a more interactive desktop way. You download and install Adobe Air, then you can install and run Adobe Air Applications on either Mac or Pc (Linux is coming soon)
In anycase If you use ebay alot, download and install Adobe Air and then install eBay Desktop
• I also installed the Adobe Air App: Snackr. Snackr will take your RSS Feed list and scroll by the stories in the bottom of your screen. I just went to Google Reader, exported my OMPL subscription list, loaded that into the Snackr app and presto a fun little news crawl on my second monitor! It's really quite cool.
• What turned me onto Adobe Air you might ask? Twhirl the Adobe Air based Twitter client did. If you Twitter you should install Twhirl, it's so much more fun to Twitter with.
• Some other Adobe Air apps: kuler - a color palette application and RichFLV - a FLV movie editor.
Let's Go Surfing
» Dumm Comics is a neat WebComics site. Produced by a group of animators. Very Ren and Stimpiish.
Click the Picture to Play the Video

Dum Da Dum Dum Da Da Dum Dum Da Dum Dum Da Da Dum Dum Dum
New Comic picks for 5/21/08
BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #7 $2.99
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #13 $2.99
CATWOMAN #79 $2.99
COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY #8 (OF 8) $3.99
FLASH #240 $2.99
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #21 $2.99
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #15 $2.99
SUPERMAN BATMAN #48 $2.99
TANGENT SUPERMANS REIGN #3 (OF 12) $2.99
SHOWCASE PRESENTS GREEN LANTERN TP VOL 03 $16.99
According to Diamond Comics Shipping List
» DCD New Gods Wave. Skipped Mr. Miracle, who was a very nice figure, but didn't seem worth replacing the older MM to me. Darkseid is fantastic!

Darkseid - Master of Apokolips, Very nice definitive figure.
Orion - Not a remarkable figure. His helmeted head is also a little small.
Lightray - not very familiar with the character but it a nice simple design.
New Gods - I got all three but passed on Mr. Miracle.
This Darkseid is just a very imposing figure.
Orion, DC Direct and Mattel Versions.
Darkseid and Orion DC Direct and Mattel Comparisons. I prefer the DC Direct, but all those extras on the Mattel Orion are nice.
Darkseids, Run away, Run away now.
Darkseid Turner Version vs. Kirby Version. the Kirby version might be smaller but I think he'd kick the Turner Versions ass.
New Gods - New Wave with the older Mr. Miracle and Big Barda and Oberon.
» DCD Smallville Justice Wave. I bought the whole set. they are very nice figures for a TV wave. The Clark is especially good. I would have liked to seen a visor on Green Arrow though.

Clark Kent
Smallville Clark Kent, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Cyborg, Impulse, yeah the show is pretty much crap, but the figure designs are nice. They all (except Clark) came with removeable hoods, but Bart is the only one I thought looked good in it.
Well done figures, good scale too.
Clark Kent, Green Arrow and Buffy - A little WB team-up
Clark Kents and Superboy - The camera is playing tricks with the scale a little. Older Clark is Taller than younger Clark.
Clark Kents - Trying the Glasses on for size.
A boxing Glove Arrow, Seriously?
Cyborg - Is one of those Characters that could use a new and improved and slightly taller figure.
I was glad on the show they went with Bart instead of Barry.
The Smallville Aquaman is pretty good. Smiley Aquaman is still my favorite though.
» New Teen Titans - I'd be happy if DCD made nothing but George Perez style figures. Nice Wave. I skipped out on the new Deathstroke though. The previous more current costume is way better.
A very Perez costume. Nice release.
Yes I broke down and bought yet another Robin, so is the power of Perez.
Robin, Terra and Jericho. Nice Figures.
This is the previous Deathstroke release, not the one that came with this Wave.
Avalanche and Terra, ready to Rock and Roll.
I have so many Robins now, I couldn't bring myself to do the full groupshot again. But here's three.
» Superman Red and Superman Blue.
I really have no idea why I bought Superman Red and Superman Blue, I wasn't even collecting comics during the time they were out.
You can take the blue Superman and go back to your life, or the red Superman and learn how far down the rabbit hole goes.
Action Figures
I took pictures of a bunch of action figures this afternoon. Specifically: DCD New Teen Titans, DCD New Gods, DCD Smallville and DCU Superman Red and Superman Blue.
It was while taking pictures of Superman Red and Superman Blue that I had to pause and wonder to myself if the whole Action Figure thing has run its course for me. Superman Red and Superman Blue. *sigh*.
Anyway, the pictures exist on my camera card. I still have to run them through a little Photoshop for cropping and to size them down. But there might actually be some Action Figure pictures on this blog again soon.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Shown below, upside down from how it is normally depicted)
Physiological | ||||||
breathing | food | water | sex | sleep | homeostasis | excretion |
Safety | ||||||
security of body | ...of employment | ...of resources | ...of morality | ...of the family | ...of health | ...of property |
Love/Belonging | ||||||
friendship | family | sexual intimacy | ||||
Esteem | ||||||
self-esteem | confidence | achievement | respect of others | respect by others | ||
Self-actualization | ||||||
morality | creativity | spontaneity | problem solving | lack of prejudice | acceptance of facts |
The more I look at Maslow's Heirarchy the more I realize that beyond the Physiological, most of the the other listings are most efficiently accomplished by self delusion.
There are true ways to fulfill the Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem and Self-actualization needs-- but they are generally more difficult than creating and having others reinforce lies to those ends.
Saying something is so, is generally easier than having a thing be so, and if such falseness can be believed it is nearly as real.
Pressing truth against practical self delusions creates conflict within this hierarchy.
If the order of the hierarchy is accepted and generally most of the lower needs must be satisfied before the higher needs can be addressed, then it is interesting that "acceptance of facts" is so near the top of a list generally accepted that most will not climb.
There is a sadness to the fact that because of that, truth has very little real place or even use in the lives of most people.
Let's Go Surfing
» Punisher War Zone Teaser Poster. Very nice.
» Seesmic It's Twitter but for Video. Interesting.
» There will be three Battlestar Galactica TV movies (in addition to Caprica) after season 4 ends. Frak yeah! --and I have no idea why io9 doesn't see this as a good thing.
» George Clooney to play a telekinetic soldier. Cool.
Videos
» Eliza Dushku: Dollhouse Trailer. Not sure what I think about this on the one hand, you've got Eliza Dushku and Helio from BSG in a Joss Wedon show, on the other hand it doesn't look much more original than Jennifer Garner's Alias by the looks of the trailer.
» Obama addresses the Bush Hittler speach.




» Bill O'Reilly Meltdown Dance Remix. Warning NSFW.




Random Non-Sequiters
» The web has really been feeling like empty calories lately.
Let's Go Surfing
» Comic Stip (fairly good-sized one actually) of the Cast of Seinfeld playing a rollplaying game. Funny.
» Jennifer Aniston with John Mayer Poolside with the Amazon Kindle eInk eReader.
Videos
» Transformer TV Commercial... Cute.




» Microsoft Touchwall. Supposedly cheaper than the Surface Table.




» Star Wars Fans Vs. Sports Fans. Sortof Clerks-like. You could almost picture Randall saying this, if Randall wasn't such a big Star Wars fan that is.




» Dude builds wristmounted flamethrower like Pyro from X-Men movie.




Comic Picks for 5/14/08
BATMAN #676 RIP $2.99
BOOSTER GOLD #9 $2.99
FINAL CRISIS SKETCHBOOK $2.99
GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #8 $2.99
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #24 $2.99
SUPERMAN #676 $2.99
WONDER WOMAN #20 $2.99
TWELVE #5 (OF 12) $2.99
TOYFARE #131 HULK MOVIE CVR $4.99
NEW TEEN TITANS SER 2 DEATHSTROKE AF PI
NEW TEEN TITANS SER 2 ROBIN AF PI
NEW TEEN TITANS SER 2 TERRA AF PI
According to this weeks Shipping List
More Google Talks
Got in early this morning and knocked off listening to a couple more Google Talks.
Lee Siegel Author of the book: Against the Machine. Interesting contrarian view of the internet-- that might not be all it's advertised to be. Good Talk.
Srikumar Rao, Columbia University Business Professor. Basically this is one of those: We're all living in the Matrix, reality is what you believe it to be talks. Hard one to play in the background as the speaker is fond of putting up slides, without commentary, for the audience to read. Lots of stuff on mental models etc. The talk comes down to, if you don't want things to suck, believe they don't suck, self delusion/reality construction is your friend. eh.
Google Talks
Spent some time at work this evening getting ready for some stuff tomorrow. Below are the Google Talks I listened to in the background.
Noam Chomsky talk at google. Interesting to see Chomsky in this type of forum. When locked down to an hour, with no moderator, you really notice how long winded he his
Mohanbir Swahney, discussion on Digital Marketing and Branding. Most of the talk revolves around "creating conversations" with your customers and not "targeting your customers". It's not a new idea, but is an idea that really upsets the historical command and control structure of business. Good stuff, well presented, worth listening to for anyone involved in marketing of any type.
Sandra Aamodt & Sam Wang Authors of "Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life." Ok to play in the background. there was a good section on the recent popular topic of the finite willpower and how some task before others impinge on the later tasks. However, if you listen to alot of talks of this type, you are unlikely to learn much new in this video.
Michael Kinsley Slate founder and a former host of Crossfire. Not a bad interview. Not terribly current as most of the topics centered on the 90s, but there you go.
Random Non-Sequiters
» Nothing quieter than a weekend with a Holiday in it. Two weeks from now should be even more *crickets*, being that it's three days with the Memorial Day and all.
Let's Go Surfing
» Vector Wars Nice Vector Style Asteroids like game.
» Office Snapshots is an interesting blog filled with photos of various company offices.
» Timetube is an interesting scrollable interface for viewing Youtube videos on a timeline.
» Here's a useful site downforeveryoneorjustme.com enter and url address and you can see if the site is down or if it's just you.
» MyTVRSS.com Neat site that let's you tick off checkboxes and create a RSS feed letting you know when your favorite shows air. You do not even need to register.
» Need to be reminded of something? do you live inside Twitter? then add timer as your Twitter friend
Need to remember something? Send timer a direct message, and they'll tweet you back. For example, 'd timer 45 call mom' reminds you in 45 minutes.
» FLVto.com converts Youtube and other FLV files to MP3. I haven't tried it but it looks useful.
» Palbee looks like a really nice free video/whiteboard/chatroom conference web software service.
» Textop.us has some nice lowercase, UPPERCASE, etc. etc. functions you can perform on a block of text.
Chris Karath's Blog now with improved RSS goodness!
I found and modified some nifty new PHP RSS code this morning.
Now everytime I update my blog, I can automatically update my RSS Feed!
If you want to subscribe to the main blog RSS use the feed below:
http://chris-karath.com/blog/chriskarathblog.xml
Note 1: If you are already subscribed, don't worry, the link hasn't changed.
Note 2: the above is just for the main blog stuff, if you want the Blog, Twitter, Flickr, Utterz, etc. etc. you can also subscribe to my all-in-one-friend feed:
http://friendfeed.com/ckarath?format=atom
If you want to pick and choose ala carte, see my RSS links box in the sidebar of the blog.
Saw speed Racer today. here was my mini Twitter review of it earlier:
Speed Racer Looked Cool, but wasn't much story or heart there. It's anime brought to life. If you're on the fence, it's ok to wait for DVDI'm not sure I have much else to add to that. visually it's stunning, but personally I'm at the point where special effects on their own don't really sell a movie to me any more. And if you discount the special effects and the endless-- albeit brilliant, digital green screen work-- if you forget all that for a minute and look at the story, there's not much there. The actors are all decent, but the film stays true to it's Speed Racer cartoon roots and well, nostalgia aside, they weren't really great cartoons. Amazing for their time perhaps, but still not great.
The biggest issue I have with the film however, is I didn't understand the underlying theme/structure. Was it man against man, man against nature, man against what exactly, I'm not sure.
If you like special effects then it's certainly worth seeing on the big screen but if you're on the fence, don't worry, you won't miss out by waiting to see this one DVD.
Go Speed Racer Go. Just don't necessarily go see.
Random Non-Sequiters
» Link posting drought continues.
I've found myself link surfing the internet less and less lately. Probably not a permanent situation, but at the moment there are not alot of topics that I'm obsessing over keeping up with. Below are some of my thoughts on topics I regularly post about.
Comics
A couple weeks ago I fell exactly one year behind on my "comics to read stack" I've slowly been falling behind every week now for two years. ie: Two years ago, I was reading everything I bought, the week it came out, but over the past two years I've gradually fallen exactly 1 year behind. I actually just finished 52 a couple weeks ago.
There's nothing I particularly want to drop from my list, I still enjoy most of the DC line, which makes up the bulk of my reading but being as how I am "not current" anyway, I'm planning to switch to a once a month online comic delivery system. Given everything that's happened with my Local Comic Store lately, I've actually been thinking quite deeply about this of late, I hate to drop the business from my LCS especially at this time, but with a savings of 30% and gas being what it is and the fact that I'm so far behind that I'll never notice the delay anyway. It just makes the most sense.
I still plan on picking up all my comics I have ordered for the next couple months, as well as the toys that are ordered as far out as 5 or 6 months, but I'm not looking forward to the "break up" conversation with my LCS.
Technology
I'm still really digging my little Eee PC. It's been a great little device. I'd like to get a small Eee PC sized/priced tablet, but I'm not sure that there's anything like that to be released in the near future. Beyond that, my current gadget lust is in a lull, which is probably good for me and my wallet.
At the end of the year when my current cellphone contract is up, I'll probably get a Google Android or Windows Mobile Smartphone, but beyond that I'm good.
Toys
Still been planning on posting some more action figure pictures, I've been saying that for a long time though, so take that with a grain of salt. I did end up getting Darkseid, Lightwave and Orion last week which is cool. Smallville figures were supposed to be out last week, I'm not sure if those will be in next week or not? Not a big deal either way on that wave, although they'll probably look nice next to the Heroes figures when those come out.
It's been awhile since I've done any toyboard surfing either.
Webstuff
Been digging Twitter Lately, as you can tell, since it's become the majority of my blog posting.
Hooked myself up with a paid Podbean account a few weeks ago too. Podbean is an Audio/Video Podcast host, with the main focus on audio. I'll probably play around with that a little more in the weeks to come.
Streaming Video
Been playing with Y! Live and Stickam video streaming again the last couple weeks. Still can't find much practical use for those. I'm actually much more interested in getting streaming video on my cellphone. I think that's going to be more fun and useful than webcams on the desktop. As of yet, there seems to be only a handful of services playing in this space and most of them are limited to using a small selection of Nokia phones. I think cell based video streaming is going to be the Youtube killer (assuming youtube doesn't enter this space) type service when it rolls out mass.
While I was typing the above comments, I did some Googling and I found this extremely helpful site that has a download for how to use the Eee PC with Adobe Flash based streaming websites I downloaded the files from that blog, extracted them, moved them to my home/user/ directory. Opened terminal and launched the script. I was then able to log onto Stickam, select the "Loopback" camera choice in the Flash dialog and I was broadcasting video and audio on the internet from the Eee.
Look for me to play with this more in the days to come. It ain't a cellphone streaming webcam but the Eee is pretty mobile so there is some fun potential in this.
I have my blog set-up so that I can add the video to the top of my Current Blog page when I'm broadcasting so keep an eye out for that. I'm bound to pop up at Wendy's or a Wi-Fi Coffee shop sometime this weekend.
All for now.
Let's Go Surfing
» Businees Week Interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Innovation.
Comic Picks for 5/7/08
ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #11 $4.99
ALL NEW ATOM #23 $2.99
COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY #7 (OF 8) $3.99
DC SPECIAL RAVEN #3 (OF 5) $2.99
DC UNIVERSE SPECIAL JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA $4.99
DETECTIVE COMICS #844 $2.99
METAL MEN #8 (OF 8) $2.99
NIGHTWING #144 $2.99
RANN THANAGAR HOLY WAR #1 (OF 8) $3.50
SMALLVILLE SER 2 AQUAMAN AF PI
SMALLVILLE SER 2 CLARK KENT AF PI
SMALLVILLE SER 2 CYBORG AF PI
SMALLVILLE SER 2 GREEN ARROW AF PI
SMALLVILLE SER 2 IMPULSE AF PI
WAR THAT TIME FORGOT #1 (OF 12) $2.99
TOR #1 (OF 6) $2.99
According to Diamond Comics Shipping Listy
Webcam fun
The following is a transcript of an actual conversation that took place this evening on Y! Live webcam streaming. The names have been changed to protect peoples secret identities.

Random Y! Live Person: sweet mask yo
me: I'm Batman!
RY!LP: um
me: Have you come to chat with Batman?
RY!LP: im pretty sure batman didnt live in his moms basement
me: Why so serious?
RY!LP: so creepy
RY!LP: dont stare
RY!LP: its rude
Then they disconnected. It's surprisingly entertaining to dress up like Batman and stare at people on the internet. I wouldn't do it everyday... but everyone should don a Batman mask at least once.

A Twitter 'friend' was posting these various photo phrase mashup things. The above, was written "...strongest person I know..." but I read it "...strangest person I know..."
My misread of it so entertained me that I opened up Photoshop and changed the word to strangest. With the pointy Spock-like ears, it amuses me that way.
Kudos, to you Twitter friend!
Google Reader with more Googly Goodness
Share anything with a bookmarklet - Just drag the link from the Notes page up to your browser's bookmark bar and click, click, click your way to easy, no-subscription sharing in Reader. You can share any content from any web page, even if the site doesn't have a feed. For even more control over what gets shared, select some text from the page before clicking the "Note in Reader" bookmarklet and your selection will appear as the item's body. There's also a space for you to add an editorial note when you need to let your friends know why you are sharing something. You can always uncheck "Add to shared items" if you want to add something to Reader without also adding it to your shared items.
This is a very very cool new feature of Google Reader. With a couple changes to my blog code this weekend, I should be able to use this to really speed up my posting.
Frak!
Friend's Adam and Comfort met Aaron Douglas, The Chief from Battlestar Galactica at Pittsburgh Comicon. They talk about meeting him in their Pittsburgh Con wrap up. Well as it turns out, Douglas was interviewed by Comic Geek Speak and A&C came up as a topic in HIS interview. Below is what Douglas had to say about Adam and Comfort. |
Very Cool.
Comic Geek Speak also did an interview with Adam and Comfort 35:30 thru 42:00 min mark.
Iron Man
I went and saw Iron Man today. It was Awesome!
Straight forward Superhero Origin story for the most part, but it was very entertaining. They managed to avoid alot of cliches for movies of this type too.
Robert Downey Jr. is a tour de force as Tony Stark. The movie is pure gold every moment he's on screen. Gwenyth Paltrow was delightful as Pepper Pots and Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane was excellent.
The movie is just a tremendous amount of fun.
When we got to the movie, the theater was completely empty, (It was a 2pm Saturday show) more people piled in before the show, but I wouldn't call it crowded by any means.
Below is a little cameraphone video of us at the theater-- don't adjust your contrast though, the first part is completlely black.




Go see Iron Man, in the theater... it's fun, fun, fun.
Oh, yeah, STAY UNTIL AFTER THE CREDITS.... The little clip after the "Mother F'in" credits is a must it was just such the "Ultimate" closer to the film!
Look at me I'm on Video!
Played around with Yahoo! Live! video today. My channel is at http://live.yahoo.com/ckarath Pretty much didn't have more than one other viewer the whole time I was in there today. I think the whole online camera thing works differently if you're not a teenage girl. :)
3g2 woes
Spent like 3 hours today trying to figure out how to convert 3g2 video files from my camera phone into something I could edit in Windows Movie Maker. Google was of little help no matter how creative I got with my querys.
I did eventually figure out that Quicktime Pro can Export the 3g2 video files to MP4 and then SUPER could convert the MP4 into WMV which I then was able to bring into Movie Maker, but it was a long way to go to get there.
Apparently my Samsung A900 phone encodes the Audio in the video into a codec called QCELP and it doesn't look like anything out there works with that audio codec except Quicktime Pro. (I must have downloaded a dozen weird little convertor programs before trying Quicktime Pro.)