email me: chris@chris-karath.com
August 2009
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Went to my first Renaissance Festival yesterday. Good Times. Video above should give you a little flavor of the day. More comments later perhaps.
I want to hear your 
Random Non-Sequiters
Long time no blog.
I just noticed that alot of my earlier pictures from the month have dropped off the page. specifically my Comiccon photos are gone. I pull/post the pictures directly from the Flickr RSS feed, but the RSS feed only holds 20 entries. With my shiney new Palm Pre, I've been taking at least 1 or 2 images a day... so the earlier stuff is dropping off. Shouldn't be too difficult a fix though, I'll add some code to feed the RSS feed into my local DB and that should take care of the issue.
Still need to transfer alot of the Comic Con photos and Videos from my camcorder and Digital Camera anyway. Totally past the news cycle of the event but it will still make a good retroactive post down the road.
District 9
I saw District 9 a week ago. Good film. Sortof a novelty along the lines of Cloverfield though. Really neat how much special effects they could get into such a low budget movie, but in the end there wasn't much to the story. If you aren't familiar with Alien Nation or Enemy Mine, then there might be a fresh new niche in this film for you to experience, but being as I've seen those films mostly there was just the novelty of having the special effects integrated with the handheld camera work.
It's a movie worth seeing, and it would be good in the theater, but I don't think it would lose much on the small screen either, especially since the film is largely wrapped by a television documentary style formatting. Good. Do See.
Intersection
Went to the Intersection Lounge this past week for a benefit concert thing in support of some co-workers who are "climbing a mountain for charity". Four different groups.
The first on stage was a co-worker of mine. I did not know before this that he performed music. It's always cool to discover the hidden talents of people that you only slightly know. Now though, I think my co-worker should bring his hat and guitar to work :) At the very least we should talk him into opening for our next full department meeting. :)
I didn't catch the names of the female duo that followed my co-worker. They sang, played guitar and keyboards to a wider accompaniment on tape. Kindof a Liz Faire type vibe but also good.
The third act was The Outer Vibe Young group of "kids"-- fun rock with great stage presence. Jennifer had introduced me to a couple of their CDs and they were one of the main draws for me to the evening.
The girl member of the group was particularly impressive as she switched from keyboard to trumpet to "guitar-style-keyboard" to juggling Maracas and what have you. Lead singer has a Mick Jagger rock star kind of prance thing going on, worked well for their music. One guitarist had the long heavy metal hair while the other had a sortof clean cut Devo thing going on. Drummer knew how to hold it all together too. Definitely a band worth seeing on a stage large enough for them to move because they provide a very visually energetic show.
After The Outer Vibe, Brian Vanderark of "Freshman" Verve Pipe fame did a one man acoustic guitar set. First time I had seen him. Tall, very professional guitarist/singer, great set. His father had worked in my office at one point, and the resemblance was evident. Much much more lo key performance after coming off of The Outer Vibe though, I would have liked to have seen him with a slightly less intense opening act as the downshift in energy from the vibe to VanderArk was a bit much for me. We didn't stay through his entire set, which is no commentary on his performance, it's just at the time we were about 3.5 hours in, and it was a Wednesday night and a little bit of a drive across town so rather than be a zombie the next day for work, we cut out out after 4 songs or so. I would want to see him again though.
Game Night
We had our last "regular" game night with Adam and Comfort last night. It's been a sort of sad week of "regular" "lasts" with them this week. We'll have future game nights and evenings for sure, Flint, where they are moving to this weekend, isn't exactly the far side of the moon, but the game nights will be considerably less frequent for sure.
Oh and in case you are wondering, yes Adam did win. again :)
All for now, and I will go back and repost some of the earlier in the month photos of Comic Con and others that have slid off the blog later, hopefully before I close this page for the month.
Wasn't going to get any of this size, but I'm a sucker for a $1 pricepoint. Got a Guy Gardner, Black Hand, Manhunter, and Weaponer.
-- Sent from my Palm Pre
Neat back lighting. I pushed the contrast just a little but not by much.
Sat under a tree that bombarded us randomly with golf ball sized acorns.
-- Sent from my Palm Pre
Progress Bar Clock Concept Transcends Nerdiness by Being Actually Useful [Clocks]
This progress bar-inspired clock design from Mintpass actually includes a great idea: Clip up to 24 rewritable tabs onto the clock to mark appointments. It's a neat visual organizer on a clock that might otherwise be too gimmicky.
Each tab sets off an alarm that is disabled by turning the tab itself 90 degrees, showing the progress of your day's work along with the actual clock's progress bar. I love the tabs idea: It gives a clear visual demonstration of events that day, and being able to write (and erase? Or just replace?) each item's title is a really nice touch. It wouldn't be as jam-packed as my iCal, but it'd show big items in my to-do list at a glance. So, Mintpass? Please make this thing. [DVICE]
Very cool idea. I would buy one of these if not too pricey. It would be a great idea for a desktop clock as well. forget the clock paradigm, progress bar metaphor would be great.
Surfing internet while Jennifer studies.
-- Sent from my Palm Pre
Absolutely beautiful day outside today.
-- Sent from my Palm Pre
Played around with the color and contrast of a Palm Pre Picture Jennifer took of her and Leki. Here is her original: www.flickr.com/photos/shatteredhaven/3834284466/sizes/m/
Movies
This past Saturday I saw The Time Traveler's Wife. Enjoyed the movie, it is not a traditional romantic movie structure. I was pleased with that. No real plot to speak of, however, there are several minor conflicts within the movie but overall it is structured as a series of vignettes where we peek in on the two lead characters (Eric Banna and Rachel McAdams) at various parts though out their lives. Time Travel here is a sci-fi proxy to showcase some of the problems and frustrations a couple would have if one of them was often called away on business for indefinite periods of time, etc.
One point of note, it is refreshing to see a movie with two adult well adjusted romantic leads that compliment eachother well without a movie mission statement of one fixing the other. That may take some of the traditional drama out of the film, but at least it's not cliche.
This movie shares alot of the themes of the one season Journeyman series. I liked both, but watching this movie really made me wish that Journeyman had continued. All in all, a good light sci-fi flavored movie that the non-sci-fi initiated may also enjoy. Go see, and at least-- rent.
Last week I saw G.I. Joe and dozed off during it several times briefly. never a good sign for an action movie that you see at 6:30pm. The movie only superficially resembles the 80s G.I. Joe in that it shares some character names, traits and to a lesser extent looks. The film suffers from being over simplified to present itself well to 6 year olds within a 2 hour movie format. If you have young boys that you are looking to take the movies, this is a good pick, under 8 years old or so, they'll probably love it. For anyone who grew up on the comics, toys and tv show, this film will leave you lacking I think. (not everyone I have spoke with feels this way, but for the life of me I can't understand the positive conclusions.)
I recommend skipping this one (unless you have young boys in tow). No theater and no video. Find yourself a copy of the recent Adult targeted Animated G.I.Joe DVD: G.I Joe Resolute instead.
Also currently working through Funny People. Good Film so far. Long film though as it pretty evenly focuses on two main characters and intertwines a full length movie plot for each of them. Possibly a slightly longer review when I finish the last 30 minutes. Be forewarned though, there is humor, but this movie is not a comedy. Again more thoughts when I finish the film.
Posterous added as an official Send To location in Google Reader
Just trying out the new Send To Posterous feature on Google Reader. My blog imports Posterous as well so I'm also looking to see how well that works at getting Google Reader Content into my blog, via Posterous.
