I need input

If you were looking to give me advice on something, I regret to inform you that this isn't the time right now. Actually, it's time for another movie review! :)

A while ago, I had mentioned some DVDs that I had received, and as it turns out, one of them was Short Circuit. You can probably guess how it ends (generically) as there is a sequel, but I belive that this is the first time that I've seen the first movie in a long time, if at all; that's because I was a bit confused and was thinking that this was the movie where Johnny is fixing himself in the Radio Shack, but it is the sequel that this happens in.

Before tackling the actual movie, I want to bring something important to the attention of DVD makers - if you claim that "SHORT CIRCUIT IS PRESENTED IN A 2.35:1 WIDESCREEN ASPECT RATIO", then make sure that the whole movie is actually in that AR. When I put the DVD into the computer to take some screenshots, the actual movie was presented in a 4:3 AR, standard for most TVs, but this isn't disclosed on the box.

Another quite surprising thing about the DVD is the lack of extras. Most DVDs now have English, Spanish and French language and subtitle tracks, but Short Circuit has two English tracks - Dolby 5.1 and Dolby 2.0, and does not have any subtitles (it doesn't even appear to be closed-captioned as there is no CC logo on the box). Additionally, there are no additional features such as a director's commentary, deleted scenes (though the director did put some of them into the closing credits), or the theatrical trailer (see below). In fact, here is the menu for the movie -



Now, the feature presentation...

It all starts with scenes of a computer-type device being formed with the last scene showing S.A.I.N.T. 5 operational, ready to have its manufacturer's tag placed on it. This is all in preparation for a bunch of tanks to come and destroy a very nice flower patch before they get destroyed by these new S.A.I.N.T. machines. Fortunately, they decided to place plastic replica people into the vehicles. Afterwards, the robots are placed into a police line-up where they are praised for destroying these tanks.



You know that there is trouble ahead when you hear thunder in the background, forcing the well-prepared brass to take the presentation inside the Nova offices. This begs the question - if these robots were real, if they had to take the presentation inside, then woulnd't that mean that they couldn't use these robots in their operation GotchaLast if it were raining or snowing in Moscow?

Maybe all these generals were boyscouts?

Now, since the only place they can actually charge the robots is outside, and there's a thunderstorm approaching (you'd think that if it was raining at the demonstration ground, it'd be raining at the Nova building, but it's actually clear when the Trailways buses appear), the general tendency would be to make sure that the electronics are protected from electrical surge, but the numbskull in charge of the charging of the robots just kinda blows it off and, of course, what happens? Yep...



In the meantime, the inventor's assistant Ben is trying to get Newton (the inventor) out and hobnobbing with the brass, including a visiting Senator; of course Newton is the stereotypical geek - insulated to the world, but he uses his robotic hand to give him an assist in replying to Ben's request ;)



A brilliant move on the behalf of the director is to actually use some of the footage from the beginning of the movie during the hobnobbing scenes, before the discovery of the disappearance of Number 5...



Three observations about these robots, and Nova in General -

1. They are incredibly light as a trashcan being pushed by a robot is enough to overpower them.
2. Exposed wiring looks incredibly like a dog's teat.
3. Their security guard can't read the sign at the entrance



Fortunately, 5 manages to get away from the people from "Security" bent on his destruction, and finds his way onto the top of a food wagon that caters "partys"

Who said spelling counts?

Even in the 80s, there was some great product placement - take a look at the ads, commercials and other assortment of cool, old stuff that they got into the movie :)



The one bit of cultural knowledge that Number 5 manages to pick up on the best are the antics of the Three Stooges. The great thing is that he has just enough time to program the other robots to mimic their act. It's interesting that Howard didn't raise a red flag over having not just $11 million, but $44 million of robot out there (like he had done when Ben & Newton decided to take Number 1 along with them and their Apple Macintosh).



The most interesting thing about the movie is the relationship that Newton (the man who hadn't driven for 5 years, but isn't awarded a cake from Ben - clearly 5's driving was worse) and Stephanie make. The meet at first when her van is hijacked by Number 5 and she rides along trying to get him to stop; and that meeting ends in her wanting to meet with him again. By the end, they're planning to go off to Wyoming and live their lives together, despite all the times that she thought that he was lying to her.

Interestingly, in the scene where Number 5 summons Newton to meet Stephanie, radio geeks will appreciate the fact that you could see that they used a labelmaker to make labels to represent the five robots and the FCC licenses that they had taken for their use, but since the movie is 20 years old, the licenses have probably lapsed, thus they do not appear in their online listings.



This is definitely one movie that deserves to be seen, and the main reason isn't the story; it's the fella that steals the show comedically, Ben Jabituya, portrayed by Fisher Stevens. Basically, if he starts speaking, expect to laugh. Below is an audio clip from early in the movie; there's a point where there is a sound that goes pfft (note that this is a poor textual representation of a computer, so the actual sound will be different). You should refer back to the picture of the reply to Ben's request to go to hobnob when this happens ;)



Here's a second audio clip, just because I can do it; this is of one of the more memorable lines from the movie (maybe that's just because there's a radio host in my area who might have used this as a drop-in once or twice); just after Number 5 reactivates himself, and Ben and the other Nova employee stop at the side of the road. The question is "What should we do?"...



Lastly, here is the trailer for the movie. I know I've heard the narrator's work previously in other commercials; his talents used to be quite common on TV, but maybe I'm wrong about that. ;)



Addendum: Sorry for the odeo player deciding to play the audio at double pitch; I really don't know how that happened, but I bet it has something to do with sample rates....

Changing to beta

I've changed my blog over to the new beta style, and I think it's all in order still, though I notice there are a couple of spacing issues like with my little sidebar graphic, and the Aussie in Training and nablopomo logos are a little bit off, but I know that I can figure out a way to fix it, so it's not that big of a deal :)

In other news, I've put some new links into the sidebar and I'm going to be adding quite a few more now that I think I've got everything sorted out as far as the stuff I had on my old style to what's here in beta.

Rockstar - The Album

Well, I've finally had a chance to hear the album in full, as you might have noticed in my little last.fm box. Overall I like the work that they've done, and I definitely think that Lukas Rossi (for those who might not have heard his last name before; I'll certainly say that it's a better fit than Robicheaux or however Dilana spells her last name) was the best choice to make. So anyway, just some thoughts on the tracks on the album:

1. It's On - A good start to the album; the lyrics are solid, and hopefully they're foreshadowing good things ahead with the lyrics "I don't ever want to fade away". Let it shine on. :)

2. Leave the Lights On - This is one track that you heard clips of somewhat often on TV and on the MSN site, but for the life of me I can't place where it was in the broadcasts. There are some neat sax riffs in there. Some of the lyrics might suggest that it's about making a certain type of film that certain members of the band might be somewhat familiar with....

3. Be Yourself (and 5 Other Clichés) - This song has been in my head for the last couple of days now; specifically the chorus; again, a good track and very listenable.

4. It's All Love - The first thing is that there's a lyric that says "never felt enough call it hate", but for some reason I keep thinking it should be "Colin Hay". I guess it's one of those mindgames that you play on yourself... This track shows a bit of the softer side of the group, but it still has a "rock" feel to it.

5. Can't Bring Myself to Light This Fuse - Here's a song that shows a definitely softer side of Lukas, and shows the versatility that he has; it is interesting to put these songs back-to-back, but I think that it works; it's almost a good idea as it gives an 8-minute break from the real "hard" rock (though I think it'd have been cool to let the rock stick together with itself as well).

6. Underdog - This track is one that you should immediately recoginse if you've seen the show, as this was the main theme for the commercial bumpers and the closing titles. I think it's a good track, and the lyrics are fairly solid; it's another song that is quite listenable.

7. Make No Mistake...This is the Take - I find that I don't remember much of this track, even after listening to it; I think that the title makes it somewhat difficult to get a grasp; generally when you put an ellipsis into a song title, there is a bit of difficulty in picking up on it.

8. Headspin - When I had first heard this version of it, I thought it was quite good and had loved what they did to it, but after quite a few listens to it, I think that there was definitely room for improvement in it - least of which is the fact that they seem to have really slowed it down. It's still a great song though. I forgot to mention this, but the one thing that kinda bugs me is the pronounciation of the word "paradise". It sounds like he's saying it as "pair-ee-dice"; it just kinda rubs me the wrong way...

9. Valentine - To me, this is one of those songs that seems to just go on for a while then stop; another track that I don't remember much of. I have to say that it is somewhat disconcerting that the fade-out starts with about 20 seconds left in the song.

10. Social Disgrace - Another track that is admittedly not the greatest, but there is are some good riffs on guitar in there. :)

11. The Dead Parade - I haven't heard many rock songs that start out with a choir singing. I think that it does work for this song, because I think it makes a cool effect, especially when they come back in and sing as backup.

Overall, it's a very good record, but there is room for improvement. The tracks are quite short, with the longest one being just over 5 minutes, and 5 of the 11 tracks being shorter than 3:30. I don't know what the exact reasoning for that is; it's not like they're doing them to perform on the TV show or anything. However, when they were on Jimmy Kimmel's show, they performed at least two songs, but since they showed 6 minutes of ads between the performances, the second one got cut off in the middle with viewers being pointed to a site where you could view the video, but there was only one problem: it wasn't there when I looked.

I hope that they do decide to do a second record after this, and this time have enough time to invest so that they have some longer songs and maybe be able to do some of Lukas' older works from Cleavage and Rise Electric (it'd also be interesting to hear what they could do with some of the Crüe or Metallica as well).

If you're interested in reading another review of the album, Snoskred has posted her thoughts on the album.

Movies, a whole lot of 'em!

When I was growing up, I never watched that many movies; in fact, I remember people asking what the last movie I was at in the theatre, and I'd say the name of a movie that'd been out on tape for a few years already. We also never watched too many movies at home; we first got cable in 1993, and whenever we would sign up for the movie channels we'd rarely watch them.

So anyway, because of this, there are literally dozens of movies that most people have watched that I haven't watched (or even worse, never heard of). I was happy not having watched these movies because I didn't think that they had any significance to me, but there was cultural significance. Now, I have a list about as long as my arm of movies that I want to watch or should watch. Some of the movies in this list are (in no particular order, and includes some movies that I've watched already) -

Back to the Future trilogy
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Romeo + Juliet
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Pump up the Volume
Top Gun
The Client
Dead Man Walking

Then, we have the Aussie Movies -
Strictly Ballroom
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Muriel's Wedding

I *know* that I am missing quite a few movies from this list, but what I want to do is make kind of a "master" list of movies that I should watch, and try to acquire them and watch them.

I'd be interested to know if there are other movies that are ones that everyone should watch and that I probably missed out on watching; leave a comment if you have some suggestions for me to take up, and we'll let it go from there. :)

Let us take a trip

...to "El Bloke" (Telemundo English for 'the block", which the proper Spanish spelling should be "el bloque")

The main program in El Bloke is "Vas o No Vas" - which, if you're familiar with TV show logos is exactly what it purports to be - "Deal or No Deal" in Spanish


Tonight's contestant is Alba, who has brought her mother Tita along with her. As you can see, she has just turned down an offer of $23,000. After the break, she gets to choose her suitcase (portafolio/s in spanish).

She lucks out as it only contains $100, and the producers want us to know that, because of this, the offer will go up!

And does it ever! Now, the bank (who calls, but we have this elaborate presentation with a model) is offering $14,000 more - only because two of the three highest prizes are still available, $100,000 and $125,000.

So, what does she do? Reject that offer! "¡No Voy!" she says and opens the next case which has......

Of course, this is great news as the offer is sure to go up, but our host wants to have Tita stand with the banking model for the big reveal of the contents of the suitcase, along with the reveal of the banker's new offer, which is....

Considering that some of the plans for the moneys they'd win is to have some kind of surgery for a hernia, along with a trip for Tita and her grandkids, this would be enough - considering the previous offers, it would make sense to take that offer...but...

She rejects it; again the producers remind us that $50,000 is a good offer, but they want to continue playing, so we select the next suitcase, number 21, which has the top available prize, $125,000; the host's face while talking to the banker portends the bad news about to be levelled -
And here's the offer -

In this set of photos, we see some more information provided to us by the producers (she has decided to turn down the new offer, but there is still that $100,000 out there). After she selects the case - unlucky number 13 - a temptation is offered. Here the producers are lazy and didn't even change the placard in the suitcase from the last temptation offer.

She's decided to turn down the offer, and go with case #13...let's hope it's a low number...
Oh no! Surely the offer is going to go down...but by how much? Here comes the banker's model with the suitcase and the offer...

Ouch! But, as she says, they came with nothing and even if they leave with a little bit, it was a great experience, so "No Voy" she says and she goes on to open the final suitcase.

It's a show that is quite easy to follow, and I think it's more fun because there seems to be a natural energy to it rather than the US English version with Howie Mandel; then again, I think it might be that there isn't as much of the rowdiness you see in the English-language crowd along with the fact that the people on the Spanish version seem more humble, and quite frankly, more docile; that makes it a pleasant viewing experience - of course the models help watching ;)

One Hundred

Today marks the 100th post in this blog. Of course, at the rate that I had been posting, it probably would have been the middle of next month or so before I got to this point, but since the end of October or so, I have not missed a single day for posting; even when I didn't feel like doing so.

So, what do I have planned? Well, I haven't paid much attention to my links list; it doesn't really reflect all the blogs that I read. For example, I have been reading Knifey's blog for many months now, but haven't linked to him. There are also a bunch of NaBloPoMo blogs that I have bookmarked for future reading which I haven't linked to either.

Something else I've done is to add a little widget from Google Reader that shows some posts I've marked worth sharing. I have been testing it out for the last few days, and I should be having some more comments on that soon, mostly in comparison to Bloglines. One thing that I've noticed is that Google Reader doesn't handle enclosures (which is how some folks deliver podcasts in a feed).

If you want some more information from a bloggers' point of view, you can read Snoskred's comments on Google Reader.

One other thing I'm looking to do somewhat soon (probably before changing my links around) is to upgrade my blog to the beta style, but I actually kinda like the raw-HTML editing mode that I have been using for ages, but I do like the new style Layouts as well.

The State of the Turkey

This is mostly a photo post, to commemorate Thanksgiving. I present: The States of a Turkey, 2006 edition.

State One: Thawing, still in its original packaging

State Two: In the roasting pan, ready for roasting at 375° for three hours or so

State Three: In the roasting pan, just under three hours later. Fresh from the oven, the temperature of the breat meat is at a safe 170°F, but the potatoes, peas and rolls still need to be made up, so two layers of tinfoil are added to the top. This also allows the juices to redistribute.

State Four: Half carved, ready to be served. It was suggested to use an electric knife, but I opted to use a carving knife.

State Five: Ready to be put into the refrigerator as leftovers. a 14-pound turkey leaves a lot left over. Some of this meat is to be used for a second thanksgiving dinner for one of my relatives who didn't roast a turkey on Thursday.

Thanksgiving

Well, today was the celebration of, essentially, stuffing yourself full of as much food as you can and then sleeping it off with some football on the TV; otherwise known as Thanksgiving.

For me, it all went good except for following one recipe for pumpkin pie that really didn't make it taste too well (even though I didn't notice it too much). Then, for the first time in a long time, I played Trivial Pursuit and wound up losing all three times to my brother (though I did get all the wedges in the last game and had a shot at winning).

The other thing that today marks is the unofficial start to the Christmas shopping season, and the introduction of the really huge weekday paper. Today's paper was at least an inch thick or so, with advertisements from about 30 different stores, and even the daily paper in my more immediate area had a sizable amount of advertisements for great sales tomorrow; of course, if you're in Illinois, you will save money over us suckers here who believe that it is unfair to let companies sell products for as low as they want (for example, a Plasma TV that is $1134 here is $988 south of the state border).

And one thing - to everyone who's commented lately, thanks for your comments; sorry that I haven't replied to y'all, but I've been quite busy lately with the NaBloPoMo commenting challenge, and doing other things around here :)

One final thing I hadn't mentioned in the original part of this - I made a slight change; let me know if you spot it (it's really tiny, but there is some significance to it and a particular reason for it; and no, it's not Norwegian or any of the Scandanavian dialects....)

Late Night TV

I have been up late the last couple of nights so I've had the pleasure(?) of being able to watch something that really should have stayed where it started - the late night quizshow. I believe that it first started in the UK, then spread to Australia with the Big Brother Uplate franchise, but then it expanded to all year last year, so all three of the commercial TV networks there have shows.

Here, we're fortunate as only three cable networks - Superstation WGN, TBS and Game Show Network show versions of these shows - usually for an hour or two and not every night of the week.

Last night, the WGN show Play to Win, where you can text or call at a cost of $1.50, or use their website to enter for free, had this puzzle for a word unscramble -

LA CINPAO

Hmm...I wonder what that could mean? I mean, seriously, if you don't get it in about 15 seconds (and that's being generous I think, even though it took me about a minute to figure out Dentist earlier in the show), you have to be kinda "not with it".

Now, if that wasn't easy enough, the other night, they had another shuffle puzzle "shuzzle" -

EPNGUNI

I mean..come on people! Hey, it's an animal that might wear a tux ;)

If you mightn't have figured out by now, I really like the Chaser's work, and they did a piece about the Aussie quizshows during their War on Everything. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Rockstar - Back Again

It's been a while since I've mentioned the folks from Rockstar: Supernova. In fact, the last time I mentioned them was the Grand Final night, when Lukas won the spot as the lead singer. Today was the release date (for the US and Canada; Aussies and Kiwis had the release back on Thursday night US time) for their CD. I haven't heard any of it yet, but I hear that what's on there isn't bad. You can listen to samples of the music on the CD at the Official Site.

They're also appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight on ABC; I'll be recording the program so that I can extract the segments where they are performing, and possibly (though I'm certain that there will be others out there nice enough to post the video) put it up for y'all to see, though my local ABC affiliate loves to stick their logo on *everything* that they broadcast. I'm just thankful that the Packers aren't playing until Monday night; otherwise there'd be a green-and-gold opaque version of the station logo on screen during all program content.

Patience

I live in a house where there are some, well, deficiencies in keeping the cold out, and a solution that we have devised is to simply put up a blanket in the front room. The new method, it has been determined, is to put in an actual curtain.

Well, at first we had gotten a rod that was too large to fit into the holder (it held a 1-3/8 inch piece, while the rod was 1-5/8 inch in diameter); so that had to go back to one home improvement store. We then went to the other store (the one that we go to more often) where we found a slightly-smaller-than the 1-3/8 inch diameter piece for 25¢ less per linear foot than the comprable piece at the first place.

So, anyway, using the measure-twice logic, we got a piece that was slightly longer than the actual length we needed, so it needs to be cut down. Enter me, the same person who is willing to let his computer sit for hours on end converting video from one format to another (i.e. raw TV recording to more compatible formats then to DVD format). I will say now that I am not afraid of saws, but since it's somewhat difficult to get a precise measurement of the length that is needed, I didn't want to lop too much off.

Well, knowing that, how do you go about getting a piece of wood shortened by about an inch or so? Take some 100 or 150-grit sandpaper and use that to basically whittle the wood down in millimeter incriments, checking about every half hour to see how the piece fits. After about 5 hours or so, I finally got the wood to the line that I had originally marked out as my goal, a distance of about 2 cm or just under an inch; and I still have a slight way to go before I can finally go about installing the piece into the wall (which in itself will be another exercise in patience as I actually want this to be done right and in level; though the fact that the ceiling is only going to be an inch or two above the pole should make it a skosh easier.

I think this might just in the end, be a sign. A sign that I might have too much time on my hands (though, I will grant that this was something productive, and a workout for my right arm). :)

Where the bloody hell are you?

If you're somewhat aware of the ads, you'll know that this is really a rhetorical question, as the intent is to get you to get your arse in gear and get down to the land of the Big Thing, Australia. The only reason I mention it tonight is that there was just a show on the Discovery Channel about the "Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive", which is acutally a recreation of an outback tradition intended for tourists who are willing to make the trip out to the area of the Oodnadatta Track in Outback SA, some 800kms from Adelaide.

Naturally, the main sponsor of the show were Tourism Australia who made a splash earlier this year with the introduction of "Where the bloody hell are you?" as the new catchphrase for their tourism spots. This is one of the longer editions of the adverts; the version shown here is a 30-second version, and is shown in fullscreen.

Now, the good folks at The Chaser decided to see if they could come up with some better slogans to sell the country to foreigners. I think some of them might fly, but of course there are some government-types who might not think the same...judge for yourself ;)

Saturday Randomness

I've been kinda lost as to what to post about the last couple of days, so here's another list of random things ;)

• A message to Schapelle Corby: most people don't care if you don't have a shag until you're 47 (or ever again really). Thanks for telling us anyways. (Oddly enough, this story is the top story on the SMH site as of 4PM EDT Sunday...)
• As I had discussed on Thursday, the sales slips for the Thankgiving sales have been out for a couple of days, and because of that, I have scoured them to make sure that we find the best bargains in the stores. Now, the plan is to go to the store that I think will have the lowest prices and compare to the prices that I can get with the sales combined with coupons {i.e. getting canned vegetables for 23¢ at one store, while another has them on offer at 25¢ per can}
• I've had a really good week this week; it's really good when you can get enough sleep.
• There was just a commercial for South Africa Airways on TV, featuring the flags of the countries that they serve; it's good to see more of the foreign airlines advertising here (usually the only ones you'd ever see are British Airways and Qantas; I'd never even heard of Cathay Pacific or many of the flag carriers of Asia until about a year ago)
• MSN Messenger is a bad piece of software as it forces you to use Internet Explorer; I am trying to get my mother to switch away from IE to Firefox, and I figured that if I just changed the default browser, that would work; but it would seem that they've made it just near impossible to not use IE (there's software, but that totally broke the linking mechanism such that you can't open any links in any browser).
  
• If you haven't heard, Spongebob is still the "in" thing for marketing. Witness this scene below, where you can see both The Game of Life and Monopoly with special versions centred on the show (the Monopoly cover has the eyes as a hologram, that's why it looks kinda strange). And no, I did not purchase them; just took the photo ;)

There's something about Japan...

I don't know what it is, but I was flipping through channels and stopped on the Golf channel tonight to discover that they were showing a direct rebroadcast of the "Dunlop Phoenix" Tournament from Phoenix Country Club in Japan. Pictured below is Shingo Katayama, or "Cowboy Shingo". The reason should be fairly obvious. The other reason for this particular screenshot is the scoring graphics that the broadcaster (I'm not sure who exactly this is from) employs - a circle means a birdie, dashes mean par, and the triangle designates a bogey.


Now, most of the time that a network will pick up a foreign based broadcast, they'll usually borrow some of the graphics (for example, I've seen standard Sky Sports graphics before, also graphics from the old Fox Footy Channel, Networks Nine and Ten when the AFL was showing, plus Sky Sport NZ from the rugby), but they usually don't pick up the full graphics. This time, we have the Golf channel managing to pick up the broadcast schedule for the remaining rounds (the commentator even mentioned that if you could read that you can ignore it as that is the schedule for Japanese viewers).


Something that I've read Peter in Japan discuss is his affinity for the "Navi" system - otherwise known as the Navigation system. This continues into the TV world, as we have the NEC Shot Navi plotting a straight line between Tiger's current lie and the hole, along with the fact that he is approximately 234 yards away from said hole.


Of course, the main reason that this has made it to our screens is the fact that Tiger is competing in it (the Australian Open is nowhere to be seen on US screens incidentally). The rebroadcast here ends in the same way as it did in Japan however, a picture of Tiger ready to take a shot, and the graphic declaring the End of the Second Round.

According to the schedule above, the 3rd round should be airing right now in Japan, but we won't see it until sometime tomorrow; the live event that is being covered is the UBS Open in Hong Kong, and that doesn't start until the top of the hour...

Grocery Shopping

We are somewhat lucky that we have at least five separate major grocery retailers in my general area. Three of them are based in my state, one is based in California, and the other is Wal-Mart. Most of these stores all have similar sales, but the prices can be different (or in some cases, the product)

So, as somewhat of a public service, I provide some sample prices for products on sale between today and Saturday (note that this is the only period where all five stores have these prices on offer concurrently)

For example, Stove-Top Stuffing. Three of the stores have it priced at 98¢, 99¢, and $1.00 respectively. The fourth store has it at $1.25 (advertised as 4/$5) and Wal-Mart has it priced at 88¢. Two stores have Clementines available - one at $4.98 and the other at $5.48. Something common in most stuffings made at this time of the year is Sage & Onion crutons produced by the Brownberry Baking company. One store (the same one with the $1.25 Stovetop) has it at $1.50. Another has had it at $2.00 for a while now, but they've put it on sale at $1.66 (or 3/$4.98). Yet another has it at $1.99 (or 2/$3.98). The other two don't have it listed, so one can assume that their regular prices of $2.25 and $2.00 are maintained.

So, what's the lesson here? I think it's that just because you think that your neighbourhood store has the lowest price *you've* seen, doesn't mean that it is the lowest price - a last example - most stores are having Dean's dips at something like $1.50 per package; but there's another store that has the same size on sale for 98¢.

Living by the Rails

Waiting at the post, originally uploaded by sephiroth.blog.

This is something that I don't mention often, but I live about 50 feet from a major railroad, where trains can go by at speeds upto 60 miles per hour (approximately 97 km/h). Ironically, it was the rails that led me into two things - digital photography (the vast majority of my photos are of trains) and scanning.

Some of my photos are, admittedly, not the greatest in the world, but others, like this one, are pretty cool. I had taken a photo of this signal standard back in January with about the same lighting conditions, and I had been looking through my photos recently and found that picture. So, on Sunday (when I was Out and About) the train happened to be doing some work with switching its loads between side tracks and the such. I actually waited for a while (because I had my handheld scanner with me, I had some clue as to what they were doing) until they got the front end of the engine right where I wanted it.

The best part is that they stopped right where you see the engine - in the perfect spot for me :)

I'll be digging through my train photos to find some of the best (and even some of the not-so-good ones) ones to post here :)

Commenting on blogs

As many of you might know, I am (along with Snoskred), trying to comment on as many of the NaBloPoMo blogs as I can.

Today, I finished the 92 blogs in the letter B; of those, I didn't comment on only 15 of them - 14 because unregistered users can't comment, comments are turned off or the blog just couldn't be found, and one because I chose not to. For me, I had a hard time commenting on blogs in the past, a point of contention when I had let it get to me that people weren't magically appearing at my blog.

Of course, the reason that this wasn't happening is that they didn't know that I'm out here, and by leaving comments in other blogs, that is a way of getting myself out there and letting people know that I do exist. :)

The thing is, though, that when I started this, I had a hard time coming up with comments on a single blog, but as I've been going through and commenting on various things - be it nice photo here or a great recipe there; it's become a heck of a lot easier for me to say something. When I started this, I struggled with ten which took me the better part of an evening to finish. Now, in the four hours or so that I've been doing this today, I've commented on something like 30 blogs and after I have my lunch, I plan on doing some more (along with getting some doing some more posting over at the Scambaiting blog and checking in with my 419mail blogs.

So, if you are a little bit shy about saying something, just go ahead and say it. There's nobody stopping you ;)

Piracy, 1990 style

No, I'm not talking about Napster or Morpheus or Kazaa. I'm talking about pirated radio, like Radio Caroline. Pirate radio takes center stage in the Christian Slater movie Pump Up The Volume, where the storyline is based around the son of a school administrator who has just moved to Paradise City, AZ from New York who transformed his shortwave transceiver into an FM transmitter.

Using a voice-changing machine, he broadcasts at 10 pm to the students of Hubert H Humphrey High School as Happy Harry Hardon, who encourages listeners to send in their advice. During one of the first broadcasts, we see someone type into a computer "Do you think that I should kill (myself?)", which is printed out and sent to Harry (it's classified on IMDB as a continuity error, but if you think it over, it makes sense). Unfortunately, the sender of that letter wound up taking his life, and Harry wound up taking the flack for it. He was going to discontinue broadcasts after this, but he was inspired by Nora, the only person to figure out that it was him based on the revelation of how he spent his lunch hour. This led to a massive uproar in the school's faculty, and the students were also taking his advice to be themselves by setting a lot of graffiti on the walls and ceilings of the school. In the end, Happy Harry got put off the air, but his message was out there - and a lot of other teens started their own pirate radio stations.

One of the major themes of the movie is to not be who someone wants you to be - be who you want to be. The most obvious example is Harry (whose real name in the movie was Mark) - when he was on the radio he was very open and willing to talk, but whenever he was seen in scenes around the school, he would always have his head down and not want to interact with anybody. His parents expected him to be like he was when he was Back East, but he never fit into the school, at least as himself. When he put the Harry face on, he became who he wanted to be - open and willing to tell people what he thought of things. The pivotal moment for this is right after the suicide, when he encourages his listeners to actually be themselves.

An interesting note, on the technical side - on the last night of his broadcast when the FCC had started to look for him (and where the Commissioner said that it was people like Harry that were the problem with free speech), and he had made the decision to go mobile, technically the receivers in the school carpark should have been experiencing some mobile fade - it's a common occurence when the source of a broadcast is moving. But it is a movie so it doesn't have to be fully accurate to be good. ;)

Overall? It's a good movie with a great message - be yourself. It's seen in everything from the students to the school itself, where the principal is suspended for expelling "bad" students just so that she can tout the school's record as having the highest SAT scores in the state. However, she lied about expelling them and retained the public money from their existence in the school's population.

Some loose ends -

What crimes did Mark end up being charged with? They had discussed pornography and solicitation, and charging him with being involved in the suicide.
How did his parents react to actually finding out that it was him? He had narrowly escaped (with the assistance of Nora) their wrath after the mass meeting and in the last scene, his father was more concerned with the shady dealings of the principal it would seem.

Out and About

horse1
Originally uploaded by sephiroth.blog.

I actually feel like I've gotten stuff done today - visiting some more NaBloPoMo blogs and commenting on them, posting queued mails to the various 419 mail blogs, checking in on my scambaits, and going out and taking a walk.

Just up the road from where I live are a family who own a few horses; most of the time they are in their stables, but while I was out walking, they were let out to run around in their field. I (as I usually do) had my camera with me and I, of course, took some photos.

There are a couple more photos from my walk today that I'll be sharing over the next day or so. Oh, and I am now set up with flickr, which is easier to do than I had thought. :)

Tonight on TV...

At 8:30PM central on Telemundo: Walking Tall starring 'The Rock' (dubbed into Spanish)
At 8:30PM central on TNT: Walking Tall starring 'The Rock'

It would go good trying to watch both, at least until one of them has a commercial interruption ;)

First Snow

Well, I had alluded to it a few hours ago, but it looks like the first snow (that actually stuck) has fallen now. Here are a couple of shots of the pine tree that I have in the front (well, it will always be the back to me) yard.

What a difference a day makes...

This is one of the joys of November here - the changing weather. Yesterday, it was 61°F (16.1°C) when this picture was taken at 2.55 PM.

9 Nov 2006 14:55
Today, the weather couldn't be any different. The temperature (these are at the local airport, as reported to the National Weather Service) at the moment is 34°F (1.1°C), and it's snowing bad enough to get the roads all messed up (the nearby freeway had to be closed for a while because there were so many cars in the ditch or involved in accidents). I should also add that there's been a bit of lightning as well.

10 Nov 2006 16:34
It's not long now before the snow covers everything in a layer of white :)

Just when you thought there were enough...

...there always seems to be more in the works. What am I talking about? Theme parks, of course. Here, we have the famous ones (Disneyland, Disney World, the 6 Flags chain, Universal Studios and the list goes on). In Europe and Asia however, the latest concessionaire of the theme park seems to be Mr. Bernie Ecclestone (supremo of Formula 1).

Pitpass are reporting that there are plans afoot to build an F1-themed park in Dubai, the first of many to be built around the world.

Maybe this will go better than EuroDisney, though I don't know ;)

Sorting things out

There is something that I need to be honest about. Actually two things. The first is that I have been fighting depression for most of my short life so far. At times, I can appear to be happy on the outside, but there is always something dragging me down. It isn't the big things that bring me down, but they are the core of my problem; the fact that I have not worked a single day since June of 2005 is probably the biggest thing on my plate in the immediate present.

However, the biggest thing that brings me down is myself. I have very little self-confidence; and it's usually something related to that which will bring me down. Ironically, the smaller the thing in the grand scheme, the worse I get. It's just something ingraned in me.

It's interesting; there is a commercial here that says "Who does depression hurt? Everybody." This certainly is true; it might not be obvious to the one who is depressed, but the people around me can notice when I am down. Especially my best friend, who even told me that how I type is an indication of my mood.

I have always for some stupid reason - probably complacency, but it's that nagging lack of self confidence - I have not been proactive in sorting myself out. I think another reason for that is because the prompting me to change has always been from outside sources. They know that changing myself would be for the best for me, and generally I agree; it would be the best for me to get myself sorted out and happy.

I remember having to go to counselling at the behest of the school, first at the county mental health offices, and then with a private counsellor. It was even to the point that I had to go take some kind of psychological test in the next county. I was labelled by the school when I was in the fifth grade as "emotionally unstable" and were intending on putting me into a special school because of that. It led to my mother threatening the school with a lawsuit and the threat of moving me to a "special" school ended (ironically, by the end of that year, I would end up being awarded a "Presidential" award for scholastic achievement).

In the 8th grade, I was told that I had to see a counsellor outside of school. He was your typical shrink, but he never really suggested anything that could help me aside from telling me to lose weight (which, admittedly I do need to do as it is something that contributes to my lack of self-confidence). He cost something like $100 per hour, and he really never gave that much of a discount. I went into this not at my own choosing, but because I was told I had no choice but to do it; I honestly think that because of this, I did not talk openly with him (plus he wasn't a very friendly person in my eyes).

Somehow, I managed to get through high school without any of this happening; partly because there was something that I was really good at and where just about everyone liked me - the band. Of course, there were people who said I got where I ended up by being friends with the director, but it was because of my talent that I rose to the position I held (1st trumpet in the higest band thank you very much :)). Interestingly, there were some things that I didn't like doing though, such as improvised solos in Jazz (where, as the 2nd trumpet, I ended up with a majority of the solos). I did have my own mess-ups sure, but we're not all perfect, like the time when I suggested that we get things done by a certain day and everyone took it as an order to get it all done *that* day.

I pretty much stopped playing my trumpet the day that I left High School (something I shouldn't have done, as I think I could have done well in the college band). Now, the main thing that keeps me going is baiting the lads in Africa, but even that has times which get me down; especially after I ended up in a situation where the people who I thought were my friends tried to get me to turn my back on my best friend. They still think it's ok to (just because I didn't stick to them) go ahead and attack me for being a friend of their supposed enemy, and claim that I'm just their mouthpiece. They don't understand that those things hurt when it's said. This is a fact that I've now come to accept and know that whatever good I do for the community (such as setting up the 419 mail blogs), they won't appreciate it because they don't like me. Really, it is their loss that I don't contribute as much as I could (and did before they decided that I was somehow a problem).

Now, I am starting to become serious about changes to make in my life. For example, I am trying to start eating my meals in the kitchen instead of taking them with me to the computer. That way, I will probably eat less and there won't be as much of a mess around me at the computer. Second is that I am going to take more time and just go outside - whether it's to take a walk, do some yardwork, just more than going out for five minutes to get the mail and newspaper. The third thing that I want to do is to sign up for some volunteering tasks at places like the local Historical Society - that way I can put something on my resume and so that I can sharpen my skills once again in a working environment, to improve the chances of me getting actual work. The fourth thing that I've been told that I should do is to see someone to possibly get me on some antidepressants, and to get me some professional counselling. That is the hardest one for me because it requires me to do something that I am afraid of doing, and something that I've had a bad experience with in the past.

It's going to be a long process, but it is something that needs to be done, not only for me, but for everyone around me. In fact, I think that this blog can help me as well because it is a place for me to vent my frustrations and to just say what I think needs to be said (of course, I reserve the right to hold some personal information, like my name and more specific information about where I live other than to say that I am in the 33rd largest metropolitan market in the USA, Southeastern Wisconsin).

Being behind the times

I was reading this story about the creation of a "Virtual Big Brother" in a completely virtual world called "SecondLife". I have to say that I had never heard of it and yet according to the Wikipedia article about it, there are real-world companies who have gotten themselves involved in this program; Reuters has gone so far as to set up a reporting bureau in this fake world.

What's even worse is that on the Reuters site, you can see that they actually have an exchange rate between the fake currency of that virtual world and real US Dollars listed, and a chart (which can also be seen on the official site) of how many real dollars have been spent over the last 24 hours (currently that stands in excess of $500,000).

I guess these things slip by when you live your own life ;)

The world of Computers

This post got me thinking about how I've been shaped by computers.

I remember back in the '80s when my brother had a Commodore 64 in the upstairs part of my house, and typing my mom's name into there thinking it would do something; of course, the screen (it was orange typing interestingly instead of the stereotypical green). I might be wrong on that however, as I remember using a monitor that had been used for a computer (probably the same C64) as a screen for the Nintendo system a few years later.

Anyway, then my schooling started and the use of computers increased with the expansion of the elementary school to have a larger library/media centre (fancy talk of course for a computer lab). I remember playing the Oregon Trail (by MECA, and being booted off of floppy disks - the 5-1/4 inch ones, not the more modern 3-1/2 inch ones). I can't tell you how many times people in my party got sick of something or another - in fact I think it took a really skilled mind to make it all the way to the end of the trail.

1994 comes along and the programs in use at school are a little more advanced, but it was still all on Apple IIe computers, but the situation at home would change - a Windows PC would be bought in January of that year for the price of $1577.00 including the 5.5% sales tax. I can still remember the day as after buying the computer (which was in two just huge boxes that barely fit into the car), we went to the Wendy's that was near to the Best Buy store to eat lunch and then went home to set the computer up. We had internet service from Prodigy and I can remember seeing the advertising for the then top-of-the-line 9600 bps modem, complete with the simulation of how fast everything would be with a speed four times the current. I also remember how I managed to break the computer trying to install AOL on there.

That computer was used for a good three years or so before we moved to a customized computer built by a shop in town, that particular computer (which sports a 233 MHz processor) still works quite well despite it being close to ten years old. A friend of my brother gave him a computer that is still in use today; I can remember working on that one in the days leading up to 1/1/2000 because as I was working on it, I was listening to a station out of Chicago that was airing special programming in the build-up to the new year. This computer, incidentially, was the same one that broke the first day that I was at college.

Because of that computer breaking down, I managed to secure some funds to buy myself a laptop (HP Pavilion N5475 - which has the most ass backward setup for its audio ports - headphones in the front, microphone in the back, but it was made 5 years ago, before it was thought of that people would have dual-connector headsets for internet telephony). Interestingly, that was the only thing I'd ever bought the extended warranty on, and it did me good as it saved me about $600 or so in repairs in 2003 because the hard drive was dying; they also gave me a new LCD screen as the original one had developed a crack near one of the seams. Interestingly, I was one of the first people to use XP as I had gotten this computer in the short space of time between it was released to OEMs and when it was released to the public at large.

In April of 2005, I got the computer that I currently use - a Gateway 507GR (3.0GHz P4 with Hyperthreading, 200GB HDD, 512MB of RAM, DVD+/-R writer AND separate DVD reader, along with a load of USB ports, a couple of Firewire ports and a media reader). The only hardware that I've added to this system is a printer and a TV card.

NaBloPoMo

Now, I know that this sounds like something totally nasty, but it really is a cool thing. NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Post Month - like the "NaNoWriMo" (National Novel Writing Month), it is intended to get people inspired to do things like post to their blogs. You can read more about it at fussy.org.

You can also view a random blog participating in NaBloPoMo by going to the NaBloPoMo Randomizer.

I'll be adding the logo to the site in the next day or so, in case you're wondering about that ;)

In other news, I burnt a pile of leaves today (exciting, I know, but it was fun to make it look like you're responsible for the haze that hung over the houses about a quarter mile away :p) (oh, and if you are wondering, it was only leaves that burnt because I finally figured out that it's probably for the best to burn them on the gravel driveway than on the grass)

Phone calls

Well, even though I didn't do any calling for candidates, it doesn't mean that I have been insulated from calls from their campaigns. This evening alone, there have been two calls for different candidates - one is (I believe) standing for Governor - the fact that he is the person that I intend to vote for doesn't matter; the other call received tonight was from a candidate for the House who is running in a different district to the one I am in. Interestingly, this was the second time that someone called from a campaign that isn't even close to where I live - the other one was for a state legislature district about 30 miles from here or so.

Even stranger than the calls for out-of-area candidates is the fact that the call or the gubernatorial candidate came up listed as a 213 area code number - which is Los Angeles (the ID was STH PRK HTL, which I would presume means "South Park Hotel").

The good part is that this will all be over by Wednesday or so; depending on if there are any challenges to the election.

Another Movie

Today, I was (as I am usually wont to do) watching the Nascar race which, due to Notre Dame football on NBC, was airing on TNT. Normally, I'll just change the channel to something else, but today I didn't change the channel. The other thing is that TNT tend to air a lot of movies - most of the time they'll show a single movie at least three times per weekend. The movies that air after races (or, presuming they actually had other sport to run on weekends aside from morning coverage of golf) are often movies that are known, but aren't played too much anymore.

Today, the choice was the 2001 movie I am Sam, starring Sean Penn as the father of a 6-year-old girl named Lucy. The only thing is that he is mentally retarded and has shown to have the intellectual capacity of a 7-year-old. While it was a good movie, there are some things that I missed - first was how did he wind up taking care of Lucy (which i just missed as it is mentioned in a plot summary on IMDB). Next is the question of how he was lucky enough to not have been "found out" as being retarded before the incidents outlined in the movie. Nowadays (even if it is just 5 years later) there would be some parent who, if they were to see this situation, would raise a stink because they wouldn't think that a person in his condition would be "suitable" to raise a child even if the proof shows the complete opposite picture.

Another interesting thing is the fact that despite the lawyer's wanting to ignore him, the fact that she did pay some attention was probably the reason he would come back to her. What I find the most interesting, however, about her is that she wasn't aware of the fact that the firm she works for doesn't have a pro bono section, though that is mostly something that you would see only in the really large firms. Really, though, the only reason that she ends up representing him is that she caught herself in a lie after the party and was forced to take up the case.

Overall, it is a very interesting look into the life of a man who, while his mind might not be working on all of its cylinders, his heart is definitely in the right place with the love he has for his daughter.

One other note - I didn't even know any of the actors in the movie until I looked at the IMDB entry - though it was mentioned to me that the main character was Sean Penn; it was really interesting to see how he really made that particular role work.

The strange world of Celebrity

Last night, I was happening to watch the E! network (they've got the rights to Saturday Night Live and they had shown an episode from last year [I'm fairly certain on that because 1. it was in widescreen and 2. it featured an incident with the President where there was a "staged" appearance with some soldiers]), and I kept it on after the show.

The first show was somewhat interesting, but the second show (Daily 10) had a story about two people who were having a marital fight using the medium of Myspace to do the arguing. Mind you, these weren't even people whose names are household names - one was called Shayna or something and the other was Kevin or Keith or something similar to that. How in the world does a married couple's argument on the internet even become news? It makes no sense, but it apparently is a part of the Strange World of Celebrity.

Oh, apparently one thing that he claimed that she had said to him was that she was going to sleep with her new partner on his bed. Gotta love it. :)

This is so Aussie

I just heard this mentioned on the radio and I have to say that I'm not surprised something like this would be invented, especially considering it was an Aussie who's done it. ;)

Story from the SMH

Now they're budgie smudgers

Penis envy will take on a new meaning with the release of the men's equivalent to the Wonderbra.

Australian underwear company aussieBum has released its Patriot range of undies for men wanting to make their package look bigger.

"It basically lifts, separates and extends," said aussieBum founder Sean Ashby.

Click for the full story...

Update - the creator of this product has been given the runner-up for the award of "Today's Worst Person in the World" by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.

A sign of the times

I was just watching our local Spanish-language TV station, and they had an ad on for coverage of the upcoming elections. In the past, I doubt that you would have seen spanish coverage of a mid-term election, but I think that because the station is distributed to most of the state via cable, they are putting this together, with reporters with the main candidates running (i.e. the Gubernatorial candidates).

Of course, the fact that the spot aired immediately prior to that was in English makes me wonder sometimes; especially since it's a commercial provided by the Government.

Another sign of the times is that you are seeing more Spanish in daily life is that you're starting to see mainstream products have bilingual elements. Witness below, the Betty Crocker cake mix that proudly proclaims that it has instructions in Spanish:



Eventually, I think that it might turn into a situation like Canada where both languages will be seen as acceptible in daily life; ironically, in my area there was a time before the first World War that businesses would actually put out "We Speak English" signs because most of the people in the city at the time spoke German.

New Image

You'll notice that I'm starting to make this "my own" - I had already changed the default font, but that's easy; the latest change is the new image in the titlebar; it's based on the photo that I had posted the other day.

I've also extended it down the sidebar a little bit, but I'm not too certain that that will look neat; I'll let y'all decide that. :)

More sidebar

I've added another little section to my sidebar - New Blogs. I've been moving around blogger with the "Next Blog" button. The site that I have linked there now (Morning, Hong Kong !) has some very neat pictures of that city. It is definitely worth a visit.